Ahoy! It's a Boy... A Baby Shower for the Brawley Fam

This past Saturday, 6/1/08, turned out to be a wonderful & memorable day for our family! First, Benz was able to spend the day with his Grandpa Brawley. They went to OMSI (OR Museuum of Science & Industry) and also took in an IMAX movie. Meanwhile, Matt & I were busy attending the best baby shower EVER, and it just happened to be thrown for us! My best gal pal, Traci, has been planning this event for months now and it all came together so perfectly...the theme was sailboats or nautical, just like baby's nursery. So she was able to host it at the Dolphin yacht club in Camas, WA. It was on the Columbia River overlooking a marina and there were sailboats everywhere; what perfect scenery! When you walked up the deck, she had bubbles blowing and wave music playing and even seashells lining the sidewalk! The room was decorated so cute, with sea creatures, sailboats, nets and seashells everywhere. I had a personalized sailor hat and Matt wore his "World's Greatest Dad" pin. My mother-in-law helped out with the food and setting up and my other gal pal, Julia helped bring all of the final touches together.

The food & cake was delicious; Traci had the event planned out to a tee. We played some games, there was a station where people could paint toy sailboats and take them home and we opened some lovely (& practical gifts)! Some of my favorites were Julia's homemade "diaper cake," a sailboat sweater & hat from Aunt Louise, and a linen sailor suit and hat from Heather. We had a little less than 20 family & friends attend and a great time was had by all! The favors were adorable too...salt water taffy in little white sand pails! I can't thank Traci enough for all of her work and I know we will remember this party, in honor of Baby Brawley, for many years to come!

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

Matt booked a mini vacation for us, one last hurrah before the three of us become the four of us. So we headed off to the Great Wolf Lodge near Chehalis or Centralia, WA (the town is technically called Grand Mound, built on an Indian reservation). It is an awesome indoor waterpark resort that's about a 90 minute car ride from Portland. They just opened a few weeks ago, so we caught it when the facilities were all brand spankin' new (a few things weren't up and running yet, like the mini golf and the Starbucks). Matt & Benz had an AWESOME time hitting the slides and kiddie pool. I enjoyed going in the wave pool with Benz on a raft and watching them play from a comfy chair while catching up on some magazine reading. It was so nice to be able to sit around a pool area without having to worry about the outside temps or slathering on sunscreen! The only thing I'd suggest if anyone in the area decides to make a trip up there is to bring some food & snacks with you and plan to go out for your meals. We read and heard through the grapevine that the buffet in house was not the best and very pricey. We went to dinner at McMenamin's Olympic Club, which was delicious and only about a 5 mile drive away. When we got back that night, they had an adorable puppet show at the central clock tower followed by a story time. We played in the huge arcade for an hour and then headed to bed. The rooms are so well decorated; everything's done in a rustic log cabin feel. Once I get our pics developed from our waterproof disposable camera, I'll be sure to add them on!

Matt's Major Accomplishment!!

Not sure how many of you know this, bu my hubby has been studying for a HUGE set of tests for over a year now. It is all in hopes that he would pass and officially receive the title of "Certified Management Accountant" (or CMA). The best way to describe this is it is very similar to someone who earns their CPA certification but the CMA is used more in corporate situations, and the CPA is a more individualized status (think taxes). So he studied non-stop for months, after work and on the weekends. It was very trying for our family, as we did not get to spend as much time with him as we may have liked...but with the impending birth of baby #2, we knew it was now or never. It is broken into four parts, each one having their own study guide and practice questions (some over 500 pages of info to memorize!). He took the first three parts individually over the past year and passed them with flying colors ( the top score is 700 and he mostly scored in the mid 600 range)! The very last part was essay and required a complete review of the entire study program. And the catch is, you don't get your score the same day but have to wait OVER TWO MONTHS for them to grade them and send back your score!!

So finally....the envelope arrived yesterday and I am very proud to announce that MATT PASSED!! And he passed the final part with the highest score of all of them:) What a smart guy! So as long as he completes 30 hours of continuing education each year, this will be a lifetime certification that will help him in his current position as well as secure future employment and really set him apart from other applicants. This is SUCH a big relief for all of us and Matt especially is so happy to have this behind him and we can focus on the life-changing events that are soon approaching! So he now has a BS and an MBA and a CMA under his belt; that's an awful lot of acronyms for one person!!

Matt Says Farewell to 5 years of Bliss...

