Gigi's Easter Egg Hunt

On Wednesday morning before Bible Study we headed to Gigi's retirement community for an Easter Egg Hunt.  They invited a daycare and all the grandkids and great-grandkids of the residents to hunt eggs, eat snacks, etc.  It was SO MUCH FUN!  I loved watching Brynn find the eggs...it is amazing how different this year and last year were...last year she was just learning to walk and this year she was running around yelling the colors of the eggs and scooping them in her basket!

 

 

Oh my gosh...is my child watching the TV for more than 30 seconds? HA!

Ready to go hunt eggs...

Lots of the residents came out of their cottages to watch...I think they really enjoyed it!
When I get that age, I want to live somewhere like this!
The staff does so many fun things for them!  =)

Charli got lots of love from Brynn...Brynn even brought her over an Easter egg!
Then Brynn proceeded to open the egg for Charli, take out a piece of candy, tell Charli
"no eating that candy Charli" and opened it and ate it herself!  OH BROTHER!
Then she took out half of the chewed up candy, and set it on Charli's neck!  HAHA!  Poor Charli had little pieces of
chocolate all over her!

Lots of Gigi's great-grandkids were there!

Brynn, Ansley, Charli, and Gigi!

And as I sit and type this, Brynn is napping and I MAY have just opened several of the Easter eggs she got today, and I MAY have just eaten some of the candy...WHOOPS!

Under the Sea...

Ryan snapped these the other night after Brynn's bath.  She has been quite enamored with Ariel lately...partially because my grandparents got her an Ariel dress-up outfit for her birthday, and also because she got an Ariel towel and little Ariel doll for the bathtub...check out her towel...HILARIOUS!  Also side-note...I had no idea I had on Brynn's yellow sunglasses until I just loaded these pictures...HA!

 

When she runs around the house in this towel I can't help but crack up!

Eating some Lucky Charms while we watched Dancing with the Stars!

I am still wondering when I put these glasses on....

2 Year Highlights...

I may have just officially made myself start crying by posting these pictures!  Okay, I need to pull myself together.  Brynn is TWO and today we had her two year well-visit.  I figured this would be a good place to write down those stats, and also record a few of the milestones she is reaching.  (I'm going to apologize in advance for the long list, but feel free to skip down to the pictures since this probably won't interest you!)

• Weight - 25.0 pounds - 27%
• Height - 34.5 inches - 67%
• Dr. Hoffman said everything looks great, and that she's on the more "taller and thinner" side...HA!  We were so thankful for a great check-up!
• She is SO VERBAL these days...I have NO IDEA how many words she knows...she seems to hear us say something a few times and then remembers it.  The other day we were eating cottage cheese, but never said the word and all of a sudden I hear her say "Iwun cottish cheese too!"  WHAT??  I think that pretty much sums up her vocabulary right now.
• She knows all the main colors...yellow, orange, red, pink, purple, green, blue, white, black.
• She has started really getting into "singing"...she can sing "Jesus Loves Me" (as I'm typing this she is in bed for the night and I can hear her over the monitor singing it...it's ADORABLE!)  She sings it so fast...one of my favorite memories right now is that she wants us to sing to her before we lay her in bed before naps and at night.  Ryan always lays her down at night, but I lay her down for naps and she will sit in my lap on the pink chair in her room and we sing Jesus Loves Me together.  She looks right into my eyes and says the words with me.  
• She loves to attempt to count.  She had 1-5 down really good, so we kept saying 6-10 more, but since then she only starts with like 6.  It is hilarious.  She will count things like 1,2,4,6,7,8, 10!  Or even 1,2,3,2,3,4, etc.  
• She can go up and down stairs all by herself...she even goes up without needing her hands.  To come down she usually scoots on her bottom or uses the railing.  She is a jumping and running machine!
• Her new phrases are "HOLY COW" (thanks to my dad!) and "Oh man!"  To hear her say those when she thinks something is cool or when she drops something makes me CRACK UP!
• She loves purple and pink (but especially purple) and she is really into the princess thing right now.  She can name Cinderella, Snow White, Jasmine, Ariel, Rapunzel (who she calls Tangled sometimes too), and Belle, but she's never really seen the movies.  If she could ever sit still long enough to watch something, maybe she would like them even more!  HA!
• She actually has sat and watched things on TV for about five minutes here at the house, but that's about it.  She watches Veggie Tales or Strawberry Shortcake in the car really well, but doesn't sit still in the house to watch anything.
• I have noticed a BIG change in how long she plays and entertains herself.  Sometimes I have to go check on her while I'm cooking because she is playing by herself so well.  That's pretty cool!
• She is a GREAT eater...there really isn't anything I can think of that she doesn't like.  We've also noticed that she sits a LOT longer in restaurants lately.  
• Sleep has been really good.  She usually naps somewhere between an hour and half to two and a half hours, and at night we usually put her to bed around 8:30 and she is up around 8ish or a little later.  She falls asleep for her naps SO FAST but at night we hear her playing for over 30 minutes sometimes...singing, chirping around, playing with her baby, etc.  We are blessed in this department!
• Lest I make it sound like we have the perfect child, she can be QUITE opinionated.  She says "NO" a lot, and also likes to do everything herself, which can cause problems when she wants to pick out a pair of shoes or an outfit and I'm like "no, we cannot wear that" or "okay, you cannot put socks on by yourself and we are running late and mommy has to do it!"
• We are so blessed with such a happy, healthy, little spunky thing.  She has such a fun personality and we LOVE HER SO VERY MUCH!

