Three!

A few days after Brooke was born, I remember sitting with her in her room and rocking her. She was absolutely tiny, weighing less than six pounds. Her little pinky finger was as long as my pinky is wide. She was so delicate and fragile, swimming even in her little pink preemie clothes.

Outside her window I could hear kids at the bus stop. I remember looking at her and thinking that kindergarten seemed a million years away. I pictured a little girl with long, dark hair and brown eyes that looked just like her daddy waiting at the bus stop.

I was wrong about two things: 1) my blue-eyed blond girl looks nothing like her daddy and 2) kindergarten is most certainly not a million years away. We're more than halfway there already. Brooke started preschool yesterday.



And she turns three next week!

Don't worry, I won't get all teary-eyed on you. This is such a sweet, happy time. Brooke visibly lights up any time we mention her party. She knows the drill: cake, ice cream, presents and grandparents. We're doing a simple little Tinkerbell party with just the grandparents. I can't wait to watch her have an amazing day!

I love that little girl to pieces and I can't believe three years have gone by since God let us have her.

Blessed, we are.

Growing Up

I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, but Brooke still sleeps in her crib. She's almost THREE and still in her crib. It's just so easy, though. She's never tried to climb out of it. She can unwind and fall asleep, and I know she hasn't gotten out of bed.

The crib is also, I think, the last piece of babyness, you know? Bottles and pacifiers are long gone. Baby toys have been handed down. Diapers are (mostly) gone. Brooke speaks in sentences and understands things. She recounted the story of Jonah and the whale after church today. She's learning to pedal a bike and knows when to say "please" and "sorry." It makes me happy and proud and makes my heart hurt all at the same time.

So, tonight I tried a little experiment. I put Brooke in my bed to see if she'd sleep there. I lay down with her for a while and we had a little talk. "You get to sleep in my bed tonight!" I told her. "Just stay right here and go to sleep."

I went back downstairs and listened. For a long time it was quiet...and then I heard a little giggle from the steps. I looked up to see her sweet little face poking through the stair rails. I laughed out loud.

Experiment failed. Brooke happily went back into her crib. She's asleep right now.

I know I can't let her sleep in her crib forever. She's a big girl and big girls don't sleep in cribs.

But I'll worry about that another time. For tonight, at least, she's still my baby.

Parade Fun

There's nothing like a little hometown parade to take care of the summertime blues.

Our town has two parades in one weekend for its little celebration. We had such a hot, sweaty good time at the first one that we decided to go to the second one, too.

The parade started off with firetrucks blaring their sirens and horns. Just a little too loud for my kiddos.


There weren't a lot of "floats," in the traditional sense...



...but we had all kinds of fun teaching Brooke to dodge in and out of traffic to grab candy in the street. She scored loads of jewelry. Atta girl.




Scot promised he would do whatever it takes to get to ride a little go-cart in the parade one day, complete with little hat.


Is it bad to give a one-year-old a sucker? Two suckers? Two suckers and a popsicle? Oops.


Soon, our work was done.


So we took our sweaty kids back home.

10 Things About You

Soon-to-be three-year-olds say and do some random stuff. I'm always thinking I should write some of it down for Brooke to read someday. So I did.

So, Brooke, here are 10 funny/sweet/weird/cute things that you're doing right now. I think I could have listed 100. Anyway, here goes...

10. You eat all the bread we take to feed the ducks.


9. You pray and thank God for birthdays, cupcakes, and, with some encouragement, Mommy, Daddy and Nate, "and they can have cupcakes, too!"

8. You're obsessed with trains and cars despite my every effort to make you a girly-girl.

7. You stop in the middle of throwing a fit to tell us you're throwing a fit. (Um, yeah. Thanks for the update.)

6. You think I know everyone's name, what they're doing and where they're going.

5. Playing with Play-doh equals handing me a wad of it and ordering me to make you things. ("Make Lightening McQueen! Make wheels on him! Make him a smiley face!")


4.Two words: DRESS UP!!


3. Your outgoing social-butterfly personality. (You can thank your dad for that one!)

2. You beg to sit in Daddy's car in the garage and listen to his I-Pod.


1. You're a mommy's girl through and through--far and away my favorite. :-)

That's just a little bit of you today. I love all of it and I love you, too, little girl.

Love, me