What we have been up to

Time just goes so crazy fast. I really have been trying to make it a goal to update this blog at least every month. Sometimes between working two jobs, our sweet boy and now a puppy, time just gets away on me. A lot has happened between January and February. Starting in January we celebrated our Quinn's first Birthday with awesome friends and family here in Utah. Tom and Kathy came in for the weekend and we had a really great time. Little boy loved the frosting on his cake and was spoiled with so much love. The weekend after that Uncle Brian came to town with the best birthday gift for Quinn, our new puppy Gilles.

The weekend after that my parents came to town for a visit. We finally made it to the Draper Aquarium, which is so awesome! Quinn was just in awe of all the tanks, fishes and animals there. It was really cool and we hope to get a membership there soon.

The weekend after that Brendan's parents stayed with us after they had the Puff/Whites ski vacation for a week up in Park City. Not to miss out we took Quinn on his first zoo outing that Saturday. Quinn was just fascinated by all the new animals. Last weekend we drove to Durango, Colorado to visit our friends the Hallocks. I will do a separate post from that vacation with photos in a few days. Busy, busy, busy.

Pregnancy is going wonderful and little girl is kicking away like a rockette. We have started to get her nursery put together between the crib, and how we want to lay out everything. Its hard to believe March is next week and in June she will be here. I will make sure I get lots of photos of her new nursery. Q is on the move, he has full on taken up running and keeps us on our toes. He cracks both of us up with his antics and words. So far we say Daaaaa, dada and occasionally Maaaama. He also likes to mimic the word "hot". Very adorable and it is all going so fast. We don't have a lot planned for this spring since I am only getting bigger and more preggo. I just finished up my photography class which was really cool and we are starting Gilles puppy school on Saturday. Life is busy but so blissfully good.

Love
The Whites

Introducing.....

Our newest family member Gilles Bedlington the First. We just call him Gilles (rhymes with files) for short. I can't believe it has been a month since we got this new fur ball, he is an absolute joy. Gilles is a bedlington terrier from Coronado Island, California. He was the most wonderful first birthday gift for our Quinn from his Great Aunty and Uncle Brian and Carmen. They loved Gilles a ton but unfortunately Carmen ended up being very allergic to everything this fluff button brings into the house. He is not lap dog and loves to roll, dig and plain old get dirty outside. They knew we had lost our Oscar a few months back and asked us if we would like to adopt Gilles. We did and it has been absolute love from the beginning. He is so sweet and playful with Quinn and is by far the smartest puppy I have ever had. We start puppy school this week and have really enjoyed having him apart of our family. I truly feel like a spot in my heart has finally been filled with this sweet puppy.

Love,
Bren, Alyssa, Q, Baby K and Gilles

My little man is growing up...

(My new camera took this :)

I can hardly believe it but this week on the 15th Quinn will be one years old. I feel like if I just blink it was yesterday we were driving down our hill to the hospital to have him and knowing the whole time everything would be different next time we drove back up. What an amazing, wonderful year it has been! Our little boy brings us so much joy, daily laughter and awe. I cannot believe all that happens in a year and how they go from this tiny infant to this walking, babbling little toddler. We both have been trying hard to take in each moment from the quiet late night milk drunk smiles when he was a newborn to his laughter and determination as he gets older and decides he wants to do new things. His latest endeavor has been crawling up onto the coach and then getting this huge satisfied, mischievous grin at what he has done. Honestly just an amazing last year, incredible to think this June he will become a big brother and we will get to enjoy some of these moments again with his sister and enjoy new moments in watching Quinn and our growing family.

We loved Santa!

All of the cousins with Ga Ga and Grandpa Brecke

Quinns first tricycle from his Great Aunt Laura and Mike

The holidays back in MN were awesome, except both preggo Mama and Mr. Quinn got ugly colds that took almost two weeks to fully get rid of. We were all spoiled rotten with wonderful gifts and great memories. I laughed at how gift opening on my Brecke side of the family was completely done in about 5 minutes tops. This is what happens when you have five super excited nephews under age 8.  I got spoiled by getting a really nice Nikon D3300 DSLR camera. The picture quality this camera can take is amazing. I am also going to be taking a class to learn more about all the bells and whistles on it. Bren has been busy still getting in a lot of ski days, he got an epic season pass this year for Christmas and has enjoyed how much that has let him get out. Life is wonderfully good right now and we hope the same for all of our family and friends in 2015.

Love,
Bren, Alyssa, Q and Baby K

Guess what, big news! We are having a.....

He's going to be a big brother!

