Monday, April 30, 2007

Outdoor Weekend Fun

Well, what's the use of moving to a great area for outdoor fun if you don't take advantage of it? This weekend was so nice we were out and about quite a bit. We found this great park nearbye...

At the park they had these fun bear statues carved right into the local trees. Brianna was crazy about them and visited each one, there were about 8 I think.

Don't these two look so cute sitting there together? (Like the bear had a choice!) I think the too short pants add a little whimsy to the shot. We just can't get rid of the "hee haw" pants, even though they're too small now. Guess it's time for another pair of overalls.
It's also funny because obviously, they're in deep conversation there. Brianna was actually talking to each bear, in fact she was carrying on BOTH sides of the conversation. I think it went something like this...
Bree: "How're you today bear?"
Bear (in Bree's deep voice): "I'm fine Brianna. How're you?"
After visiting with the bears for awhile we walked down to the river where Bree borrowed Daddy's ballcap. I guess it inspired her to "strike a pose" or two, or three. She just really started hamming it up for the camera.
This is her pouty rapper look.

The "Deep Thinker" look.

And, then there's the popular "Home Alone" look.
Of course, who needs a hat to make pictures interesting? Here's some classic Bree face twisting antics...if this isn't what a "snerd" looks like, I don't know what does!





What a cheeseface!


While Daddy and Brianna were messing around with the camera me and the little man were doing what's most important--fishing! (I didn't catch anything though. Mostly I just wanted to include this shot so you all could see how very pregnant I am looking these days. Aren't maternity clothes so attractive? I especially like that you can always see the dark blue elastic part of my pants all the time. It makes such a fashion statement, it just screams "I have to use elastic to fit into pants now." You know it's sexy!)

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Imitation is the Sincerest Flattery

Brianna is a talker (surprise!). Talk, talk, talk, talk all day, it never stops. (It's actually kind of mentally exhausting to keep up with her.) And, it's not just me who thinks she's a big talker. Strangers in the grocery store or at the park after only having hung out with us for 5 whole minutes will say, "Now, how old is she? My she's a talker isn't she? Does it ever stop?" Or, something along those lines. And, my mom called recently one day while Bree was in the middle of one of her rather long-winded moments and I was trying to carry on a conversation with them both (not an easy task) when Mom finally said, "You know, I know it's only one kid but it sounds like a whole daycare you've got there."

So, all that to say what those of you who have ever met her already know, Bree is a very chatty little girl. She'll tell you a pretend story she made up or tell you all about something that happened that day, or in absence of anyone else to talk to, even carry on both sides of a conversation with one of her stuffed animals. Her new thing though is to do impressions of people. It totally caught me off guard and made me laugh the other day when out of nowhere she wakes up from her nap and after a few minutes looked over at me and said, "Mom, do you know what Daddy said? He said," (then she lowered her voice), "I'll read you one book and then you have to go to bed." Even though it seemed like a serious conversation, I couldn't help it, I started smirking. Then I started laughing when she followed that up with a high pitched voice (higher than normal) and told me, "then I said, 'Okay Dad'."

I guess it's kind of helpful now...whenever she's quoting something her daddy told her it's pretty unmistakable, she uses her "deep" man voice. This was especially funny though the other day. Travis has started this new thing with Bree. As I'm sure I've mentioned we're going through a phase where it's pretty hard to get her to mind you without threatening her within an inch of her life. This was the case the other day when her Daddy was trying to get her to put on her pajamas. Naturally instead of doing that she was running all over her room, pulling out new toys and generally trying to stall the PJ thing. Much to his credit, instead of losing his cool, raising his voice, or just scooping her up and making her do it (an approach that NEVER goes over well) Trav instead tried a new tactic. He lowered his voice further than normal and said all growly and teasy, "Brianna, you are gonna make me mad! You don't wanna see me mad...Don't make me turn my hat around," and he fingered his baseball cap. "If I have to turn my hat around you'll be sorry," Then he grabbed the brim and started to inch his hat backwards. This made Bree laugh since he was doing it in a very over-acty way... but at the same time it worked and she ran over to him and laid down, ready for PJ's. This worked so well in fact that it's an ongoing thing at our place. If we're having a hard time getting Bree to obey all Trav has to do is say, "Don't make me turn my hat around!"

