Mommies Can't Leave without their Daughters

The other day we were feeling kind of lazy about cooking dinner and so Travis suggested I go pick up a Papa Murphy's pizza for us. I was up for that and called it in and then a few minutes later headed out to grab it, an errand that takes me a total of 15 minutes even counting the driving. Well, Brianna decided she wanted to come with me on this little errand. I tried my best to dissuade her considering it seemed just more trouble than it was worth to wait for her to put some pants and shoes on, get herself strapped into her carseat (since she refuses to let anyone else do it for her), and then go throught the whole in and out of the car thing at the pizza place. "I'll be really quick, I'll be right back before you can even put your shoes on!" I assured her. But she was insistent..."Mommies can't go out by themselves," she told me, "They have to wait for their daughters. Mommies can't leave without their daughters." Well, that convinced me. It kind of impressed me, I'd never heard her use the word daughter before, and even in the correct context but mostly it was just so sweet that I had to take her. :)

Electric Chef

As I've mentioned, Bree LOVES to cook. And she's pretty good at it. I just measure out the flour, or milk, or whatever and let her go dump it in the bowl and then mix it with a spoon. I even let her crack the eggs into the bowl, which is, I think, her favorite part. (In fact, she likes it so well and my mom was so impressed with this trick, esp. the part where she doesn't even get any shell inside the bowl, that Grammy Dee-Dee let her crack more than a dozen eggs into a bowl during our visit, all the while calling different family members in to see it. We had a nice big batch of scrambled eggs for breakfast that day...) At least, cracking eggs WAS her favorite part until recently when we made Travis a rhubarb pie (his favorite) for a Father's Day treat. As usual Bree was up on her stepping stool helping out when I pulled out the mixer to make the crust. Apparently we've never used the mixer together since we've started this whole buddy baking thing. You should have seen her little eyes light up. She was saying, "I'm gonna help you Mom!" before I could even plug it in and had her little itchy trigger finger on the button right away. So, with each of us having one hand on the mixer I started it up. Oh the power trip for a preschooler! She was thrilled and was screaming like a crazed banshee the entire time..."Wheeee! Dad! Look at me! Look at us! See what we're doing!" Oy...I think I may have created a monster....

Fireworks!

I'm not real sure why, but for some reason our town was setting off fireworks last night at the high school. Naturally, they didn't start until after dark, after Bree was supposed to be sleeping. But, considering we only live 2 blocks from the high school she wasn't sleeping for long, it sounded like we were being bombed at our house. So we all marched into the backyard and decided we might as well enjoy the show. It was pretty cool actually to be able to sit in our own backyard and enjoy them. Bree didn't get to see any big ones last year so she thought it was neat. Of course, it was a bit of a shock when our own automatic sprinklers came on in the middle of the show and soaked us, causing us to jump up like crazy people and run to a safer, and dryer, part of the yard. By the time they stopped shooting them off, at 11 pm, we were all damp and pretty tired but at least we didn't have far to go to get to bed. :)

(Although, I have to say that seeing any kind of fireworks in the sky like that only makes me realize how soon this new baby is coming! AACK!)

Happy Birthday Brianna!

On June 16th Brianna Rose turned 3 years old! Can you believe it? Everyone always tells you how fast it goes but it's hard to really KNOW until you're actually going through it.

Since we were in Idaho the weekend before her birthday, we went ahead and had her major birthday party there, where most of her family and friends are. It was a pretty wild scene, family and tiny tots everywhere!

And of course she got plenty of presents and was pretty much spoiled rotten as usual.

This was her major present though, you know, the one you pull out of the closet at the last minute, after all the rest have been opened? This year her big present was a "pedaling bicycle" as she calls it, complete with basket, bell, and tassels. She was just ready for a big girl trike. And, it's taken her a little while but just in the past few days she's really started to get the hang of the whole pedaling thing, although it frustrated the heck out of her at first. Some of the other big hits of the day were her "Woody" doll from Toy Story and a new movie, "The Rescue-skeevers" (The Rescuers).

The highlight of the party though, at least for the kids, was the lighting and then eating of the cupcake tower.

This year Brianna even helped to make her own cupcakes since she loves to cook so much, and then she decorated them herself...they had LOTS of multi-colored sprinkles. It was a very special day!

The next weekend, for Bree's actual birthday we kept it low key. (Well, we HAD a gift we were going to give her but the little spy eyes found it early (a Jesse (from Toy Story) doll) and we went ahead and gave it to her then. So no presents for her on the 16th. So, we just spent a quiet day together, enjoying each other's company and reminiscing.

