Brooke's Birthday Party

This year for Brooke's B-Day we decided to just have a party with Jason and I. We got Brookie a Mickey Mouse Cake and all her presents were Disney themed. Here are a few pics -

"Blowing out the candles."

She doesn't like cake, but she loves frosting. She kept saying "mmmm, so yummy" as she ate it.

She loved opening her presents, and loved everything she got.

Playing with her new toys afterwards.

That was it, we kept is super simple but she loved every minute of it!

Happy Birthday Brooke

It's official. My little girl is now 2 years old. It does seem about right that Brooke should be two, but where did my 6 month old baby go? While the time feels about right, Brooke growing up so fast doesn't. She is such a little lady now. She loves to have her nails done, her hair out of her face and done, her hands clean, and her pearls, jewelry and accessories on. She loves to take care of her baby dolls and kisses them, snuggles them and really treats them like they are real (except for when she throws them down the stairs.)

Brooke is also extremely smart. She learns and absorbs everything so quickly. She talks so well and enunciates her words perfectly. She knows all her colors and can identify them wherever we go (one of her favorite activities). She can count to 10 but skips one and seven most of the time. She can identify letters and tell you what they are, but still doesn't have very much interest in learning the ABC's song. She knows most shapes except for the hard one's like hexagon's and such. Her favorite shape is a triangle which she says so cute "trigaingle." She loves to watch shows and is pretty addicted to them. She loves Mickey Mouse Club House the best, followed by Little Einstein's, Super Why, Elmo, and Veggietales. She would watch them all day long if I let her. She loves to read books especially Fancy Nancy (thanks to Aunt Amy) and tells me when she does things that are fancy like Nancy. She likes to go get her little high heels on when we read the books so she is fancy too.

She loves Jesus and Temples and it is so fun to see her grow her own testimony at such a young age. She loves nursery and always has a hard time sitting through Sacrament because she wants to get to nursery. She also loves to pray and always reminds me if I put her down to bed without saying one with her. I know she already has a very special relationship with her Heavenly Father.

She is getting very independent now and loves to walk, shop, play at the park, run on grass and ride her "new bike" as she always calls it.

There are so many things I could write about her, this post could go on forever. She is such a blessing in our lives and we are thankful everyday that we get to be her mommy and daddy. Brooke we hope you have a great day and we are so excited for this next year of watching you learn and grow. We love you!!!! Happy 2nd Birthday!!!

Here is Brooke the morning of her 2nd Birthday!!

I couldn't help but put this one in. Such a cute little face and she is already accessorized at 7 in the morning. Going pee pee in the toilet on her Birthday.

Worth It

Heartburn, pregnancy depression, nausea, hemorrhoids, food aversions, varicose veins, leg cramps, swollen feet, super dry skin, mood swings, super sensitive smell, gag reflex, areolas the size of large pepperoni's (not mention the super awesome dark color they turn), daily mini throw-ups, peeing every 20 minutes, aching body, constantly drained of energy......... Should I continue?? All of these are the fun symptoms I have had during this pregnancy (I know TMI, right?)

But I know it is all worth it because I will get another one of these out of it....

I just pray I can keep the last little bit of my sanity until that day comes.

Potty Trained!

I started potty training Brooke last Wednesday. She caught on pretty quick and only had 2 accidents the first day. The second day she only had one accident and slept through the night without wetting the bed, and then the same the next night. She has begun to go every night now and so I bought her some washable training pants that don't absorb so that she can still feel when she is wet and learn from going at night. I hope it contains some of the mess though.

We are so proud of her and are amazed at how quickly she learned. She loves to sit on her potty and read a book while she goes pee pee or poop. Thank goodness that I will only have 1 child in diapers at a time. Now I need to enjoy these 2 months of diaper free days!! Hooray!

Her first poo poo in the toilet. I tried to blur it out so it wasn't so gross! Look at that smile!

San Francisco Day 4

Day four of our trip was the first day we didn't have anything planned, other than our plane home. We slept in, snuggled, watched TV, and then finally got ready. We decided to walk down by the bay and see if we could find this really good hot dog stand called "let's be frank" we didn't walk far enough to see for sure if it was there, but it was a cold and ominous looking day so we decided not to trek the rest of the 2 mile walk to it. Instead we went and had lunch at Rainforest Cafe. It was a yummy meal, and then we walked back to Ghiradelli and finished it off with a huge strawberry/chocolate sundae, a cup of drinking chocolate (pure melted chocolate) a huge glass of milk, and a chocolate cupcake from a store right next door (the best chocolate cupcake I have ever had!) Needless to say we were stuffed and felt super sick after this little chocolate binge of ours. We headed to the hotel took another fun bus trip to the airport and headed home. It was a nice trip and I rally had fun with Jason. Thanks honey for all the fun things we did! Love you!!

San Francisco Day 3

For day 3 of our trip we decided to go to the Exploratorium. It is a science museum. It wasn't quite as cool and advanced as we thought it would be, but they did have a really cool section of mind science to experiment on yourself with and I loved that part.

After The museum we went to Presidio Park and walked around (this is the really nice area of San Fran with lots of beautiful houses). We then finished our tour ride, ate dinner and headed out for Ghiradelli square.
We got hot chocolate at the Ghiradelli factory. It is by far my favorite hot chocolate I have ever had. This was actually one of my favorite activities that we did in San Fran because Jason and I just sipped our hot chocolate and talked for an hour or so. It was nice and relaxing.

