Matt's Birthday

Happy Birthday Matt!

Today was Matt's 30th Birthday, and after a Cowboys win over the Saints last night, nothing could possibly make this day any better... or so he thought. :)

It started out with Brooklyn saying, "Happy Birthday Dad!" ...and quite audible, too (we practiced for the last 3 days). Then we found out, much to Matt's approval and delight, how much of a football fan Brooklyn really is (see video below). His cake was a homemade ice cream cake and it turned out really yummy, but the 30 candles became a real fire hazard before the end of the song, Happy Birthday (see photo below). Overall, it was a GREAT day for Matt and our little family.

You can see the fire starting to spread to the cake! Yikes! Hurry up and blow them out - but not until I am done singing. :)

Little did Matt know, his candles were trick candles and it took some mighty wind to blow them all out - which ended up making quite the mess of ash and wax all over the table - but very entertaining to watch. :)

Notice Brooklyn's awesome hair, despite my several attempts throughout the day to tame it. :)

This is a random picture of Daddy reading books with Brooklyn before bed. Lately, Brooklyn has really enjoyed this part of her bedtime routine (although her face doesn't show it). I guess she's just trying really hard to figure out 'how much I love you'.

Up to the moon and back, sweatheart... the moon and back. :)

Giving Thanks

We have a LOT to be thankful for these days. We have been so fortunate in our lives and can't express enough gratitude for all the blessings we have. We have been blessed with a beautiful and happy daughter who is, among so many things, so smart and such fun to be around - and so polite, too. We have also been blessed with the gift of a little boy on the way (see ultrasound pic below). We are also very thankful for Matt's job with a great company.

Our thanksgiving this year was filled with thanks and family and I couldn't have asked for a better time. We had my parents, from Miami, and my little sister with her husband, from Raleigh, come and stay with us for a few days. It was my first time cooking the big meal, and I have to say that it was rather fun and rewarding. I was so happy to see everyone enjoy the meal that I (of course with the tremendous help of my mom and some outstanding stirring from Shantel) prepared. Thank you family for coming to my house and being such great entertainment, and I hope we will see you all again very soon.

The spread:


On Friday, instead of shopping, Mom, Shantel and I went and got pedicures and Shantel and I got preggo massages (ahhhhhh).


Brooklyn loves bubbles...


...but to play with bubbles AND Grandma is the ultimate fun.

Say hello to our little boy:

Definitely a boy... ;)

Fun at the gym

Here's some video of Brooklyn having fun at her gym. She just LOVES her gym class. One of her favorite things to do is climb up and jump into the foam pit. She also loves hiding under the blocks and then jumping up throwing blocks all around, or as her teachers call it "popcorn".

Halloween

We had a blast today for Halloween. Even though Brooklyn has been a little under the weather the last 24 hours, we set out to celebrate as much as we could. Our neighborhood held a Halloween Festival in the afternoon at which Brooklyn and I painted a mini pumpkin - well, I painted it, but Brooklyn poured the glitter on it. Unfortunately, while our pumpkin was laid out to dry, it was taken by someone else - in the thief's defense, it really was the prettiest pumpkin there. I think Brooklyn was just excited to finally take her pumpkin out.


Then it was time for Brooklyn's first time trick-or-treating. She wore the costume from last year... that's right, you read correctly... her costume from last year - when she was only 6 months old. I couldn't believe she still fit in it! But, I was pretty excited that I didn't have to buy her a new costume this year and she still looked amazingly cute!


I got to take her trick-or-treating while Matt stayed home to hand out candy. There were tons of kids out trick-or-treating in our neighborhood this year, too. It was picturesque, really; groups and groups of kids everywhere you looked, wandering our neighborhood streets in costumes, knocking on doors, filling their sacks and buckets with candy, and parents tagging along pushing and pulling strollers and wagons. We tagged along in a small group who was toting a wagon so Brooklyn could ride in it (guess what we are getting her for Christmas this year).

She really picked up on the idea of knocking on the doors, holding up her pumpkin and then receiving candy to carry inside her pumpkin. After just a couple of houses of that, she started pointing to her pumpkin at each door saying, "more". It was pretty cute, and the neighbors just laughed, but I don't think it would be as cute next year - we'll work on saying, "trick-or-trick" next year. :) On a postitive note, she did sweetly say, "thank you" almost every time.


This is Brooklyn's favorite neighbor, Dante, who was dressed up as Jack Sparrow. He is why Brooklyn LOVES dogs.