Can you believe that she's gone from this:

to this:

in just 3 short years. (sniff) Crazy! (Isn't she cute in her little Birthday Princess crown and clip on ear rings?)

Weekend Trip to Idaho

First off, I apologize again for the tardiness of this post...but I posted lots of pix for you to make up for it! :)

We headed off last weekend (June 9-10) to Idaho to help celebrate my Great Grandpa's 90th Birthday. Here's what happened....

We got into town Friday night and headed off the next morning we were off to Grandpa's Birthday party.

Happy 90th Birthday Grandpa!

Here's a 5 generation shot...of course, I managed not to be looking at the camera...oh well!

The Birthday Boy! And no, that's not me next to him (I wish). That's my gorgeous baby sister, Melissa. Don't hate her because she's beautiful people, but feel free to resent her. :P

Here's Bree in her party dress and looking sullen about it. :)

While we were in town, and since Bree's actual birthday was only a week away, we went ahead and celebrated her birthday the next day as well. More on that though in the next post....

In between everything else we even managed to squeeze in a visit to some old friends. Here's me and the wife of one of Trav's best high school buddies comparing bellies. She's due only a week after me!

Then it was on the road again....

Check out those mountains! These are the Sawtooths in Idaho.

We took our time on the way home, making lots of stops to enjoy the scenery. Here Brianna insisted on taking a break to pick some wildflowers. Can't blame her, they are pretty.

We saw A LOT of wildlife on the way home...this was one of our first sightings though. I guess when they post those deer crossing signs they really mean it! Good thing we spotted this one and were safely pulled off the side of the road when it decided to dash across the highway.

Just on the other side of the Idaho-Montana divide we spotted these guys. They're mountain goats! This was the first time I've actually seen them in the wild like this. Pretty neat...

About 20 minutes before we finally drove into our own driveway we spotted this guy...a buck with his horns in velvet. Actually, he was with a buddy, there were two of them, just standing there by the side of the road. So, this was our last stop along the way before we chugged into our garage, unloaded the car as fast as we could and passed out.

It was fun and crazy as usual...and definitely our last long road trip before the new baby arrives!

A Pity Post

Yep, it's just what it sounds like...I realize it's been awhile here since I've updated this here thing and although I'm still not quite ready to do a "quality" entry I'm just zipping something off to placate all the raving masses who have been patiently waiting for their update. :)

Actually it's been 2 weeks (2 weeks!) since I've posted which is pretty much a no-no for me. I really try to do it much more frequently but here's my lame excuses:
1) I was out of town for awhile there.
2) At 8 months pregnant I'm feeling pretty exhausted at virtually all moments of the day and haven't even felt like I had enough energy to drag myself over to the computer and make an entry.
3) At 8 months pregnant my whole nesting thing has kicked in really strongly making me spend whatever free time and energy I have doing things around the house like deciding where all the pictures should hang on the wall and then getting wishy-washy about it so they're still not hung up, or endlessly re-arranging all the tiny newborn socks in their tiny newborn sock drawer, which then leads you back up to excuse #2.....

Well, now that my lame excuses are out of the way I'll let you know what's been going on around here. We were in Idaho last weekend to help celebrate my Great Grandpa turning 90! While we were in town we also went ahead and celebrated Bree's 3rd Birthday with all our friends and family there. (There, now you're updated... So maybe it hasn't been THAT busy here but it's a 7 hr. drive one way to Boise and I'm still not recovered from the trip so there! I think that's gonna be my LAST major trip before giving birth.)

Our other big event was that Brianna's birthday was actually yesterday! She's three! Holy cow! She's practically old already! I guess now we officially have to stop calling her a toddler and must refer to her as a "pre-schooler." We kept it pretty low key yesterday though since we'd already had her main stuff go on last weekend. Just spend the day enjoying some quality time with her and remembering when she was born and how fast it's gone..and how soon I'm gonna be doing all that again! Guess I need to update the ol' birthday ticker up there as well. I have lots of pix to share from the trip and birthday so I'll do a better post later with those.

Until then I leave you with a few more Bree-isms to enjoy:

- "grand new!" the "Bree-ism" for "brand new." All her birthday gifts are all "grand new!"

- "I notice..." Which seems to be her new way of asking if she can do something. I guess she heard someone say it and thought it was neat because now she'll say things like, "I notice you want to go to the play park with me?" or "I notice I want a popsicle."

