Just a few new things Brookie is doing!

So last week Brookelyn had a revelation.  She has been able to say Mama, Dada, and Nana for quite some time.  She has always known that if she says one of them she will get a response from us, but as she was laying on the changing table the other morning she said, “Mama!” and i said, “Yes that’s me” and Wade was standing there too and after she got done laughing hysterically for about 30 seconds she looked at Wade and said, “Dada!” and he said “Yes!” and again she laughed.  You could see the wheels turning in her head like, “Huh, I know what I need to say to get the one I want to play now!”  Also anytime she sees a cell phone or regular phone she automatically says,  ”Mama!” And yes, I’m usually on the other end of it talking to her, so this is no big surprise.  She also tends to, about once a week, get up at about 2:30am and play in her crib for about an hour or so.  Well last week after about and hour and a half of her playing quietly i went in to lay her back down and tell her it was “night-night” time.  Well as soon as she saw me, she stood up, proud as could be, with this giant smile and, plain as day, said, “Mama all done!” Hand gesture and all.  So stinking cute. Wade heard it all on the monitor and we both had quite the laugh out of that one.  Little did she know night time was definitely NOT all done

She is also starting to color now and eat with a spoon by herself.  I know it’s too early to know if she is going to be a lefty or righty, but right now she is a lefty.  When you try to put the crayon in her right had she swiftly drops it and puts it in her left and then begins to color. The same with the spoon we always start with her right hand, but she can’t get the spoon to the bowl and then too her mouth with her right hand so she again then drops it and puts it in her left hand.  She can finish a whole bowl of oatmeal with her left hand as of this morning.  So again i know it’s too early to tell for sure, but it’s looking like she might be a lefty like her Daddy!

She also is quite the little dancer.  She doesn’t like to watch TV at all, nor do I encourage it, by turning on kids television.  Wade does once in awhile, which is fine, but honestly there are always TV’s on in our house, but I’m never watching them.  Anytime there is a commercial on she stops in her place and starts dancing, of course that’s only  if there is any kind of music with it.  And it’s only commercials.   Like I said, Wade has put on kids TV and those shows have lots of singing and dancing, but she has no interest in them at all, only the commercials in between, which is totally ok with me.  I don’t want you to think I’m anti-TV, I’m definitely not, but she is such a busy body like I am that I think she isn’t going to be that interested in TV.  I never was and still am not and it’s not because I wasn’t allowed to watch TV.  I had one in my room from the time I was in 2nd grade  and I always watched it to go to sleep and still do, which Wade hates  So it’s one of those things that we will just have to wait and see.

Brookie’s new nick name in our house is DESTRUCTO……you will see why from the pictures!  This is after she had been in the room for not even 3minutes!

Yes, I’m a Ham!

This is her personality 95% of the time! Rotten Rotten Rotten! I LOVE IT!

No Mommy I didn’t climb on the couch, stand up, and bounce, that was Taygie!

Destructo at her finest! See how happy she is about the mess! PRICELESS!

Just a few Pictures!

Brookie insisted on wearing her coat this morning!

So I broke out Brookie’s winter coat today and as soon as she saw it she kept saying, “Arm, Arm, Arm!” Which in 15month old language means put it on already Mommy because I want to go outside and play!  Since it was 7:30am that wasn’t an option, but I did take her to the local store so I could attempt to buy some stocking stuffers and last minute Christmas decorations, lights not included……long irritating story let me tell you! First I forgot my wallet, then nobody has any Christmas lights left…….soooooo annoying.  I have never in my 26yrs ever not been able to buy Christmas lights.  Large stores such as Lowes, Hope Depot, Walmart, Meijer, Target, and Sears were all sold out of them within a few days this year! What????? Where I grew up that never happened so you can imagine how annoyed I was this morning! Anyways  besides all that nonsense it turned out to be a pretty successful day already so on to the pictures!

Well Hello Everyone! Whoooa It’s been awhile!

So we been a busy little family recently!  Well I guess it’s about time to bring you all up to date on day-to-day life in the Claggett household.  So our little darling Brookie decided she was going to crawl and crash out of her crib this week.  Talk about heart attack! I literally thought she broke my china on the first floor because she fell that hard, not to mention every bone in her body.  Her crib mattress has been on the lowest setting since she was 6 months old and to put it in perspective when she stands in her crib the rails come up to her neck.  So she literally had to some how, which I’ve yet to figure out, climb out and fall 4ft to the floor. Ouch!  Luckily she is ok the only thing we notices is that her right foot is sore when messing with it so this week when we go to her fifteen month appointment we will have the doctor check it.  So anyways, to fix this problem since she is only 14 months old and not old enough to come out of her crib, we had to buy a baby net so that she will be caged in her crib like the little monkey that she is!  It should be quite humorous so I’ll be sure to post pictures of it once we have it.  Until then she now has to sleep in her sleep sack for naps too, since that pretty much makes her unable to heist her leg up to climb.  We usually only used the sleep sacks at night, but now it’s all the time.  She has not attempted to do it again so hopefully we are in the clear.

