I know I’m months behind on blogging at this point, but January just feel like it was YEARS ago because of how crazy this year has been. If only we’d known what was around the corner, maybe I would have savored normal life a little bit more…
We kicked off the start of 2020 with pancakes and silly faces for breakfast on New Years Day!
Abigail thought they were delicious too :)
Ever since Brooklyn went to the fall book fair at school, she’d been making plans to have her own book fair at home. (Brooklyn is our little entrepreneur…she always has an idea for a business venture or some way to make money.) She didn’t just want to have a pretend book fair…she wanted to have a REAL book fair and invite friends and family to come. She was very serious about it and spent a lot of time making books and pricing everything to get ready for the big day. We decided to have her book fair on January 2nd before school started back and things got hectic again…
Brooklyn has enjoyed making her own books since before she could even write words. It started out with her drawing the pictures and then telling me what to write, and now it has progressed into Brooklyn writing and illustrating everything. Some of the books in her book fair were ones she wrote back in kindergarten, and others were made specifically for the book fair :)
I tried to work with her on the prices, but they were still a little high ;)
She did make 2 copies of “the noos” (news) for free though :)
We invited her friends from our neighborhood plus a few families from church. Her customers included Sarah Dyess and her girls, the Gilstraps, and the Hesters on the official book fair day, and then Cici, Rae Rae, Aunt Alisha, and Aunt Melissa all bought books before or after the book fair. Brooklyn was thrilled to have so many customers. It was really sweet of everyone to take the time to come and support her book fair…it really made her day!
“Don’t mind me…I’m just unmaking your nicely-made bed, Mommy.”
We ate dinner at the Hesters’ house that evening, and Brooklyn enjoyed playing their new arcade games in the playroom.
We also looked at pictures/videos from our trip back in November. The girls liked watching the Magic Kingdom parade the second time around almost as much as they did the first!
I think seeing pictures of Cocoa Beach must have inspired the girls to make their own beach. The brown blanket was the “sand”, and the blue blanket was the “ocean”. I liked how they put fish in the ocean ;)
Playing with their beach ball…haha
Cocoa Beach – No Other People Allowed
I can never tell which twin is which when I look back at pictures…Abigail loves both of them though!
Brooklyn’s first day back to school after Christmas break was January 6th. The girls enjoyed riding bikes and scooters after she got home that afternoon.
They also asked if they could ride their bikes down to the playground, so I said that was fine. Not to be left out, Abigail wanted to ride a scooter. She thinks she is riding it when she stands on it with both feet and I push her. So I pushed her on the scooter the whole way there and back…haha. The whole time at the playground, she kept shouting, “Graff my han!” (grab my hand) so that I would hold her hand while she went down the slide. She even wanted me to hold her hand when she walked back around to climb back up the stairs again :)
Emily Johnson and her girls came over after school on January 7th. We always enjoy getting together with them for playdates.
On January 8th, I took the girls up to school to volunteer for Duty Free Lunch. I always enjoy getting to see Brooklyn at school during lunchtime, and I know Savannah likes it too.
Savannah and Abigail set up a dessert shop up in the playroom, Savannah proudly told me what each dessert was :)
Savannah LOVES her new Bitty Baby doll (Ryleigh). She wants to change her clothes every day, give her a bottle, tucks her into her baby cradle at night, and asks if she’s holding her the right way. Brooklyn has never been as interested in dolls as Savannah is. It’s very sweet!
Sneaky toddler in the pantry…again
She’s also a big helper when folding the laundry ;)
On January 11th, Brooklyn went to a birthday party at Altitude Trampoline Park. The weather was really stormy that day, but thankfully it cleared up right before it was time for us to drive there.
Declan, the birthday boy, was one of her best friends in Ms. Carter’s class. Brooklyn had a great time at the party and was worn out by the time we left!
This picture pretty much sums up Abigail – she thinks she’s a princess and throws lots of royally awful fits!
Caitlyn snapped this sweet picture of Savannah and Gabriel after church on Sunday. It’s so neat how Brooklyn and Savannah are so close in age to Nathan and Gabriel.
Brooklyn and Savannah discovered Magic Erasers and had fun going around the house and scrubbing scuffs off the doors/walls. I just need to figure out how to get them this excited about some of their other chores…haha
It’s always fun to splash in puddles!
On January 14th, Savannah and Abigail ate lunch on the back patio after music class.
“I can do it myself!” – Abigail’s life motto
Marilyn babysat the girls for me on January 16th while I went to an appointment, and she took this picture and sent it to me. They love it when Ms. Marilyn comes over!
Savannah enjoyed doing crafts from her new craft kit during Abigail’s naptime that afternoon :)
Her chicken was very colorful!