Phrase of the Day

I'm noticing that I used to blog alot about the cute little things that Brianna was saying. Every new word or phrase was funny to me...and now I seem to do it less. I guess she's getting older and I'm getting used to her talking like a normal person, in full blown sentences and all. But, she still says some pretty outrageous things. And, even if what she says isn't that outrageous when she starts saying a "grown up" phrase it still cracks me up. Here are a few of my favorite new little things she's been saying:

• "Of course!" She says this a lot which I find kind of funny in and of itself but even more funny when she answers her own question with it. Like this, "Mom, can I have a snack?" and without waiting to hear my answer, "Of course I can!" Or, "Mom, do you want to play dollhouse with me?...Of course you do!" I guess we must say this alot to her.
• "You betcha!" This is a phrase she got directly from her daddy. She's just started incorporating it into her everyday conversation but it's super funny to ask her a question and have her answer, "You betcha!"
• "Refreshing water!" This is a "Grammy-ism," or in other words, something she picked up from my mom. Seems like my whole family delights in teaching Brianna odd little phrases or humongous words that she wouldn't know otherwise. If you recall, last time my mom visited she had Bree going on about "glorious cheese." This time around, every time Grammy was drinking a glass of water she'd smack her lips and go, "Yum. I just love a drink of nice refreshing water!" So often that now Bree can't seem to talk about water at all without adding "refreshing" to the front.
• "Wouldn't you love to?" Okay well this was actually more of a one-time thing but just goes to show you how much Brianna is really listening to everything you say. It was at one point during Grammy Dee-Dee's visit and Brianna walked up to her and said, "Grammy would you hold my hand?" Grammy said, "I would love to!" and then she took the offered hand. Well, a few minutes later they had let go so Bree walked back up to Grammy and said again, "Would you hold my hand?" So, this time Grammy said, "Sure!" and took her hand. Then Bree looked up at her and asked her, "Well, wouldn't you love to?" Hee hee!

A Mix of Pix

For those of you who've already gotten the link to Trav's monthly photo album these are going to look pretty familiar. I actually meant to post these quite awhile ago, some I had planned to post as long as two weeks ago but just never got around to doing it since life has been a bit hectic and my blog posting has gotten kind of sporadic as of late (every day, every other day, twice a week, once a week, who knows?). Then it was so close to the end of the month I knew Travis would be sending the pix out with the album and I didn't want to steal his thunder by sharing them before he got a chance (for once! :D) So here they finally are...my favorite shots from this month's album with my own personal commentary added in. I did promise more pix coming about 5 or 6 posts ago so... Better late then never huh? Sort of a collage of recent life, hope you enjoy!

This was another trip to Como Lake. Here's Bree being "Queen of the Rock" and looking quite smug about it too. :)

A super cute close up (before the bang chopping incident obviously). Something about her expression in this one makes me think you can almost tell what she'll look like at 12 or something...she just is looking more grown up all the time!

These are her "bug-looking" eyes. Daddy told her to hold her hands up there like binoculars and look for insects at the lake. I guess they worked since she actually did find him a new beetle to collect shortly thereafter. (Well, at least they're spending time together right?) My favorite part is the messy face though. :)

Aww...



Just one of many hiking shots in this month's collection of photos. We've been hiking around a lot lately since it's just too easy to find beautiful places to walk around in the evenings here. This was a trail along a creek we found. Notice Bree's little walking stick there....




And here we are marching along the trail in our matching pony tails.




Brianna the wood sprite! Just another cute shot I couldn't resist.

Yet another hiking adventure. This time Bree rode in the backpack though. And there's me, looking super outdoorsy sexy in my camo hat. Oh yeah...

Apparently, Brianna really loves hiking! Doesn't it show?

This is the way she "hikes" just about every time, passed out in the backpack. Something about being strapped to Daddy's warm back while he walks back and forth just puts her right out.

Bathing Beauty....

Or Sassy Fairy, she's cute either way!

(She ran around with just the wings strapped on one day after her bath for quite awhile.)

Here Bree's helping our neighbor, Scott, mow his lawn. He's got an old fashioned push mower and Brianna finds it fascinating, along with Scott himself....she adores him for some reason! He's a bachelor but is really nice about letting our kid hang off him. :)

Classic...enjoying a windmill on a windy day. Love the expression.

You gotta really hold it up to get the good wind. (Yep, we're actually considering trying to power the whole house that way, gotta have a few more kids first to really get enough juice though.) Although, I'm not real sure how well she can enjoy the whole experience with her eyes closed. Doesn't she look like if the Statue of Liberty was holding a windmill instead of a torch? Hee hee!