Thanksgiving was done a little early for us since I had to work  Thur, Fri, Sat, and Sun.  I also ended up with my 1st cold  in almost 2 years at the beginning of the week before Thanksgiving.  Luckily, I came down with that after we had already done our family thanksgiving dinner at my house on the Sunday before so all was good.  We were supposed to go to my parents for a quick bite to eat on thanksgiving day, but unfortunately I was still carrying a fever and I wasn’t about to expose anyone to my germs.  Especially since I’m the first to tell people to stay home when they are sick, but I had to work that night anyways so it’s all good!  I’m also very excited to announce that I was able to get Christmas Eve night and Christmas night off of work this year.  So this will be my first Christmas with Brookelyn.  Yes I know it’s her second, but it’s my first with her and I’m soo soo excited about it.  When you work as a nurse the Holidays that you do have off are extra special since you never know from year to year whether or not you will have them off.

So in light of that we took some family pictures last weekend that turned out really well! Thank you Aunt Kelly for being our photographer! It was greatly appreciated

On to other household news! So we gave our darling little Hayley Bug to Great Grandma Pauley about three weeks ago and our house definitely isn’t the same.  We kept Taygan aka: (Yappy), but our little darling Hayley aka:(Yippy) had to go.  Our two dogs were feeding off each other and literally all they did was bark.  Even if you closed a cabinet too hard they would both start barking and since Brookelyn and I couldn’t sleep during the day through all that nonsense, we decided it was for the best that she go live with Great Grandma Pauley!  From what I hear she is doing great and Grandma loves her!  I think she’s getting all the love and attention that she deserved to have in the first place, but if Grandma ever gets tired of her we will take her back in a heart-beat.  Taygan on  the other hand is soooo calm now.  He only barks appropriately now and  it’s like he’s a totally different dog.  Wade is happy, Brookie is happy, and Mommy is happy!  So all worked out for the best and we still get to see Diddle anytime we want so it’s all good!

Well, I know you all want to see pictures so here they are! Happy Holidays Everyone!

Happy Halloween & Happy 30th Birthday to Uncle Travis

So last weekend was lots of fun! My brother was able to fly in for the weekend to celebrate his 30th Birthday, which just also happens to be on Halloween!  We ended up, last minute I might add, ditching our trick or treat plans on Saturday and headed up to spend the weekend at my parents house. Unfortunately, our trick or treat was actually on Halloween so we missed it, but with all the Pig flu and everything else going around I was ok with just skipping it this year. We were able to get Brookie in her costume and take some pictures though!  She was the cutest little caterpillar that 30 bucks could buy. The only issue, as you will see in the pictures, was that she was waaaay faster than a normal caterpillar. I’m looking forward to actually participating in trick or treat next year when she is two.  Hopefully by then she will be able to understand whats going on a little bit more.

Speaking of the hippopotamus  flu, pig flu, swine flu, whatever the heck you want to call it flu.  I was able to get my H1N1 shot because I work with infants, but it takes two weeks to build up full immunity.  Since I just got it last week I guess that means I could still get that darn old cow flu! That being said  it probably was a good idea not to do trick or treat this year  since Brookelyn is still is pretty little.  If I had an older child then for sure we would have went, but we don’t so why risk it right?  I know you think I’m crazy, but I would rather hibernate for the winter than be sick.   After being sick for now… ummmmm… lets see…. 11 months out of the last 2yrs I think I’ve had my fill of that nonsense for awhile!   Wade and I don’t even take her to the stores unless absolutely necessary.  One or the other stays at home with her so we don’t get her sick with all the crazy people who think it’s ok to take there germs and sneeze all over people in public places.  Come on people if your sick STAY HOME and keep your crazy germs to yourself.  I know, I know I along with all my coworkers are all boring paranoid nurses/mommies!   Why did I add this to my post, well that’s because I can’t stress how important it is to stay at home when you are sick, wash your hands often, and sneeze into your elbow or tissue so you don’t expose the rest of the world to your germs.  Though you maybe  able to fight off the hippo flu, pregnant, immuno compromised, and babies  are not so fortunate and are ending up on life support.   Soooo PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE STAY AT HOME IF YOU ARE SICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Brookie’s Way of Walking the dog!

No words can express how funny this was in person!  Hayley absolutely loved being pushed around in Brookie’s walker!  She would have stayed in there all day if we would have let her!

Keep all paws inside the ride at all times otherwise I will just run over you!

Ok move your foot lady I have a doggy who needs to be walked!

Ok Ok I get grandma…don’t go to fast and kill the diddle! Now will you please move your foot already!

Can you tell how happy Hayley is to be going for a ride? What a crazy dog!

Go Bucks!

Holy Cow she left a bow in her hair…..enough said! Go Bucks!

It may be cold, but Brookie still has to be fashionable!