Silly faces at dinner time…
Haha!
This is Abigail’s funny face…she always gets a laugh when she scowls like this…and then when we all start laughing, she can’t keep a straight face anymore ;)
Brooklyn’s robot, Botley, doesn’t get played with too much these days, but every once in a while Brooklyn will pull him out of the box. The girls asked Daddy to help them make “booby traps” for Botley to run into, and they thought it was hilarious when Botley crashed everything down :)
We celebrated Rae Rae’s birthday on January 18th, and as usual, the girls helped decorate a special birthday cake for her. Yes, it was covered in lots of sprinkles by the end of it!
Abigail was so excited about the “happy birthday” cake we made :)
All 3 girls helped Rae Rae blow out the candles!
We had a fun afternoon celebrating our favorite Rae Rae :)
Brooklyn lost tooth #6 later that night (January 18th). She said, “I think I’m pretty cool because I’ve lost 6 teeth AND I’m 6 years old!”
The tooth fairy tried to stop by Brooklyn’s room FOUR times that night, and Brooklyn woke up every single time. The tooth fairy finally had to leave a note saying that she couldn’t take the tooth because Brooklyn wasn’t sleeping soundly and she didn’t want to bother her. Thankfully, the tooth fairy was able to come back the next night to get the tooth and answer Brooklyn’s latest round of questions ;) Her note said: “I love you, tooth fairy. This is my sixth tooth lost! Can I please have a 500 dollar bill? How are you so quiet? What is my middle name?”
On January 19th, we worked on Brooklyn’s 100th Day of School project. She made a rainbow out of 100 skittles. It turned out really cute. The hardest part was figuring out how many Skittles of each color we needed to make the rainbow shape. It didn’t hurt that she got to eat some of the extra Skittles too!
Brooklyn had the day off for MLK Jr. Day, so the girls enjoyed staying in their PJs and warming up by the fire :)
The next day was the official 100th day of school, so Brooklyn took her finished project to school that day…
Here are all the kids in Ms. Carter’s class on the 100th day!
The other projects turned out really cute as well!
Fun snack time for the 100th day of school
Brooklyn came home wearing her special hat and carrying her “superstar snack”!
The parents sent in special snacks for the day, and the kids glued them onto these papers. There were 100 squares in all. Brooklyn enjoyed eating the extra gummy bears and marshmallows the best :)
I love her little friends set up on the table while she eats :)
I caught Brooklyn reading to Savannah on Wednesday night before we headed to Bible class. So sweet! She is usually “too embarrassed” to read to her sisters (that’s what she says, anyway).
We found out right before Brooklyn went back to school after Christmas break that her teacher, Ms. Carter, had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She emailed all of the parents to let us know. Ms. Carter is a single mom (recently divorced, I think) and has 2 kids (one of which is Savannah’s age), and she has no family in town. I was devastated for her and, as one of the room moms, I knew it would be great to organize some kind of group gift to give her before she had surgery and was out of the classroom for several weeks. Some parents chose not to tell their kids in specifics about what was going on with Ms. Carter, so there wasn’t a good way to involve all the kids in a gift for her without telling them why we were doing it. So, what we ended up doing was collecting money from any of the parents who wanted to chip in. We decided to collect money rather than just giving her gift cards so that she could use it for medical expenses, food delivery, or whatever she needed. We also collected several cards (including some from the kids), and we put together a basket with some of her favorite snacks and the cards inside.
Kaitlin and I took the gift basket to Ms. Carter right after school on January 24th. We were able to meet the long-term sub, Ms. Scopes. who would fill in for Ms. Carter while she was out recovering from the surgery. Many of the teachers and staff wore pink in her honor that day since it was her last day of school before her surgery. It was an emotional day for Ms. Carter, and I think she really appreciated the gift we brought.
That evening, we took the girls to the library for their Once Upon a Winter’s Night event. We went a couple of years ago, and it was a lot of fun!
We got there right before the puppet show started, and we had to sit pretty far back in the room. (Side note: Looking at the picture 7 months later now that we are in pandemic mode is shocking…we were packed in there like sardines. No social distancing that night! Ha!).
Brooklyn and Savannah made a wand…
…and all of the girls got their faces painted!
Savannah’s snowman turned out really cute!
I was surprised that Abigail sat still long enough to get her face painted!! It didn’t really show up very well…it was a white snowflake, but she tried at least!
Brooklyn was excited about her Frozen snowflakes :)
Everyone was excited to eat a piece of cake!
Last but not least, we met Anna and Elsa and got their autographs :) (We could have met Snow White also, but Brooklyn and Savannah didn’t want to.)…
We had a great night!
