3,6,9,10,Yellow!!!

Wondering where the title comes from? That is how Brooke counts.Relaxing on the deck and after getting undressed & Brooke decided that she didn't actually want to take a bath, she just wanted to be naked

Brooke is our little sweetheart with a spicy side. We came home one day to find Blake laying on the couch downstairs. Brooke goes up to him and says "Daddy, are you okay? Do you need a hug? Do you need some scissors?" I think she was hoping that we'd say, "Yes, Brooke go upstairs and get the scissors for us. While you're up there, cut something up, won't you?"She loves scissors and stickers. We have to hide both. Sunday morning Brooke was running around without her shirt. I told her to go get it. She brings me her shirt, only to find she has stickers all over her belly! She also loves to color and read books. She has the book "Mr. Brown Can Moo" memorized. If you ask her what does the rain say she replies "dibble-dibble, dibble-dop". She also has one of those "Fur Real" animals she got for Christmas. It's a kitty. It meowed once and Brooke goes "Oh, Kitty, why you crying? Do you need a momma?" She said it like she was so concerned about it. Brooke will also call Blake and I by our first names. We always hear calls for "Bwake" Or "Coatnee" and have to remind her, "no I'm mommy/daddy"
Other loves *yogen (yogurt)
* chocit noke (chocolate milk) "hot" means she wants it heated in the microwave. Nestle makes a no sugar addes chocolate milk mix, and whenever I get it out of the cupboard Brooke points and exclaims "Bunny drink it!" At first I didn't know what she was talking about, but on the front there is a picture of bunny with a glass of chocolate milk and B. thinks that is hilarious.
*loves the cat that is still hanging around our house. Everyday she has to go ouside and try to find it. When she does, Brooke shouts "Kitty! Kitty!"
*birdy (the movie Up) I think it's the combination of the ballons and the bird that make it so exciting for her.
*shoes. Brooke has to be wearing shoes at all times! She loves new shoes. I just got some summer flipflops for her and she is in heaven wearing them. Notice the burned pot holders? That pretty much summarizes the quality of my cooking.

*singing songs. She learned a circle song at daycare and sings it all the time. She can sing along with me to "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" and "Twinkle, Twinkle"

*being a mommy to her baby. She puts it to bed, rocks it, changes it's diaper, takes it potty, hears it crying and picks it up. It's so cute to watch!
*saying prayers. Brooke always prays right along with us. She's even mastered "Dear Heavenly Father..." sometimes she prays about her movies, or about grams and pinch or mommy and daddy.
*wady (Lady, grams and pinches dog) Right now, Brooke is standing at the back door yelling for "Wady" to "Come here!" She also took a pie crust off the counter and informed me it was cookie for Lady and wanted to bring it out to her.

Oh, but she can throw a nasty temper tantrum. She purposefully bangs her head on the wall or floor until she cries, she scratches at her head, rips her hair bows out, screams at the top of her lungs, tries to take off her clothes.... it's a real show.

I'm still delaying potty training. Brooke wears pull-ups and goes in the potty a few times a day, but is only good about it if we remind her. If we forget, she doesn't use the potty. I think changing her over to big girl underwear would fix that, but that is a hurdle I'm not mentally ready to deal with. The plan is to do it as soon as I get out of school for the summer. That way it will be warm enough for Brooke to run around in just her undies and I can devote all my attention to her.

And Finally, some conversations with Brooke: She is so cute and funny once you get her talking!

A Vacation of her Own

I wanted to keep up my post of our cruise, because I like looking at the pictures (not of us, of the scenery). I am still walking on cloud nine. I might have to make prints of some of our pics and hang them in our house for us to look at all time ;) I also want to briefly mention a couple of things that happened on the cruise:
1.I told a friend before I left that my 3 biggest worries were 1)having my stuff stolen 2)getting murdered (the Bahamas and Carribean rank the highest in tourist murders) and 3)missing the boat at one of the ports. Since none of those things happened, I'd say it was a successful trip!

2. Did you know that banana trees are actually banana plants? The plants only produce one bunch of bananas per plant and then it is cut down. Isn't that crazy? You would think bananas would be a lot more expensive than they are.

3. Our friends TJ and Katie are from North Dakota from a town of only 200 people (and I thought my town was small!) Anyway, they have very thick accents (think the movie "Fargo") and one person even asked them if they were from Ireland. What?! Too funny!

