A Night at Home With My Bronwynnie

This kid cracks us up. She has an obsession with coloring. She wants to color everything, at any time, with any person, under any circumstances. I love how she entertains herself. Tonight it was she and I as Reed took Aftyn to go with him to the auto parts store to pick up stuff for an oil change on our car. She is quick to clean any messes around our house with a towel. Many times that's how I knew she had had a potty accident because I would come downstairs and find her on the floor with the towel from our stove in her hand and she was mopping up her potty with it. And not because she thought she would get in trouble, oh no, it was because there was a mess and she likes to clean them up. LOL.  Her personality is a hoot!

Here she is tonight having just dripped water from her cup down her leg. She just took care of the problem herself, hopped off her toilet, grabbed the towel, sat back down on her toilet, wiped her leg off and then tried to return the towel to the stove which I would believe in miracles if any 19 month old could actually manage to hang a towel back over that narrow bar.

  How's potty training going, you may ask?  Yesterday marked our 9th week in and I'm just going to describe for you my day today.

The girls and I woke up, went downstairs, Bronwyn went potty and then I poured them some cereal and they ate. Bronwyn probably went potty a few more times before we went to IHOP for lunch thanks to my inlaws who gave us a gift card for Christmas. Bronwyn went potty before we left, went potty once we got to IHOP, went potty before we left, went potty 20 minutes later at Target, went potty again after we shopped, and managed to make it home nice and dry! And she was wearing panties the whole time and has been for about 3 weeks whenever  I take her out of the house with me.
 Just so you know, at this point, this was an exceptional day with no accidents. Just yesterday, we had accidents. I would say on the whole, we have accidents about every week, generally, which seems pretty normal for Bronwyn. She still feels so proud of herself when she goes to the bathroom in the toilet. We still celebrate every time, but are past the point of treats every time.

 I would say on the whole I am so glad I am potty training her. It seems to give her a new sense of independence and "big"ness and I can see progress in so many areas of her life. She is playing differently, she is constantly trying out new and bigger and harder words. I have no idea if it's how she would be without potty training but I'd like to think it is probably helping her feel more responsible for herself.

Bronwyn on the toilet  :)  I knew you'd want to see.  Ha ha!

Playing playing playing! Aftyn never drove cars around like Bronwyn likes to.

I just love how Bronwyn gets down on her tummy to play on the floor sometimes. It's exceptionally cute when she gets on her tummy and plays and crosses her little legs behind her. She still is a pretty 'little' little girl.

                           I can't imagine life without this sweetheart. She is so cute and funny, and yet so sweet and loving. If she hurts you and you tell her, she immediately tells you "sorry" and hugs you. She is a sucker for kissy lips and can't generally pass up kissing you if she likes you and you are making them at her. :) She finds friends wherever we go and waves at everyone at the store. And I do mean everyone. She is so sweet and little that almost all the kids at church come up and pick her up, but she doesn't really like it. She doesn't like to be manhandled but most of the kids can't help themselves. She is slowly learning to accept that she has to go to nursery and I've been told by the leaders in there that she just entertains them while she's there. She is very independent and will even lift her own nursery chair off the tall stack should she need one. :) She loves the kid slide in the nursery and I think spends a good deal of time going down that over and over.

She still loves her binky but is very accepting of us telling her "binkies are for bedtime!".  After potty training, the binky is the next big thing for us but I'm going to wait a while for that and make sure she's ready before I take it away. She doesn't worry me by sucking on her fingers the way Aftyn used to occasionally so I'm not as worried about her possibly switching to thumb sucking but I'd still like to stay far away from that being a possibility.
      She is proving to be a more adventurous eater than Aftyn when she's hungry. She will pick up and try anything and it can be pretty amusing to see her initial reaction to some foods. She loves turkey and chicken if it's cooked well and has good flavor. She likes meat and cheese sandwiches. She loves chocolate and can even say it. She can sign 'more' and 'eat' and 'please' and 'thank you'. One of her funny little things right now is when she says 'please'. I'll have to get it on  video because I cannot describe just how cute it is as she tries to say please in a 'pretty pretty please' kind of way. It makes me laugh.
                  All in all, our little girl has grown up so much over the past year. Can you believe a year ago she looked like this:

It's amazing how much our kids can grow in the first few years of life. 

We can't imagine life without her.

We've got a lot of snow

And what do you do when you have a lot of snow?