Naturally Brianna has managed to turn this one around on us already though. Recently when Daddy wasn't doing exactly what Bree wanted when she wanted it, he was distracted getting something done, she marched up to him and said in a deep voice, "Daddy, don't make me turn my hat around!" (Even though she wasn't wearing a hat.) And, what do you know? It worked on him too. He laughed and did what she wanted. Maybe I'll have to try this method out?

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Snerd

Since calling names is just mean, at our house we don't really call each other names, technically that is. But what we do instead is sort of make up weird things to say to each other in place of that.... A tradition started by my side of the family, amongst my siblings mostly. My sister has been known to call people a "spastic tweed" which means, of course that you are an odd person (hence the spastic)...with a finely knit weave? (So I don't know why the tweed part, because it's fun okay?))

Well, anyways, Trav caught onto that real fast once he came into the family and we have proudly carried on that questionable habit with our own kid. For example, we can occasionally be heard calling Bree a "snerd" which I think is sort of a combo of silly and nerd. Of course, we don't want to really call her a nerd or a dork, then she would repeat it and it's a negative stereotype and all that. (Much better that she learn a nonsense word that makes her look like she's nuts right? I dunno what the logic is exactly here.) Anyways, when she says something kind of obvious or says something silly then sometimes our response includes, "you Snerd!" at the end. Well, since Bree is a quick learner and repeats everything we say you can see where this is going....

Brianna is really into sharing everyone else's food these days. Even if you have the exact same thing on your plate as she does on hers she'll insist that hers is yucky and slide right next to you while asking, "Can I share?" Inevitably you end up sharing whether you want to or not. Well this was no different today. I made us Mac and Cheese for lunch. It wasn't more than 60 seconds before Bree was all over my bowl (and sharing food is really hard for a pregnant lady!) wanting to "share." What she really means most times though is to take over whatever you have. So, since I wasn't going to just give up my whole lunch I handed her her own spoon and we both ate out of the same bowl. She ate a few bites then she pointed, "This is my side!" she informed me, "That's your side." "Okay," I said. Well, 5 minutes later she ran over to the other side of me. "This is my side!" she now declared, "Stop stealing all my mac and cheese!" "Oh sorry!" I said and switched sides obligingly. Well, inevitably when you're eating mac and cheese you need a drink. So, of course, Bree was "sharing" my water as well. Seeing how her "sharing" usually ends up in her owning stuff, after she drained the last drop, I asked her, "Can I refill your water for you?" At this she looked at me and said condescendingly, "It's not MY water, it's YOUR water...Snerd!" She called me a snerd! And in the correct context too! She's never done that before but I should have seen it coming. It made me laugh anyways and had Travis (who had come home for lunch) literally rolling on the floor.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.... What a cheeky little kid!

Monday, April 23, 2007

It's the Age

Along with some of the charming aspects of toddlerhood Bree has now reached a few, ahem, rather un-charming phases. At least, they're not fun in my opinion.

For example...she is now doing this thing where food has to sit out all day. She'll ask for a waffle for breakfast, eat 4 bites of it and then there it will sit, all sticky and syrupy and getting seriously glued onto the plate as the syrup hardens. So, after 2 hours of this, after she's off playing in her room or whatever, I finally figure she's not going to eat it. I scrape the plate clean into the trash (or, eat it....what?! I'm pregnant, don't judge!). However, actually cleaning the plate seems to trigger an automatic response in Brianna. No matter where she is in the house she'll manage to sense I'm throwing away her old food from hours ago and then proceeds to fling herself into the kitchen while protesting loudly that she wasn't done with that food, she wanted to eat it, how mean of me, and etc. After going around like this I've actually had to toast a new waffle on a couple of occasions. And guess what happens to that one? Yep, you guessed it! She eats 3 bites and wanders off to play, leaving me with a new dilemma. Alas, I've fallen for this trap several times this week which is kind of funny to me seeing as how even before I had kids I can remember my mom telling me "horror stories" about us kids doing just this thing. What's a poor parent supposed to do I ask you? Innocently trying to keep a clean house and suddenly accosted by a tiny irate messy person?