4. We did a couple of excusions through the ship, but they are pretty expensive. So most days we would try to find taxi's or local companies to take us places and do activities. We were standing in line for a taxi to Cane's Bay in St. Croix and we paid for a round trip ticket. The lady at the front table said to everyone, "We are not responsible if our drivers leave you, or don't come back to pick you up" Blake and I just looked at each other with wide eyes. We get up to pay for our ticket and Blake says "Oh please come back for us! We don't have enough money to pay for another ticket!" They did indeed come back for us, for which we were very grateful!

5. There was a sign on one of the beaches that said, "No You Litter!!" Being the English nerd that I am, I got a good chuckle out of it.

6. Dominica has active volcoanoes so they have black sand beaches.

7. Nowhere on the boat, or on a any of the islands were there Pepsi/Dr. Pepper products. I was dying for one.

8. We got to try some interesting foods on the boat like lamb shank and escargo (Both were yummy by the way!)

While we were gone, though, Brooke had a vacation of her own with Honey and Pinch:

Cousins Jack and Isabel came to play:

Brooke got to ride the tractor with Pinch:And help plant a row of peas

She helped Honey wash dishesAnd did lots and lots of crafts...She watched "Nemo" and "Inc" (Monster's Inc) and they even braved taking her to a movie at the theater. Blake and I haven't even done that yet! They said she did great until the last 15-20 minutes.There was lots of chocolate...

And some outdoor time... Of course when we got home we couldn't wait to kiss and hug our Brooke trout!Thank you, thank you for taking such good care of Brooke while were gone and taking all the pictures too. We couldn't have done a vacation like this without someone to love and care for B. as much as we do!

Cruisin' the Caribbean

After departing from San Juan at 2pm Saturday and arriving home at 4 am Sunday morning, we're back!! We had a blast on our cruise, and are already planning to do it again. It really was a week in paradise: gorgeous scenery, warm weather, good friends, 5 star food and so many fun memories made. No diapers, no revolving my schedule around Brooke's naps, no screaming toddler in the restaraunts, sleeping in....it was heavenly! Warning: We took A LOT of pictures. I've tried to condense them and have added 3 short videos too. You can click on the collages to make them bigger.Next time, you're all invited to come with us!I wasn't too impressed with Peurto Rico. It had really pretty buildings, though. Here is a picture of our stateroom (yes they are tiny, but not as small as I thought!) Almost every night our housekeeper would fold our towels into animals. It was a fun surprise to come in each night to see what she had left for us.

Day Two: Our First Port

We took a tour of the island and saw some amazing arial views of the island.

We saw some lizards lounging in the tree topsWe spent the rest of the day at Megan's Bay Beach, voted as one of the top 10 beaches in the world by National Geographic.Day Three: We walked around St. Croix, toured an old Dutch Fort built in 1760 and then spent the rest of the day at Cane's Bay beach and went snorkling. While snorkling, I stepped on a black, pokey, sea urchin and then fell and cut my knee on some coral. It hurt like crazy! That was the end of my snorkling days. I decided staying close to shore was more my style. Blake had a really good time snorkling, though.We met some awesome new friends. We sat at dinner with two other couples that we got along great with. They were so fun and we ended up doing a lot together. Day Four: Antigua, by far, was our favorite island! The water was amazing and so pretty! We spent the morning doing a zip-line tour through the rain forest and then spent the rest of the day at the most gorgeous beach I have ever seen.

A short video of us getting off the boat in Antigua:

Zip lining was awesome!! There were 12 lines spread throughout, the longest zip we did was over 300 feet across this gorge. The whole time I was thinking "Oh please let this rope hold me!"

A short video of Blake attempting to body surf:

That night Blake and I went to a mystery dinner theater on the boat. It was so fun! It was just like clue but with this live actors. We ate, and laughed and watched the performace, trying to guess along the way. We ended the night with yummy dessert in a chocolate bowl

Day 5: Dominica We went tubing down a river through the rainforest complete with rapids. We also saw banana farms and got a tour of the island Video of river tubing

Then we hiked to the Emerald Pools. It's known as the fountain of youth. The water was so warm, we all went for a dip! We saw some more lizards and some fresh-water crabs.

Day Six: The island of Granada. This was our last port so we took a water taxi to Grand Anse beach where we were hounded like crazy to buy things. We paid $15 just to sit in a beach-chair! We went for a walk along the shops and I bought this awesome basket weaved from a leaf. So cool! Day Seven: was our only day at sea. There were tons of activites to do on the boat like climbing the rock wall, miniature golfing, a belly flop contest, ice sculpting, dance lessons and just lounging by the pool and don't forget lots and lots of eating!I'm afraid this post is alreay too long, but I have so many fun stories and cool things we saw and did while on our trip. It truly was amazing!

