Brianna

My sweet 3yr old says some of the funniest things. I want to write it down before I forget. I know there is more... but here is what I have for right now:

up rope = Jump rope
Uh Oh ghetty bows = uh oh spaghetti o's
bunge bob pants = Sponge Bob square pants
Bawnuh = Brianna
Ban Ban =Bandaids
up cakes= pancakes
Brudher = Brother

Apptop = laptop

Mommy you cuddled me?= mommy will you cuddle with me

Bri: Knock Knock
Me: who's there?
Bri: Grandma
Me: Grandma who?
Bri: Knock knock
Me: Who's there? (giggle giggle)
Bri: House
Me: House who?
Bri: Knock knock
Me: Who's there?
Bri: Brudher (giggle giggle)
Me: Brother Who?
Bri: Knock knock....... You get the idea. It is so cute and she thinks it is so funny to play 'knock 'knock' while in the car going somewhere.

Here she is wearing pot holders on her feet. She grabbed them out of the drawer to play with them.


'Cheese'


She is so much fun.

Bunkin

Brianna to English translation Bunkins = Pumpkins

Tim planted and grew some pumpkins in our garden this year.


We ended up with quite a few cute mini pimpkins


It is so cute to listen to Brianna call them Bunkins


There are Daddy bunkins and Mommy bunkins and baby bunkins.

Fall is here.

Who needs expensive toys?

Not my kids.... they prefer:

Daddy's slippers:


Daddy's softball hat:




And an empty box:



Oh the fun that they have with just the simplest things.

Big Girl Milestones

Wow... I haven't posted in over a month.... I should be grounded for waiting this long to post. lol.

So my sweet little princess is not a baby any more. She is a big girl.

Over July 4th weekend I took on the big task of potty training. Yup- potty training. Can you believe it?- she is old enough to potty train. It seems like she was just learning to crawl.

We had heard about a potty training method called 3 Day Potty Training. I figured - we could try it and see if it would work for us- It's only 3 days. I read the .pdf and knew I could do it. All I needed was big girl underwear and a 3 day weekend. July 4th was a perfect weekend to do this. I had a 3 day weekend off from work - and there were no plans on our calendar. Brianna was also very ready to be potty trained. She was very good about taking off her own diaper and helping us wipe her bottom when we changed her diaper. So - yeah, she was ready. I went and bought about 25-30 pairs of big girl underwear (yes that many - depending on how many accidents she would have - you needed to have enough undies for the weekend so you weren't doing laundry every day) and some stickers for the potty chart and some M&M's for a reward.

I got up Saturday am, changed her out of her diaper and put her in a tshirt and her underwear and explained to her that "she is a 'Big girl' now and the big girls go pee in the potty"."To let mommy know when she needed to go potty and to keep her underwear dry." You say those statements over and over and over and over. This technique is all about positive reinforcement and looking for the child's signs of when they need to go the the bathroom and to get them recognize for themselves when they need to go potty. She picked it up right away and was telling me when she needed to go to the potty. I would stop what I was doing and quickly go with her to the bathroom. We praise her big when she goes in the potty and keeps her underwear dry. There are lots of big smiles- fists up in the air- yay's, high fives and " we are so proud of you". The smile on her face when she gets those praises is amazing. She is so proud of her self. We called daddy (he wasn't home most of that weekend) and we would call grandma so Brianna could tell everyone she went in the potty like a big girl. Even now, a few weeks later, I will get a call from Tim while I am at work and it will be Brianna- she wants to tell me she went in the potty- and I praise her over the phone and tell her how proud I am. We have had a few accidents but that's ok. We never get mad or make her feel bad - we say 'icky' when she has an accident, clean her up and remind her that she needs to keep her underwear dry and to tell mommy and daddy when she needs to go potty. I am so proud of her. Occasionally she has waken up in the middle of the night and will call for me - I will go get her and take her to the bathroom. She will go potty and then go right back to bed. All the other nights/mornings she wakes up dry. We even braved leaving the house last week and she did great at the softball fields. No accidents while we were out.

I still can't believe it. She is potty trained. Such a big girl.

What has really got me is that she is not sleeping in a crib anymore. She is in a toddler/day bed. - yes - another milestone. 2 milestones in the past 3 weeks.

