Celebrations

This picture has nothing to do with Celebrating her birthday, but she was super cute  when she took over Daddy's side of the bed when he got up for work.

Brooklynn was a lucky girl and got a few days of celebrations her birthday, aside from her Birthday party last week. On Tuesday, after her 12 month check-up, we went and visited Daddy at work and went to see all the ladies over at City Hall. They love to fawn over her and she just soaks up the attention. A little bit later that afternoon we met some friends at the park for a play date and cupcakes. Brooklynn loves the park and she got to use her new sand toys in the awesome sand pit.

Our super cute friend Alice that we don't see very often since we moved. 

Brooklynn loves to play in sand and eat sand! I even got her lowering
her mouth to the sand to lick it up!

 Eric took the day off on Wednesday so that we could take Brooklynn to the Zoo. We didn't know quite how she would do. But she really loves animals, so we were hoping that she would have fun. It was a great day for the zoo. We went to Point Defiance and got there just as the school field trips were leaving! Perfect timing!! The weather was great. It wasn't hot, wasn't cold, and most importantly it wasn't rainy! Brooklynn had a great time! I think her favorite part was the aquarium, she really seemed to love looking in all the tanks. She also liked any of the animals that had water in their habitat, but mostly because she wanted to get in the water! She was trying so hard to join the sea otters!

LOOK!!

This is what she was seeing....Lemurs sleeping

Dancing Elephant and super cute pigtail girl!

The octopus came out from under the rock just to say hi to us!

So pretty!

Let me in there!!

I thought it was super cute watching Brooklynn and Eric walking.
Eric was wondering what was taking me so long!

The Polar Bears were non-existent. It's a sore subject.
We 're not gonna talk about it.

She crashed about 20 seconds after we put her in the stroller.
It's hard work looking at animals!

Love this happy face!

She loved this spinning cup thing. It would spin in a complete 360 and she
even figured out how to mover her upper body to get it to rotate herself.
Smart cookie! 

Pigtails!!!

Yup, that's right. We are in the pigtail stage!!! 

I put pigtails in Brooklynn's hair for the first time on Wednesday and then in one pony on the top of her head today. Can I just say SOOO CUTE!!! 

How is that a simple pony/pigtails can make a baby look so much older?!?! 

I have a ONE year old!!!

I cannot believe that Brooklynn turned ONE today!

One year ago we were in the hospital relishing the sweetness of our newborn and in complete awe of her arrival.  

She was so perfect and beautiful and we just couldn't get enough of her. She absolutely, without a doubt, won us over the instant she graced us with her presence. 

Now, she is still perfect, and beautiful, and we can't get enough of her. (Somethings will never change!) But she is definitely not our squishy little newborn anymore!

Our little girl, who started at 8lbs 7.3oz and 20 in, is now 20lbs 2.5 oz (40th percentile) and 30 in tall (80th percentile). It is so crazy that she has been walking for 5 months now and that we started the running and climbing (onto and into everything!) stage before she even turned one! It is getting ridiculous how much she is able to get into, there is seriously no keeping her out of anything anymore. Her latest thing is to climb into drawers and to grab onto things to try to pull herself up.

I have enjoyed watching her personality develop. She is definitely headstrong! This little girl knows what she wants and you better not stand in her way! She loves being the center of attention and will ham it up like crazy. She loves to laugh and sometimes will just start laughing completely out of the blue. I have a feeling that she is going to be very opinionated as well. She seems to think that her mouth is a third hand! If her hands are full and she wants to pick up something else, she will just use her mouth to do it. Sometimes she just decides to use her mouth even if she doesn't have anything in her hands, she'll pick things up from the floor, the couch, where ever. Why use your hands when it's just going to go into your mouth anyways?! It's pretty funny to see!

She tries so hard to communicate, but doesn't have any real words outside of "dada" and "mama." She gets so frustrated when I am not able to understand her. It is definitely frustrating for me to know that she is trying to tell me something that I can't understand.

Happy Birthday Little Girl!! Mommy loves you!!

Party Time

So Brooklynn's birthday isn't until Tuesday but we had her party today so that out of town family could be there. Luckily for us it was a GORGEOUS day because we had a BBQ in the backyard. We got Brooklynn a slide/climber and it was a huge hit, she loves it!

Checking out her new toy!

Having fun with cousins Addison and Bryson

Birthday Girls get to ride on the roof!

She is such a little Monkey

Seriously, we can't keep her off anything anymore!

Brooklynn was a very lucky girl and got some great presents. She got an awesome keepsake growth chart, sand toys, chalk, clothes, and a play kitchen.

And of course, there was cake!!! Brooklynn had her own little monkey cake and everyone else had monkey cupcakes.

First bite of frosting!

YUM!

She really loved the frosting!

Want some?

And we're done!

Love the frosting face!!

What a perfect day for our little Monkey's party!
(She played so hard ALL day long today she went to bed at 7:45!)

Birthday Dress

A few months ago I saw this birthday shirt at Target. I liked the idea of the shirt, but Brooklynn is a petite little thing and I thought she would swim in the 12 month shirt. So I bought a onesie (on clearance!) and some fabric and with the help of my mom made her a one of a kind birthday dress. I am a pretty novice sewer so I definitely couldn't have done it without my mom. She ended up doing quite a bit of the work because when it got time for the nitty-gritty sewing Brooklynn had had enough of me ignoring her and needed some mommy time!

This is what we started with:

Onesie, grey/white polka dot satin, and pink shimmery tulle.

Finished product:

I am so excited for her to wear it at her birthday party tomorrow, and to church on Sunday, and next week when we go visit Daddy at work and then when we go to the Zoo, and possibly sometime while we are in Seaside with my family! We are definitely going to get good use out of her birthday dress!

I'm linking up for the first time at:
Tatertots and Jello, Flamingo Toes, Simply Cadence, Someday Crafts

There are pictures of her in the dress in my Party post, but I thought I would add one here too for easy viewing! Not the best picture of Brooklynn, she had just woken up so she was a little out of it, but it's the best I have of her just standing there!

Memorial Day Weekend

We spent Memorial Day Weekend over in Wapato with Eric's family. It was such a great, long, lazy weekend! The weather was really nice the while we there so there was a lot of playing outside with all the cousins, Brooklynn was in HEAVEN!!

In the car on the way to Wapato, Brooklynn had to have her water bottle and mine! 

 Brooklynn LOVES dogs, and there were certainly plenty of them for her to play with. Sorry little girl, you probably will never have a dog of your own.

 One of the highlights of the weekend: playing on Grandpa's lawnmower.

 Another highlight was riding in the car.

 Trenton, Brooklynn, Chloe and Audrey "watching" the game of Ultimate Frisbee.

 Brooklynn is a total water baby! It was barely warm enough for the pool and the water was cold, but she could not get enough of it. All the other babies cried when they first touched the water, but Brooklynn just went to town. She L.O.V.E.D. it! And she was so impatient to get in it that we didn't even have time to put a swim diaper on her! She was SO mad at us both times that we made her get out of the pool. She screamed and tried to get back in, even though she was shivering and practically purple!

 Those diapers are filling up!

 Look at that diaper! I think it weighed as much as she does!

Little Miss Cool 

(right before she broke my sunglasses! That's what I get for trying to keep her happy in the car!)