John, Krista, & Brynlee: January 2013

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Christmas 2012

Our Christmas tree (with the shopping cart in the picture). It looks really small and skinny in this picture, but it must just be the angle because it didn't really look that bad in person.

Christmas Eve Dinner

We went to the Miller's house to have Christmas Eve dinner. Ham, funeral potatoes, green bean casserole, & rolls. It was delicious!!!!

Funny story- these stockings were mine and my older brothers when we were really little. My mom had kept them for years until just recently when she took them to D.I. because nobody wanted them (and they are kind of funny looking). Suzanne had picked them up hoping to make an ugly sweater for Tre out of them (but that didn't work out). It was quite funny that they went from the Winslow's to the Miller's house.

Brynlee and Jaxon wrestling

Christmas morning

John picked out this plastic recorder for a Christmas present for Brynlee. She loves to make music with it along with her toy piano and Dad's new Celtic whistle/flute thingy

Opening presents

She looooved ripping open the wrapping paper. She didn't even really care what was in the wrapping paper, she just wanted more and more to open. She ended up opening everyone's presents all day long. I should have just wrapped the toys she already had and she would have had just as much fun.

My presents were a cake pop maker and a rolling briefcase. I sound like I'm 100 years old, but when you have lots of books to carry around it saves your back and shoulders.

I got John a huge cereal bowl (the green bowl on the right) because he is always complaining that our cereal bowls are way too small. He also got socks and a Subway gift card, plus some little things. We always have a set amount to spend on each other and he always spends more than the plan.

Together, we got new curtains and a new bed set for our room plus the Dixie Direct card.

Brynlee got a lot of clothes and some books and music makers and a basketball hoop. She also got a gift card we will spend later and with some money from my Dad she got a pillowpet that lights up the room.

Happy Birthday to Jesus!!!
I wanted Brynlee to understand from an early age what Christmas is about and why we celebrate it. So with our Christmas breakfast of bacon and monkey bread, we put a candle in the bread and sang Happy Birthday. Brynlee seems to understand what a birthday is and I had talked to her about it for a few days before.

We had a great Christmas and got spoiled as usual! We are so grateful for all our blessings!

Snow Day!!!!

I can't remember what day it was, but the beginning of December we got some snow in St. George! Enough that it stuck around for a few days in places that didn't get a lot of sun. Brynlee and I had to take the opportunity to go play in. She talked about playing in the snow for weeks after. By the time we got out to play, it was afternoon and starting to melt.

Brynlee holding the miniature snowman we made.

Then she dropped the snowman....

What Brynlee is up to...

Brynlee loves to sing. The songs that she knows most or all of the words to include
"I am a Child of God"
"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"
"ABC song"
"Row, Row, Row Your Boat"
"Barney song"
"Elmo's Song"
"5 Little duckies"
"Rock-a-bye-baby"

She insists on singing almost all of them before she goes to bed. Thankfully she doesn't remember all of them each night or I would be in there forever. She likes to stall and ask me again to sing them. She also likes to ask for "dinner" or "noodles" or "milk" so she doesn't have to go to bed. If you fall for it, she won't eat/drink it, but she sure got what she wanted.

My favorite quotes: "I hold you" when she wants to be picked up. "Help you"- when she wants help. I try over and over to explain to her that you say "help me", but it is so cute to hear I don't try too hard.

Foods she eats: pretty much just carbs. She loves bread, rice, noodles (plain mostly, sometimes a little red sauce), crackers, mac & cheese, pancakes, candy and anything with sugar in it, ice cream, etc. She rarely eats fruits or vegetables and never eats meat. The only somewhat healthy things she eats are V8 juice, apple juice, milk, and oatmeal.

Brynlee's favorite shows are Baby Einstein, Barney, Super Why, and Cat in the Hat. Her favorite books are all Elmo books- "Time for bed Elmo", "Elmo count to 10" & "Elmo loves you". She also insists that I read a "Cat in the hat" book, which means a Dr. Suess book. John refuses to read them to her because some are 60 pages long. Who in their right mind would make a kids book 60 pages long? I was getting tired of the same books over and over again (Elmo, Elmo, Elmo) so I started reading the Dr. Suess books. I found she actually seems to get a little bored when I read them, which makes me happy because then she might go to sleep faster.

I find it interesting that Brynlee has memorized lots of her books. She will say the last word of each sentence of the books we read every night (see above).

Speaking of going to sleep... Brynlee has been such a nightmare for the last month or so. It often takes 1-4 hours to get her to sleep and almost always includes a bribe. Her bribes include a trip to the library the next day, chocolate milk in the morning, 1 piece of candy before the nap with a promise of the rest of the fruit snack or 2 more M&M's after the nap, going to Grandma/Grandpa's house, etc. I have no guilt bribing my child all day long to get her to do things as long as it works.

Brynlee has been saying some funny things. I had to start writing them down. Some examples- she bit John's ear the other day. When he said, "Ow, don't do that!" Brynlee said "Want to eat ear!!!!"

I love that Brynlee is starting to get a cute imagination. She will ask for a bib, spoon, and bowl then strap one of her babies or stuffed animals into her high chair and "feed" them. She asks for a diaper and "white" (wipe) so she can change her babies diaper.

I finally broke down and looked for some books in the library about how to manage a difficult child. Thankfully, one of them explains Brynlee pretty well. It's so nice to read that I'm not crazy when I think my child is waaaaayyy more difficult than the average 2-year-old. I just hope there are more suggestions of how to handle her so I don't lose my mind EVERY day.

Notice the can of beans in her stroller? She likes to reorganize the pantry all day long.

Feeding her baby the bottle

"Sleeping"

Brynlee in her Christmas dress.

Feeding her baby food in the high chair

She has a new obsession of putting our shoes on her feet and trying to walk around. If she's wearing John's shoes she can't even take 1 step before falling.

Being silly

Wouldn't it be nice if as adults we had someone to put a blanket over us and give us a sippy cup of hot chocolate? I was a little jealous no one was there to do that for me!

Wiping the lamb's bum. Next comes the diaper

Brynlee's 2nd birthday- November 4th, 2012

We had Brynlee's 2nd birthday party on Saturday, November 3rd. The Miller's were generous enough to let us use their backyard again. The weather was perfect, just like last year. What's funny is the next weekend was very rainy, just like last year also. So it's a good thing she was born at the beginning of the month.

We did a Sesame Street theme this year, even though she started telling me a few months before her birthday that she liked Barney better. I tried to find Barney stuff but couldn't.

We kept the party simple with just cupcakes, ice cream, and cookies.

However, John and I came down with Strep throat the weekend before. I got some antibiotics for Brynlee but she refused to take them and she was fine the next day so I didn't worry about it. But by Saturday you could tell she didn't feel good at all. Little did we know she would be up all night after her party and require another trip to Instacare, plus an antibiotic shot, and Tylenol suppositories.

Cookies from Cookie Monster

Somebody is tired and doesn't feel good :(

We found these cupcake toppers online and you could personalize them. Elmo and Abby are her favorite Sesame Street characters. They were super cute but the directions weren't very accurate. It said to put the toppers on and it only takes a few minutes to combine with the frosting. But it was basically like eating paper off the cupcakes. It didn't taste bad, just weird. The next day the leftover cupcakes tasted much better because the topper completely combined with the frosting, so it wasn't like eating paper.