We have gotten quite a bit of snow/sleet/freezing rain today, so we decided it would be fun to get out and play in it. I got Brianna a pair of boots on a great sale last year – since they are still several sizes too big I stuffed some socks in the toes. After decking everyone out in our boots, coats, ski pants, hats, and gloves, we were off! At first Brianna was perfectly content to have Jason carry her, so we walked down to the “big hill” and watched all the kids sledding down the hill. She thought that looked pretty interesting! So we told her we had a sled too and asked her if she would like to check it out…yes!
Off we went back to the house to get the sled and attach a rope to it. This time, when we went outside she was definitely ready to get down and walk around a bit herself! She started by helping Jason pull the sled.
After a bit, she was done with that and ready to ride. Jason and I took turns pulling her around the cul-de-sac and down the street in the sled.
Then, she wanted to pull a little all by herself. She left her squeaky ball on the sled so it could ride along. It took her a bit to figure out how to hold onto the rope with her mittens on, but she got it!
She is now taking a nap – all worn out from the fun in the snow. But she reminded us several times that she is ready to go back out after her nap!
It was absolutely beautiful outside today with sunny skies and temps around 60° – in January!! I told Brianna that the next time it was nice outside, we would switch out her “rocking” tricycle and make it a “rolling” tricycle. As soon as I got it to the bottom of the driveway, she climbed right on. She is not using the pedals yet. Mostly she just scoots along using her feet Flintstones style.
She also figured out pretty quickly what that giant red handle was for…Mommy push!
She did try putting her feet on the pedals a couple of times, but she did not quite get that she needed to kind of hold her feet on the pedals as they moved, or that she could move the pedals herself. All in due time…
Yesterday Brianna went to a birthday party for her buddy Hawke (many of you have heard her talk about “Hawke and Max”). Hawke is turning two and invited his school buddies to a local play center with lots of large inflatable play areas (like Monkey Joe’s). Brianna was a little skittish at first – she would not climb up the steps to go down the slide, but she would go in the bouncy part and bounce around (she still has not quite gotten the hang of jumping, but she is a good “butt-bouncer”!). Her buddies were good sports and stopped every now and then to bounce with her before they moved onto the slide. Eventually, she got curious enough to check out the slide. Once she decided she could do it and wanted to do it, she was off!
After doing that for a while, she decided to check out the BIG slides. She even climbed part of the way up one of them all by herself (before deciding it would be easier if I carried her up). Here she is at the top of the batman slide!
After an hour or so of bouncing, running, and sliding, it was time to go to the party room for pizza and cake. Hawke, the birthday boy, is the one looking at the camera.
After refueling, all the kids started playing with their toy cars (Hawke’s birthday party theme was the Pixar movie Cars). Brianna had a great time zoom-zoom-zooming the cars around!
Before we left, Brianna gave Hawke a big happy birthday hug!
Despite the fact that she only got one nap yesterday (she still generally takes two), I thought she did a great job dealing with all the noise and lights and large number of strange people. I am sure having her “school buddies” there along with lots of fun bouncy areas to play on helped a lot. 
Brianna and Daddy watching football (while Brianna also tries to put on her Cookie Monster slippers – no help Daddy!).
We concluded our 2009/2010 holiday season with a visit from my Mom, Aunt, and Grandmother. Good food, good times, good visit! I guess it is now time to get back to our normal lives. Kind of sad really – never did like January much for that very reason. But at least we still have the NFL playoffs and the NCAA men’s basketball season! And, of course, our sweet baby girl always puts a smile on our face.
Brianna is 21 months old today!
I am not exactly sure how big she is, but she weighs somewhere in the 25 lb. range (which surely increases to at least 50 lbs every time I pick her up!), she still has a bit of a pot belly, and she is somewhere in the 32″ range in height. As you can see, her hair is getting quite long. In another month or so, I suspect I’ll be able to put it up in real pony tails.
She is still a very good eater, and really seems to like sauces (ketchup, pasta sauces, BBQ sauce, cheese sauce, whatever). So, in general, if we want her to eat some veggie, we can just put some sauce on it and voila! Her favorite foods are pizza, smoothies, french fries, noodles, applesauce, blueberries, and banana sauce. I suppose it would be nice if she begged for broccoli or green beans, but I am content with the fact that so far, she will at least eat these foods. She still shuns lima beans and avocado, but thankfully, the list of foods she won’t eat is currently very small.
Her vocabulary continues to grow by leaps and bounds every day, and she is working towards complete sentences. I think she has the capability, but not the desire to say a whole sentence – why say “I want more milk please” when you can just say “more milk please”? There are too many new words to keep up with now. Suffice it to say, she repeats EVERYTHING we say. She can count to 10, although I don’t think she fully comprehends what it all means, and she can sing portions of her ABCs (complete with “now I know my ABCs, next time won’t you sing with me). At school she is now starting to learn her colors and shapes…the learning continues!
She loves to sing and dance and listen to music. Right now, her favorite songs are Jingle Bells, some farm song on her MP3 player, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, and Yellow Submarine (by the Beatles). She generally won’t sing or dance on cue (hence the difficulty capturing it on video), but she quite frequently spontaneously busts into song or starts dancing around the house (picture lots of foot stomping and head bobbing).
Her mobility, of course, is scary good. She is still really good about stopping when we say stop and sitting on her bottom at the top of the stairs. Still, I think we should put the child gates up soon. We also plan to convert her tricycle from a rocking tricycle to a riding tricycle this month (as soon as the temps get above freezing) so she can start riding around the street. It looks like she can finally reach the pedals, so I think she will love it! Here she is running around the corner – I caught the picture before she could turn her head (her new trick when I pull out the camera).
She still loves reading her books, playing with her blocks, playing night-night with us, playing with her puzzles, and running around like a crazy girl. What a treasure she is!
The three of us have had a very nice couple of days, just relaxing and hanging out and getting back into some semblance of a schedule. On New Year’s Eve we went to PF Chang’s for lunch (gonna have to reevaluate what we order since I think Brianna ate as much of the sea bass as we did, leaving us a little hungry when we were done…). Brianna had a great time playing with her chopsticks and coloring.
Before heading home, we stopped at Babys R Us to exchange her Christmas slippers since they did not fit. She selected some alligator slippers and some cookie monster slippers, and has had a hard time choosing between them ever since! We finished the day having “tea” with Daddy.
On New Year’s Day morning, Brianna was kind enough to sleep until 8:30 AM! What a delightful child… She then proceeded to ask immediately for a mootie (i.e., smoothie). Since we were out of bananas, I made a quick run to Starbucks and we were all set.
Then it was time for some shopping cart play time in her new jammies and new slippers.
After her morning nap we got her all decked out in her Gator finery, including her new squeaky shoes with Gator bows! We spent the rest of the day reading stories with Daddy, playing with her puzzles, and running all over the place with her shopping cart (which currently is carrying her tea pot, a baby doll, and some colored sprinkles from the kitchen…). For the evening festivities, she chose her cookie monster slippers over her gator bows and her gator slippers. I wasn’t too sure, but given the performance of the Gators later that evening, Brianna clearly knows best!
My sweet girl…
Happy New Year everyone!
