Welcome to the family...

Just thought we would introduce to everyone the newest member of our little family. It arrived late last night after hours of labor and lots of paperwork. :)

We knew we needed something a little bigger than our last car (as our family is getting bigger), so we upgraded to a 2010 Honda Pilot. It has so many cool features and I feel really spoiled driving it. It is also a relief to finally have a vehicle that can haul larger items around (which is kinda necessary when you have a house).

Aquarium visit

After Grandma and Grandpa left, Brooklyn was feeling a little bored with just Mommy and Daddy to entertain her, so we took her to the SC Aquarium for her very first visit. It was a fun thing to do inside as it was also a very cold day that day.

Standing at the entrance to the aquarium overlooking the ocean/bay.

Checking out the schooling fish exhibit - maybe getting pointers on swimming techniques for this summer???

Trying to swim with the big fish... including that shark, who seemed to be very interested in Brooklyn. It swam right up to her with its mouth open like it was trying to take a bite. She thought it was funny, as did many spectators around us. I did not see the humor in it.

There were lots of other animals there to see other than fish, including a family of owls, a bald eagle, ducks, cranes, turtles, snakes and penguins.

At the end of our "tour" we stopped by a play area for Brooklyn to run around some more. It was a toddler size campsite, I guess.

Visit from Grandma and Grandpa

I've been a little slow getting some posts up, but better late than never.

Anywho... So, Matt's parents came to visit us for a few days including New Years, and we just hung around the house most of the time being entertained by Brooklyn... and boy was she entertaining... especially with two wooden spoons and an empty popcorn tin! We did celebrate New Years with a fun and delicious fondu dinner. Gotta love fondu! I was especially excited to finally use all my fondu gear again. I forgot to get a picture of our fondu spread, but we had steak, shrimp, and lots of fruit and vegetables with chocolate and cheese.

Thanks for coming to visit us, Mom and Dad (aka Grandma and Papa). We hope you come and visit us again very soon - we LOVE having you!

Christmas 2009

What we did for Christmas 2009:

First we decorated the Christmas tree. Brooklyn did really good hanging the silver Christmas balls on all the lower limbs of the tree. She was very proud of herself and loved to look at the tree (mainly just the decorations she hung herself) everyday. She also loved to turn on the Christmas tree herself everyday - that was her job throughout the holidays... every morning she would run over to the tree and step on the foot switch to turn on the lights, and then she would ohhh and ahhh every time. :)

We of course took family pictures in front of our beautifully decorated Christmas tree for our Christmas cards, but who would want to see a fat preggo lady and tired old man on a Christmas card? So, as some of you know, Brooklyn was the star of our Christmas cards this year - just look at that face!! :)

We also made a gingerbread house - well, Matt and I made the house while Brooklyn just ate a bunch of candy and ended up with diarrhea that night.

Then we ate the gingerbread house - of course that took a couple of weeks, and we didn't let Brooklyn eat so much candy all at once again. Her favorite part was the M&Ms and chocolate rocks.

On the morning of Christmas Eve, Brooklyn and I finally went to go see Santa. I had hoped she would not be scared to sit on his lap, but I should have known better and been more prepared to have my picture taken as well. Lesson leared for next year, I guess. Here is the photo we got:

Then, that night, we let Brooklyn open one present before bed. It was a book! How perfect that she opened a book right before story time, right?! ;)

On Christmas Day, I made cinnamon rolls from scratch - and they were sooooo good that they are gonna have to be tradition every Christmas. :P

All the while, as the cinnamon rolls were rising and baking, we watched Brooklyn open all her presents, which ended up taking about 4 hours - she had to play with each present at least a little bit before opening a new one.

We made a mess of our living room just playing with all of Brooklyn new toys - it was fun for the first 24 hours, but then they all had to be put in their places so we could have our living room back again.

After opening so many presents and playing with all of them all day long, Brooklyn finally crashed. :) What a fun Christmas we had!

Oh yeah, Matt and I got presents, too, which we loved as well! But, as you can tell, it was all about watching Brooklyn open her presents. :)