A Visit with Gramma and Carrie

Brooke was happy to have an unexpected visit from her cousin, Carrie last night. Carrie is at the end of her Spring Break from Eastern and stopped in to see Gramma. I'm glad that we were here when they called - Carrie and Brooke has great fun playing with her butteryfly net and her princess Mega Blocks.

Brooke LOVES Painting

In Feb, Miss Carol introduced fingerpainting to the over 2 crowd at school. Brooke was really not to impressed with all that paint on her hands, if you missed the early post with the picture - take a look. The next time they painted Miss Carol introduced the concept of mixing primary colors to make a secondary color. First they used a matchbox car to drive through the blue and yellow piles of paint to make green. The following paint day they used the feet of little plastic animals to mix the red and yellow paint to make orange. Brooke is still talking about how she painted with an elephant. You can see by this picture, that she is much happier when something other than her hand acts as the brush.

Brooke enjoys dinner at Friendly's

A few weeks ago Paul and I went on a date to a surprise birthday party without Brooke. She stayed with our friend Heather and was treated to dinner out at Friendly's. They met Heather's mom, Miss Jan, and Brooke was thrilled to receive some new crayons and a drawing pad from her. She also thought it was a big treat to drive with Heather. Brooke had "the usual" Mac & Cheese with Applesauce and an M&M sundae for dessert and yes, she picks all the M&Ms out and eats them first.

The Last Few Weeks

We've made a lot of progress around the house over the last month. The Living Room and Family Rooms have been combined. We ditched our old sleeper sofa (after removing the front door from its hinges and cutting off the back with bolt cutters and a sawzall) and replaced it with a newer, lighter sofa which we are all enjoying. The dining room moved from the back of the house to our front room with a big window and sliding glass door - we love the way the room looks. We moved the office the weekend of March 7th and everything worked perfectly when we flipped the power switch. Man, there was a lot of stuff in that room - I am still working my way through some boxes. If you are ever looking for pens or paper, just let us know - we have PLENTY. Paul has primed the walls in the Baby's room and painted the ceiling. He is getting ready to paint the baseboard heaters and found a few spots on the walls that he has to work on. Storm has had the hardest time adjusting to all the chaos but seems to have finally recovered. All this has really worn Brooke out, as evidenced by the picture below.

Third Trimester ????

This morning was my 28 week appointment and it had escaped me that was the "magic" point where appointments go from once a month to once every 2 weeks. It reminded me that while we have much under control, boy is there a still quite a list of things that need to be completed before the big day. We are planning on re-arranging the 3 rooms downstairs on Saturday morning. Once that is complete, we'll pack up and move my office to the room "formerly known as the dining room" and prepare Baby #2's room. The goal is to have all the rooms on the first floor taken on their new purpose by the end of March. Hopefully the vision in our mind works in reality.

We're hoping that things are less eventful around here this week. Last week, we had a surprise snowstorm that kept Daddy working late and Mommy had a fractured tooth pulled. Brooke battled a cough and cold all week and we finally gave in and took her to the Dr on Saturday morning. Brooke and Mommy are on the mend and there are clear days in the forecast for a while.

Brooke goes on a Nature walk at school last week before her cold got the best of her.

Happy Valentine's Day

Brooke has been making Valentine arts & craft projects for the last few weeks at school and has really gotten into Valentine's Day. She was very excited to go to school on Friday for her party. She loved opening her valentine cards(pictured above). The picture below is at the end of the night after a visit to Auntie Robin & Uncle Bobby's house - notice her new Valentine beads!

Brooke Fingerpaints

So the daycare kids are all getting bigger and Carol has been updating her curriculum to grow with them. Today they gave finger painting a try, apparently Brooke was not too sure about having this "stuff" all over her hands. At least Carol got her to wear her smock.