March Recap – Trav and Erin + 3

I’m having a hard time remembering what all we did in April—much less March—so this will be mostly pictures with captions. If I didn’t jot down quotes and notes every once in a while throughout the month, there’d be no way I’d keep up with all the cute things Brooklyn says or the girls’ latest developments. I think most of our free time in March was spent fixing up the house and getting ready for the yard sale we had in early April. It was busy for sure!

I walked into the living room one day to find this little blob watching a movie. Not sure how she could see the TV, but I guess she made it work!

Daddy had a little helper one night after supper when he was cleaning the table :) If Savannah ever sees us with a cleaning rag, she will run to the cabinet under the kitchen sink to grab her own rag too.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned the fact that Brooklyn has a heart murmur, but we first learned about it at her 18 month checkup. Dr. Dudley heard it then but wasn’t too concerned at the time. She didn’t mention it again at the 2 or 3 year checkup, but I happened to remember to ask her about it at Brooklyn’s 4 year checkup in February. She had to listen really closely, but she said she could actually still hear it (I think it was pretty faint). She still wasn’t too concerned, but she referred us to Dr. Israel, a pediatric cardiologist, just to get it checked out further. They got us in to see him the very next week, so our appointment was on March 2nd. It was a quick appointment—we were only there about 15 minutes or so. Dr. Israel was great. Brooklyn was pretty nervous (understandably so, since her doctor’s appointment the week before involved 3 shots), but he made the whole thing quick and easy. Basically, Brooklyn just had to sit in my lap while he did an ultrasound (echocardiogram) of her heart. It was neat to look at her heart pumping on the screen. He looked at it from all different angles and listened to her with his stethoscope, and he was able to easily tell that it was just a “functional” or “innocent” murmur–meaning that it’s nothing to worry about. I think it’s fairly common to hear them in young kids. He said as she grows eventually doctors probably won’t be able to hear it anymore because the distance through her rib cage to her heart will increase, making it harder to hear. Although I wasn’t too worried, we were relieved to hear it officially that Brooklyn’s heart is fine. I feel like if she’d had a worrisome murmur, it would have been causing other symptoms, and we all know how energetic and active Brooklyn is! I’m thankful that the appointment went so well! And on a less important note, I’m also thankful for good insurance—the out-of-pocket cost for that short visit would have been $1000, and we only had to pay our $40 copay!

Little painters! I still haven’t gotten brave enough to let Savannah use “real” paint yet—most of the time, she paints with a bowl of water and a brush ;)

Brooklyn wanted to paint a picture of Monster’s Inc., which was her favorite new movie from this month. The blue and purple monster is Sulley. The little green monster is Mike. And I think the purple monster inside the brown “door” is Randall. Very creative! :)

Sweet girl!

It’s hilarious to watch the girls play hide and seek together. Savannah usually just copies Brooklyn…she doesn’t understand that she’s supposed to hide while Brooklyn counts!

I mentioned this in Savannah’s 2 year update, but she has recently gotten very interested in baby dolls. Here, she is checking her baby’s temperature and giving her a checkup.

The girls love to eat at their little kitchen. Since this picture was taken, we’ve had to move that kitchen to Cici’s house temporarily while our house is on the market. They can’t wait to get it back!

More fun at the library during storytime!

We’ve made MANY trips to Lowe’s and Home Depot since early February getting our house ready to sell. Thankfully, the girls don’t seem to mind it too much :) On this particular night, we made 3 trips to the bathroom while we were there. If you’ve ever looked for the bathroom at Home Depot, it’s all the way on one side of the store. I felt like we definitely got our exercise that night!

On March 14th, Carter came over to our house for a few hours in the morning while Alisha was sitting with Grandma Dvorak. I think it must have been chilly outside that day because we stayed inside the whole time. The kids had fun playing with blocks and other toys around the house.

Toward the end of the morning, Brooklyn asked the watch a movie, so they all sat side by side on the couch for that. Buzz Lightyear was a hot commodity that day (translation: we were having issues sharing), so I had to come up with a quick solution:

One kid held Buzz, one held Woody, and one got Jessie. It seemed to work pretty well! :)

Cheese!

