The Dallas Arboretum

On Wednesday Rich had the day off so we decided to go check out the Dallas Arboretum. It was a beautiful sunny day. We loved going in the middle of a week day since we basically had the whole place to ourselves. Maza loved exploring.

A beautiful Texas sunset.

"Snow" in Texas

I don't think we can technically call it snow, but we did receive about 4 inches of sleet and it sure did look pretty outside. Maza was so excited and had plenty of fun outside anyways. Basically everything and everyone shut down for the day. Rich didn't have to go to work and we enjoyed a lazy day at home.

The place we call home

Crazy to believe we've been in Texas almost three months. It's been a lovely fall. We love our new home here. We live in a community called Savannah, about 40 miles north of Dallas.  Thanks to visits from both my mom &Rich's mom, I have decorations hung up and pillows on my couch. :)We've loved having a few visitors already, but for most of you who haven't seen the house yet here is a little tour:

 Front of the house

 Front door

 Front entry

 Kitchen

 Kitchen table area. We scored this table at a garage sale!

 Maza's wing. :) 2 bedrooms, bathroom and laundry off the kitchen. Also notice the coat rack, Rich made this !

 Maza's future room when she moves over to a big bed.

 Baby room. Maza's not too happy in this picture.

 Family room

 We love our new couch. Roxanne helped me make new pillow cases (below) and I love how they turned out!

 Master bedroom.

 Looking into our bathroom

 Bathroom

 Backyard

 Upstairs built in office area

Upstairs play room.

Upstairs bedroom/sewing/craft room. There is also a bathroom upstairs.

Halloween Party

Since we have only lived in Texas for a little over a month I wasn't sure if we could really pull off a Halloween party already. Luckily I have made a really good friend already named Suzanne and she convinced me I should do it and she would help me out. It was really fun decorating our house and with my mom's help (her, Lexi and Halli came out for a long weekend visit) things really came together. Everyone seemed to have a good time. The witch's brew is always a hit. The kids also loved running around outside armed with glow sticks at the end of the night. Maza is really starting to love friends. She almost daily asks me to play with "more friends." So she was in heaven having her friends play with her all night long. She was the cutest little lady bug. Rich was a mad scientist and I was a gypsy. 

Here is a link to all the pictures from the party:

https://picasaweb.google.com/brittany.k.bradshaw/20131028?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCNOEz5qz45ehnwE&feat=directlink

bradshaw update

hi friends and family. we have been super bad at blogging and staying in touch lately. life the last couple months has been filled with interviews, trips, and trying to figure out the next step in our lives. we are happy to report we are moving forward with a job in the dallas area--aubrey texas to be exact about 20 minutes east of denton. the job seems like a really good opportunity for rich and when we all went down last weekend we really liked the area where the practice will be. as long as things continue to keep moving forward with rich's dental license and the contract we will be moving down this fall. in the meantime rich was able to stay on part time here at the VA hospital where he did his residency which we feel is such a blessing.

maza keeps us on our toes and is learning at least 3-5 new words a day. she calls everything mama's and babies-- mama and baby pancakes, mama and baby rocks, mama and baby animals etc. she loves jake and the never land pirates. she has flip flops with him on them that she call's her "jakies" she loves babies and will tuck them in bed, take them on walks, feet them etc. she has learned to looove swimming this summer and always asks to go to the "waters" and her latest love is dancing. she loves when we turn on music and dance in our room, her most favorite being one direction. haha. i thought i would include a video of her dancing to "the boys" as she calls them. :)

hope everyone is having a wonderful summer.

love, rich birtt & maza

https://vimeo.com/71179002     the password is maza

top 10 of 2012

1. Maza turns one. Maza has been the highlight of our year. She has changed so much and is learning and growing every day. We just love our sweet girl and feel so blessed to be her parents.

 

2. Rich's residency/moving to Oklahoma. For months we wondered and wondered where we would be going next and on January 13th we couldn't have been more excited to find out we were going to Oklahoma for Rich to do a year long general practice residency. We are so grateful for this opportunity. We had a bit of a rocky start, but managed to find a great apartment, make friends and feel quite at home now here in OKC.

