happy birthday, uncle carl & uncle zach!

happy birthday to carl and zach!  hope you both had great birthdays.  brooke has enjoyed singing happy birthday to both of you all week long.  we tried getting it on video tape for a nice birthday greeting for both of you, but of course, brooke decided she didn't want to cooperate.  so sorry, this is the best i could do.  love you both!!

girls and their baby dolls

i was wondering when a fascination with baby dolls would kick in for brooke, and about 2 months ago, it did.  brooke loves playing with her baby dolls at home and at school, and she particularly loves putting them to sleep.  she has this whole process she goes through - baby placed on stomach, blanket unfolded and very carefully placed on top of baby, baby patted on back followed by singing "night, night, baby" (which sounds more like "ni, ni, bity").  then after about 2 seconds, brooke decides it's time to wake them up, so she throws the blanket off of them and scoops them up saying, "bity woke up!"

several of brooke's baby dolls have pacifiers, which has led to an inadvertent obsession with pacifiers.  brooke thinks that she needs one and thinks it's funny to ask for one, even though she gave them up a year ago!

this is a picture of brooke making a home under our kitchen table for her and her babies.  the babies are "sitting up high" as brooke would say.

gotta love this age :)

  

my hiatus is over

today is the day i recommit myself to blogging!  i guess i've had too much going on, too much on my mind, too much to do....  kevin and i are on vacation this week, so it seems like as good a time as any to pick this thing back up again.

our ghost

so, when my sister started watching brooke for us during the day at our house, it was only a month or so before she declared that we had a ghost in our house.  i thought this was a pretty funny comment and told her that old houses tend to make a lot of weird noises.  she was insistent it was a ghost.  then one night kevin and i were downstairs, and brooke's music table started playing on it's own.  there was literally nothing around it that could have been triggering the music.  we just looked at each other and laughed.  shortly after that i was out in the cul-de-sac talking to our neighbors when i decided to bring it up to our "psychic" neighbor.  (i'm not kidding... she does readings and everything).  i told her a couple of quick things about our "ghost" and she very nonchalantly told me it was my maternal grandmother.  i wondered aloud why my maternal grandmother would be in my house given i was never very close to her.  she said it didn't matter; she was there to look over brooke.  chills!  i immediately called my mom and sister to tell them what my neighbor said, but i don't think i told anyone else.  i think i even forgot about our ghost.  she either left because she no longer felt she was needed, or she just got very quiet.  but, the other night kevin came home late... brooke was asleep, and i was already in bed.  right as he pulled up to the house i heard a loud noise in brooke's room.  i instinctively thought her crib rail fell, so i went in to check on her.  she was still sound asleep, but sure enough her crib rail was down.  i just thought i hadn't secured it well enough when i put her to bed.  BUT, then kevin came in, and we were both in the bathroom getting ready for bed when my cell phone rang.  i went into the bedroom to see who was calling so late, and it was kevin.  thing was, his phone was sitting face up on our bed, and kevin was in the OTHER ROOM!  weird.  if anyone can come up with an explanation for that, i'd love to hear it!

brooke's first icee at the zoo

we took brooke to the zoo on sunday to see the giraffes.  brooke loves giraffes - her lovey is a giraffe, so we wanted her to see the real deal.  i think she really liked them.  what she liked more, however, was the cherry icee i bought :)  what i didn't know is that the zoo doesn't allow lids or straws, so here i was with this big cup of icee and a little girl who couldn't keep her hands off it!  needless to say, it ended up down the front of her.  that was after she spilled half of it on the ground :)  check out her joker-like grin in this picture - compliments of the icee.

history made

it's been amazing to watch... on night one i said to kevin, "come on, he has to win every single time he swims???  who could do that?"  and then with each passing night, it started to seem possible.  it was amazing... exhilarating... hard to believe my eyes... jumping up and down... unforgettable... and then some.

water monkies