Spring Break

This will be a long post.

The first part of spring break we went to California, took one day at the beach and one day at Disneyland.  We wanted to go to Disneyland with Braelyn before she's not free (it's free for under 3), and I don't see us going anytime soon after baby 2 is born.  So here's some pictures from that.

Playing with her bucket and shovel.  The one time she was willing to touch sand and play with it.

This is how we felt about the beach most of the time.  She didn't want to go to the water and the sand was "dirty".

She did love the playground right by the beach though (and didn't mind the sand there!).  She especially loves the slides.

Then here's some Disneyland pictures.  We started the day off by meeting some princesses because the line was short.  We met Aurora (Sleeping Beauty, I guess), Ariel, and Cinderella.  Braelyn did NOT like them.  We have a pretty funny picture the Disney photographers took of her with one of them just looking like "I hate you".  The funniest one was Cinderella who did not break character for anything.  She talked about how her mice were shy when she first met them, especially Gus-gus, whoever that is.  Aurora was the nicest, but Braelyn didn't really want anything to do with them.  The only person-character that she knows is Tinkerbell, but the line for Pixie Hollow, which is where she is was super long so we didn't go.  She LOVED the characters though...we got to meet Pluto, Mickey, and Goofy.

We hugged and kissed Pluto.  Excuse my ugliness in the following pictures.

Then we met Mickey.  She kissed him, which the Disney photographers got a super cute picture of.  She didn't hug him, but mostly because meeting Mickey is sort of rushed.

Then we met Goofy.  She kissed him several times and hugged him.  I'm pretty sure his "handler" was going to get really irritated at us if she would have wanted to do anything else.

 We went on a few rides, anything that went inside was "scary", which is most rides.  Even It's a Small World was scary.  This is before the ride.  Note the "1st Visit" button.  She loved it.

Inside the ride.  By the end she was better, but seriously, It's a Small World is scary?? :)

One of the two rides she actually really liked:  The carousel.  Her favorite ride was the teacups, but we don't have a picture of that one.  We rode it twice in a row and would have gone for a third if the line had not gotten really long.

Some great family pictures.  Note the Mickey ears, she loved them.

Next we came home and the plumbers spent all day digging up our front yard and fixing our pipe.  That night we got down Braelyn's "Big Girl Bed" and did a little more decorating in her room.

 This is her "say cheese" face.  You will see it more below.

Easter!  We have her Easter dress.  There is a egg hunt between services at church.

 She waited so patiently to go gather eggs (for the little kids, they are literally sitting out on the lawn).

 Picking up eggs.

 Braelyn found one of the "special" eggs for the little kids, so she "won" a lamb that plays Jesus Loves Me and an Easter book.

 More finding eggs.

Then we came home and dyed eggs and she "found" more eggs at home (dumped out the eggs and picked them up again repeatedly).  We had ham, her favorite meat, and asparagus, one of her favorite vegetables, for dinner.  She had a great day, though I am exhausted because she didn't take a nap, though she asked for one twice, but never actually fell asleep!  The funniest part was that she didn't like any of the candy we put in her basket.  Oh well, so much the better for me! :)

Not very excited about coloring eggs.  We used three different colors.  One of them was brown.  I didn't know that egg coloring kits had brown dye.  Weird. 

"Cheese" by the finished eggs.

 Sorry, these are out of order, stamping her eggs with the stamps she got from the church egg hunt.

 "Hunting" eggs she dumped out in the backyard.

The ultrasound I had on Friday showed that the cyst on Baby 2's brain is gone.  All is normal.  We are more prepared for this one to come after this week since we set up the crib in the office now and got a double stroller.  We just need to clean out the office a bit more (okay, a lot more) but then we will be all ready.  Braelyn will get a playhouse type thing either in May or after school is out (whenever we have time to put it together).  We bought a wood playhouse from Costco that has a kitchen in it, because we don't really have room in the house for a kitchen, so we figured that would be better.  And she absolutely loves being outside.  For her birthday we're giving her a water and sand table.  Even in the heat of the summer she wants to be outside, so this should satisfy her need for outside toys with these two big things. 

Long time, No see...

Sorry...it's been a long time.  My excuses would be numerous...foremost in those is that after Christmas break I went back to work full time.  My other excuse has been a busyness with this:

We are having baby #2, a girl!  For a while our reaction was more like, *sigh* a girl.  But we realize that's a ridiculous attitude because there are plenty of people who either would love a girl because they have all boys or can't have/struggle to have kids at all.  I just never pictured myself as a mother to girls (at all), but of course I wouldn't trade Braelyn for anything. :)  God obviously had other plans. The baby is due June 29th.  Things are going well, except I've had to have a few extra doctor's appointments since a cyst was found on baby's brain in the anatomy ultrasound.  It turns out that the cyst is generally not a big deal.  We have an ultrasound right before Easter at which they should find that the cyst is gone, so we shall see.

Braelyn is doing super well.  She talks so much and so well, generally really understandable.  She's even starting to put words together to make some short sentences.  She knows her colors (most of the time). She tends to call all older looking people "Grandpa".  I think that's her new word for both Grandma and Grandpa as I don't believe she's ever said the word Grandma.  She's quite bossy and has very strong opinions on what she should wear and eat.  This is very un-amusing in the morning when I'm trying to get her dressed in a limited amount of time, the worst is what shoes to wear.   It drives me absolutely nuts when I give her several choices of shoes to wear and her response is "no".  She has no idea what is going on with the new baby.  We plan on getting her into a "big girl bed" over spring break.  She is showing signs of being ready for potty training, but still has yet to actually potty in the toilet.  We will probably try to go naked for a few days over spring break and see if we can't catch her to get her on the toilet.

The current favorite is Mickey, and we have discovered that we love going to the park.  She also LOVES "Target!".  Every weekend we want to go there.  And/or get or make "Coffees!".  Braelyn can be very bossy, but apparently is also quite maternal to the babies at Miss Autumn's house.  Hopefully the transition with a little sister will go smoothly.  Another thing that we love to do is go on walks.  Almost every afternoon we have to take Hunter on a walk around the neighborhood, for which she does NOT want to ride in the stroller.  So since she generally insists upon going the longest route possible, I end up carrying her about half the way back, sometimes while throwing a fit, since she wants to just sit in someone's yard instead of keeping walking.  Ah, the fits.  She's generally not *bad*, so much, but it seems that the crying happens a lot...

Anyway, we are doing good.  It was a bit of an adjustment to go back to full time but Braelyn loves Autumn and the kids there, so that was fine.  We are currently trying to get a leak (somewhere) fixed, so that's the big issue for the house at the moment.  I'm pretty certain it's in our main line since four other houses on our street have had this issue as well.  Nate is starting track now, so April will consist of lots of long Saturdays for me.  Just about two more months of school!