3. Rich's graduation & saying goodbye to Pittsburgh-and most especially saying goodbye to the best neighbors in the world Abi and Arie. There were so many times those first few weeks where I would miss the little and the big things that were so great about living next door. We love Pittsburgh and miss our friends and family there. It was a great 4 years. I am so proud of Rich and all his hard work. 

 

4. Lexi moving in with us. Lexi came to live with us for her Sophmore year. She and Maza are roomies and Maza loves having her auntie around. Lexi is loving the high school here and especially loving all the attention the boys are giving her here :) She is taking ballet and walks dogs with me. It is fun to spend time with her in YW (I am the YW secretary which is the best calling ever)

 

5. Crocheting my first sweater: Crocheting in general was a big part of my year. My friend Melanie was such a great teacher and it was so fun getting together with friends and working on projects. The culmination of my learning came when Melanie told me I could make a sweater for Maza. I didn't think I could do it but we started it anyways and she was right, in the end I made a very adorable sweater if I do say so myself :)

6. Visitors to Oklahoma: We didn't think anyone would come visit us in Oklahoma, but boy were we wrong. In the first two months we lived there we had my Grandma and Grandpa Romero visit, My mom and Halli and Roxanne, Abi, Evelyn & Jack. Each visit was so fun and Maza loved having her family around!

7. Bradshaw reunion: We celebrated Rich's Grandma's 80th b-day and celebrated Jayne and Jason's wedding. We also decided to leave right after their reception to drive through the night 18 hours home. note to self: never ever do that again. 

 

8. Swiss days & becoming a 2 car family: And just when i said to never ever do that drive again, an opportunity came up to have a second car so i couldn't resist. Maza & I flew out to Utah and spent the week seeing family, shopping and going to swiss days. then we brought Taylor up to school at BYU-I. and then Liz was so kind and helped me drive back the 3rd family car so we could use it for the year. Luckily we were in no rush and stopped half way at Liz's friends in Colorado. It was so nice to break up the drive like that. Thanks Liz you were a champion driver! and we love having a second car. 

 

9. getting not one but 2 jobs: I was hoping to make a little extra money while we were here and ended up finding two great opportunities. the first is that i tend 2 girls 2-3 times a week. the oldest is 6 and she is in first grade and the 2nd is one. They are sweet girls and the family is great. It is so fun for Maza to have someone to play with, and even better to get paid for what i'd be doing anyways :) the second is every other weekend or when they need us Lexi and I walk 2 dogs for a neighbor of ours across the street. Maza loves the dogs and it is fun to have some extra cash. My babysitting money is all going into savings for our house some day and my dog money is fun money. :)

10. Other fun trips: our trip to DC/Philly with our dear friends the Biddulph's. our cold but still fun trip to Outerbanks with the Romero's. Our many trips up to Toronto to visit Grandma and Grandpa B, our graduation trip to Puerto Rico!! and our Christmas in CA. I hadn't been home for 2 years at Christmas so it was so great to all be together.

 

becoming a private blog

well, let me tell you i never wanted to be one of those people with a private blog. it's such a pain for everyone to read it, and i never thought there was really any point of it. until over christmas break i stumbled across someone pretending to me and we felt we had no choice. i was just checking my facebook and saw that rich's uncle john got a facebook so i decided to add him. after i did, that page pops up with people you may want to add and i saw my picture. i took a second glance and it wasn't actually my facebook! it was someone named brittany colegarza. i clicked on her and there were whole albums like "rick's graduation"  or "katie (sorry evelyn you are now known as katie) and macie" or "travel" and we figured out they were all from my blog since my facebook is private. it was SOO weird! and she had been doing this for almost a year. and she had like 2000 friends. and people would comment on the pics like she's soooo cute, can't wait to meet her and stuff! i can't figure it out. why would someone want to do that? so we reported it and i kept checking back and it looks like it is gone now, but that still doesn't change the fact that she has a years worth of pictures of me and my family. there was also a boy linked with her account that has 4 pictures of maza. one in his profile picture and 3 in his albums. since he isn't pretending to be me i can't report it and i tried reporting the individual pictures but they are still up. who are these people and why would you do this? do you guys have any idea why someone would want to do that and go to such elaborate details? anyways, i apologize for being a pain and hope you will still keep reading!

love, brittany, "rick" and "macie" :)