A Difference Of Two Years

Not Your Normal Weekend

Well, normal weekends don't exist this time of year for us right now, as they consist of Cary and Brenda working every day until tax season is over (come on April something!!!)

This weekend, however, was pretty fun and different, starting with celebrating Brenda's birthday with lunch, presents and turtle cheesecake! Somehow I managed to get zero pictures of her gifts, which consisted of 2 necklaces, a ton of blueberry stuff, and an electric griddle!  Cary, did you get any?  If so, send them this way!

However, I did manage to get pictures of me earning some 'Cool Mom' points with Brylee by getting her a bubble gun:

Sunday turned out to be a potential for some great amphibian crossings with the temperatures in the forties and raining nearly all day.  So after going to youth group that night, Cary, Brylee and I went to kill 30ish minutes at Dunkin Donuts getting hot chocolate and of course, donuts!

 And then it was on to Big Night with the LEA, a night where we assist amphibians like Yellow Spotted Salamanders, Wood Tree Frogs, and Spring Peepers in crossing the road so that they can get to their vernal pool to reproduce without getting squished by cars.

Big Night ended up being 'Not-So-Big-Night' with us only finding 3 critters to cross the road, but that means there is some great potential for another Big Night when we get out of the drizzling snow and rain in the 30's during the day thing. 

We found 2 salamanders (the other begged for 'no photos please!':

I found this guy while waiting for a car to pass!

Brylee seemed to have fun with us, riding on her daddy's shoulders and helping us spot cars so that none of us got hit by one.  I do hope she got the opportunity to see the critters and someday she'll be ready to walk along with us and spot them herself.

I can't wait for the next Big Night!!!

Cary's Birthday

A month ago, the greatest man that has graced my life had another birthday!

And we celebrated in style, including visiting the Portland Museum of Art:

(No pictures allowed...)

And by having our typical birthday lunch with his parents where he got coffee:

Gift cards (and several more from my family!!!)

And a little mug that Brylee painted and decorated!

I am so behind on writing out a post for him, but I hope that my non-blog things show him how much I love him and think the world of him.

Happy (belated blog post) birthday Cary!  And here's to many more!

Project 52: 11/52 Smooth

See the list here!

Project 52: 10/52 Quiet

See the list here!

Project 52: 9/52 Loud

Yep.  Between these two, our house is constantly loud and crazy.  Can't complain though--ultimately, they make the days far more interesting than not.  And I'd rather have the fun!

See the list here!

A Brylee Update

This girl is keeping me on my toes!

While she is going through her make-me-want-to-pull-my-hair-out toddler phase, she also manages to constantly make me laugh.

Yesterday I asked her to give me a high-five, and she proceeded to give herself a high-five and walked away.  I guess she discovered how uncool I really am...

This morning, I 'snuck away' for a moment only to come back to find her talking on the phone.  For a split second, I thought she was pretending, until she said "hi T!" when I looked at the phone, I realized that she really was talking to someone on the phone...still very glad it was T and not some random person she thought was T.  I also learned that T called us, not B finding a random contact and calling them...I'm sure some of my Facebook friends that are in my contact list would not be pleased to get a call from a 2 year old early in the morning...my apologies if that ever happens!!!

Her daddy asked her last week in the car if she was cold.  She responded with, "No, I'm Brylee."

She turned on a lamp in our bedroom last week and I asked her to turn it off, to which she responded by throwing up her right hand against her forehead and said "Aye aye Captain!"

She has learned how to twirl things, like plastic toy donuts, on their sides...

I managed to get her to eat and entire fried egg this morning!!!  This is a first for us, since she seems to be a very picky eater, and many times I get nervous that she's not eating healthy-enough options even though they are there for most meals...

We are slowly working on the potty training again, though taking it really slowly.  I ask her what she gets if she goes potty in the big girl chair, and she says "a coin!" and sometimes she throws in "Hidonalds!" (her version of McDonald's)  She has gotten 1 coin so far...

She also loves eating snow.  But don't bother adding anything to it.  She likes it scooped fresh from the patio!  (and yes, I make sure to only give her the clean stuff!)

I am blown away by her growth daily.  She loves to sing, and most excitedly participates in singing songs from the Jake and The Neverland Pirates soundtrack.  She even requests it when we're in the car and I am trying to listen to something else...so it's a good thing I enjoy the soundtrack just as much as she does!

This is one of my favorite photos.  We were at the grocery store on afternoon, and she tossed off her shoe.  Cary threatened her by saying, if you throw it down, we're going to leave it there.  Before you know it, she tossed her other shoe out the car-cart and said, "Bye-bye shoe!  See you later!", followed by her socks, saying, "Bye-bye socks!  See you later!"

And she loves to show off her gymnastics skills by flipping and standing on her head!  I can't wait to have her ready to start gymnastics classes to see if she enjoys it still!

And, one of my favorites:  in the last few days, she has become a daddy's girl.  Possibly due to the fact that Cary is gone 12 hours a day, 6ish days a week, and we both miss him a lot.  But she loves to hug him and loves bath time because she gets that time with him.

I'm sure there are many more changes going on with her, so keep an eye out...I also need to do an update on my favorite hubby's birthday!

All We Wanted Was To Go Out To Breakfast...

And this is what happened:

We got stuck...

 Take 2 (in my car this time)...

And made it only partially up our road (tracks pretty much end at the house)...

So this was our breakfast for Saturday morning...

Cheers!

(No worries...the snowplow 'rescued' Cary about noon that day so he could go into work...but it was a nice way to spend time together, just the two of us until we could get out and try to retrieve Brylee from her grandparents.)

Project 52: 8/52 Fall

If you look close enough, you can see snow falling.  We had a pretty big snow storm today, with several inches falling, starting early this morning and not stopping yet.  I need to figure out how much to be sure, but in some places, it is estimated to get to 14 or more!

See the list here!

Project 52: 7/52 Plug

Plug picture taken at the Portland Museum of Art:

And now for my plug for the electric company here in town:

See the list here!