Memorial Weekend

For Memorial Day Weekend my parents drove over for a visit. They were here for four days and we sure managed to cram in a lot of stuff! I thought I'd give you the pictorial version of their visit so here goes.....

One of the first things we did after the grandparents arrived was plant a few plants in the flower beds. It's just now getting warm enough to plant here and of course my mom was sure to bring me plenty of starts from her own plants. Bree was so excited about it! She was really funny running all over helping to "make the plants happy" by patting their soil and giving them a drink of water from her tiny watering can. (Which for some reason she was calling her "honey pot." I think it has to do with one of her favorite Berenstain Bears books.) What's funny in this shot is you can see the tiny work gloves she's got on. Grammy Dee Dee bought them but I have no idea where she found tiny gardening gloves!

Of course, Brianna had to take our guests to the park. She loves the park. Morning noon and night she's asking to go to the "play park." So we got a good dose of the park. In fact, Grammy literally had to grab Brianna and run away from the park to get her to leave. I think it must have surprised Bree because she actually kind of went with it and for once didn't have a meltdown over the fact we were leaving the park. I don't think that's a move I can copy and get away with though. :)

Bree and "Sick" the poodle hanging out in one of the tiny playhouses at the park.

One day we decided to take a drive over Skalkaho Pass, which is snowed over and closed most of the year but just recently opened up for the season. It was kind of surreal since we left the valley with the sun shining and at the top of the pass it was snowing! It was a beautiful drive though and along the way we saw the Skalkaho Falls.

We surprised this moose along the way as well. Too early in the season for his horns to have grown in though.

Once we got over the pass we reached our destination on the other side of the mountain...a saphire mine. They'll sell you buckets of mine ore and you can sort through and actually find raw saphires. Here we all are "mining." It was a bit chilly though.

Here's me searching for my "treasure" as Bree was calling it. You only really find very small gems but it's pretty fun. After you've sorted your bucket you can take in your find and the staff there will evaluate your saphires and tell you how many carats you have and which ones you can actually cut and put into jewelry. By the end we each left with a little baggie full of tiny saphires in all colors. Bree though thought all the rocks were pretty and had sorted out a pile of pretty little pebbles that she left with, just as happy to have those as everyone else was with their gemstones.

Another day we took a hike up to Blodgett Overlook. Bree walked part of the way....

And rode on Daddy's back the rest of the way. (Check out the bangs.)

It's a mile and a half to the top but worth the effort...the view of the valley below from the peak is awesome!

That's one happy hike-ateer. (Well wouldn't you be if someone carried you all the way up?!) :)

One of the last things we did was visit an old ghost town nearbye called Granite. This is the old Miners Hall.

The town was an old mining town and it died out when the mining got bad. There's a lot of these types of towns around the area I guess.

And here's one of the ghosts in the "Ghost Town." :) She's all bundled up in Grammy's sweatshirt since the town is at a higher elevation and still very snowy and cold.

So, that's was our long weekend fun! Oh, not to mention that we completely finished painting and setting up the nursery for the little man and also did some work in Bree's room as well. (I'll post a few pix of the new rooms later.) Whew! We really squeezed every minute out of our time!

Home Hair-Do

So, you may notice something new about Brianna in the latest pix I post of her....she has a new haircut, and it's one of her own design. Yep, Bree has now done that classic kid move, given herself a home chop job on her hair!! AACK!

I suppose it was really my fault though. See, Brianna has had this fascination with scissors for awhile now. I use them quite often...cooking shears in the kitchen and then I've been sewing quite a bit as well so I have fabric scissors. Not to mention, sometimes I use scissors when Brianna and I do art projects from time to time. Well, every time I have a pair out Bree just is hooked to my side, watching raptly and asking can she use them and etc.? This usually ends in tears when I have to say no. Finally the other day I thought to myself, "Well, she IS almost 3 and maybe I could buy her a tiny pair of safety scissors, just for craft time and only when I'm there to supervise her." Yeah, famous last thought on safety scissors.....

So I bought her a pair of safety scissors. She was extremely thrilled and we had a talk about them being sharp, only touching the handle, etc. (And actually Bree is very good about that stuff, very responsible for her age I'd say.) So, the first day she owned them she happily cut up some construction paper and then glue-sticked it back onto another paper. "Great." I think. "That's nice."