New rule at the Grant house: All food stays in the kitchen! We got our carpet professionally cleaned in March (I think…maybe late February?), and so we instituted the new rule after that. We’re trying to keep it as clean as possible!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day—we were feeling festive!

Brooklyn was very excited the first time we went to Sprout’s (“the fruit store”, as she calls it), and she took her own allowance money to buy something she picked out. Her piggy bank has a “spend” section, which we designated for buying small things like candy or snacks at the grocery store. So, we counted up her money, put it in a bag, and took it with us. She picked out sour gummy worms…yum! And she was so proud to hand the cashier her coins and pay for it all by herself. Very exciting morning—especially when she got to eat some of them right away :)

These cool kids were ready to eat lunch in the stroller while we walked around the neighborhood one day when it was nice outside.

Happy National Free Cone Day! Daddy has made it into a tradition to bring home a free cone from Dairy Queen every year on this “holiday” :) Luckily for Brooklyn, Savannah didn’t finish her supper, so Brooklyn got to eat the whole thing herself!

Cuties!

Bedtime Bible stories with “Gaga”

Travis spent all day one Saturday pressure washing the back patio, driveway, and sidewalks around our house. It was a lot of work, but they look great now!

I had my 12 week OB appointment on March 27th. We like to schedule the appointments right before lunch, so we can go out to eat with Daddy when we get finished. Firehouse Subs is always a favorite!

What could be better than fireman hats and lots of pickles?

Picnics with Brownie! (currently Brooklyn’s favorite stuffed animal)

At the end of March, I finally packed away all the girls’ winter clothes and pulled out the summer stuff. I have no idea why Brooklyn had so many 2T summer dresses, but Savannah is the lucky beneficiary now! I guess it’s justified since we are getting so much use out of all these clothes, right? ;)

Don’t lions always wear cheerleader outfits???

This girl is going to be one cute BIG sister!

Quotes and Notes from March:

Sometimes Brooklyn will mention during her prayers: “Please help us to learn You from the Bible.” :)
One night early in the month, we were trying to convince Brooklyn to watch a new movie that she hadn’t seen before, like Monster’s Inc. She had a few questions about the movie first. Most importantly: “What do monsters do with ‘inc.’? Do they squirt it out?”
After watching Monster’s Inc. a few times, she wanted to know: “Why’d they put the ‘machime’ on Michael ‘Magassy??’ (a.ka. Mike Wazowski)”
One day, I heard Savannah crying while the girls were playing. I asked, “Did you see what happened to Savannah, Brooklyn?” Her response: “She coughed and got more teeth!”
I wish I could remember the context of when Brooklyn said this, but one day she announced, “I haven’t married all my boys yet!”
One morning we were rushing to get ready and leave the house ASAP. I was fixing Brooklyn’s hair while she was eating breakfast at the table. I sprayed some detangler in her hair and started to comb it, and Brooklyn declared, “I don’t want you to get my strawberries all curly, too!”
This month, Savannah has started “answering wrong” on purpose to make us laugh!
Brooklyn’s prayer: “Thank you for washing our sins away.”
3/14/17 – Savannah started saying “baby” and practiced saying it literally all day long. Many times, it sounds more like “beebee” than “baby”, but we definitely know what she’s trying to say.
March 15th was Mom’s 5 year cancer free anniversary! It’s a big milestone to reach with triple negative breast cancer, so needless to say, we are all elated!
3/17/17 – Savannah is starting to say “pees” for please.
The consequence of watching Monster’s Inc. all month: Brooklyn has started asking me to look for monsters all around her room each night before bed. We check in her closet, behind her door, under her bed, and basically anywhere they could be hiding ;)
3/26/17 – We heard Brooklyn praying out loud in her bed totally unprompted after we tucked her in. So cool!
3/29/17 – I thought I’d been feeling little flutters from baby #3 for several weeks now, but today is the first day I was totally sure that’s what it was. 13 weeks along! I have definitely been able to pick up on it earlier with each pregnancy.