Crazy 8...

So I am a little behind in this, and to be completely honest with you, I have done a horrendous job of documenting everything on Bryn this last month thanks to the move.
I looked back in my private Brynlee journal/bloggy thing, and I haven't updated since her 7 month birthday.
Sigh.
So here goes nothing, and Brynlee, if you ever read this in the future, sorry!
We are now moving into 6-9 month clothes and recently ventured into size 3 diapers.. We're still doing three naps a day giving the time change to CO and the move due time to set in before moving her to a possible two-a-day nap routine.

such a good sleeping babe!

I can't say enough how awesome having her sleep trained is. I am not a 100% Baby Wise mom, but after putting it's method's through the ringer these past couple weeks, I am grateful that I have been such a stickler to sticking to her Baby Wise schedule. It's paid off so much not only for her, but for me in all the madness as well. She not only has continued to sleep the night despite the move, but has transitioned into CO time fairly quickly, taking about a week.

This sounds bad, but I was praying over and over daily that Brynlee wouldn't become mobile before this move.
I needed her to stay in one place while the frenzy of packing swirled around her and to not envelope her. Thankfully she continued to keep her booty popping self contained to her blanket in the living room and only scoot backwards on occasion.

Celery is the first "green" she
would take, let alone finally a "real" food!

We had her last weigh in with the dietician on the 31st, and without having her papers in front of me, she has finally more than doubled her birth weight plus some. I believe she was at 15.2lbs when we left. Her eating habits still consist of nursing 5-7 times a day and pureed baby foods. It wasn't until we got to CO that she finally started showing any interest whatsoever in "real" foods. It's still a work in progress on the "real" food front, but as far as purees go, the girl has become a tank.
She's eaten anywhere between 3-4 jars of food before showing any signs of disinterest--and that's per meal. I have her eating 2-3 meals a day on top of nursing, so yeah, girl is "pudging" up for winter and I completely approve. :)
I have learned the hard way--she hates anything green.
Well, any vegetable that is.
I have NO clue why because I LOVE my green's but it has taken me mixing greens with non greens for her to eat any at all.

As I have said before, on the 5th, Brynlee, Katie Hyskell, Jax, Bella, and I flew out of FAY to DEN and then drove from Denver to COS. I know I mentioned this before, but I have to say it again, Bryn constantly proves me wrong in so many ways and I love it.
She flew beautifully, making friends with the other passengers--it couldn't have gone any better.
She and I spent our first few days in CO, sans daddy, again, getting situated and getting her new room set up. It took all of leave plus some to get it all complete, but I'm proud to say it's 95% complete now.
It was really important to me that her room try to stay as normal as possible in this temporary stay in CO. Her furniture was the only "big" things we moved.
I wasn't sentimental in this move, not bringing any pictures, or anything like that for me, but her room is a totally different story. Everything that was up in her old room is up in her new room, with even more wall space for daddy pictures to hang and talk to her about.

Cousins!

Bryn finally got to meet her aunts, uncles, and cousins on her daddy's side, which was really awesome. Uncle Jerrod and Aunt Brittany made sure she's continuing to style in Bronco attire while she's here, poor girl doesn't stand a chance.

We had her dedicated on the 9th with family friends which was really an amazing experience. Couldn't have gone any better all time constraints considered!
Well, and the Broncos beat the Steelers that day too, pretty much awesome.

We used leave to do as much family stuff as possible. This included a aunt/uncle/cousin trip to the zoo, a trip up Pikes Peak, our first trip to the park which was a first for swings, slides, and grass.
I signed Bryn up for the nursery at New Life Church and am really excited for her to get situated in this new aspect of our weekend routine. I have missed it dearly.
Some family friends of mine that I've known since elementary school, actually run the nursery there, so I was super happy and relieved in this transition.

I joined a gym since getting into town which is the Gold's Gym that my parents go to, about 2 miles from the house. They have child care available so I opted to pay extra for that and plan to use it as a means to get her socialized with other kids while I get my butt back in pre pregnancy shape (still 15lbs to go, darn leave and John's food bucket list).