Bree's other new "charming" habit is that she's ousted naptime. She hasn't taken her afternoon nap for over a week now and I think it might be gone for good, much to my dismay. Of course, I'm in denial and have insisted we do our normal routine every day anyways. This usually results in Bree playing along and then, instead of sleeping, spending an hour or two playing in her room. I guess this is good since I still get a break and she has some so-called "quiet time." It's not naptime, er, I mean "quiet time" that's the problem however. It's the hours between 4 pm and 8 pm when she's majorly cranked out, crabby, rude, hard to handle and generally unpleasant that's the issue. I refuse to let her sleep after 4 because then she wouldn't go to bed until 10 pm...which is just not an option. So we're just stuck with her for several hair-raising hours before bedtime within which her fuse is even shorter than normal. And here I thought there could be no shorter emotional fuse than that of a toddler...but there is, and it's that of a "giving-up-her-only-nap" transitional toddler. Hooray, just in time for the new baby to arrive the old one won't sleep during the day!! I'm coming to the realization that I'm never going to feel fully rested ever again am I??

One Sad Snake

Well, I'm not real sure where it came from....I'm thinking it's somehow connected to a Grammy DeeDee visit....but one of Bree's favorite games is to pretend to be a snake. (Like I said, it's a bit odd, I dunno.) So, anyways, periodically she'll play "Snake" and hiss all around. This is my cue to say, "Oh no! A snake! A snake is going to get me! Yikes!" Then she'll laugh and reassure me that it's really just her "pee-tending" to be a snake. Whenever she plays this snake game she also insists that I make her a "snake house" which is actually a little fort I have to build out of the couch cushions. Of course the snake house is quite specific and if I don't place the cushions exactly correctly I get scolded and have to remake it. So, now you're all filled in on the snake game, which was in full swing the other evening. For about a half an hour Brianna had been happily playing snake when something came up and her daddy had to correct her. He didn't yell at her, he just had to correct her on something. She handled this about as well as most toddlers do. She stuck her lip out, pouted for a few seconds and then began the slow wind up to wailing. I was sure that this would lead to a good loud cry/yell as it normally does but instead this time she surprised (and amused) us both by instead saying very pathetically, "Now I'm a sad snake!" Then she climbed into her snake house and had herself a good sniffle in there. I suppose it was pretty sad but it was hard for us parents to feel too bad for her while we were chuckling over having a sad snake in the house.

Friday, April 20, 2007

Epidurnis

Naturally, since they're related to her, my whole family is convinced that Brianna is quite the little genius. The aunties in particular are quite charmed by Bree's constant chatter and pretty extensive vocabulary. Due to these facts my sister, Emily, Auntie Em, has decided that it's super funny for her to teach Bree a new big word every time they see each other. Em wil randomly pick a big word with at least 3 syllables and try to teach it to Bree before the visit is over... Last time we spent time with Auntie Em Brianna learned "ridicoolus" (ridiculous).

This time around Auntie Em decided she was going to teach Bree the word "epidermis." Of course, it's not enough that she can get the kid to say the word, Bree can repeat pretty much anything you say to her, Emily isn't satisfied until the word is being used in the everyday speech. So, after a few minutes telling Bree all about how epidermis is another word for skin the game was on. Yep, sure enough only a short while later Bree was pointing to her belly and saying, "See my epidurnis?" Much to the aunties amusement. Apparently though, since the belly was the patch of skin that Em had pointed to in her explanation Brianna thought that was the only part of her that had an epidermis. So, round two of vocabulary lesson included pointing to a variety of body parts and their skin while saying epidermis. And, by the end of their 3 day stay Brianna was saying things like, "Hey, Grammy kissed my epidurnis!" when Grammy DeeDee would kiss her cheek. So mission accomplished I would say.