The next day my parents arrived in town and Grammy Dee Dee and Bree played with clay. Bree has a little clay set that is a barber shop. (You already see where this is going don't you??) In the set you make the little clay people and animals grow hair by pushing the clay out the holes in their head. Then you use little plastic scissors to trim the hair off and start again. After a few minutes Bree was insisting that her little plastic scissors weren't working very well and that she wanted to cut the clay hair with her safety scissors. I thought "Sure, why not?" and let her do it. I assume this must have given Brianna a big idea... Later in the day as both Grammy and I were distracted with making dinner the clay play stuff was left sitting on the kitchen table, along with the safety scissors. And...before you could stop her Bree grabbed up her scissors and had hacked off some of her bangs. She had the scissors raised again to cut off another piece when all four adults were going "NO! NO!" This of course made her immediately burst into tears. So, there we were with half her bangs cut really pretty short. In her defense I had let her bangs get really long and they were probably hanging in her eyes and bugging her...(the plan was to grow them out so she had no bangs but...new plan now I guess).

We ended up taking her to get the bangs evened out and I'm still getting used to the new do. It's not my favorite but I guess that's what I get. For one thing, I feel pretty stupid buying her the dang safety scissors in the first place (esp. at her age), and for another I should have anticipated (esp. in light of the clay play activity) that this idea would occur to her and given her the "We only cut paper." talk much sooner. Oh well...I suppose it really could have been worse. She didn't chop all the way to the scalp or anything or poke her own eye out. Word to the wise to anyone out there though...safety scissors are sharp enough to cut hair!!

Well, here's the new look. I'm calling it "Bangs a la Bree!"

And see, not the worst home chop job ever....

Pet Tick

I'm not a real sqeamish female. No, I'm not the type who screams at the sight of a bug and I've been known to squash my own spiders. However, I am kind of creeped out by ticks. I think because they bite you, burrow into your skin, and then may possibly give you a horrible illness, like Lyme's disease. The whole idea that one might be on you at this very moment sucking your blood and you haven't found it yet just gives me the shivers.

Unfortunately for me ticks are rampant in this part of the country. In fact it's the tick I have to thank for my husband's job even. He's here studying tick-born viruses (meaning diseases you get from tick bites). Specifically I think he's looking at a tick-born encephalitis (oh, look it up!). His entire workplace actually is funded on the backs of ticks since it was originally built to study Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, which you get from, yep, ticks! So, all this to say that the ticks are everywhere here! Everytime you go anywhere mildly outdoorsy you have to do a thorough check afterwards for ticks. (Picture us all yelling "Tick check!" after getting home from an outing and sorting through each other's hair like monkeys at the zoo.)

Much to my creeped-outness we have found several on or around us after playing in the great outdoors. The most recent was after a hike last weekend Trav found one crawling in Bree's hair! (The head is one of their favorite places to attach themselves) Uggh! Travis says they take their time to bite you but in my mind the thing was just minutes away from biting her and who knows what it might have given her. Filthy little disease bugs!

Anyways, so every time Trav finds one he kills it by putting it in some rubbing alchohal in a test tube. Then he looks at it and stuff to see what kind it is etc. Brianna finds this fascinating and this last time was insisting on holding the tube with the dead, floating tick inside it all around the house. She apparently does not share my phobia of ticks. (Although we did go through a very short phase of about two weeks awhile back where she was terrified of all buggies and would scream bloody, bloody, murder if she saw so much as a gnat.) She was talking to the tick and when we got ready to head out to run some errands she even asked if the tick could come with us!

Now, I consider myself a pretty laid back woman when it comes to this kind of stuff. I mean, I don't cry when I break a nail, my husband collects dead insects, I like to go fishing, etc. But I draw the line at having a pet tick!

Reverse Reverse Psychology

Reverse phsychology has been one of the revered tools of parenting toddlers and preschoolers for quite a while. Sometimes, nothing works better than agreeing with an irrational request and watch your kid scramble to take the other side. (After all, who wants to be in agreement with their parents huh?) However, unfortunately, and much to my huge disappointment, this technique does not work with Bree by and large. I don't know if she's just smarter than me or what but not only does it not work on her but she usually manages to turn it directly around on me. Take this prime example:

The other day I was just tired of picking up after her. Every day the same story, all her toys scattered around in all the rooms of the house and especially in the living room. And all on the floor, which is a problem for me since these days bending over repeatedly to grab them off the floor either makes me feel like I'm going to vomit or faint depending on how recently I've eaten a meal. It just squishes my baby belly even more than the baby does. So, fed up I was determined to make Bree help. I know she's old enough to help out and smart enough to get the idea. I say, "Brianna Rose, help me pick up all your toys that are making a mess in here." I get ignored. "Bree, put your toys in the baskets please. We need to clean up." More ignoring. (She's learned not to flat out tell me no but just pretends not to hear me.) Well, finally after awhile I said, "That's okay. You don't have to pick them up. You have too many toys anyways so I'm gonna throw the ones that aren't in the basket in the trash."

