Full of Cuteness

My Brookie bug is still just growing up so fast. She has added a few new words to her vocabulary, "mouth, eyes, more & milk." She can point out my nose, mouth and eyes when asked. She is also calling her sister Aubrey Kaye quite often. Probably because that's what I call her. She is still mimicking like a pro. Aubrey has these word puzzles she got from the Tanner's for her birthday. It has a word on one piece and the picture of the word on the other. Aubrey was making word matches and then putting the puzzle together on the box. Brooke kept grabbing puzzle pieces and putting them on the box too. She HAS to do whatever we are doing or she gets very upset. I never thought my Brooke would have as strong a personality as is coming out since she turned one. The tantrums and screaming have decreased some, thank goodness! But she still definitely knows what she wants and makes it very known to us!

She has had trouble sleeping ever since I took the pacifier away from her the day after her birthday. She started waking up at 6 a.m. and only taking 30 min. naps. That has been extremely hard on me. One night a couple weeks ago while I was rocking her and singing her songs, she saw her bath towel hanging from the back of the rocking chair. She grabbed it and snuggled it up to her face. All of a sudden I realized that she needed a blankie to take to bed with her. We use sleep sacks, so she has never slept with a blanket. Anyway, I gave her a blanket to snuggle and it totally did the trick! I couldn't believe how easy the solution was. She went back to sleeping until 7 or 7:30 a.m. and has extended her afternoon nap to at least an hour and sometimes 1.5 hours. We still haven't gotten back to an hour in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon. But, now I have hope that it may happen again! Hallelujah!

Brooke loves yogurt, but even yogurt she insists on feeding herself! What a mess she makes!

Sometimes she uses her hand and sometimes the spoon.

As usual, after I took the above picture of Brooke, Aubrey asked for a picture of her!

Aubrey is my little conversationalist. She can carry on full conversations and has been doing so for quite a while. Lately, she loves to talk on the phone and rarely gives the other person any time to talk. She wanders around the house telling them everything she has done or sees, she sings songs and tells stories. She always surprises me with the concepts she understands and remembers. She also continues to play very well on her own. Which is so great! During her first 18 months, I never thought she would be able to cut the strings and venture off on her own! I'm glad to see her imagination and creativity coming out all of the time.

She still says just the funniest things. The following are some of our conversations the last couple of weeks.

Aubrey has been sneaking into our bed earlier and earlier every morning. Jeff told her at dinner that "big girls stay in their beds the whole night." This was her rebuttal, "Well, when I am big like you guys than I'll stay in my bed the whole night. Right now I'm just a little bit big." Wow with arguments like that at 3, I can't imagine what her teenage years hold for us!

Aubrey was complaining about her tummy hurting. I was suggesting some things we could do to make it feel better. She said, "I know we can pray to Heavenly Father and he'll make it feel better!" Then as she was kneeling with head bowed, praying, Brooke crawled over, knelt and bowed her head and started babbling. It was too cute seeing both of my girls praying.

We were driving to the temple, the day my niece, Jenny, was married. I was telling Aubrey about the wedding. I told her that Jenny would be wearing a beautiful white dress and would be getting married in the temple which is so beautiful it looks like a castle. Aubrey responded with, "Mommy, is she going to marry a Prince?"

One night before bed Aubrey said, "I don't like night time, because I don't sleep well."

One night for FHE we talked about sin and repentance. One of the things we did was show her a bottle with clean water. We said that represented our clean spirits. Then we talked about when we sin we dirty the spirit. We put drops of food coloring in the water. Then we talked about repentance and how the Savior can make our spirit clean again. We poured in some bleach and it turned the water clear again. It must have made an impression on her because several days later it came up. She had been being quite disobedient that day. We were having a conversation about it. I asked her what happens when she doesn't obey mommy. She replied with, "I get a time out and my spirit gets dirty." It was too cute!

This is Aubrey wanting me to take a picture of how pretty she looks. She was completely covered in lip gloss!


Lately Aubrey likes to play that she is going to the hospital to have a baby (or several!) The first time after her baby was born, she asked, "Mommy what do you do with a baby right after it is born?" So I told her that you give the baby hugs and kisses, wrap it in blankets, give it a tubby and feed it. So that's what she does now.

In this picture she is with all of her babies at the hospital, and ready to have another. I know this because I asked her if she already had all of her babies and she responded with, "no those babies I already had before. Now I have one in my tummy and we are going to the hospital so it can be born." Then after her baby was born she read them all stories. Too cute! I love how in this picture she is holding her tummy, because her baby is inside!

Lately Aubrey wants to always sit by Brooke at the table. She drags all of the chairs out of the way and pulls Brooke's high chair up right next to her.