I was thinking about this today because Brianna and I decided to paint our nails. After they were done Bree loved them and was gazing at them admiringly and said, "My epidurnis is painted!" Oops! I guess we didn't cover nails in our little lesson, there's still a little confusion there...... :)

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

ChurchaHolic

Although it is important to us, Travis and I have attended church less often than we would have liked in the past months, our excuse being the move making life too busy and crazy mainly. Plus, we find "church-hopping" to try and find a new church a little uncomfortable. Not to mention have you ever tried attending church with a toddler? If she stays in the pew with us we end up hearing NONE of the message as we try to shush her while she virtually shouts, "I'm hungry! I wanna go home!" And then, after getting shushed, "Mom, I wanna talk!" It's just kind of an excercise in futility and not a very spiritual experience. This situation is getting better though since Bree is getting old enough to attend Sunday School. There she is happily amused with singing and playing with other kids and not trying to scribble in the hymnals. Anyways, all this to say that we've been resolved to try and get back into going to church on a more regular basis in our family. We've been looking at some local churches in our new town...when we attended services though it was kind of interesting, mostly because since it was our first time we decided to keep little "churchus interruptus" child with us, not knowing how she would feel about being dropped off for Sunday School with complete strangers. (Although, knowing her personality she would have been fine with it.) Anyways, there we were sitting in the pew with Bree talking in her usual exuberantly loud voice making inane toddler comments during the sermon. Much to that particualr church's credit they didn't seem to mind and there were several indulgent smirks and so on. (I've attended churches though where they were completely rude about that type of thing, not fun and not the kind of church I'd attend regularly.) Well, that was all pretty par for the course but the funny parts were during the singing of the hymns and communion. Every time we would sing from the hymnal, Bree would grab one for herself, open it to a random page, point to the words as she sang, and sing along. Of course, she was singing pure nonsense but she was singing very loudly and lustily along. (She loves music.) My entire pew was cracking up and very few of us were actually singing since it was more fun to watch Bree sing her heart out. That was nothing though compared to the communion. As the portions were passed Bree was particularly intriqued with the very tiny portions of grape juice being served. "I want some!" she said loudly in the complete silence. Hoping to distract her in a reverent moment for everyone we let her have a little bit. "Mmm...I want more!" she yelled. Oh well, at least she was into participating right? It made us laugh...hopefully the other church-goers and well, God, has as good a sense of humor as we do. :P

Friday, April 13, 2007

Easter!

Since we now live closer than we ever have to our extended families, this Easter for the first time in years, we got to spend some time with family over the holiday. This year Poppa Randy, Grammy DeeDee, Auntie Em, and Auntie Missy all came to celebrate with us. We had a great time all spoiling Bree and she did get spoiled! Her Easter basket overfloweth and she got to dye 18 hard boiled eggs and then hunt even more since we threw in some plastic ones as well! Brianna loved the attention though and I do think it made her Easter special. It was pretty funny though because she can't tell my sisters apart. (In her defense we do all resemble each other very strongly and are similiar in age.) So, to make sure she didn't get it wrong she was dropping their names and just called them both "Auntie." Pretty clever I think although poor kid got so confused a few times that she was even calling ME "Auntie" at seeing me from a distance or in profile.

We take our egg decorating very seriously in this family! :) Here's all of us sitting down together to get going....

CHEESE!

The egg kit we bought was really fun with several different kinds of dye/paint and it included a tiny paint roller as well, which was one of Bree's favorite things. Here she is showing her egg paint rolling technique.

Let's see...this one needs a little more purple...

Ah yes, the classic "Wow, that egg has a B for Brianna! It's magic!" reaction to the good old clear crayon on the egg trick. :)

There they are, all the eggy masterpieces in front there with Bree and "Poppa Granny" aka Poppa Randy working on one of the last eggs. Needless to say Brianna had a great time with this activity and kept repainting eggs over and over again until I'm surprised they didn't all turn out brown.

The Big Egg Hunt

Easter day itself turned out to be such a gorgeous day here that after the traditional morning Easter activities (church and big lunch) we decided to head over to Lake Como to do our egg hunt with Brianna. It was a great place to hide eggs, lots of rocks and bushes and nooks and crannies (as opposed to my very small, bare and only recenlty sodded back yard). We all had a great time taking in both Bree having a ball with her eggs and the scenic background. For her part Bree had a blast spying out eggs. She kept asking "Did the Easter Bunny leave these for me?" (Since we told her the Easter Bunny had left her a basket earlier.)