Back to the crawling bit, once we got to CO I begged the opposite of the poor babe.
I did anything and everything possible to try to get her to crawl while her daddy was home, but it just didn't happen. It was SO stinkin' close, but just wasn't in the cards.

On the 23rd I left her with my parents for the longest I have ever left her with anyone.
It was the day John and I had the Bronco game in Denver, so we had our morning routine with her, where John had his final goodbyes.
We left when she went down for her first nap, and I didn't get back into town until about midnight-ish after dropping John off at DIA.

Although this is the most choppiest blog entry I have ever written, one thing that has stood out and that I have to stress again is how amazing my daughter is.
She has transitioned so beautifully in all this that I can't help but sing her praises.
Not only has she continued to sleep the night, every night since we got here, but with already adjusting to mountain time (two hours diff),  crawling and finally eating some "real" foods, I swear the girl is headed off to college tomorrow and I can't stand it.
I am one of those sad moms.
Instead of getting all super stoked about the milestones she achieves, I get uber sad and have a hard time not taking it personally.
IDK why, but every time she ventures into something new I get a huge dose of reality that it's one step closer to her not "needing" me as much as I want her too.
It's a fantastic problem to have and I am so blessed with an amazing baby that, as diva as she is, she brings so many smiles to my life that I rarely remember what made me as happy before she was born.

John is back in NC and is leaving later this week for our first deployment to Afghanistan, third deployment overall. This is our first deployment with him as a K9 handler, let alone a bomb dog at that.
I am relieved in the fact that Denzel, John's bomb dog, is a veteran bomb dog, having been deployed before. He and John have meshed so well and I really couldn't be happier all things considered. It helps to know he's in good hands (paws?).

Sleeping while I enrolled
in classes.
Such a good sport!

One of the first things John helped me accomplish when we got to CO was to get admitted and enrolled in some continuing education classes while I was here. I was already late, the semester already started about 3 weeks prior, but was able to squeeze into at least one late start online class I had been wanting. I got everything all set up to find that we had missed the military education financial assistance by 5 days and that the software I have is already outdated (it's a year old, dang it)  requiring me to upgrade all my software.
I ended up dropping it in the end, but have every intention of picking it back up plus a few others in January, now that I have time to financially prepare for the software upgrade and also meet the criteria and due dates of the financial assistance they have for us military spouses.
I am super excited about this and am even more excited that I have such eager hands to help me with Brynlee while I continue to pursue what I love.
Since I dropped the class I have opted to take these next couple months to relish the final months of my little girl's first year and kind of taking a breather considering how insane the last few months felt prior and during the move.

We sure do appreciate all of your kind thoughts, words, and especially prayers prior, during, and here after the move and as John heads out on this deployment.
We are so humbled by the outpouring of kindness from our friends, family, and even strangers that we run into.
Moving here was the #1 best thing we could do for Bryn and I.
As hard as it was for John to bring us here and then leave us here, be assured he wanted this for us.
A calm frame of mind is what he needs for this next year of being away and we are in the best place for him to be that way.
Watching Bryn with her family, on both sides, makes it worth it.
Her smile is radiant and I never want to miss it and I feel so blessed to be her mom and to take care of her while her daddy is away.
No one here can replace him that is for sure.
The morning after John left, I woke up alone, in bed, to the sound of her voice over the baby monitor, calling, "Da? Da da da!"
She knows him. She'll remember him if I have anything to do with it.
She still, on occasion, will be playing around in her bed, and will call out, "Da?"
It's hard to picture what this time next year will be like.
She'll be closer to two than the babe she is now, and I can't fathom missing that.
My heart hurts for John, not being able to understand how he feels--still trying to figure out how I feel about all this.
This rambling gets me all emotional, so I need to stop!
In ending, all I know is that this baby will never go to bed not being secure in how loved she is and will also constantly be reminded of who her daddy is and how much he loves and misses her.