A New Chapter

This will be the last post on Brooke's blog. We figured it is time for a new blog with our new family member coming soon! Brooke's blog will stay in cyberspace so feel free to visit it anytime you want to revisit her first 3 years, but her new stories and pictures will be on our new family blog:

www.nickellfamily.wordpress.com

We appreciate you sharing in Brooke's life over the past 3 years and can't wait for you to share in the adventures of Brooke and her new baby brother or sister!

Weekend Fun!

I am finished working Saturdays so we enjoyed a "normal" weekend. It was nice to get out as a family and do some fun things and not have to squeeze everything in around work!

Brooke did get a few gifts for her birthday that were not princess related! She enjoyed painting with her new paints and smock on my day off this week.
Saturday was a beautiful day out so we enjoyed a trip to the Manhattan Sunset Zoo.

Another birthday gift...a new microphone! Here she is jammin' in her Ariel costume!
We realized it had been a while since we had put pigtails in...they are a little more substantial than the first time we tried!

Oh...and she had an EXCELLENT potty weekend...peed in the potty all weekend! Still working on preschool and pooping, but we'll take what we can get!!!

What it means to be 3...

...peeing on the potty(!!!!!) and calling my parents, "mom" and "dad" instead of "mommy" and "daddy"

So, for a little background, we started trying to work with Brooke on potty training back around the holidays. Since then she has shown little to NO interest in it and really could care less about it. We had some pull ups around (which she calls and thinks of as "big girl pants") so she has been wearing them more but not really doing anything else to do with potty training. As of Sunday, she had NEVER peed in the potty. Jason and I were about ready just to drop it again until after the baby was born, but apparently "something" clicked on Sunday and she asked to sit on the potty and went! Then we had to go to a dinner and she asked to go potty at the restaurant. The second time she ever peed in the potty was in a public bathroom!!! She continued to do well Sunday night and Monday morning. Tuesday I was home with her and she used the potty all day!!!!

Our one question was how she was doing at preschool. I called her teacher today and she said nothing had changed (she wasn't using the potty at all). I tried to think of why this would be and Jason asked her tonight...my suspicion was right...she flat out told him, "because I don't get m&m's there!"

So...we will work on a reward for preschool but we are thrilled that she is doing so well at home. Now we just hope it doesn't all get erased when the baby is born!

For some reason, on Sunday, she also stopped calling us Mommy and Daddy, using Mom and Dad instead! I have no idea where this came from and it makes her sound way too grown up...we don't like it at all!!!

3 Year Check Up

Brooke had her 3 year check up today. She smiled through the entire exam and didn't have to get any shots which was even better!
Her new stats:
Height: 36.5 inches (38%)
Weight: 30.5 lbs (36%)

Happy 3rd Birthday Brooke!

Brooke has been looking forward to her birthday for months! She woke up Sunday very excited that the day was finally here. She started by exclaiming that she wanted cake for breakfast! She was very excited for her party and couldn't wait for everyone to get here. She had a wonderful princess party and had so much fun with all of her grandparents, great grandparent Nickell's and Aunt Arianne. She loved ALL of her presents but her favorite was probably her new princess dress-up clothes and shoes. She smiled and laughed the entire time we sang happy birthday to her. Everyone wore crowns instead of party hats and she thought that was pretty cool too! After cake she played dress up and with all her new toys (see next post). At about 2:45 she decided the party was over when she asked me, "Can I go to sleep now?" after which she promptly took her nap in her new princess and the frog nightgown!

Below is a collage of pics before the party...thanks Grandpa Stuart for taking all the wonderful pictures so I didn't have to!
Here is a slideshow of an overview of the party:

Princess Dress Up

One of Brooke's favorite gifts was her chest of dress up clothes. She had to try on all 4 princess outfits (Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Ariel). Her favorite were Cinderella and Snow White and she probably put at least each of these on 3 times!