It only took a few minutes for Brianna to get the idea and take off with it. This is her "finding" her first egg of the day with a little help from Mom and Grammy DeeDee. This is also a good shot of the growing "baby brother" belly I've got going there in the background. :)

Aha, an egg!

Got it! What a natural egg hunter. :)

And there's another one!

Of course she had to taste the fruits of her labor. Egg hunting is hungry work, makes you need jelly beans! (I was really worried actually that the kid would overdose herself on sugary treats. But, after a few eggs she was opening them and closing them back up again, or offering the contents to an adult friend. I guess too much of a good thing is just too much!)
Bree was really good at spying out all the eggs. Once they were almost all found though, just the more hidden ones left, she needed the help of an "Auntie" to find the last few.


Finally, all the eggs were found and there was nothing left to do but look cute in her pink Easter hat.

Friday, April 06, 2007

Getting Ready for Baby Brother

So we've been discussing with Bree the arrival of this new mysterious baby brother for a little while now. For the most part she seems to be taking it all in stride, (probably largely due to the fact that he's not really here to intrude on her everyday reality yet). But we've been talking about it and it's been funny to see and hear how Brianna integrates this information into her life right now. Take Mom's growing belly....we keep talking about how it's getting bigger and that the baby brother is inside there. Then we tell her that right now he's growing and when he's ready he'll come out and live at our house. And, on her part Bree seems to get it as much as you can at 2 and 3 quarters old.

For example, recently while she and I were taking a bath she pointed to my belly and said, "Baby brother is growing in there?" "Yep," I said. "Okay," she answered and then she dumped a cupful of bathwater over the area. "Water will help him grow!" she explained to me seriously. (Apparently she's made the connection that plants need water to grow so why wouldn't that also apply to growing a baby brother right?)

And she has stopped even calling my belly anything other than baby brother. She'll stroll up to me, pat the belly and ask, "Mom, how's your baby brother doin'?" Then there's the matter of the new brother living with us. He's already got his own room in the new house (although it's nowhere near being ready for him and is currently sort of the moving "I don't know where this goes" dumping ground). Despite its current state of disarray however we've still been calling the room, "the brother's room" or "baby brother's room" when talking about it with Brianna. So, whenever someone new comes to visit the new house Bree loves to give them a little tour, mostly skipping all the other rooms to direct them straight into her room but not before pointing each time to the room next door and explaining, "That's the brother's room."

The most interesting part to me though is how all Bree's little dollies are now baby brothers (despite the fact that most of them came in pink clothes). One of her favorite games these days is to play with her baby dolls and all of them are brothers. She's even picked out the tiniest one and insists "he" needs to sleep in his toy crib in her bed with her. "Mom, baby brother (the dolly) needs to come to bed with me!" Overall, it all seems to be a pretty healthy integration and preparation in her daily play and activities for getting a new brother this summer.....although I do expect the sibling rivalry and resentment parts to kick in once he arrives in person. :)

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Taking a Break at Como Lake

After several weeks of packing, driving, unpacking, furniture shopping, paint chip indecision, etc. we decided we were tired of all the moving in routine and needed a break. So we took advantage of our new surroundings and headed off to visit a nearbye lake.

It was more great scenery at the lake! We had fun checking out the beach, finding cool rocks, and Bree's favorite, spying out a few "chicka mucks" (chipmunks).
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It's still very much early spring here so despite the sunshine it was a bit nippy out there. Brianna wanted her hood up and sunglasses on! Plus you know she doesn't go anywhere without her best puppy pal, Ginger. Doesn't she look like some kind of tempermental mini-movie star or something?
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It wasn't too long before Brianna decided she was done. Back to more settling in and so forth at home. But the beach sure will be fun this summer!
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Keep the Change!

Another line Bree seems to have picked up from the TV...

As we sat down to dinner the other night Brianna realized that she didn't have a drink in front of her. "Dad, I'm stir-stee! (thirsty)" she declared. "Okay," he said, grabbed a nearbye sippy cup full of water and sat it in front of her. "Thanks Dad and keep the change!" What?! Funny little kiddo, we were laughing about that one for a while. :)

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

A Funny Story from the Move

This little story actually happened about 2 weeks ago, during the main moving-in process but it was so hectic then I never got around to blogging it. I was thinking about this today though and it was making me smile so just thought I'd share...

