Little Princess

Eric's sister is getting married in May and we got Brooklynn's dress in the mail a few weeks ago. We tried it on her and it was instant princess! She walked around with a huge grin on her face, was twirling around, and had her arms held out like she was practicing for Toddlers & Tiara's. It was so funny to watch and absolutely adorable!

I had no idea that becoming a princess the minute one puts on a poufy dress was innate! But apparently that is as innate for girls as growling and car noises are for boys!

Painting Party

We were FINALLY able to paint inside our house yesterday. We had to reschedule it 2-3 times and it felt like it was never going to happen! We are so grateful to our family and friends who gave up their beautiful Saturday (it was absolutely gorgeous yesterday) to help us paint.

It is amazing what a fresh coat of paint can do! The walls were originally this cream color that was quite yellow and even just a coat of primer made it look so much better. 

I wasn't able to take too many pictures because I couldn't be in the house too much because of the fumes and I was trying to keep our little munchkin out of the way. But here are some pictures from the day:

Getting the walls cleaned and prepped.

Cutest little helper!

Someone submerged her hands in the primer!

Finally getting some color on the walls! The lighting was bad by the
time we got to the living room color, it looks yellow but it is actually green.

We weren't able to paint the kitchen because it looks like this:

And we ran out of time to do anything but prime the half bath, but we got a lot done in 12 hours. 

There is still some work that needs to be finished by our contractor, but we are so close! We have been promised that the house will be finished on Wednesday so that we can move in before our mortgage is due. I am definitely ready to be done and in our house!

A big shoutout to Mom & Dad Perkins, Mom & Dad Compton, Nicole, Trenton, and Erich & Kelly for working so hard to help us make our house beautiful!

Almost 2!?!?!?!

My beautiful little girl!!

I cannot believe that in 2 1/2 months we will have a 2 year old! 

(And in 3 months we will have a new baby!)

Relaxing with Daddy and watching March Madness.

Brooklynn is turning into quite the talker the last few weeks. She is picking up words right and left (she will finally say "more" and not "nee") and is even starting to ask me questions. She of course has discovered, "why?" and I hear that all the time. But she completely shocked me a few weeks ago when she walked into the kitchen and said, "doing mama?" That simple question  has now evolved into "watcho doing?" Sometimes with a mama thrown in there and more often than not "doing" becomes "doinginging." Those extra "ing"s are just so cute!! She even will ask where we are going or what is happening (and yes, with the extra "ing"s).

She loves playing in her kitchen while I am cooking.

I am constantly amazed at how smart she is and how quickly she picks things up. She is now a pro at her colors, things are no longer all blue or red! She has counted up to 6 on her own (if we point to objects for her). She will often count off to do something, but it is generally "2,3,4" or "3,4,5." For some reason she does not like to start with 1! She will say the alphabet with me, or rather repeat the letters, but has become a pro at picking out letters that she sees. One of her favorite new activities is to climb into my lap and pick out the letters on my shirt/sweatshirt. She has even started calling out letters that she sees on road/store signs. She also has a few letters that she knows the sound of.

We got some new headbands and she had to put them ALL on!

The best new development, in my opinion, is that I am starting to be able to reason with her. I can give her choices, which have the same outcome, and let her choose which way she would like to do it. I can give her warnings of when things, like naps/bedtime, are going to happen and she seems to go a little more peacefully. Yesterday I told her that we were going to read 2 books and then it was naptime. She went to get a book and I reminded her that we were reading just 2 and then it was naptime. She looked at me with a sugary sweet face and said, "One?!" like she was trying to convince me of it. Worst. Bargainer. Ever.

She loves to have books read to her (finally) and she
also loves to lay on the couch and "read" to herself.

One of the hardest things that we are working on right now is her getting frustrated with not being able to do something or when things get stuck or aren't working how she wants them to. (She is very much like her Aunt Ali). She shrieks and screams and the little vein in her neck pops out, not fun! I feel like I am constantly telling her to settle down or calm down so that we can fix it. Fortunately I can make use of her newly forming reasoning skills and help her to find a solution to the problem, usually to try again or start over.

Such determination!

She is very much in the "I do it" stage and I hear that pretty regularly throughout the day. Eric even tricked her into picking up toys the other day when she didn't want to. He told her that he would do it since she didn't want to and all of a sudden it was "I help you!" It was pretty awesome. She has mastered "I want some!" And I heard that about just about everything on our grocery shopping trip yesterday!

She loves to help Daddy make his protein shake!

Helping Nana make Kool-Aid

She loves trucks, buses and trains (we live really close to the train tracks so anytime we go anywhere we pass the trains) and we spend our time in the car looking for them. She can be very particular and only want to see buses or only want to see trucks, which can be challenging (especially when she wants to see buses on the weekend!).

She stole her P-Pa's seat (she is a HUGE seat stealer....
don't get up if she is around she doesn't believe in "tap, tap, seat back")

Enjoying some pre-bedtime popcorn with Daddy.

Delays.....

So, without a doubt the theme of our home buying process is delay. The purchasing process was frustrating and full of crazy delays and I wish that I could say that the renovation process was smooth and crazy free! 

We are SOO ready to be done and in our house. And we would have been, but we have again been plagued with delays.
The framers and the plumber got stuck on other jobs, so they started about a week behind schedule on our house.When the plumber turned on the water in the rental water started pouring out of the ceiling (both houses are slab on grade, so the plumbing is in the ceiling). Apparently the pipes cracked over the winter. So the entire plumbing had to be replaced. The framers started working and had all but 4 windows done (2 of which also required new walls to be built) and someone from the city happened by. Apparently we need to have a permit in order to replace our windows! Our contractor has never had to have a permit in order to put in new windows and even the inspector, or whoever, said that it's probably just a money maker for Auburn. Fortunately he allowed them to continue working enough to build the wall that had been ripped out since the rain was coming! Hopefully our permit will be obtained tomorrow and work can resume so that we can't paint next week and move on the weekend. We would really like to move next weekend so that we can be in our house before the mortgage is due!
But the good news is that I don't have to rush to pack!!

In other news.....

I have lightened my load during the week. I had some rough weeks where I found myself in a funk that was not allowing me to be a good wife and mother. My child watching schedule had increased and I no longer had any part of my day without any kids to watch. It was just way too much for me. Not having the freedom to get out of the house to run errands or do something fun with Brooklynn was affecting me more than I knew or thought that it would. So we made the decision that I would quit watching the little girl that had been coming since September. It was amazing how just making that decision lifted the darkness and my spirits, I started to feel more like myself again. I have loved the time that I have had the last few weeks to spend one on one time with Brooklynn and to even have a little more time for myself.

Also, we traded in our Altima for a Chryself Pacifica. We are loving our new car (especially that even with rolling over the remainder of our loan on the Altima our car payment is still a little less that what we were paying before)! Brooklynn especially loves being taller and able to see out the window better and I love that I don't have to bend over to get her in/out of her carseat!!