This was her loot - she made out pretty well for her first time, huh. Of course, only half of it is actually edible to a 1 1/2 year old with only 8 teeth, but Matt and I were looking forward to that. :)

Alright, the question now is this... how long should this candy last???? Should we just let her at it since she "earned" it, and with the idea that this is a once a year kind of splurge? Or should we hide it and break it out once in a while as a treat for her?

18 months old and counting...

Brooklyn turned 18 months old last Sunday, and subsequently had her 18 month well-check with her doctor earlier this week. She weighed in at a meer 21 lbs 4 oz, but toppled over at a whopping 32 1/4 inches tall.

Her height and weight aren't the only things growing, though - her hair has also grown some. Look how high it sticks up now! :)


She has learned so much in the last 3 months. She loves "talking", but we can only make out a few audible words. My personal favorites are, outside, snort (from the well-known book, Are You My Mother), please, thank you, and love ya. She continues to sign lots, though, with my personal favorite being her sign for flower. She is also learning her shapes and colors, and now loves to separate her fruits snacks out by colors before eating them. She also loves to "count" her fingers and toes, among other things. She will point to each one and say one - at least I think that's what she says.

She is also starting to truly enjoy watching TV now (she laughs at the funny parts) and her favorite show to watch is Curious George, and her favorite movie is Tinker Bell. This is how she watches TV at times.

Our little cheese

I just had to share some of these pictures of Brooklyn.

This is her cheese face. Pretty good, huh... minus the food in her mouth. :)


Posing with Daddy wearing one of Daddy's favorite shirts, which says Daddy's Dreamy and so am I. I couldn't agree more. :)


My little cupcake posing before leaving for gym class. You like her new shoes? They're Skechers... and size 6! She inherited her Daddy's big feet.


She loves helping Mommy put away the clean dishes from the dishwasher - she is such a good little helper. She even opens the drawers and puts the utensils away. But her favorite things to put away are the pots and pans and their lids - after, of course, she plays with (or apparently sits in) them for a while. Perhaps she really is ready for pot-ty training. :)

What a cutie!

Helping with laundry

I've thought about introducing Brooklyn to potty-training, but maybe I ought to teach her how the panties are supposed to be worn first. ;)

Brooklyn loves to help mommy with the laundry by trying on all the clothes first.

Gym Class

You really couldn't expect me to have waited even this long before enrolling my daughter in a gynmastics class. And how fun that we as parents get to participate, too (well as much as a pregnant girl can, at least)! We are ALL having a blast at gym class. And, as you can see in the video, she has a lot of me in her.
:)

One of many projects DONE

I know it's been too long since my last post, but we have been so preoccupied and... well... not much has been going on worth posting about. Except this...

We spent Labor Day weekend doing some outdoor work. (And when I say "we" I mean Matt, whilst I play with Brooklyn inside the cool, air conditioned house cheering him on through a window, and periodically providing him with cool refreshment). We did such a good job, I had to post a picture of it. We dug trenches around the flower beds to serve as a natural border, put down flower bedding tarp, then threw down our new recycled tire rubber mulch (thanks for the idea Melissa). I couldn't be more pleased with the outcome. Good job, babe!!

And, of course, I can't have a new post without pics of Brooklyn. This is her at dinner the other night.

And, just to update, I signed Brooklyn up for her first Gymnastics class! I am so excited, and so is she. She just LOVES going to Gym. I will take pictures next time we go and post them. Her favorite "event" is the tumbling trampoline.

Our own little Picasso

We've introduced Brooklyn to finger painting, now, and she has created her first of many works of art. Eat your heart out, Patrick! :P

Guess what we found out today!!!

Weekend Trip

Brooklyn and I went to visit my little sister Shantel this past weekend in Raleigh, NC. My brother, Dan, and his family also were in town up there, so I got to see a LOT of family. I also got to see little Averi for the first time, and boy was she just the sweetest thing alive. She has been and is going through so much, and she is still the happiest baby.

We got to go to a baseball game on Friday night - Brooklyn's first professional sporting event (another first at Aunt Shantel's without Daddy). Of course, since it was a minor league team, Matt says it doesn't count. ;)

Averi fell asleep like this... she must like her Aunt Nessa. :-)

And, of course, there was some game playing. We didn't get to finish this game, but guess who was winning. ;)

And when cousins get together, there is always the combined bathtime, ....