We arrived in Montana on a Monday afternoon and all our belongings had actually beaten us here. (We used a moving company.) So, it was only a few hours after we arrived that we started in unpacking and getting settled. Lucky for us we had help though, Trav's parents were there for support the first few days along with my grandparents and my parents as well a few days later. Between all that help we managed to muscle through the major stuff pretty quickly and get all the basics functioning. (Thanks to everyone who helped out!)

Anyways, this was all too much for Brianna. Imagine how it looks from a toddler point of view....Mom and Dad spend weeks boxing everything up then we have to drive for days at a time and when we finally get to where we're going Mom and Dad start frantically taking things back out of the boxes they just finished doing a few days ago. I'm sure we all seemed nuts to her! Plus, I think the fact that her grandparents were here and not focusing their attention soley on Bree was the last straw. We had a few days after we arrived with a very cranky and demanding toddler. She would get an idea in her head and insist she needed this or that NOW. Like when she decided in the middle of the afternoon one day that she needed to brush her teeth. She was walking up and down the hall whining and telling everyone who passed by her insistently, "I need to brush my teeth! I need some toothpaste!" One by one each of us adults kind of blew her off. "Your toothbrush is in your hand baby, just use it like that." "You don't need to brush your teeth right now." "We don't know where the toothpaste is right now." All to no avail. Apparently it was just imperative she brush her teeth right that minute.

Finally after a good 15 minutes or so of whining she got Grammy Deb to pay attention to her. Grammy Deb took a minute to find the toothpaste and help Bree get going with her toothbrush at which point Brianna turned to her and said, "See, was that so hard?" A statement that made Grammy Deb laugh and was quickly reported to me a few minutes later. (I think this must have been something I've said to her before.) But she was right after all, in the long run it was NOT hard and would have been less effort and aggravation to all to just help the kid brush her teeth with toothpaste instead of ignoring her. I guess when you're moving you sometimes forget to pick your battles, but that's what Grammies are for. :)

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Finding a New Groove

Travis is back to work this week and Brianna and I are finally starting to settle into a more normal routine again, back to a more familiar pattern. (Although, the potty training has taken a bit of a setback but we'll see...) I think we're starting to find our groove in the new place. And, while she's mostly adapted beautifully Bree does have a few new things she's picked up here. Like, for starters she now has a new favorite show. We have a new cable provider and now have Noggin, a kids channel I don't think we had before. Anyways, Bree's new favorite is a silly little cartoon called "Wow, Wow, Wubzy." This makes me laugh since it's a silly name and she sounds very comical coming into the room and asking, "Mom, can I watch Wow Wow Wubzy?" or, "Is Wubzy on?" Not all the new habits are as funny though, mainly the part where she's obsessed with all the doors in the house....

Well, it's obvious the move to Montana hasn't made a difference in Bree's choice of pants...that is to say she doesn't wear them at all if she can get away with it! So, here she is in her usual top and underoos doing one of her new favorite things in the new house...messing with all the lovely doors! (Which conveniently for her have those flat door handles as opposed to the harder to turn round ones.) Our old place (the apartment) didn't have near this many doors and Bree loves to contantly slam them (I can't wait until she's 13 and doing that!) or lock herself and others out. Lucky for me she knows how to unlock them as well and usually after she panics for a minute I just have to say, "turn the lock thing" and she will. That or I do have a little key as well. :) Posted by Picasa

Me? Up to mischief? Slamming doors and such? No, not at all! How could you even think it with a sweet smile like this?
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Minnesotan or Montanan...still adorable!
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Sunday, April 01, 2007

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

Guess what? Brianna and I didn't drop off the face of the planet like you thought! No really, I do apologize for my long absence in updating this blog. All I have is a lot of excuses about it if you'd care to hear them. You know, stuff like the long drive, exhaustion, unpacking being a huge deal, computer not set up or having to wade past a ton of boxes to get to it once it was set up, Bree getting sick and running fevers for days, and then me getting the horrible head cold she'd had and feeling like super crap...etc, etc, etc. I could go on. But, the point is after a 2 week break, (two weeks!) I'm back and promise to get back on the ball with Bree's blog, (although I'm still not sure it'll be daily). To make it up to you I've posted several "back blogs" and a bunch of pix...

