Faces of Brooklyn

Here are some pics of the cutie. She had two dry days and then four accidents in one day! One on my bed and another at the mall. Sigh! But since then, no problems. She is one easy kid.

Brooklyn-

An update of our snugglebug. Brooklyn's biggest achievement has been staying dry(in potty-training language)! I think she would have been fine to start training months ago, but I didn't want to complicate the move. So we waited, and she practically did it all herself!! I remind her, but she pretty much goes herself. I'm really grateful that was so easy, as I know it is not always the case. And I'm sure there are accidents coming, when I'm at the store and have a cartful of food. I'm not that naive. :)



She loves to say HEY! She says it all the time. Brooklyn is probably my child that needs me the least, which is good and bad. I love that she can entertain herself, but I don't want to ignore her just because she doesn't require a lot.

She loves to play and pretend, especially with Brighton. She usually goes along with whatever Brighton has cooked up. She's at that tricky age when she still needs a nap, but won't take one. Brighton had "quiet time" until she was at least 3 1/2; alone in her room listening to tapes and reading books. I'm trying that with Brooklyn, but she will only cooperate for about 30 min. Oh, well. That's enough time for me to do school with Brighton. My next task will be taking away Brooklyn's blanky and thumb. Always so hard!

Brooklyn loves her daddy best of all. She loves to dance and be a princess. She loves to snuggle. We sure love her!

Pancakes

Breakfast this morning:

Brooklyn ate 1
Brighton ate 2
Logan ate 5 ?!?
:)

It's stronger than shoe love...

It's bedspread love! As poor college students, we make do with what we have, or go without. My bed is one example. For the first few months we were married, James and I slept on an air mattress. Finally, we had saved up enough to buy a mattress set at an RC Willey Outlet. We didn't have a blanket large enough to cover it, so we used two or three twin blankets. Last year, I found a bed frame on craigslist- selling at $300. It had been on there a while, so I offered $100. She let me have it for $150. Steal! It had some gouges, but I filled them in with a brown sharpie. :) And the latest upgrade: A new king-sized bedspread!! I love it! My bedroom is slowly coming together. Slowly- notice the blue storage tubs being used as nightstands? :) But I love it even more because I've saved and waited to have what I want.

quick tip

James discovered this, and I think it's a great tip!! To cook ears of corn without the pots of boiling water, simply wrap each ear in a paper towel, get wet, and microwave for 3 min per ear. Voila! Perfectly cooked corn every time.

Cute little corn bundles!

Photos of Brighton

These aren't the best, but I wanted to get some pics up. She especially wanted everyone to note her new shoes. :) I feel like I'm constantly buying these kids shoes! They only one pair for church and one for play, so they wear out fast, I guess. And they must be going through a growing season for toes!! Brighton has been cracking James and me up with how formal she's been lately. She calls us mother and father. And in a slightly English accent. :) Silly kiddo!

Brighton

I thought I would give an update on each of the kids.  Brighton is doing so well!  She loves Primary, and was so brave about going to her new class here in Ames.  She really has grown up and become less timid this past year.  I've started doing school with her, just 15 minutes a day.  She's not even five yet, so I keep it really low key.  She really enjoys the just "mommy and Brighton" time, and it's really exciting to be a part of her learning to read.  We've only been doing it for a few weeks, and she can already read 4-5 words, and more each day.  

She has such an imagination, and it's really fun to hear her narrate her playtime.  She is a great friend to Brooklyn most of the time.  Her one downfall is trying to force Brooklyn to do what she wants, which as a mother you know is only going to end up with someone crying. :)  And she can be a little bossy, but we're working with her on that.  She also likes to read Logan books.  (side note: someone came up to me in the library a while ago while the girls were "reading" books to themselves, and after chatting with her for a while I realized that she thought the girls actually were reading!  I was almost sad to correct her, she was so impressed with my mom skills. :))  Books are still a BIG part of her day.  I'm always amazed with how well she can remember a story, or even just figure it out from looking at the pictures!  

Brighton has also given a few FHE lessons.  She especially like to tell about the tree of life and the fountain of filthy water.  She's a good listener- she likes to listen to books on tape, to music (she's really good at figuring out the mood of the music), and to me.  I'll be talking on the phone or to James, and she'll pipe up with "what's that mean?" or something like that.  She's getting older and pays closer attention - I'll have to be careful with what I'm saying!

I'll try to get some pictures of the girl up tomorrow.  We love our Brighton!!

The rest of the house...

This is our litte back porch area, which includes a small storage space. Filled to the brim!
My new friends, Edna and Beatrice. They are no-frills gals, but work hard. So great!! James added the bottom shelf here.
The front room is one big area, there is no dining space in the kitchen. So we're stuck here, eating on top of carpet. I really don't like that, but I have my trusty vacuum always close by.
Up the stairs...
Our upstairs bathroom, or the other bathroom I have to clean. :)
Hall closet

One of the two bedrooms. Most of the toys are here, and the girls sleep on the day/trundle bed. We haven't moved Logan to the crib yet, until all their sleeping schedules are worked out.

Our bedroom. Logan's bedroom. :) We have a pretty large closet, so that's where he is sleeping for now.

So that's it, that's our house! We've already had some adventures in the week and a half we've been here, so I'll keep posting! It was good to see all of your blogs again. Email me if you need my address.

Our new home

Finally!! We had to wait a looong time to get our internet hooked up. Life in the real world is hard- and expensive! You have to pay for cable, internet and phone at $30 bucks a pop, so we're only getting internet. Wymount sure was a fab deal- to my old friends still living there- stay!!

Stay there forever!! :)

I tried to take a video to give you a tour, but it's too dark today- another rainy day. So you'll have to live with a ton of pics.

This is the front of our townhouse. I like the screen door, so I can leave our door open during the nice fall days we've been having.

Our front room. The kids are watching a show- yup, Logan too. He's such visual kid, the girls refused to watch TV until they were at least 2. James' brother gave us a couch, and since we didn't have room for two and the red one was falling apart, we had to get rid of it. I loved that red couch!! Sniff.

The view from the other side of the room.

This was a weird shaped little closet that fit under the stairs, so we just took the door off and made it into a toy closet.

James TWO computers- he managed to get his hands on a Mac. Someone was junking (leaving large things on the side of the road for anyone to have)this computer desk and we grabbed it.

Our downstairs bathroom.








The kitchen. Not too large, but it does have a window! All the cupboards are faced with this blah plastic, so I covered the top cupboards with contact paper. And yes, that is a dishwasher! I named him Mario (thanks Chris!) and you'd think with a name like that he would be really tough and a hard worker, but really he's just a sensitive Italian that you have to pamper or he refuses to work. I'd just do the dishes myself, but that would really hurt his feelings.



I'll have to do the rest of the house in another post, this is going to be really long!