I Love Christmas Traditions!

This Friday the tradition of the Christmas plate lived on!  I was a little unsure how I was going to do our Christmas plate this year given that I didn't think Braelyn would be quite patient enough to sit there until we were all done.  I took Braelyn first and put her cute little footprint and fingerprints on first and then took her back to day care and picked up Emerson to go and finish the rest.  After Em put her footprint and fingerprints on the plate I let her pick out something to paint all her own while I finished the plate.  She picked out a mug like Caillou painted when he went to the pottery place with her Grandma!  She picked out purple and pink paint for her mug and went to work!  After we were all done with our painting it was definitely time to go out for ice cream before we tackled some Christmas shopping.  It was an absolutely perfect day!  Next year Miss B will be big enough to paint her own piece and have ice cream too!

 I really get to paint Mom?!  Yea!!!

 She did so good!!!  She kept looking at us while we put the paint on her foot wondering what in the world we were doing!

 Look at that precious little foot!

 Another precious foot but a very different shaped one! 

 So adorable to see their little footprints side by side!

 We used their fingerprints to make light strands down the sides.

 Hard at work on her mug.

 I love having days like this with my special girl!

 Very happy about her pink ice cream!

There aren't many things this kid likes better than ice cream!

Time to Trim the Tree

As always on the Friday after Thanksgiving I couldn't wait to get the Christmas decorations out.  This year is really special because Emerson is getting old enough to really have fun with Christmas and it's Braelyn's first Christmas.  Since we are going to GranSan's for Christmas I had said that I was not going to get down all the decorations and more than likely just going to do the tree.  By the time it was all said and done I had gotten down ALL the decorations and actually bought some more!  Braelyn supervised the decorating from her Exersaucer while Em was napping and when Em got up we decorated the tree.  That night before bed we read The Elf on the Shelf.  That night she told us that her elf was going to be named Punzel(we are very into the movie Tangled right now!) but by the next morning his name was just Elf.  I think we will wait until next year to write his name in our book just to make sure that it is going to stay Elf!

 Mommy, when will I be big enough to put out decorations?

 You have to have the perfect holiday outfit for Christmas decorating...our bow may have been a little over the top!

 Definitely the cutest part of the outfit!

 Braelyn and Daddy watched to make sure that Em and I did a good job on the tree.

 Definitely on "the nice list"...such a big girl now!

 She did so great putting on ornaments, I just had to work fast to make sure that there were some for the top part of the tree!

 The next issue was making sure that after she put an ornament on the tree that it stayed on the tree!  At one point it seemed like she was taking them off as fast as we had put them on!

 Our own personal elf here to make sure Santa knows we are being nice!

Are we in the Christmas spirit or what?!

Thankful Beyond Words

Shawn and I have so very much to be thankful for.  We are very thankful for getting to spend this Thanksgiving at home together with our two beautiful baby girls.

 Em helping Mommy crush Frosted Flakes for the sweet potato casserole.

 Maybe if y'all would let me have something like these rolls, I would be willing to try something other than formula!

 Emerson seems very thankful for her baby sister!

 Braelyn is thankful for her big sister playing with her!

I could sit and watch the two of them together for hours!

Still No Luck

Well, we tried cereal with the high chair and still no luck.  She didn't get quite as frustrated in the high chair but I am pretty certain that no cereal made it to her little tummy!

 I like my new chair!

 She looked so tiny!

 You really think I am going to swallow this stuff?! That's hilarious!

I really don't think there is anything wrong with my bottles!

5

Five months?!  Are you kidding me?!  There have been some very long days over the last few months but it is still so hard to believe that sweet Braelyn Faith is five months old today!  We fall more in love with her every day.  She is all smiles with some giggles sprinkled in now!  Just three days ago she started rolling from her back to her stomach, both ways.  Now as soon as you lay her down, she immediately flips over.  It seems that she has forgotten that she knows how to go from her stomach to her back because she gets pretty frustrated after being on her tummy for a little while!  We have been working the last couple of days to break her out of wanting to be swaddled with very little success.  Tonight she stayed in her bed for about an hour and a half without it, sleeping off an on but it definitely wasn't her usual sound sleep.  Part of the problem is that Mommy and Daddy really like the sleep we get when she is swaddled so we have not been pushing too hard to get her out of it!  She is still not at all interested in cereal, however it doesn't seem that she is staying full on formula any more.  Shawn got the high chair out of the attic so we are hoping if we can recline her a little bit that we might be able to keep it in her mouth long enough for her to get used to it!  She absolutely adores her sister and watches her every move.  It does not appear that she is going to be a social butterfly like her sister was.  In a crowd she definitely clings close to Mommy or Daddy(and Mommy and Daddy are fine with that!)!