Brooklyn was still excited about her book fair by the end of the month and thought if she advertised it on our front door, all of our neighbors would stop by and buy more of her books…haha
Sisters = built-in playmates!
Abigail had a weird rash around her mouth for a couple of weeks in January. It eventually went away, but I don’t remember this happening with either of the other girls before.
Kobe Bryant, his daughter, and several other people died in a helicopter crash on January 26th. It shocked the world, and I really appreciated what Benjamin Watson posted on Facebook afterward. I remember thinking that Kobe’s death would be the big news story of 2020. 7 months later, and wow. This has been a year.
Abigail loves to race from the front door all the way to the living room pushing her car as fast as she can :)
Savannah has really gotten good at coloring…
She enjoys playing soccer in the backyard sometimes too :)
Gabby joined us for dinner, and we had to get a picture ;)
Savannah loves her “school friends” as she calls them…Addie, Chloe, and Hannah. They are so sweet together!
We went to the playground with Emily and her girls on January 30th after school. It was a bright and sunny day, so I’m not sure why the umbrellas were such a hit. Whatever keeps them entertained, I guess!
Rebekah Faris and Ivey came over for a playdate on January 31st, and we had the best morning. Ivey and Savannah had a blast playing together, and I enjoyed catching up with Rebekah.
Savannah is starting to write her letters, but I think this was the first sentence she’s ever written. She needed help with the spelling, but I thought she did a great job!
The girls all enjoyed painting that afternoon after Brooklyn got home from school…
Brooklyn painted these notes for Ms. Carter and even made the envelope out of a yellow piece of paper :)
That night, Travis took Brooklyn on her very first daddy-daughter date! Brooklyn requested that they eat at Firehouse Subs and go get ice cream afterward. On their date, Brooklyn asked Daddy if her last name would become her first name when she got married one day…haha. Travis said Brooklyn was so excited the whole night and they had a great time. Hopefully these date nights will become a regular thing in the future!
Notes and Quotes from January:
- 1/4/20 – Abigail calls Buzz Lightyear “Buzz White”. She also says “Woe Welcome” for “you’re welcome” :) She is speaking in sentences, asking questions (“Can we watch a movie, Mommy?”), and talks all the time. She is SUPER verbal and talkative.
- 1/5/20 – Abigail is now trained to say “cheeeese” (and sometimes even smile) when I point my phone at her…haha. She will also take my phone, point it at me, and tell me, “Say Cheese! Look dis way!” I obviously take way too many pictures and videos!
- 1/7/20 – I made the mistake of asking Brooklyn while she was eating breakfast (and still in a grumpy mood) about where she wanted to have her birthday party this year. Altitude Trampoline Park, an inflatable party place, an art museum, etc. She frowned at all of the choices and exclaimed, “I don’t like any of those! I just want to have a party where all the kids get to act like lions!”
- 1/8/20 – Abigail likes to be in charge and make decisions. She tells me exactly what she wants at bedtime: “I want goodnight” (I want you to tell me ‘good night’…and then she says “Goodnight, Mommy”). “I want seep tight” (I want you to tell me ‘sleep tight’). “I want Abram” – I want you to sing me my favorite Bible class song. “I want Moana covered up.” – I want you to cover up my Moana doll. “I want hug.” She definitely likes to voice her opinions and preferences!
- 1/10/20 – The other day, I was getting Abigail ready for bed, and I can’t remember what she was talking about, but she said, “That’s ti-tusting!” (disgusting) Haha!
- 1/10/20 – Abigail’s hair is finally long enough for a small rubberband (a Pebbles look) on top. She requests to wear one and calls it a “bandaid” instead of a rubberband. (“My bandaid! My bandaid!”)
- 1/18/20 – We were talking about how hard it is to be a parent, and Brooklyn said, “It’s not that hard!” I replied, “Oh yeah, how about changing diapers in the middle of the night?” Then she said, “Ew, gross. I will never do that!”
- 1/21/20 – Abigail exclaimed, “The back-yoom (vacuum) is eating in the office!” Our robot vacuum is always getting in there and trying to suck up the receipts all over the floor ;)
- 1/23/20 – In the last week or two, Abigail has started saying her own prayer sometimes. She’s never attempted to say one, so this is a first. It goes, “Thank you Mommy and Daddy! In Jesus, Amen!”
- 1/27/20 – Ms. Carter’s surgery and Ms. Scopes’ first day as Brooklyn’s substitute teacher
- 1/31/20 – The robot vacuum came by while we were eating supper tonight. I said, “Bye, Eufy!” (Eufy is the brand.) Savannah said, “Bye, friend!” And then Abigail said, “Bye, Goofy the friend!”
Thanks for reading!