Of course you go and play in it!

 That's just what Reed and our girls did this last Saturday.

You can tell by their faces how much fun they had.

The reason they look so wet was because it was snowing while they were out there. They were gone maybe 10-15 minutes, but that was all the wetness and cold the girls could handle. Their little cheeks were flushed and their hands, in spite of them wearing mittens even,were icy cold. They had so much fun, even in a parking lot, playing in the snow with their Daddy.

And it has persisted in being cold ever since and all the snow we had then is still on the ground! This is the most snow we've had that has lasted since we moved here. Reed's thrilled we're finally experiencing New England snow. :) Truly.

Random Pictures of Our Christmas

Yes, Bronwyn IS crying. She's a little emotional in the morning generally because she's hungry. And if her morning routine is abnormal.

See! She's happy now because she has candy in one hand and a backpack on her back that's just like Aftyn's.

Thanks Kamber for this unknown gift you gave when you gave us matching sheets for the girls. The sheets came in these nifty little drawstring bags, and well, I added some straps and their initial in fabric and wa-la! Backpacks! Just like Daddy's!! :)

It snowed lightly Christmas morning. And then promptly melted by afternoon.

We had to forego opening presents until we got some food in those little bellies. There was much crankiness by the child in the middle who is now beaming at the camera. Reed was very obliging and whipped up a hearty breakfast of pancakes and eggs and turkey bacon!

Their big gifts, the shopping cart and the activity chair. Both given to us! :) The kids don't care that they've been previously loved, they love them just the same.

Daddy had to show the girls how to properly fly their airplane with sounds. :)

Thanks Uncle Kevin and Aunt Kim! Aftyn LOVES her dress ups! Bronwyn really likes the crown and scepter. Mommy really likes the trunk to keep it all in. :)

So EXCITED!

The first thing she wanted to do was curtsy. This girl loves to curtsy. :)

These pictures do not properly represent all the amazing gifts we were given this year. We felt so spoiled and loved this year and are grateful for all who helped us to feel that way.

My favorite part of our Christmas morning was when we took our break for breakfast, we watched the Christmas story that is put out by the LDS church. Aftyn has been watching it incessantly for weeks now and loved watching it that morning as well. I love how seriously she takes the story of Jesus into her heart. She loves to re-enact the stable with Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus over and over and over every day lately. She wraps her baby in "swaddling clothes" and puts him/her in "the manger". What a sweetheart.

Christmas Eve in Pictures

Aftyn's hair was done, I promise. She plays hard and quickly demolishes any kind of dainty hairstyle I endeavor.

Can you see her bump on her forehead on the right? Poor kid gave herself a little goose egg.

Being comforted by Daddy

And by Mommy

Closest man to the camera is our bishop. This was hosted at his house.

Our relief society president, here, LOVES Bronwyn.

Reed read the nativity story. Say that 5 times fast. :)

Friends from our ward

This is one of Aftyn's favorite men in our ward, Brother Towne. He earned an early spot in Aftyn's heart by being in charge of the nursery at a relief society activity and it was just my girls and him. Bronwyn is still learning to like men, but Aftyn is THRILLED anytime we see Brother Towne. He thinks she's pretty sweet too. :) We really like him AND he's from Pocatello. Small world, hmm? 

From Our Herd To Yours

                                                                     Merry Christmas!!

Blabbity blah blah blah

Christmas is coming.

I'm excited for it, because I am always

happy for moments in life when you get to celebrate.

I'm not excited to be so far away from family.

I'm excited for my two little girls who will be excited anyway,

 hopefully, since to them Christmas is exciting in and of itself.

I'm not excited because for me Christmas means memories with family.

I realized that tonight, and so Reed and I sat down

and planned out a fun filled family night.

Somehow we haven't had a Christmas themed family fun night yet this season.

I'm sure it will help. I hope it will help. I want it to help.

I wish that Christmas could just be put off

until we had enough money to fly home

and THEN we could celebrate Christmas.

Who's with me?!?  Nobody?  Aw shucks.

Well then, we'll make do and figure out how to finagle

this whole "Christmas on our own" thing.

Wish us luck.

We Just Love These Girls

I've been hugging them a little closer 

and kissing them a little more often this weekend.

Our hearts and prayers go out to the

 Newtown, Connecticut community. 

Especially to the

families of those who lost loved ones on Friday.