The other day Joshua and I were talking about how daddy worked at the hospital and helped people feel better. Then we starting talking about where I work.
V: Where does mommy work?
J: Mommy work Joshy's house. Mommy do dishes.
How true, how true.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Brielle's 1st Birthday
Note out tired, puffy eyes from a loong night!
Brielle decided to make the most of what was left of her first year of life by virtually staying up ALL NIGHT LONG on the eve of her birthday (aka Christmas Eve). For unknown reasons, Brielle woke up around midnight and could not be consoled - she didn't have a fever, wasn't hungry, wasn't hurt, we didn't know what was the matter. We were in a house full of people, so after a while of alternately trying to let her cry it out and trying to comfort her, Daniel took her outside to the car - he figured that one of us had to get some sleep because Joshua would be raring to go the next day. They just sat in the car until she stopped crying around 4:30 and dozed until 6:30am on Christmas morning. Daniel took her to McDonald's for a birthday breakfast, since by this point he was starving and locked out of the house!
B and Aunt Marsha
Joshua was convinced that it was HIS birthday and I can see the confusion - he got to blow out Brielle's candles and open her gifts. When we sang Happy Birthday, Josh, of course, sang, "Happy Birthday, dear Joshy..."
Josh blowing out the candles...looks like Brielle is already diggin' in!
We kept trying to tell him it was Sissy's birthday, to which he responded, "Sissy share." Such a sweet sister, she willingly shared her birthday with him...probably won't be as easy to convince her of that next year.
More 'helping'
Brielle enjoyed her cake and was only semi-messy with it...
Looking proud and enjoying the cake...even willing to share!
Post-cake bath
Giggles with Papa
The crew - what a special girl to have SO many people celebrate her.
What a joy this first year of Brielle's life has been. We thought having two so close would be hard (and it's had its moments), but because of Brielle's easygoing personality as a baby (and an outpouring of God's grace), it's been doable. (Also, Joshua handled becoming a big brother like a champ. He LOVES his Sissy.) Sis is easygoing, self-entertained, and spunky. She is a COMPLETE Daddy's girl, which Daddy absolutely loves. She's like a broken record right now all day long...da-DEE, da-DEE, da-DEE. If I'm holding her and he walks into the room, she lunges out of my arms toward him. Sissy is talking quite a bit...a lot of words sound the same, so you have to use context - such a bottle, ball, bow, and book. She also says kiss, shoes, mama, hiiii, bye-bye, hat (another fave), dance, and more. Brielle is walking well and is a little bow-legged and pigeon-toed - it's very cute and maybe she'll be a good athlete. She likes pretty much all foods, is still pretty attached to her bottle, and enjoys eating off a fork like a big person. Brielle is a bookworm and we often find her sitting down surrounded by ALL of the books from the shelf, flipping through the pages. She doesn't want to waste any time sleeping, so we've seen 6am (and much earlier) most days for the past six months or so. All in all we love our baby girl and are so happy she's in our family.
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Christmas Eve
Daniel's family tradition is to spend Christmas Eve with his mom's side of the family down in Orlando. It's a crowd squeezed into a small house, but it's my idea of how to do a holiday -- lots of family and lots of food. Joshua enjoyed Great Tata's house and we found out that 'Tata' isn't just his name for my mom, it's him actually attempting to say 'Grandma'...wonder how long it will last and whether Tata is here to stay! Save the tatas! We'll see.
Anyway, we enjoyed seeing lots of family that we don't see any other time of the year and introducing them to Brielle Belle for the first time. (Not that these guys above were new, they're two of her faves. Totally a daddy's girl and loves Uncle David too.)
Brielle became fascinated with hats right before Christmas and spent most of the day playing with hers and anyone else who was wearing one. (Right now, literally everything becomes a hat! Tonight it was her tortilla chip at dinner, yesterday it was a rock in the backyard...pretty funny girl.)
Sassy's red hat and Brielle's makeshift one made out of her bloomers!
COOKIE!
PRESENTS!
Our Christmas
Okay, back to the catching up - I could let most of this stuff pass...probably those who care have seen the pictures already and heard the stories, but I hope to put this blog in book form someday and would be sad to have skipped Christmas and Brielle's birthday, so on with the REWIND...
We had a lot of fun this Christmas season. Joshua was really able to experience and enjoy this special time of year. He loved picking out our Christmas tree, lighting it up everyday, blowing out the Christmas candles we lit, opening a door on the chocolate Advent calendar everyday after lunch, seeing the Christmas lights (especially the choo-choo train on 11th St on our evening runs), opening presents, saying "Merry Christmas", listening to us sing Christmas carols, eating Christmas cookies...it was funny, both kids took a special liking to the Baby Jesus in our Nativity scene. Josh liked to take him in and out of the manger and make him go 'nigh-nigh'. Brielle would reach desperately for him whenever she got upset or hurt and would NEED to see Baby Jesus to feel better. So funny. She also liked the sheep in the Nativity and starting 'arfing' at them (right now most animals go 'arf' and birds go 'quack').
First time to sit on Santa's Lap
We weren't sure how our outing to sit on Santa's lap would go over, but the picture is pretty much worth a thousand words! Joshua is not to the point where if we talk something up as fun and a good thing, he can understand that...we expected him to be afraid/weirded out by the whole thing, but because we talked about it in the car there, he was excited to go to Santa's house. Brielle was not such a fan of the strange man, but did her best to hold it together.
Playing Chase - right before B started walking
We didn't really get a good picture of the tree this year, but it was large and pretty. The kids did really well leaving it alone for the most part, although Brielle did take a bite out of one ornament. It was one I'd made with a friend out of cinnamon clay about 20 years ago - now it holds even more "special meaning"!
Opening Christmas gifts by a raging fire
The Christmas gifts became a choo-choo
Our family Christmas gift was a bike trailer
Since we did a big family gift, the kids got a few small things in their stockings. These light up balls were a hit with the birthday girl and her big brother.
The deck
I've got a lot of catching up to do, but might as well start with what's fresh - this past week Dan took advantage of having time off and of having my dad in town and built a deck to replace the nasty patio in our backyard. It is AMAZING and we know we're going to get soooo much use out of it.
Before
The guys worked HARD and LONG, but were able to finish it in just four days. I love it that Dan can build stuff (so manly) and am thankful for all my dad's hard work to help him. All week long they (well, mostly my dad - the old man) said that 'pain was just a state of mind', but once it was completed they (he) admitted to some (minor) soreness.
Day 1 - Demolition
Day 2 - It's a floating deck built on these concrete blocks. It was quite a job to get it all level
Day 3/4 - Deck all squared up and supported, now it's time to put the decking on top and build the stairs and bench (note how the patio got placed back inside the deck)
Woo hoo! All done - complete with new deck furniture
(We've even already had our first deck party!)
Proud dada
Our 'elper'
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