Ummm how is it that in this grand old state it goes from hot to freezing in one giant foul swoop!  Well, regardless of our crazy weather, Brookie has still managed to keep up with the latest fashion trends for fall  She was photographed not only in her Birthday suit with a diaper and bib as her accessory items, but also in her new fuzzy warm PJ’s, per our stinking cold weather, and two very fashion forward fall dresses.  Baby leggings were included in her dress ensemble.  And no bows were sported by our little monster because she thinks they are edible and if she’s not chewing on them she throwing them in places never to been seen again.  Where you might ask?  How about the swirly whirly monster known as the toilet bowl.   It’s kinda like the dryer that eats one of your socks, except she throws them in there and doesn’t flush Hence they are thrown away immediately because lets face it that’s just gross.

Anyways, there is not much going on here on the home front.  I’ve had some vacation time over the past few weeks and have been enjoying doing absolutely nothing.  I had some playdates during the day, but other than that I just hung out at home for some much needed Mommy and Brookie one on one time.  It’s so nice not to be sick anymore.  I’ll tell ya, being sick for 6 weeks all for nothing is very trying.  But what can you do.  Sometime life stinks, and you just gotta roll with it otherwise you will make yourself crazy.  Anyways, I know you are all waiting for her crazy pictures so with out further ado.

Brookie the Buckeye

I’ll keep this short and sweet.  Brookie officially loves tumbling all over the place, she loves dancing when the fight-song comes on the TV, and she can almost say “Go Bucks!”.  But her hands-in-the-air touchdown sign needs work.  (They actually go backwards, not up )

Our Mini Grandpa Pauley

HOLY MOLY does Brookie ever look like grandpa Pauley.  And,”Hello” it’s not like I look like my dad! I look identical to my mom!  Where in the world did all the crazy German Pauley genes pop up from.  Now granted, I act and am built like my dad, but still.  The Holy Blonde Hair Batman, and Crazy Blue Eyes, it just goes to show you how recessive genes can pop up.  And now she getting these crazy ringlets on the back of her head, it’s just so darn cute.  I feel like her looks have changed so much, but yet stayed relatively similar.

Anyways, our little ham has been up to no good lately.  She has a giant bruise on her cheek, which I have yet to figure out how she got.   She literally is a walking, talking, play in the toilet bowl water, accident waiting to happen.  Oh, did I mention she can almost do a forward summersault all by herself?  Ummmm I wanted a swimmer not a gymnast, but little did we know she would watch me do it once and know how to do it herself.  Wade keeps saying, “Stefanie stop teaching her that!  Aren’t you worried she’s going to break her neck?”  Which I reply, “Ok, Wade, that is something my grandma would have said, but besides that, if you watch her she actually does it correct!”  Not to mention she’s only a year old.  Now mind you, I myself came home from the babysitters one day doing perfect cartwheels at 3 yrs old. And my mom had nothing to do with teaching me that.  I guess we’ll just try a bunch of things, sports wise and non-sport wise and let her choose what she likes the best.  I have a gymnastics facility 5 miles away, considering my mom drove me six days a week 45 min away for 3 to 4 hours at a time I’m feeling very fortunate and want to at least try it out with her.  I think we are going to definitely try the toddler classes because I know it teaches little ones how to follow directions and also structure.    So I guess as soon as she’s a little older we’re going to give it a shot and see what happens…..I’m still holding out for her to be a swimmer, and Wade wants a figure skater, if she’s into sports that is!

On another note,Wade accidentally left our stand up freezer door open over night and I lost over 10,000 oz of frozen breast milk.  Now you think I may be exaggerating about that number, but in all actuality I stopped counting once we hit 10,000 oz.  I wasn’t kidding when I said I was a human dairy cow.  We had two garbage bags full of nothing but empty breast milk bags and it took Wade hrs to empty out the milk into the sink and that isn’t even all of it.  There is still at least a couple thousand, yes thousand, oz left in the freezer.  But since it’s a year old it’s now no good to use.  So all that being said, no I was not mad, because honestly for one I was tired of thawing milk, 2 a lot of it was getting really old and no good anyways, 3 I was ready to have my freezer back, and 4 with everything else that has happened this month this seems awfully minor in the grand scheme of things considering Brookie is a year old and can have whole milk.  Too bad she hated whole milk for the first three days.  But now since she has no choice she has been more willing to take it as long as it’s not ice-cold.   Oh the joys of parenthood!  All that hard work down the drain….literally.  Wade was trying to calculate how many hours of my life we were throwing down the drain, but I swiftly put an end to that calculation.  I don’t need to know and really it makes no difference.  What mattered to me was that we didn’t have to buy formula and the fact that I never wanted to breast feed in the first place makes me very proud of myself for sticking with it, even if some of it was for nothing.  Next time if I produce what I did this time I will stop much earlier.  Again for the second time this month, lesson learned!

Ok, well I have a bunch of pictures so I hope you enjoy!