 Anything she can get her hands on goes straight to her mouth!

 You would never know that this was the day that I had to take her back to the doctor for a terrible cold and nasty cough!

 Daddy's Littlest Princess

 Big Sister always brings out a smile

 Could you eat her up or what?!  Maybe I am a little biased!

Mommy, what is Emerson doing?!

Trying Couple of Weeks

Well, after a very happy Halloween things kind of went downhill at the Brooks' residence.  When Braelyn woke up the morning after Halloween, she sounded like nothing I have ever heard before.  The only way I could describe it was that she sounded like a little baby seal.  She had this horrible sounding cough, she was hoarse when she cried, and within no time she started wheezing.  The verdict:  croup.  This would be bad anytime but given that I was supposed to leave for a work meeting the following Sunday and the girls were supposed to stay with GranSan.  Luckily we got her to the doctor in time to just treat her at home with oral steroids and breathing treatments.  She got a great follow-up report on Thursday and the doctor said that she would probably be fine to stay with my mom so we got up early on Friday to head that way.  Of course on Friday she was worse but it seemed more like a nasty cold rather than the croup.  Cold or not, it was making me a wreck about flying to Chicago on Sunday.  Thankfully on Saturday, she had a really good day and seemed so much better.  Sunday rolled around and I went out to the car to head for the airport...the car wouldn't start!  The good luck just kept on coming while I was in Chicago.  I was supposed to fly out Tuesday evening at 7:10 and get back into Shreveport at 11:35.  The weather in Chicago was terrible on Tuesday that I managed to get stuck until Wednesday morning!  We finally made it back to Shawn at 7 on Wednesday and were beyond happy to be back together!  The girls had so much fun on the farm but unfortunately, par for the course, GranSan, Janet, and Patsy all ended up sick too!  We couldn't thank them enough for all the help.  Mommy having to leave during football season is impossible to manage without lots of help!

 Poor baby!!!

 Em LOVED getting to hang out with Nate!

 This was Braelyn's first time to try the bouncer...it took some getting used to but she loved being able to stand up.

 Staying at GranSan's is great!

 Janet got lots of good sugar while helping GranSan out.

 Em with one of Mommy's Cabbage Patch dolls-Joycelyn.

 Jenna and Braelyn

 Sisterly love!

 Braelyn hung out on the kitchen counter helping Patsy cook!

 GranSan hated this part of the visit!

 There wasn't much room left in GranSan's bird bath for the birds!

 Bailey and Em

Braelyn modeling one of the Christmas dresses we found before I left on Saturday...so cute!

While I was in Chicago, I got to go to Table 52 with a few of the other girls.  It is the restaurant opened by Oprah's personal chef.  The food was sooooo good!



Halloween 2011

I thought long and hard trying to come up with costumes for the girls that would coordinate but couldn't find anything that I really liked.  What I came up with seemed a little more fitting given how opposite our girls are:  a red chili pepper and an ice cream cone!  We figured the chili pepper was perfect for our little fiery one and ice cream is by far Emerson's favorite food...hot and cold for our 2 opposites!  We went trick-or-treating with a couple of the other coaches and had a great time other than we walked way too far in one direction before turning around.  By the time we realized Braelyn had had enough we were VERY far from the truck...oops!

 Emerson's ice cream cone ended up probably looking more like a cupcake but still pretty cute!

 I was very surprised but Braelyn loved her costume...she actually cried when I took it off!

 She was very ready to go get some candy!

 How precious is this?! Trick-or-treating with Cannon.

The Brooks family is definitely bigger than last Halloween!  What a blessing!