Mid-January Update

Either writer’s block or laziness has hit me lately, but I just haven’t felt like blogging. Sorry! We haven’t had anything groundbreaking going on around here…just the normal day-to-day activities. But, in the spirit of record-keeping, I will do my best to document it and make it semi-interesting :)

I worked 12 hours on Friday and 12 hours yesterday (Travis was off for MLK Day), so Brooklyn and I have been taking it easy today. I’m tired! It’s such a nice day outside that we spent an hour outside in the backyard this morning just sidewalk chalking on the patio, blowing bubbles, and enjoying the sunshine. I get tired of being cooped up inside during the winter, and Brooklyn loves being outside anyway, so we try to take full advantage of the nice weather when it happens!

Last summer, all Brooklyn wanted to do was “eat” the sidewalk chalk, so this is a big improvement…haha!

Then, Aunt Alisha and Cousin Carter came over and we went for a walk. Brooklyn had to check him out and see who was in that car seat :)

As far as inside activities to keep Brooklyn busy, her favorite things to do right now are probably coloring, playing with stickers, pushing around her baby doll in the stroller, being tickled or chased around the house, using her “doctor kit” (especially the thermometer and stethoscope), looking at books, playing with her kitchen, and watching Doc McStuffins (“Dockins”), Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and any and all animal shows.

And then there’s always just making a mess by getting out every toy she owns. That’s the most fun. It’s interesting to me that she cannot hardly play with the same thing for longer than a minute (and usually it’s literally more like 10-15 seconds) before she’s onto the next activity. I’ve been told that’s typical for a toddler her age, but after being around a few other 2 year olds…I’m not so sure. We were at Angela’s baby shower at work last week, and Angela has a little girl (coincidentally named Savannah) who is just 2 months older than Brooklyn. The shower was held in our playroom at work, so both girls enjoyed playing while we were there. It was funny to see the difference in both of them: Savannah played in the kitchen area for a solid 10-15 minutes straight without moving on to anything else. During that same time, Brooklyn had literally destroyed the playroom. She was so excited by all the toys that she got EVERYTHING out but yet didn’t hardly play with any of it. I hope by the time she starts kindergarten that she will have a longer attention span, or we might be in trouble ;)

 Brooklyn and Savannah

Laura’s little boy, Charlie, stole the show! He is so cute!

Here are some other pictures from the past couple of weeks:

Rae Rae came to babysit week before last, and she brought Brooklyn a souvenir from their trip to D.C. It was a book, of course! Thanks Rae Rae :)

Cici has some pretty cool pop-up books at her house, and Brooklyn enjoys looking at those too!

Lining up the magnets on the fridge is another fun activity!

Playing with her kitchen – there are two yellow chairs that go with the kitchen, and one of them is “Brooklyn chair” and one is either “Mommy chair” or “Daddy chair”, depending on who is home :) Thankfully, we haven’t broken our chair yet!

Watching TV always requires a thumbie :)

Monkey see, monkey do – apparently we have taught Brooklyn (without meaning to) to drink the milk from her bowl of cereal after she is finished eating…hahaha! She actually does it really well and doesn’t usually spill it. She is good about waiting until she’s eaten the cereal first and there’s not much milk left. It’s so funny though!

Brooklyn is saying so many new words and phrases now that it’s crazy. It’s actually gotten harder to understand her now than it used to be. I guess it’s because she’s using so many new words. She will attempt to say just about anything. This child loves to sing too! I find myself singing with her pretty much all day long at home, so I guess that’s why. We’ve been told that she sings very enthusiastically in Bible class, which isn’t surprising at all. I wish I could be a fly on the wall because I’m sure she sings at the top of her lungs like she does at home. That girl isn’t shy! So far, we have been to 2 Music Together classes, and she has done great both times. She seems to really enjoy them, so I’m glad we signed her up. She is also starting swim lessons in February, so that should be interesting. Daddy has been “volunteered” (by his pregnant wife) to get in the pool with her, so I will be the photographer sitting on the side. Hopefully she won’t have a fit that I’m not the one in the pool with her, but I’m worried that’s exactly what will happen. She does great with Daddy when I’m not around (like when I’m at work), but according to him, she is a different child when I’m at home: a.ka. clingy, whiny, and wants Mommy ALL the time. He can’t even hold her at church if I’m standing there, or she screams her head off. So, life may get really interesting when Savannah gets here, and Brooklyn can’t have my undivided attention 24/7. Pray for my sanity, please…and pray that Savannah will be a Daddy’s girl! :)

We have been working hard to get organized around here lately too! We are really close to being finished with our garage organization project, which makes me really excited. It is looking great! I know that no one else cares about our garage but us, but you better believe I will be sharing pictures once it’s finished. It is a huge transformation from the way it used to look!

We have also started the process of turning our guest bedroom into Brooklyn’s room. That’s right…our plan is to move Brooklyn into the guest bedroom and give Savannah the “nursery”. The main reason is that the guest bedroom has a big walk-in closet, which would be great for all of Brooklyn’s toys and extra stuff. And, since Brooklyn will be transitioning to a “big girl bed” soon, it just makes sense to do that at the same time that she gets a whole new room. Plus, if the girls end up sharing a room one day (if we are brave enough to try to squeeze 3 kids into this house at some point), I’d rather move Savannah into Brooklyn’s room than vice-versa. So, that’s our plan.

I’ve got all of the bedding for Savannah’s nursery, so once we move Brooklyn into the guest bedroom, I’ll be able to decorate Savannah’s room fully. I’m really excited about how it will look!

Over the weekend, I got our diaper stash organized too. Brooklyn is currently wearing size 4s, but I’ve still been slowly stocking up on size 1-3s over the past year. I counted them up, and Savannah has over 700 diapers already…yay! I know we’ve still got a lot more to buy, but I’d rather buy them cheap than have to go out and pay full price down the road :)

Last week, I did the dreaded glucose tolerance test on Monday morning, and thankfully I passed. I was really dreading it, but it wasn’t as bad as I remembered it being last time. I still felt tired the rest of the day, but at least my head wasn’t pounding. I tried to eat a lot of protein the night before, so maybe that helped. Thank you, Aunt “Bicki”, for coming over and watching Brooklyn for a few hours. It was a huge help to not have to drag her along with me!!

Tomorrow I will be 26 weeks. Time is flying by! I’m still feeling pretty good overall, although I’ve been waking up a lot at night lately trying to get comfortable. Other than that, no complaints. Brooklyn is (knock on wood) sleeping through the night for the time being, so I’m really trying to enjoy that while it lasts. She has also been taking great naps lately; a lot of them are at least 2 hours long. It’s been so, so nice! Savannah has been really kicking around a lot lately. I’m thinking she is still breech (like she was at 20 weeks) because I feel most of her movements really low near my bladder. I guess we will find out for sure what position she is in when we do the 4D ultrasound in a couple of weeks. I’m excited to see her face again!

I guess that’s mostly what’s going on around here. I’m planning to do a blog post at some point about my hopes and concerns for labor/delivery this time around and things I’d like to do differently this time too. Stay tuned for that.

Hope y’all are all having a great week so far!! :)