Children's museum on a rainy day

It has been a very rainy and cold week here in Houston (by cold I mean it hasn't gotten above 50...which is cold for us!) Since we haven't seen sunshine in over a week, we decided to head to the children's museum with some of Brinley's friends from Mothers Day Out. They have a wonderful toddler room for the kids to play in with lots of discovering to be had. Brinley and her girlfriends enjoyed running around and playing for the morning. In fact, on the way home they all passed out from exhaustion and slept the rest of the rainy afternoon!

Climbing stairs was the biggest hit of the day!

Kissing herself in the mirror

Brinley, Maddy & Addison riding in the car

How many do you think is in there???

18 month old stats

I took Brinley to the doctor yesterday for her 18 month checkup. It is so hard to believe she is already 18 months old! There was a lady in the waiting room with a two week old little girl and I couldn't even remember Brinley being that little! My how time flies!!

She weighed 25 lbs (finally!) and was 32 inches tall, which put her in the 50 percentile for both. I am glad she is finally gaining weight! If you saw how much this child eats on a daily basis, you would think she should weigh 40 lbs!! I guess she is going to be like her Daddy with a high metabolism. Her favorite thing to do right now is play tea party at her table. She comes and grabs the finger of anyone in the house to sit down and play with her. She pours the tea for you (she even makes the swishing sound) and sets out all the plates, bowls and spoons. The funny thing is I never taught her how to play tea party. I guess she absorbed me setting the table and serving food all the time! It is too cute!

Anyways, happy 1/2 birthday baby! Well, actually it was on the 19th so I am a little late! This picture was taken on the 19th but she was too busy playing to smile for me!

Scheming for cookies

Now that Brinley and Wyatt have had time to be around each other, they have gotten very comfortable with one another. We saw a quick glimpse into how much trouble they will get themselves into this past weekend at Grandma's house.


Grandma made some sugar cookies and gave each kid one right before dinner. Of course they both wanted another one, but we wouldn't give it to them since dinner was almost ready. In their nonverbal way of communicating, they pushed a stool over to the counter, Brinley climbed up (yes my little monkey is still climbing onto everything despite her recent fall) while Wyatt pointed to where the cookies were!

It is so funny so see them work together like that without even saying a word! I am sure this won't be the last time they are scheming at Grandma's, especially when it comes to her delicious cookies!

Give me a cookie!!

What?? We aren't doing anything!

Success!

A visit with Brinley's cousin from Switzerland

For those who don't know, Jason's brother and his family are currently living in Switzerland and their son, Wyatt, was born two days after Brinley. So it is very exciting for Brinley to have a cousin who is the same age as her. Unfortunately, he lives on the other side of the world for 11 months out of the year :(

Anyways, they are in town visiting for a few weeks and we got the kiddos together for a belated Christmas celebration this past weekend. There were too many people around and I think both kids were overwhelmed so they didn't interact too much. I tried to get a good picture of them but I have decided that is impossible when you have two 18 month olds running around like crazy! The only time I got them to stand still long enough was when someone was holding them or at the end of the night when they were exhausted! Oh well, we have 2 more weeks to get more pictures!

Brinley, Jason, Wyatt and Bill

Brinley and Wyatt watching Winnie the Pooh...do you think they are tired???!!!

PS- notice her black eye is looking so much better a week later!

Day 4- Getting Blacker

Even though it is getting blacker, it is looking better! We went out to lunch and to the park with her friend Maddy today. She was so excited to get out of the house and play! We have tried to limit taking her out in public so nobody would call CPS on us (ha ha ha!)

Daddy's little boxer

Day 4

Eye- Day Three

It looks worse than it is. She is still doing great and doesn't act like it bothers her. Breakfast was the only time I could get her to sit still long enough to take these pictures, so that is why she has blueberries all over her face!

First trip to the ER

After 17 months, we finally took Brinley to the Emergency room for the first time. While I was shopping in Target yesterday, she decided to nose dive out of the cart onto the hard floor. Yes, I know I am a horrible mother for not strapping her in, but she really hates being tied down and it wasn't worth the fight for the 10 minutes I was going to be in there....lesson learned!

She started crying immediately, which I knew was a good thing because she wasn't unconscious. I left Target immediately and started to drive home, all the while she was crying hysterically (I was too!) About half way home, she stopped crying and started to fall asleep (another bad thing for head injuries I learned from Jason's soccer induced concussion). So I called her pediatrician who told me to take her to the ER. I also called Jason who left work to meet me there. The whole way to the hospital I had the music blaring and screaming her name to keep her awake!

After arriving at the ER, she was pretty lifeless, just layed in my lap and moaned. She also got pretty mad at me because I kept waking her up! The ER was packed but I guess since we had a head injury we got in and out in about 3 hours. They did a cat scan on her, which she did not like at all. Jason and I had to hold her down while they did it. She also got pretty mad about the bracelets they put on her ankles and cried until Jason cut them off with his pocket knife!

The results were good and bad news. She had no bleeding in her head nor swelling, which is great. She does have a small fracture in her skull right at her hairline. There is nothing behind it, so nothing was damaged and it should heal on its own. She has a big bump on her forehead and a pretty bad black eye. The ER doctor said they see kids who fall out of grocery carts all the time and it is very common (or maybe he was just telling me that to make me feel better since I was crying so bad....)

Here are some pictures of my little trooper

Eating dinner the night of the accident

Day two

Screaming at Rylee through the fence

She is doing great today and acting her normal wild self (other than her big black eye). I think this whole ordeal has been harder on me than her! Did she learn her lesson? No, she tried to jump off the couch this morning!! I think I am going to have my hands full!

Happy new year!

Happy new year everyone! We had a great new years eve. We met Keith and Sarah for dinner at Pappasitos (YUM!!!!) and then had the Smith family over for cards, champagne and fireworks! Even Brinley rang in the new year staying up until 12:30am playing with her cousin (of some sorts) Hannah and Aunt Marian. We gave her a bath when we got home from dinner and got her in her pj's thinking we will just let her go until she passes out. Party animal that she is, we finally had to put her to bed. All in all, it was a great night and a great way to ring in the new years!