San Francisco Day 2

We started day 2 off by eating breakfast at Trader Joes, and then hopping on a hop on/off tour bus to take us to The CA Academy of Science Museum. Of course we had to stop and try on these super awesome sunglasses first.

On the open top tour bus.
At the museum. I really loved it here and would recommend if you ever go to SF to go here.
The Albino Alligator. So cool, we learned a lot of fascinating facts about alligators too. Like how they can determine the sex of there babies by how deep or shallow they bury them in the sand as eggs.
The awesome roof top.
This is a tree that they thought was extinct until they found a whole forest of them in East Asia. It is a type of Redwood tree. It was Huge!!
While in San Fran. we really got to see how liberal they really are out there. This was called Carbon cafe and they were trying to get us to not eat red meat, diary, etc..to reduce our carbon footprint. I loved that they wanted me to eat less red meat (or pledge not to eat it at all) so that there weren't as many cows to fart there carbon farts!
This frog was one of my favorites. It is called a monkey frog. It just looked so darn cute.
The awesome Jelly fish. They didn't come out nearly as cool as in real life.
Jason touching all the sea life. I can't do it, I get too freaked out. Maybe someday.
Right before we crossed over the Golden Gate Bridge. I did much better crossing over this time around then when I went last April. Maybe my fear is going away!
On the bridge. Last time I was hyperventilating so to have a smile on my face is pretty good. Jason of course kept me nice and safe.
After our museum trip we headed out on the ferry for our night tour of Alcatraz. It was fun going at night and getting to see a few extras that they don't do during the day.
Poor Jason locked away!
We were in the pitch black solitary room when I took this. That's why we look so crazy. I would go nuts if I was ever put in there!
On Alcatraz overlooking the city.
What the cell looked like. Also a replica of the fake soap heads the guys who escaped made to look like they were still in there cells.
It was a fun day, and ended by taking two Tylenol, throwing up and a long night sleep, due to pushing it a little to much! I forget you just can't do as much as you want to when you are 30 weeks pregnant. Especially when you are walking up and down hills all day long. Next time we want to have a pre baby vacation we are going to a super relaxing place and just sleep and eat and hang out in the room or beach all day. Hopefully I will read this and remember that the next time around.

San francisco Day 1

Jason and I went on our first vacation without Brooke to San Francisco. We had a great time being with each other and an interesting vacation. Here is what we did the first day.

We found $39 tickets out of Long Beach Airport so we left early and drove down to Long Beach. The airport is tiny and our plane ended up being late by about 1.5 hours. We just bought some magazines and read while we waited. The airplane ride freaked me out a little bit because it was a smaller airplane and you could feel all the turbulence and plane adjustments that you normally don't feel on the huge planes. Here we are waiting to go through security.

Once we got to San Francisco we had to take a van ride to our hotel. This was super interesting as the streets are super busy and steep and we had to drop like 5 other parties off before it was our turn. I was having huge Braxton Hicks contractions the whole time. It was funny but also a crazy car ride. I'm just grateful we made it safely. :) Feeling nauseous in this pic.
Once we checked into our hotel we found out they had no more king bed rooms left so we had to go with 2 double beds the first night. How romantic, right?! Luckily Jason and I could just barely squeeze to fit in bed so we didn't have to do the whole Lucy/Ricky bit. Anyways, once we checked in we walked down to Fisherman's Wharf and onto Boudin's Sourdough cafe and ate. It was pretty yummy! This is the only picture we got with Alcatraz in the background.
Can't forget the kissing shot, when your on vacation with your handsome hubby!

We walked down to pier 39 and went through a cool mirror maze. It was pretty fun and it was amazing how many times I thought a mirror was a real passageway or person.

Here is Jason going through the mirror maze.

After the mirror maze there was a juggling show starting that we decided to stay for. The guy was pretty funny and a good juggler. Of course Jason got chosen as his helper. Jason has always gotten chosen at every show we have ever gone to. He does not volunteer for these on stage opportunities and he hates having to perform in front of people, but he always does such a great job. I do feel bad for him though.

Here he is being asked to juggle knifes while standing on top of boards balancing on a tube. He almost tried to do it which was pretty funny.

Then Jason was stripped to, seduced, massaged, and grouped while the juggler balanced on the boards and Jason.....
Until he finally let go and did his cool trick. Pretty amazing.
After the show we went and ate at the best restaurant on the Wharf called Castagnola's. Jason got the steak with macaroni and cheese and mashed potatoes. The steak and macaroni was super yummy!
I got what they are famous for, the Crab cocktail. They are known for making the first ever crab and shrimp cocktail. The crab meat was delicious, however they put way to much cocktail sauce on top so I couldn't really taste the crab meat any more. It was yummy though. We finished the night off with a Creme Brulee. Always yummy.....
It was a great first day in San Fran! Mostly it was just nice to hang out with my hubby, even if I was a hormonal pregnant lady the whole time. Sorry about that honey!

Legoland

We went to Legoland with my sister Katie and her family this past week. I would say not to take your kid if they aren't 34" tall because Brooke just looked at all the other kids having fun and could only go on 2 rides in the whole park. It was sad. Here are a few pics.

These are all the fake rides she could go on. They are all glued down on a play area. So sad.

Here is her one ride she went on called fairytale Brook. She liked it a lot.

I got a 3 month pass from Costco, but I don't think I will be going again unless it is with someone else. Do you have a pass? If so let me know and maybe we can go together.