Boys will be boys

Like my previous post mentioned, my little sister is here from Raleigh visiting us for a few days with her son Nathan, who is the same age as Joshua. They have had so much fun playing together, and with Brooklyn. Their favorite things to do are laugh at Brooklyn and, like boys do, wrestling with each other. :)

It looks to me like Joshua started it. ;)

"King of the blanket"!   Boys will be boys.

Spoiled Rotten

Anty Shanty (my baby sister, Shantel) is visiting us and Brooklyn has loved every moment of it.  The day before she arrived, Brooklyn told me, "Anty Shanty is coming to Brooklyn's house. Anty Shanty loves Brooklyn." Well, she's right... Anty Shanty did come to Brooklyn's house to play, and she absolutely loves Brooklyn to the point of spoiling her.

Riding the carousel

Eating her ice cream cone (with sprinkles, of course).

Thanks Anty Shanty!!

Siblings

Brooklyn and Josh are such great siblings. They love eating, sleeping and playing with each other. At times Brooklyn will not eat her food until Josh is sitting on the table, too. She also begs me to lay Josh down in her bed with her during nap time and she'll close her eyes and tell Josh to take a nap, too. Brooklyn especially loves playing with Joshy and making him laugh, and he laughs at her so easily. 

He just likes sitting this way on his bouncy chair, now.

Painting Nails

Brooklyn has developed some girly habits lately. Maybe it's because there is little testosterone in the house now that Matt has been gone and Josh is the only one contributing any manliness to the house. We (yes, Josh, too) have been playing dressup, dancing the waltz, playing with our hair (yes, we put bows on Josh's head, too), and today we painted our toenails and fingernails. I painted Brooklyn's and she painted mine. She did a pretty good job, too, especially considering she is only 2. She begged me to paint Josh's nails, too, but that would have crossed the line with Matt. :)


This is Josh's favorite thing to do right now. He is always doing this. In the mornings he usually doesn't cry or anything, he just does this... it's how I know he's awake. It's so cute!



Making new friends

One of the great things about being a mom of such a social butterfly is that I don't have to go out and make friends on my own. Brooklyn does that for the both of us. She has made such good friends, and luckily these little friends have awesome moms, too, and these friends and their moms just love Brooklyn so much that they will come and play with both of us. In fact, this one (Lilly) and her mom (Bethany) are coming over tomorrow to go swimming with us. :) Hooray for playmates and playdates!

Brooklyn and Lilly playing at Wannamaker Park playground

Joshua watching Brooklyn cool off on the sprinkler pad after some playground fun. He can't wait till he's big enough to play out there, too.

Brooklyn having some sprinkler fun again (every Wednesday, actually). Now that school is back in session, she is usually the only kid out there playing in the water.  

Poofy Dress

We watched the Cinderella musical on TV today and Brooklyn wanted to dance and wear a poofy dress... so she put on her poofy dress and we danced like they did at the ball.  This has to be one of the girliest things she ever done. :)

Making a dentist proud

After visiting Michelle (my sis) and her family and seeing what good dental practices they have (of course, they should since Bryan is in dental school), I opted to get Brooklyn an electric toothbrush. It was a Thomas the Train toothbrush (fact - Brooklyn LOVES Thomas the Train). Probably one of the smartest things I've done for her so far. She's never begged me to brush her teeth before.

Loves Peas

I introduced peas to Josh today and I think he likes them. This video is long, but, again, mainly for Matt who is away in Seattle for the next several weeks and cannot be here for the cute things like this.

My strong little man

Josh is getting so strong. He is even pulling himself up from laying down position on his bouncer.

My little man and I posing for a quick pic!

Park and Sprinkler Fun

It was a pretty hot day today and I was really glad they still had the sprinklers going at the park today. But first, we played on the playgrounds and Josh got to swing in a swing next to Brooklyn (wish I would have gotten pics and even video of that... they were laughing at each other as they swung by each other). They spent a good 20 happy minutes just swinging next to each other. 

Crawling when we're not looking

Somehow, Josh ended up under here. He started out with his head on the opposite end and pretty far from the ottoman. I don't know how he got under there, as he isn't really crawling yet. But, maybe he is... just when we're not looking. He actually liked it, too.

Josh's favorite toy & potty-training...

This is mainly for Matt, who is away from home right now and can't see the cuteness that is Josh. But, I am sure some of you others out there will enjoy this as well.

Also, Brooklyn has taken it upon herself to potty train herself. She peed in the toilet once, and I guess she fell in love with the idea of it and has demanded to do so every day all day for the last several days. I was not planning on this until after Matt got back from Seattle, but when they are ready, I guess you better be, so I started awarding her with stickers, and she has been doing great!!! She still hasn't gotten the hang of pooping in the toilet, yet, but I am sure it will happen any day now, and she will probably love doing that, too. We did have one pretty ugly accident the other day... let's just say, she took off her diaper before she should have, and she ended up having to take a bath, and I had a LOT of cleaning to do throughout the house, and I am now more anxious than ever to replace our carpet. :)

Here she is sitting on her little toilet next to her "poopie paper" on which she puts all her stickers that she earns for using the toilet.

What's been going on...

It's been a while, I know, but I have not had a computer till now. So here's the latest...

We had a fun trip to Texas. We drove the whole trip stopping in Huntsville, AL to visit Matt's parents both on our way to Texas and back. We visited a whole lot of cousins, and Brooklyn even got to attend her very first Birthday party for her cousin Alysa. We also rode a train, visited the children's science museum, and did a LOT of swimming. It was a long trip, but not long enough - we wish we could have spent even more time with everyone.

Brooklyn playing with cousins (Camilla and Brynn)

... and more cousins (Madelyn, Caitlyn, Jackson)

Riding on the TRE train. She was pretty excited riding a real train.

Alysa's Birthday party. My sister Michelle "threw the cake together". Her words, not mine. :)

This girl enjoyed every minute we went swimming.

When we got back, Brooklyn was pretty sick with the runs and some vomitting. She lost 5 lbs (which is a lot for a tiny toddler like her) and was listless at the end of the week. She never got too dehydrated, so we never had to take her to the hospital, thank goodness. But we did get to watch a LOT of movies, as she did not feel like doing much that whole week.

Maybe this is how she got sick in the first place...

This is all she ate... all she wanted to eat... for 5 days. And, this was her face for a whole week... sad, I know.

After Brooklyn got better, she caught a little cold. She easily fought that off, but gave it to Josh in the process. Josh did not put up a very good fight, and we ended up having to call the paramedics one night and then take him to the doctor for breathing treatments and steroids. He is now much better and we are very thankful for that.

This was taken after he started feeling much better.

Matt has now left us for the next four weeks for some training in Seattle. He actually left yesterday, and even Brooklyn cried. She finally understood that Daddy was at work far, far away and for a very long time. She cried with me on the way home from the airport. Josh hasn't seemed to notice much of a difference. In fact, he slept better last night than he ever has before. Coincidence? Probably. :) We miss you tons, Matt/Daddy!