Montana or Bust!

We took off from Minneapolis on a Saturday morning and headed west for a long drive. Brianna was really excited at first. She was saying "Are we going to our new house?" all excited. Poor kid didn't know what she was in for. The whole first day she was a complete angel to ride with and then she got tired of being in a car. (Well, who could blame her...) So, the second day was almost the exact opposite. We'd stayed in a motel overnight and I don't think she slept well so she was very whiny and needy and hard to handle the second day. I shudder just thinking about it! Luckily though, on the third day she was a little better and we only had to drive for half a day...we arrived at our new place just in time for lunch on Monday. We were all glad to have the long drive behind us but especially Bree I think. On my part there is no way I'm going on another 3-day, 1200 mile drive with a toddler again anytime soon!

We sure saw a lot of this along the way...road, road and more road!
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This is a fun travel pic. That's the motor home back there where Bree, me, and my grandparents were driving along. You can see how crammed full our car was. It was so full that Trav was the only passenger. This shot was taken by Travis backwards over his shoulder while simultaneously driving with one hand. Which, is either very talented or something that should be in the next Jackass movie. (So, don't tell our car insurance people about this, huh?)
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We almost considered pulling over and settling here... at the "Home on the Range." Nah, just kidding but really, did you know there is just such a place somewhere on the road between Minnesota and Montana? Now when you sing the song, "Home, home on the range" you can know that it's out there in North Dakota somewhere, and we have a shot of the road sign to prove it! :)
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Finally we arrived home!
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A House With a View

Well, we have talked and talked with Brianna about moving to Montana and living "in the mountains." In fact, just before we moved she was telling people "I'm gonna live in the mountains!" And, it's true, now we do. We're surrounded by them in fact with ranges on both sides of the valley. It's been nice to just check out the view when we get tired of un-packing and so forth...

Check out the view from our living room window!
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Another view of the mountains, and also the tops of our neighbors houses. We really are sitting almost right at the base of them. I love it! This is more like the scenery I grew up with so I feel right at home.
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And here's a wide shot of the neighborhood as the sun sets. What a great view huh?!
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Brianna's New Room!

Well, at long last Brianna has the new room we've been promising her for the last few months. As of right now it's the nicest room in the house since we wanted to get hers put together first to ease the transition and trauma of moving. I think it turned out pretty darn good! We bought most the new stuff from IKEA before we left, including the bed, the tiny bedside table, the over the bed leaf canopy, the stuffed animal hammock and the bedding. I love the fun, bright colors! It's sort of a rainbow, orange and pink, jungle-ish sort of thing. It sounds odd but I think it pulls together. One of Bree's favorite things about the room though has to be her pink wall. Hooray for having the freedom to paint your own walls whatever color you want! We picked this pink since it matches the pink in the comforter and rug and wanted to tip the scales of the theme to the slightly more girly side. We only painted the one wall though since it's a very bright pink and I was afraid it would either make the room seem smaller, overly crayony or like the inside of a bottle of Pepto Bismol. So, for now it's just the one pink wall. Bree loves the pink though! When we got done painting the back wall she pointed to another wall and said, "Now make that one pink!" So, I'm thinking of also painting the wall right beside the bed pink as well. We'll see. For now though, take a look....

(When I was taking these pix Bree was very excited that all her friends in MN would get to see her new room. Although she keeps asking, "Will they visit?" We miss you MN friends!)

Here's the new room from the doorway. Isn't it cute?! I love it anyways and I think Bree is pretty happy with it too. It's a more vibrant color scheme, to match her personality, and is fun and kiddish. Oh and that's fabric hanging from the window there. That will be curtains soon...
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Standing a little further into the room. One of the last things we need to do to "finish" this room is to add a few things to the walls, seeing as they're bare here. Makes it still seem a little stark even though there's already a lot of stuff in there. I'm thinking of buying a few blank canvases and trying out my artistic hand by copying a few of the little bright, jungle animals off the bed and hanging them on the white wall there.
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