Little girl! Yooohooo, I have been so excited to finally share this exciting news on our blog! After all the issues we had with infertility and getting pregnant with Quinn, here is the old blog post if you would like to read it:http://lovelyandwhite.blogspot.com/2013/07/a-background-story-and-some-big-news.html We didn't know what kind of journey we would be going on to possibly have another baby. We decided because of the amount of time it took with Quinn and also wanting hopefully any other kids we have to be close in age to start sooner then later. We still had to have lots of help with injections (my PCOS was described as some of the most severe my doctor has ever seen even post pregnancy) but fortunately this time the very first round took!
We wanted to wait to make it social media official until we knew the sex. Today we went and had the ultrasound and found out that we are having a little girl. We are absolutely over the moon with this and very surprised. On my side of the family there are six other little boys including Quinn, this is the first girl. I love my growing family and really would have been happy either way but I am so excited for all the pink, tutus, princesses and barbies!

Someone loves their fat cat Bjorn

Quinn with his Buddiy Kaylor on the first night he walked

The other really exciting news was Quinn started officially walking. He turned 11 months old on Monday and he had taken a step here and there but not actual walking. When we were over at our friends Sara and Zane's house, he finally did it. We are so bummed because they are moving to Colorado. Their house was emptied out and with all the space we all watched as he took a solid seven steps towards me. It was a night of happy tears he walked and sad tears too saying goodbye.

It has been a great December so far, I have really felt like we have enjoyed the season. Bren and I went to see the Nutcracker two weekends ago and last weekend we saw the Mormon Tabernacle Christmas concert. We are excited for Quinn's first Christmas and all that 2015 holds.
Baby girl White's due date is June 15th, 2015

Love,
Brendan, Alyssa, Quinn and Baby Girl

Wonderful Weekend

What a nice long weekend we had to celebrate Thanksgiving and welcome in Advent/Christmas. This year was a little different for us because the Mays have moved so we had our own first thanksgiving here at our house with Charlie and Julia. Both Bren and myself enjoy the tradition of getting up and getting exercise before the big eating day. I ran a self made turkey day 5k around my neighborhood and Bren managed to get some road biking in. We had exceptionally nice weather with it around 50-60 degrees all weekend. I got all of my timing right and made my first Turkey. I followed a barefoot contessa recipe and was thrilled with the results. I am convinced Ina Garten does not have a single bad recipe, literally everything I make from her always turns out amazing. Charlie and Julia came over in the afternoon and we had an early yummy dinner. I was just thrilled all the food turned out yummy.

All of my shopping was done prior to thanksgiving this year and I have found I really enjoy the holiday season if I am not stressed and can just take it all in. We continued our "black friday" tradition of staying in and decorating the house. I used to love "black friday" when it was actually 6am on Friday but since it has started to creep on to Thanksgiving I refuse to participate. Having worked retail I think it is gross that stores are open and much less people actually visit them on a day when people (everyone) should be enjoying time with their families and loved ones. Honestly if your a true shopper get online the sales are always better and your not denying anyone time away. Or get a seasonal job in retail and work one holiday and you will understand why I take issue with this. We managed to get all of the decorations up and have a nice dinner with our little guy too. I cannot believe he will be one in January.

We really had a good weekend and now are looking forward to the quick month of December, in no time a MN Christmas will be here and we will also be enjoying Quinn's first Christmas. We can't wait!

Love,

Alyssa, Bren and Q

Some pictures from this fall

Celebrations

Wow what an overwhelming and crazy month. By the end of this weekend it will mark the third weekend in a row that Quinn and I have not slept at home and also mark his 16th flight in his just nine months of life. No one can say we don't make an effort to get out with this baby. The month started great when we had some friends over for a fall party. It was kind of hilarious because literally almost everyone had a kid or baby with them. Different stages of life, first everyone gets married then they all start having kids. I like it, lots of celebrations this month. We celebrated two weddings this month one a few weeks back our friend Sara and also one this weekend in Florida Brendan's cousin Andrews wedding tomorrow. We also celebrated my amazing Grandma Irene and her passing. At 102 it was a celebration of a life lived overflowing with grace and enthusiasm. Quinn and I flew home and got to meet and see lots of the Brecke clan. We celebrated his first Halloween today by dressing as puff the magic dragon for the puff wedding rehearsal dinner. He has been a trooper through all this traveling and sleeping in different time zones. The little guy is so close to walking and in turn keeps getting bumps and bruises from his attempts at balancing. Sure do love him and all of our wonderful family. In a way it feels a little like Christmas came early this year for all the time we have gotten to spend with our amazing loved ones. Can't wait for Christmas either, I will try to do a post before turkey day!

Love, 

Bren, Alyssa, Quinn