So, you'd think that would work. But, no. Maybe she doesn't take me seriously or I haven't followed through on that kind of statement enough but instead of getting off her butt to help me pick up she says to me, "That's okay. You can throw them away. I don't need them. Just not the ones in my room okay?" Of course, this made me feel kind of bad and guilty about threatening to throw away her toys....What the heck?! She reverse, reverse psychologied me! Is that the answer you would expect your almost 3 yr. old to give you??! I ask you!!

Trix are for Kids, and Other Mean Ads on TV

Television....it's always been sort of a little bit of a guilt trip for me. How much should I let Bree watch? What should I let her watch? Is she watching too much? Should I feel bad if I let it "babysit" her while I do a few chores around the house?

Well, now there's a whole new dimension to feel bad about: the ads. See, Brianna is now old enough that the ads are starting to sink in for her. So, if some cereal says it's yummy then she just buys it hook line and sinker and will run up to me to tell me that such and such a cereal is "grrrreat!" or whatever. Frankly I think this is just mean. Ads in kids' shows should be outlawed if you ask me. They know exactly what they're doing appealing to the kids who are young and naive enough to believe every word they say....and it sucks if you're the parent. Sure, as a kid I never really minded them but now getting the feedback about certain toys etc. I'm bothered by the whole thing. It's almost worse in the grocery store. Have you noticed how many food products have pictures of cartoons on them? And how you have to talk your kid out of some junk food crap for over 10 minutes all because it has a picture of your kid's favorite TV personality on there? Cereal, snacks, fruit drinks...AACK!

And, when a new kids' movie is coming out it's even worse. I think there were over 50 products in the store with Shrek on them. This last time at the grocery store I ended up buying "Shrek cereal" (Rice Krispies), "Spiderman Cereal" (Cheerios), and "Spiderman drinks" (Capri Sun, fruit flavored water packs). (Not real sure why Bree's into Spiderman. She's never really seen or read about him, other than the darn TV ADS!) Now, needless to say that I didn't let Bree talk me into buying anything that was too unhealthy or that I wouldn't buy normally but I was flabbergasted at just how often she tried to throw something into the cart soley based on the picture on the package. Geesh!

Of course, it probably doesn't help that we're taking her to a matinee of Shrek this weekend. She's excited about it coming out and we haven't taken her to a movie in the theater yet (that she can remember) so it should be fun. Yes, notice how I'll feel free to complain about the ills of society and all but then I'll still buy the damn stuff and therefore perpetuate the cycle. What can I say? I'm American, it's how we work..... :P

Mother's Day

I hope everyone out there had as great a Mother's Day as I had because mine was pretty special. :) It all started when Bree first woke up yesterday morning. Travis was quick to get out of bed and get her. "Let me tell you something..." I heard him say quietly and then I think he was whispering to her about Mother's Day and letting me sleep in and stuff. This is really the first year that she's been old enough to even kind of get it. Anyways, I was laying there trying to be sleeping, (of course, with the old Mommy instincts I had popped awake when I first heard Brianna), hoping maybe I would be able to fall back asleep. But, it wasn't but five minutes later that Travis had forgotten something in the master bathroom and so he sneaked back into the room, with Brianna hot on his heels naturally. Once she was inside the room she announced in her usual exuberant tone of voice, "I'M TIP-TOEING SO I WON'T WAKE UP MY MOM!" Thoughtful of her to tip-toe but the loud voice kind of made it a moot point. Well, I managed to keep my eyes closed but I was smirking. Finally, a few minutes later they were off to the grocery store to buy a few things (procrastinators!). When they got back a short time later there was really no hope of getting any more sleep. Bree ran into the room and yelled, "WAKE UP! IT'S MOTHER'S DAY! WE GOT YOU CHOCOLATES!" Then she informed me "YOU LOVE THEM!" And that was how it started....the rest of the day they did an equally good job of doing a kind of bungled and enddearing type of pampering. It was a very nice day. :)

Miss Independence AKA Preschool Prima Donna

Just a few quick examples of life with a diva who is almost 3 but is going on 13........