About 30 minutes old...=)

ONE DAY OLD!

ONE YEAR OLD!

TWO YEARS OLD!

Brynn's Second Birthday - Tutus and Bow-ties Style...

On Friday Brynn turned 2!  But we didn't have her party until Saturday, which also happens to be my sister's birthday!  We had the party at Ryan's parents house this year (we just do NOT have enough room...but I am  dreaming of the day we can host a fun event at our house!  HA!) so on Saturday morning I headed over to Pam and Rick's to do a little work setting up for the party.  Ryan got Brynn up and ready and brought her over before the party started.  We celebrated with lots of our family and some close friends.  It was crazy and FUN!

Ryan took this at home...clearly I MADE him bring me stuff to fix her hair...but that was a bad idea.
He forgot the BOW, so my poor child didn't even get to wear a bow for her party!  Dads...

My sister came over early to help decorate...on her 23rd birthday!  How sweet!

We had tutus for the girls and bow-ties for the boys...I think it turned out pretty cute!

Erin and sweet Colton...how cute is this little man in his bow-tie!

My favorite seamstress, the fabulous Mrs. Linda, helped me make all the bow-ties!  Actually, let's be
honest..she and Pam made them all, and I helped cut fabric and tie all the tutu's...I probably
gave myself carpal tunnel syndrome, but my job was much easier than theirs!  HA!
THANK YOU LINDA AND PAM!
Thank you Greene's for helping us celebrate!

Daddy and Uncle Jason were getting in the "theme" of the party...thanks guys!

I guess I never took pictures of the food, but we had BBQ sandwiches (thanks to my father-in-law!), chips, veggies and dip, fruit salad, and BOW-TIE mac and cheese (thanks mom!)  And my mother-in-law was so sweet and pretty much manned all the food stuff...I never once helped fill up the food.  I just got to ENJOY the party!  We are VERY blessed with great parents who love to help out.  THANK YOU GUYS!

Then it was time to sing Happy Birthday...she has been singing this for the last couple of weeks...
Happy Birthday to Minn (that's usually what it sounds like when she says her name)

She blew out the candles pretty well!

YUM!

This could be my favorite picture ever...

Then Brynn opened her presents...I was really surprised at how well she did.  Of course, it was MUCH easier that all the presents were in bags.  She would throw the tissue paper out and go at it.  The funniest part was that she was sitting on Ryan's lap, and he was trying to make sure he told me who each present was from.  Sometimes she got going so fast, we were all laughing at Ryan.  He was like "whoa, slow down...this is getting overwhelming...I'm getting stressed!"  HA!  It was hilarious!

This face CRACKS ME UP!

Princes stuff was a big hit!

Ansley was hilarious...I can just picture Brynn being the same way when Charli turns 2!
She was trying to help and it reminded me so much of home videos when I was little having a birthday party
and Erika would try to open all my presents.  You can hear everyone on the video going "Erika,
let Whitney do that!" But she was so sweet and helpful!

Granny and Pawpaw got her an Ariel costume, and let me tell you...we have WORN that thing out in the last
few days...she put it on at the party and didn't take it off!

After the party, she was playing around with my Dad and I had to snap some pictures.  After everything that happened with him getting sick in September, I just always feel so blessed that he's HERE to make these memories with her!

Notice Ariel's earrings?
She was VERY excited about those...=)
And yes, she has purple icing all over her face!

After cleaning up and getting home, she took a MONSTER nap (and so did Daddy!)  We ended up waking her up because I was afraid she wouldn't go to bed that night because she had slept too long!  I brought her out and she had some snuggles with Daddy...these two were worn out!

Oh, Ryan doesn't have a shirt on?  What's new?

Later that night, we went to Watami for Lindsey's birthday.  Brynn LOVED it.  My dad kept laughing at how she was eating all the soup and trying all the food (because if you know my mom, she DOES NOT like any Asian food...I think Brynn ate WAY more than my mom!)  She would say "more fire" and clap every time she saw someone's table lighting up with fire.  She wanted to sit on my lap and my dad's lap when they did it at our table, but she did really well...it was just such a fun dinner!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRYNN AND LINDSEY...WE LOVE YOU!