I tried to keep her in a crib for as long as possible. It lasted 2.5 yrs. Last night (while I was getting my hair did) Tim put Brianna to bed. He was in the livingroom when he heard a 'THUD'. He knew right away what had happened. She had climbed/fallen out of her crib. She had been actively thinking about climbing out of her bed for a while now. We have video monitors on each of the kids beds and we will watch her at night after we put her in bed stand up in her crib and place 1 leg over the railing - but she had never gone all the way over - until last night. She would climb 'in' her crib -just not out. So today Tim converted her convertible crib into the next stage - a toddler/day bed. She did fine for her afternoon nap - now it's nigh' nigh' time. So far(knock on wood) she hasn't gotten out. I am trying to prepare myself for the night when she gets up - opens her door - comes into our room and scares the bageebies out of me.

My Big Girl.

Where is Brianna??

Where is Brianna???


There she is......



Where is Brianna??


There she is......


Brianna is so funny. She loves to hide under her blanket and have you say "where is Brianna?" She thinks it is so much fun to do this over and over and over. You can't help but smile, place the blanket over her again and do it all over again.

Tulip Festival

Saturday I decided to pack up the kids, drive an hour south to Woodburn, OR and take advantage of a rare 70 degree Saturday in April. We went to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival.

The hour drive was a perfect nap time for both kids. We all really enjoyed being outside and all of the beautiful Tulips.

This is the best photo I could get of both my kiddos. Brianna wanted to play with the leaves and Noah wanted to eat the dirt.


Here is how my adorable son will smile when I ask him to say 'cheese':


This is my favorite picture of Brianna.


She loved all of the flowers. I think she really just loved being out side.


After lunch I was able to get a few cute pictures of the kids playing:



The flowers were so beautiful


I really loved the multi colored ones.


But the pink ones were my favorite.

Outside

We actually had a whole day with no rain. Really we did. I'm not lying. 1 whole day. It does happen every now and then here in the NW.....lol .... that meant we got to go outside. The kids had fun. Brianna went barefoot and had a blast with her rocks. She loves rocks.

Look Mom.... a rock:


Noah just enjoyed being out of the house. New things to try to eat besides the boring cat food.


Oh and she found a stick too:


Such a nice Afternoon:

Dear Pink Pony and Monkey,

Dear Pink Pony and Monkey,

It's time to say 'Good Bye'.
I want to say Thank you. You both have been such good friends to my daughter for the past 2+ years. Always there when we needed you. In the car, at nigh nigh time, and throughout the entire day. She took you both everywhere. You went with us to Canada, and with us to Utah., to playdates, to the store, to the beach and to the softball fields.
We Brianna will miss you so much. Thank you for all the good times.

Love,
Brianna's Mommy

















Pony and Monkey have been retired. I have wanted to do this for a while... but last night we didn't have much of a choice. As we did our normal bed time routine, I was picking up her blanket and Alvin to put in her bed with her... and I could not locate pony. I looked everywhere. In my boots, in her toy kitchen, in all the toy bins, under furniture.... we could not find pony. So, we decided it was time to go to bed without it and hope for the best. We still had Monkey, but he has a hole, so she won't suck on that one. We put her to bed with out a working binky and she did better than I thought she would. After a good cry, and daddy getting her and snuggling for a few, she finally went to sleep 1 hour after bed time. She slept all night - no problems. I am so glad she did ok. We did find Pony after she was asleep... pony was found in Noah's room, the one place I didn't look. Pony is now hiding under daddy's baseball hat.... and will stay there until later today when it's put into her memory bin after we leave the house this afternoon.

Now we just have to keep an eye on her to make sure she doesn't snag Noah's bear or dragon.

Bye Bye Pony and Monkey.

Cooking and Cleaning

Miss Brianna is wanting to become mommies little helper. When I am in the kitchen has me pull a chair over to the counter and wants to help stir or watch. She helped me make spaghetti the other evening. She helped mama open the noodle bag... and even with me supervising and helping...... the noodles still ended up on the floor.



She has also tried to help mama with the laundry. She helped find all the bibs..... and put them all on. All at one time...lol.






My little helper :)