For those of you that have visited our home , you were probably privileged enough to get a sneak peek into Matt's beloved "Blazer room." (Sorry for the semi-blurry pics; they were taken on an old camera a while back). It was his man space, with lots of basketball collectibles plastered on the walls and exercise equipment everywhere. He enjoyed it while it lasted, a little over 5 years. Although he was bummed about relinquishing it to the new nursery, he was a trooper about it all. We moved lots of the exercise stuff into a corner of our bedroom, so not all is lost. And I told him to look on the bright side...he can reclaim Benz's room in only 14 more years:)

ABC's, 123's and everything in between

Ok, ok so it's about time to update you all on the happenings of the Brawley Bunch.

First of all, Benz has been sprouting before our eyes! Not only has he gotten taller, but his learning has blossomed over the last few weeks. He recognizes all of his letters and is able to spell his own name, Matt's name, Grandma Brawley's name (Pat) and my dad's (Ray). He clearly counts from one to ten and is working up to twenty. We are so proud of all of the hard work he is doing; the speech therapy preschool that he has been attending has really made a difference since he started over a year ago. His attention span has increased tenfold and he's able to entertain himself for a much longer time (which will come in super handy later in the year). Benz just loves building barns and zoos from wooden blocks and then carefuly places all of his animal figures according to category. It's just too cute!

Matt is keeping busy; he's got a lot on his plate these days. It's a busy time of the year in the finance arena at Papa Murphy's. When he gets home at night, he tries to work out and when he's not working or exercising, he's studying for the final part of his CMA exam (certified management accountant). And on his free time, he enjoys chasing after Benz at our local park and attending Blazer games with his buddy. The good news is that things will slow down for him come spring, right when I'll need him to transfer his beloved exercise room into the baby's nursery:)

I've been keeping busy running Benz around to school, swimming lessons and everyday errands in between. When I'm not tidying the house, I'm reading up on baby topics and working from home. Pretty soon I'll be creating a very thorough manual and will start training my temporary replacement for the super busy summer swimming season that I'll be missing out on. I've been feeling well overall; had a few "sick to the stomach" incidents but I think it has passed (knock on wood). Just extra tired so I relish the two hours naps Benz and I take in the afternoons. We're excited to have gotten a phone call from the doctor's office today and we had to reschedule the anatomy ultrasound. Lucky for me we were able to move it up three days!!! So we'll know hopefully know what color to paint the nursery in two weeks from today:) And by that time, half of my pregnancy will be behind us and we'll be heading towards the homestretch!

Is that REALLY a pink line????!!!!

I kept hoping to get a sign this month, but didn’t feel any early pregnancy symptoms like I had when I was pregnant with your big brother. I took the first pregnancy test on the morning of Oct. 12th and it was negative, as was the next 6 of them!! By Mon. October 15th, I was getting depressed, wondering if we still had the energy to try again next month. We made caramel apples that night and Daddy & I snuggled; he was trying to console me. I woke up the next morning and figured what’s the harm in taking just one more test, as I had bought them in bulk anyways! So I took one on Tues morning (Oct 16th ) and to my surprise, I noticed a super faint pink line. Just like with Benz, it was so faint that I kept asking myself if it was really there or if I was making it up in my mind! I was so anxious and nervous….so I took another test with my same first morning specimen and sure enough the exact same line came up on the second test. Hmmmm, I thought…..could it be??? I had hoped and dreamed of this day for so many years. Could this be it, was it hitting me? No, I better not get my hopes up; I’d hate to be let down. It’s probably not a pink line. But maybe it is???

As you can tell, by mid-morning I was driving myself crazy trying to figure out if today was the big day. So I got dressed for work, got Benz ready to go and then dropped him off at school. On the way home, I made a spontaneous stop at Walgreens and picked up a digital pregnancy test (for almost $20)! Since this one is idiot proof and actually SPELLS out the words PREGNANT or NOT PREGNANT, I figured it would be worth the money for the piece of mind it could bring me. I brought it back home and waited for the answer to register. Daddy was home for lunch as usual and I started making lunch for myself, all the while the test was processing on the kitchen counter . There was a little hourglass icon which told me it was thinking, meaning I must wait. It probably took a little over a minute but felt like an hour! I casually glanced over at it, and to my surprise I read the most beautiful word in all the world….PREGNANT! I rushed over to Daddy and slapped it down on the computer desk. He couldn’t believe it either, but could tell how happy and excited I was by the permanent grin on my face (that lasted for at least 30 minutes)!! We were both in shock, I think, and could hardly process that all of our dreams were just beginning to come true. I hopped on the computer and typed in the first day of my last period (Sept. 19th) and calculated that I will be able to hold you, my precious baby, in my arms around June 24, 2008!