Hairbows and more

Miracle of miracles! Yes, I was able to put a hairbow in the two strands of hair Brooke has on her head. It is very exciting! When Brooke was born I was kind of glad that she didn't have any hair, I thought it made her look more like a baby and I didn't have to fix it. But as time has gone on and all her little friends have started wearing pony tails and getting haircuts and Brooke is still lacking in the hair department I've gotten a little sad. I want my baby to look like a cute little girl! So I bought these hairbows thinking there is no way they will stay in there, but I'll give it a shot and it has actually stayed in all day!


For the past several months, Brookes answer to every question was invariably "No". But in the last couple of weeks she's started giving a little more thought to questions and now she will either say "No", "Kay" or "Yes".

Brooke loves sign language. We watch the little Signing Time movies and she just loves them. It is amazing how quickly she picks it up. I swear she knows more signs than I do. The other day I told her I was going to call her aunt, and she immediately signed the word aunt and I know I've never done that word with her.

She is starting to use some phrases in her talking. My favorites are: "Here you go", "Let's go play", "Food all gone", "I need hug", and of course my favorite "Love you".

The other day we went to the park for the first time in several months. It was so amazing to see all the new things that she could do. For the first time she went down the BIG slide by herself and climbed up on the horse all by herself. She was very proud of herself and so was I.




This morning after I got her dressed, Brooke brought each of her stuffed animals over and said "shirt". So I helped her get all her animals dressed. She then put them in bed, read them a story, kissed them all and said "night, night". It was so cute!

Kids are so much fun!

Visitors

This past weekend, my dad and stepmom came to visit. Living in a remote area as we do, we don't get many visitors so we were super excited to see them. We had so much fun! Brooke can be a little hesitant with new people, but smart grandpa brought her some new books and once he read them to her, she loved him. As soon as she woke up on Saturday morning she started saying "Grandpa, book." So he definitely got on her good side quickly. On Saturday we went up to Bandelier and checked out the Indian ruins and went on a little hike. Then Saturday evening we got a babysitter and we went to a concert for a wind quintet group called the Amani Winds. It was great! As rarely as we get a babysitter, I just love it when we do; it just seems like we get to connect more as a couple and less as parents. So we had a great time, we LOVE visitors.

Sweet Tooth

I always debate whether or not I should do something like give my daughter a beater full of frosting. In the end I usually figure that as we eat fairly well for the most part, giving her a sugar high every once in a while won't be the end of the world. Anyways I just remember as a kid loving getting the beaters and she certainly enjoyed it.

High Quality Merchandise

The other day I was running on my treadmill, minding my own business when suddenly I heard a distinct "crack". When I got off to investigate, I noticed a LARGE crack all the way down the running board of the treadmill. After I stopped feeling a little bad about my weight at breaking the treadmill I started thinking about the quality of things that I buy. Now I admit I do have a tendency to break things, but when I started thinking about all the things I've broken I got a little freaked out. Here is a list of some of the things that we have gone through in our 4+ years of marriage: 1 toaster, 1 microwave, 1 crock pot, 4 mixers, 2 blenders, 2 cameras, 1 tv, 1 dvd player, 1 washer. Honestly most of the things were my fault, but I just can't help thinking that things should last longer. Is it just me? Does anyone else break things? What do you think about the quality of stuff these days? Am I just buying cheap stuff or do you guys have this problem as well?

Super Bowl

Well, we don't have cable so we regularly only get three channels. But as we wanted to watch the super bowl, Reid did some finnagling (note the hangers on the antennae) and we got fairly good reception. Who needs cable?