... and lots of fun to be had.

After we took a walk around a lake and fed some ducks, Brooklyn came home and started doing this. She was also "quacking", but didn't "quack" for me on camera.

Then it was time to say "goodbye". I said "bye-bye" to Averi and she did this. :D

Shantel and Andrew taking a well-deserved rest on Sunday just before Brooklyn and I left. What a fun weekend we had with Aunty Shanty and Uncle Andrew. Thanks for letting us come visit you and for all the fun we had. And thanks Dan and Tiff for braving the trip, as well. I can't wait to see you all again!

Playing Pretend

I just had to share this. Brooklyn pretends to be a dog crawling around and "woofing". This is her new favorite thing to do, now, and it is so darn cute!

As promised...

...here is video of Brooklyn feeding the birds at the Fort Worth Zoo. She had squealed with delight just moments before Matt turned the camera on; I wish we had gotten that, too. :)

And, here are some random pictures of Brooklyn just being really, really cute these last couple of weeks:

Doing what every girl loves doing... talking on the phone.


This girl LOVES bananas.


Her first Happy Meal from McDonalds! It made her really happy!


This girl loves wearing anything that resembles a hat on her head; Daddy's hats, her bloomers, Mommy's underwear, her pants, boxes, books and even her own hats on occasion. It's rather silly, but very cute.

What 10 years of marriage to me will do to a man...

Notice how happy he is, though. :P

Happy 10th Anniversary, baby!
I love you.

'Family Day' at Daddy's work

This past weekend, Matt's work had a sort of "family day" at the facility (which is normally secured for employees only). We were able to finally see where he works and what he does. They had free health screenings, fun games, and lunch. We were able to meet some of his co-workers and their families, too. They even had a live band, to which Brooklyn enjoyed some dancing - it was so dang cute!

In the end, I was just glad to get some hard proof that Matt wasn't just working some corner after he left every morning. ;P

Our Trip to Texas

There is too much to tell, so I will just have to summup through pictures and brief descriptions. So, where do I begin??? How about the beginning...

First, there was the plane ride, which went pretty well considering it was a 4 hour flight on a very small plane with a 15 month old during her most active time of day.


Then it was on to Melissa's pool... I mean house... where we stayed for a couple of nights, cooked some food, ate some food, and swam with a bunch of nutty cousins. :P







Then it was off to Alicia's house where we stayed the night before leaving to Oklahoma in the morning for the reunion. There was a smorgasbord of toys to Brooklyn's delight, and of course there was bathtime with Ian, which went well till the end.



Then we were off to the reunion with Alicia, Patrick, Ian and Samantha (thanks Jonathan for giving up your seat). And what a wonderfully fantastic reunion it was!! There was family everywhere and we were more than excited to see them all, introduce Brooklyn to everyone, play with Ava, dance to some bluegrass and celebrate Grandpa's birthday! We had such a blast and can't wait to see everyone again.

After a funfilled trip to Oklahoma, and one more night at the Ollila Hotel, we settled into Grandma and Grandpa Fisher's house for the rest of our stay in Texas, where we played with more cousins, met little Cannon-ball for the first time, and Brooklyn got to use the highchair that I used as a baby (pretty cool, huh!).

On one night, we had everyone (Michelle and her family and Cass and her family) over to spend the night and after the kiddos went to sleep, we had GAME NIGHT!!! ...which, of course, had to include the game night snacks. And guess who won??? ;)

Then we visited the Fort Worth Zoo, which was a big "To Do" on our list as we do not live close to a zoo back home. Brooklyn enjoyed seeing the elephants, the flamingos, the penguins and the monkeys, but her favorite was feeding the parakeets in the "bird house" (which I will post a video of later). It was especially fun going with all the cousins, too.

During our stay in Irving, we also visited a small water park called Cimmaron, and since Brooklyn couldn't get enough of it the first time we went a second time.

Then we had one more get-together at Alicia's house, where Brooklyn learned to climb up on things.

Then, it was time to say good-bye.

Thank you Melissa for letting us stay at your place and thanks to Madison and Emma for letting us have your room. And, thank you Alicia for letting us crash at your place, driving us to the reunion, driving us to and from the airport, to and from Melissa's house and to my parents house. And thank you Mom and Dad for letting us stay with you at your house when I know you should have been packing like crazy for your big move to Miami in a few weeks.

We had such a blast with everyone and already miss everyone so much.

We love all of ya'll!