FIRST NAME BASIS
So, Brianna has known her daddy's name for some time now and feels free to use it whenever the mood strikes her. Recently she's also figured out my name as well and can be heard strolling up to me and saying, "Hey Beth....." This was what happened at our little playgroup the other day. All the kids were playing and I guess Bree wanted to include me in the fun. She walked over and said, "Hey Beth, want to play cars?" In response I said, "Sure, and you can call me Mom." Another mom in the group looked at me and said, "Did she just call you Beth??!!" I know it must be a bit confusing for her, since she hears other people, like her daddy, call me Beth and not Mom, why I don't really want her calling me Beth. But, I thought the parent on a first name basis thing was more of a rebellious teen phase then a preschool phase?

DRESS FOR SUCCESS
Bree is very into dressing herself lately. This has led to some amusement on my part though, watching her turn in circles as she tries to find the other arm of her jacket (with one arm already inserted). Or, having her come out from her room with a horribly unmatched outfit, the shirt on correctly and a pair of pants on backwards and unzipped in the back to reveal that she has decided to go commando under there.... :)

WHINE AND DINE
Like all kids the older she gets the more Brianna is understanding social interactions and cause and effect. That is to say, she's figuring out how to push people's (her parents' in particular's) buttons to get what she wants rather effectively. In particular her whining drives us nuts. Prolonged exposure to high-pitched, insistent wailing is just not fun by any means. Our usual response to this behavior is to try to ignore it as best we can. We'll say, "I can't hear you when you're talking like that. Talk in a normal voice." Of course, despite saying this you can't help but let it get to you after a while, it just automatically raises your blood pressure and puts you on edge. Her grasp of this however was recently demonstrated to me very plainly....I don't even remember what exactly was going on but as happens quite often, Bree wanted something and her and I weren't exactly seeing eye to eye on it when she looked me directly in the eye and said to me, "Mom, don't make me whine!"

Okay, this picture actually has nothing to do with any of the stories up there. But, I thought this was rather a "diva-licious" look, isn't it? :) This is from another series of outdoor fun shots that we're still editing. So, more pix soon.

Sous Chef

I've never really been that good at doing playtime at a toddler level, I get bored fast and it seems like each time I sit down to play "doll house" or "doctor" I can think of a million things I need to do around the house. Especially lately what with trying to get the new house looking the way I want and prep for the new baby and such. Lucky for me Bree is getting old enough that she can be included more in what I'm doing around the house. Her new favorite thing to do is cook. She plays Sous Chef and dumps all the ingredients into the bowl or skillet and stirs and then I do the rest. This has been great for us since I can still be "getting stuff done" off my list of TO DO items and Bree has a blast while also getting some quality interaction time with mom. So, everyday we either make dinner together or we bake cookies or a quick bread or something along those lines. It's good for both of us since Brianna gets to learn about measuring and doing things in order by the directions (a GREAT listening skill for her) and I've ended up doing a lot more baking than normal...a bonus since it's been one of my goals to always have a healthy, homemade snack on hand. (After all, I'd much rather hand my kid, or husband for that matter, an oatmeal raisin cookie or a slice of banana bread that I know has some nutritional value than most of the crappy pre-made snacks you get from the store.) So, like I said it's a good thing all around.

However, this isn't to say that we haven't had some baking mishaps. One of the first things Brianna figured out is that she has to pour things into the bowl SLOWLY, especially liquids. She learned this the hard way after pouring them in so fast they sloshed out the other side. Same goes for stirring, also learned the hard way. And just today she learned about pepper...that too much is just too much and that it makes you sneeze like crazy in large amounts. Yep, while I had my hands full sliding dinner into the oven she managed to very carefully measure out about 5 tablespoons full of the stuff, 1 spoonful at a time out onto the cutting board. (Thank goodness it wasn't into anything we were going to eat!) "Too much pepper!" I exclaimed and quickly gathered up the pepper and measuring spoons. Naturally then she started sneezing and we had to have a little discussion about pepper and also how we only add ingredients when Mommy is helping. It was kind of funny though....

Yep, the whole cooking together thing does take a little patience on my part but I have to say overall, it's way less stressful on my nerves than having a whiny toddler pulling on my pantleg the whole time.

A Girl Who Knows What She Wants

Bree has always had a very strong little personality. She knows exactly what she likes and doesn't like and isn't afraid to tell you about it. (A quality I hope she holds onto as she gets older!) So, it's not like the personality trait is new...it's just that I've found it pretty funny to watch as the older she gets the more able she is to express her little opinions.

