Catch Up

Things have been a little crazy here at the Briggs residence.  You might have guessed that by the absence of posts since October.  Maybe. 

So many things have been happening.  With the business, with Isaiah, with my heart.  I will perhaps write about them all, but not today. 

One of the things that have changed & severely hindered my ability to take awesome pictures of Isaiah is his newfound fascination with anything iPhone or iPad.  It happened overnight it seemed.  All of a sudden he could unlock our phones & the iPad, could open apps, close them open new ones, change to another screen, and PLAY the apps.  It's pretty crazy to watch.  If we let him, he would stay on them all day.  But we don't.  Mostly we keep him off the phones so we can actually use them, although it's not easy to use mine for pictures anymore because he just grabs & screams for it then.  And the iPad, we try & hide it and only let him play when he cleverly finds it or when he is fussy & we need to take a phone call, in a long car ride, or honestly when we need a short break. 

His Papa says we should take a video of him working on the iPad & send it to Apple because it's pretty awesome that he can do it all.  The other day I said I needed to buy another iPhone so I can take pics & videos of him playing on the iPhone.

This will be a continuous struggle for us because we use these gadgets a lot for work.

Recently he's discovered how to take pictures.  Here are his first photo shoots.  I just had to save these before I deleted all the pics from my computer.

When I tried to take a pic of him being really cute at church, he caught me & took over.

Uh oh, he's waking up from his nap, better go hide the iPad.

Shape Up

As you probably can imagine from my absence, things have been crazy busy since my last post almost a month ago.  I can't really tell monetarily that I'm busier yet, but I'm sure that will come in time.  Taking most of my time is this massive overhaul on my website.  I'm converting it to Wordpress so I can make updates on my end as needed with restaurant & menu changes.  I had no idea how big of a project it would be.

Isaiah is running & talking like crazy.  He says balloon, knock knock, chash (trash), no, bye bye, hiyo (hello), nana (for his grandmother & for a banana), choos (shoes), sky, ball, tanchoo (thank you), mo (more & he signs it too!, muk (milk), top (stop), ni ni (night night), at (hat), eat, mama, dada, & he tries really hard to say BB's name.  I should start keeping a list on my iPhone of everything he says or does that is extra cute because now I'm sure I'm missing a lot.  He tries to sing.  I will sing la la la la la la la la la (the scale).  And he will sing la la, occasionally correctly matching the tone. 

Marcus & I took this huge trip to Austin for a weekend.  Huge for us because that was our first trip together.  I wrote all about it, but I haven't gotten around to posting it yet.  Soon I hope.

One of my biggest concerns lately is getting my body back to a moderate version of what I want. 

A few months ago I tried the Paleo Diet.  I loved it.  BUT I got really overwhelmed with the massive cooking, planning & shopping it involved.  Feeding your family is like having another job.  I would start the weeks off well with lots of groceries in the fridge (that cost a lot of money) & then I would cook a meal or two, my crazy life would happen & then I would end the week with wasted food in the fridge.  And that's not even touching exercise.  Bottom line (& I don't apologize for this) is that if I have to choose between work & cooking (or cleaning), I'm going to choose work every time. 

So after evaluating many alternatives (cooking not so difficult & expensive food, counting on leftovers from catering events, continuing to eat out the longer I continued evaluating...), I decided to try out this meal program a dear friend of mine told me about called My Private Chef.  It is a local chef that has a passion for providing healthy, easy, & affordable food for everyone.  You can pickup or have delivered all of your meals for the week frozen.  You just pop each one (labeled with what it is) into the microwave for a few minutes & eat.  I figured there would be missed meals because of client meetings (had one tonight) & catering events & I could use those missed meals to feed Isaiah & get me through parts of the weekends (program is M-F 3 meals a day).  The monthly cost to do this will be less than what we were spending on groceries. 

After all of my evaluating - I realized 2 things:  I need a plan.  I can't just go get a bunch of stuff & wing it for the week.  And I don't think it's possible for me to plan & execute healthy fresh meals for my family at this point in my life.  So I am thrilled at the possibility that this program will work!  I'll let you know.  Maybe.

The Actual Haircut

I guess it's taken me this long to process the haircut.  Sometimes it was like looking at a different baby.  Now looking back at the old hair - it's like looking at a different baby. 

Here is the haircut in pictures...

All the Briggs boys go to the same barber.  It makes me mad because he's in Mesquite, & Marcus refuses to even think about going to anyone closer.  But then sometimes it's cute to see them all with the same guy, who is very kind & good with the boys.  He said he should start giving Marcus a bulk discount.

He whimpered a bit here & there, but for the most part he let the man do his thing & kept his torment to himself. 

Half of his head is done.

Poor poor boy...

This little girl kept hanging around us and BEGGING me to play with my iPhone.  She even pushed the button on my phone for me & tried to grab it.  I finally had to be not nice anymore & tell her no.  I had to take 1,000 pictures of my son's first hair cut!  So glad I made that decision.

Well, Isaiah likes it.

Haircut!

So I haven't been very good at posting because I haven't been very good at uploading pictures from my phone because my phone is so full of pictures & videos that every time I want to capture something new, it wants me to delete something first.  I could just take a moment & remove all of the videos from my phone, but I'm afraid that somehow there's one that didn't make it to my computer & if I delete it, it would be a memory lost forever.  Apple, please release that everything is on a cloud thing soon. 

But I absolutely had to do something now because we're taking Isaiah to get his first haircut tomorrow.  Agggghhhh!!!!  (What's the proper typed version of a scream?)  I'm so so sad about it.  I loved burying my face into his hair while I held him.  I love that Isaiah's hair (well the front anyway) was exactly like my dad's. 

But alas, now it's definitely growing into half Willy (my dad) hair & half Marcus hair.  And it's more & more Marcus every day, so much so that the Willy part just looks silly.

So we're going to get it evened out tomorrow.  I might cry.  I mean look at this!

Happy Birthday My Dearest

Isaiah, you are officially a year old.  Officially officially sometime this afternoon; it looks like I've already forgotten the exact time.  Probably because right then when they figured out what time it was, I was busy looking into your eyes.  At my new baby. 

You have grown quite a lot since that day.  Every day I think you can't get any cuter.  But you do every day after.  You're about to start walking & talking any day now.  You give high fives & kisses, and you love to dance.  When you're brothers & dad are playing, you forget about me.  Until you're hungry, I'm always your favorite then. 

Isaiah you will always be my baby no matter how fast or how big you grow.  No matter how much you defy me (like you're doing now learning about the word no & testing our consistency & resolve).  No matter how many times you wake at night (down to 1 for the past few weeks!).  And no matter how much you prefer the boys over me. 

I will always love you even if somehow one day you cease to be incredibly adorable.  Even when someone steals your heart away from mine.  Even when you travel far far away to follow your dreams. 

I wonder what your dreams will be.  Like mine?  Like your dad's?  I hope they are your own, and I hope you do follow them.  But I hope you will come back to visit often.  And then I hope you come back to take over the family business. 

I hope that the lessons you learn in life aren't too difficult & heartbreaking.  I hope that I am able to teach you not to avoid them but to learn from them.  I hope my life will be an example of how to live instead of how not to.  I hope that I can teach you how to love.  I hope that I am able to give you every opportunity you need & desire to be successful, but I also hope that I can teach you humility & grace.

I hope that I am able to cherish the moments I have with you instead of always worrying about your future.

I love you so so much Isaiah.  Happy First Birthday.