Here Fishy, Fishy

In an effort to make this more of a family journal, instead of just a Brooke journal, I wanted to post what Blake has been up to lately. He has been working so hard lately that he finally decided to take a day for himself. We all have spring fever, especially Blake's parents who recently returned home from a mission to Indonesia and are used to it being hot all year round. So Blake took his parents, and Lady, for a day on the river. I didn't get to go, but am excited to spend some time with Blake up on the mountains this summer. Blake fishes, I read a book, we both soak up some sun and get wet as we go through the rapids. It makes for a great day!

Siblings, gotta love 'em

I used one of my favorite children's stories to teach a lesson to my 7th graders about cause and effects and problem/solutions: It's about a boy who thinks he's figured out how to hypnotize his sister into thinking she is a dog. It's a pretty cute story. Before we started reading, I opened up the discussion by asking my students to think about their own siblings and of course that got me thinking about mine:

So I told some stories about how my sister and I used to fight all the time, but I liked it when she took us to the park. And how my younger brother Stephen used to make me want to strangle him. Especially when he yelled out to an entire restaraunt that we were "best brother and sister" and when he'd wear crazy clothes to school in high school and people would ask "Like, isn't that brother wearing that "kilt" and bright pink shirt?" (as you can see from the above picture, wearing crazy clothes is still his thing!).

So...that led to some interesting answers from my students about their own siblings. I asked them to fill out this questionaire about their siblings and here are some of the answers just made me laugh right out loud!

What do your siblings do/say that bug you?

Student #1's answer: Everything that comes out of their mouths

Do you think your relationship with your siblings will change over time?

Student #2's answer: Yes, we will be alone and married

Write a memory that involves you and your sibling:

Student #3's answer: I took the remote control from my sister and she choked me and I almost died.

Oh siblings, we love you!

Can't Decide

If she's a big girl who can make rolls with grams

and dress herself: She picked out the skirt, necklace or "pretty" as she calls it, and shoes that are at least 3 sizes too big.

Or, if she's still a baby: she found some baby gear stacked in the garage and drug it around the house all day. It's a shopping cart seat cover with toys that hook to it. Of course she had to get in it. (Please excuse her post-nap, crazy hair!)

I guess the good thing is, I can't decide either! She is definitely into the realm of "toddlerhood" and all the good and bad that comes with it, but she also still comes up to me with her arms up and says "hold me". She still likes to be rocked and sung to before bed. And since two years went by in the blink of an eye, I'm going to cherish these moments when they come, because I know that someday she won't want me to hold her at all. But I guess one of the rights we have as mothers, is to always think of our children as our "babies" no matter how big they get!

A Report (sort of)

So I definitely jinxed myself with saying so far the 2's with B. haven't been so terrible. HA HA! This week she got her stool she uses to wash her hands with and took it into her room and got into the hand sanitizer I use after I change her. She poured it all on her head and it got in her eye. That's how I knew about it...she started screaming "OWEE!", I went to deliver cookies to my neighbor and Brooke locked the front door behind me. Luckily the back door was unlocked but I only realized that after I stood outside for 5 minutes trying to coax B. to unlock the door with her giggling behind it. She got a pen from the junk drawer and drew all over her step-stool and one of her toys. I still need to see if a magic eraser will get it off. Then last night B. dumped an entire bottle of baby wash into her bath to make bubbles. (I know it sounds like Brooke isn't supervised, but I swear, she is the sneakiest little thing ever!)

But then this morning I went to get her out of her bed and she looks at me, gives me a huge grin and says in a soft, sleepy voice, "Good morning, mommy" So of course I give her a big hug and tell her she's my sweet girl again. Doesn't take much to get back on my good side.

I also wanted to report on how my experiment with showing more gratitude towards Blake was going. I based it off of this article. I have to admit that I haven't been very good about remembering to say "thank you" to Blake the past week or so, but I have noticed a difference in our marriage this past month. I feel a lot closer to Blake. I feel like we are more patient with each other when disagreements arrive, and are easier to forgive. It would be easy to say that this was all just coincidence, but I don't believe that. I really feel like by making a concious effort to have a more grateful attitude that we've put the focus back on us and our marriage and serving each other instead of each of us just cohabitating under the same roof. This is definitely something I plan to keep doing. It's such an easy thing to do and has made a huge difference for us.

And finally, an antedote from my school (this is a true story): Students were asked to fill out a questionaire about bullying.
Answer this question: How do you think we could decrease bullying at our school?
Student's response: We just shouldn't have school. If we don't come to school we won't have to see the people we hate, duh!
Oh thank you, what a thoughful response. Why didn't I think of that?!