I've been especially amused by the fact that she has a list of what she wants for her birthday. (Man, that birthday ticker is getting awfully close to the 3! I can't believe it, already!) I mean, its a totally normal thing, you ask someone what they want for they're birthday and they tell you. I guess I just didn't think that on the verge of turning 3 that Bree would actually have some thoughts on the issue. Every major gift-giving occasion so far Travis and I have just pretty much guessed what she might want or what would be fun and that's what she gets. But not this year! Even though her birthday is a few months away yet it's been a pretty big topic of conversation around here. I think for two reasons: 1) because we keep telling her that her birthday is in the summer and a little while after that her brother will be getting here, and 2) virtually every time we meet someone new in the neighborhood or around town they seem to ask "How old is she?" (Usually after hearing her talk for awhile.) Then Bree is very proud to answer, "I'm two and a half! But I'm gonna be three." Then lately she'll add, "In June!" (This last part she's just learned...that her birthday is in June and she likes to tell people. Of course it was kind of funny the other day when someone took it a step further than normal and asked Bree, "When in June?" At this she turned to me and said, "Mom?")

Anyways, every time it happens I find the whole conversation pretty amusing for some reason. And, what do you think follows up the June comment? Yep, she'll tell you what she'd like you to get her for her birthday. It doesn't matter if she just met you 5 minutes ago, she'll let you know. What, might you ask, is on a 3 year old's list? Well, naturally she wants a Sherriff Woody Doll to go with her Buzz Lightyear that she already has. And, after getting to play with one recently she's also added a Barbie Doll to that list. (But don't get any ideas family...her Mom and Dad plan to buy her those items from us. Yeah, we're taking all the easy ideas for gifts already. :P)

That's her entire list so far. I guess she's not too spoiled only asking for a few things. And, I have to say the balance is kind of funny you have to admit. While they're both dolls she wants one boy, coyboy doll and one prissy girl doll. Which, in my opinion, is a great combo to keep her a well balanced and independent minded little gal. :)

An Answer for Everything

Once again, I guess I am unprepared for how fast Brianna is growing up. She continually does things that I wouldn't have thought she would do until she was older....like, thinking that she has an answer for everything. Here are 3 little examples:

One of our current struggles is to get her to start cleaning up after herself a little bit. Maybe this is unrealistic but I've been trying to get her to at least tidy up after herself...she leaves little tornadoes of messes in EVERY room. (Usually about 5 minutes after I've cleaned it.) And I'm getting pretty tired of following her around trying to keep up with the mess. So, the other day after she'd pretty much thrown every toy she owns into the middle of her room I said to her, "Hey, your room is a mess. Why don't you and Bogart pick up your room together?" I dunno, Bogart was sitting right there in the room and I guess I thought that maybe she'd find it more fun if the cat was supposed to be helping and would actually clean up some. But, I should have known, she's beyond such childish notions as a cat helping clean up. Instead, she looked at me like I was completely nuts and told me, "But Mom, Bogart doesn't even have any hands!" Smartie-pants!

Most the time I'm quite sure that I'm not getting through to Brianna when I tell her things. Especially if those things I'm telling her involve doing something (or rather, not doing something) that she disagrees with me on. Take my make-up drawer in the master bathroom. Bree likes to be in there with me while I get ready to go and has been known to fish around in my drawer to come up with extra make-up or hairspray...things that I really don't want her playing with since they make horrible messes and so on. (Honestly, after 7 or 8 days in a row cleaning up dark brown eyeshadow off the floor and walls and every inch of your kid, you lose patience with it.) So, every day she tries to sneak something out of there and every day I say, "No. This is Mommy's drawer with Mommy's things in it. You have your own make-up. (Some of my empty powder compacts, etc.) You have your own drawers with Brianna's things in your bathroom." Well, up to this point this hasn't seemed to make a difference or really sink in. I thought I was just getting ignored, until this morning that is. I was lying in bed trying to pretend I was still asleep and catch 10 minutes more of shut-eye while Travis got ready for work. Bree had already jumped out of bed and was in the bathroom with him. I didn't catch what he said to her but suddenly I heard her telling him very clearly, "This is Mommy's drawer and she asked me to not get into it!" Not that that stops her....

Then there was the case of the "great fall". See, not only does she have an answer for everything she always seems to be updating her vocabulary to more grown-up words and phrases. In this case we just got a package of nursery rhyme fun activities. (Each month we get a package of toddler oriented themed activities to do together with a book, music, stickers, etc.) So, we'd been reading and talking about nursery rhymes together and had read about Humpty Dumpty, which was a new story for Bree. A few hours later Bree managed to trip and fall down bad enough to make her cry. But, never one to want to lose her dignity she sucked it up, walked into the room and informed me, "Mom, I had a great fall but I'm okay now!"