The best part of playing dress up though, was that Brooke decided to re-enact scenes from Snow White and Cinderella. For Snow White, she had Grandma Nickell play the mean queen and bring her a poisonous apple. She would then eat it, fall over and wait for the prince (Jason) to come kiss her and wake her up! Below is her re-enactment of Cinderella:

"I lost my glass slipper on the stairs"

"Dose the slipper fit?"

"It fits!!!"

She came up with all of this on her own! It was great!!!!

Big A, little a, what begins with A.....

Brooke will get on these kicks of reading the same book EVERY day for weeks before nap and bedtime. You can tell she is memorizing them as we read them. The latest one is Dr. Seuss's ABC book. Tonight she wanted Jason to read it to her and he said, I bet you could read it to me. We weren't surprised that she knew it all, but it was too funny not to video! Its a little long, but its worth your 5 minutes! It may be kind of hard to understand because she is saying things like, "tuttle, tuttle tree" and "zizzer, zazzer, zuzz!"

New House

I was waiting until everything was official to put these up, so now that it is..here are a few pictures of our new house!!! Brooke came with us for the inspection and was very interested in checking out her new house! She is most excited about her new playroom! There is this neat hidden room that you get to through the 2 kids bedroom's closets that is perfect for a playroom. She had to go look at it multiple times! We also picked out new furniture for her new room so she is excited about that as well!

Brooke checking out the "playroom"!

Easter Egg Hunting

Brooke was invited to an Easter egg hunt with the kids from her old daycare class (before she moved to her new preschool class). It was a beautiful day and she had fun finding eggs and LOVED seeing her old friends.

Carter was her best buddy in her old class. You can see from the pics below, they were very excited to see each other and had a blast playing together!

They had fun trying to catch the balloons in the wind!

Hangin' out

Here are a few pictures from the past few weeks. Brooke has really gotten into playing with her computer lately. Its funny how much she already knows about technology. The other day she picked up her play cell phone and said, "I'm going to check my email on my phone!"....funny, since neither Jason nor I have a phone that you can check email on!

She did this on her own the other morning and was clomping around in daddy's boots!

Spring Fun

Grandma Barb and Grandpa Stuart came to visit while mommy and daddy went house shopping. It was beautiful weather the first few days and then it snowed! We got to enjoy the spring weather first though!

They took me to a fun park!

Then we played outside at home and Grandpa taught me how to play t-ball!

Photo Shoot

Grandpa took a lot of pictures during their visit. I think these look like Brooke was having a photo shoot but I think they were just taken while she was playing!

Here she is with all of her princess jewelery!

Stanberry Visit

I am WAY behind...a few weeks ago we finally made it to Stanberry (we were supposed to have gone Christmas but got snowed in here!) We had a wonderful time with Grandma and Grandpa Nickell and Brooke's great Grandparents. My camera didn't make it out much..this is the only picture I took! Brooke had a great time reading with and playing with her Great Grandma and Grandpa Nickell!

Update

I know I just posted stories but here are 2 quick updates on her "growing up" post :

Preschool: Today we stopped by her old classroom to pick up some of her stuff that was still there and to drop off gifts for her teachers. The plan was to stop by and then take her to preschool. We were in her old classroom about 2 minutes and she was already saying, "Come on mommy, lets go to preschool!" She said hi to her old friends and they were happy to see her. She looked at them and said, "I'm not staying, I'm in preschool now!" Guess she made the transition just fine!

The 5 "W's": This morning when getting ready to leave, Brooke was non-stop talking. I called her Chatty Cathy and she said, "whats that?" I told her it means she likes to talk a lot and she replied,
"I have A LOT of questions!" (Yes, Brooke, you do :)

Brooke and Oliver

Our friends, the Moore's came to visit this weekend with their son Oliver. Oliver is about 1 year younger than Brooke and they had a blast playing together. The had a great time! We are so excited to be moving closer to the Moore's so Brooke and Oliver will get to play together more often.

Brooke reading to Oliver!

Growing Up :(

Brooke changed from her toddler daycare class to her pre-school class this week. I took her last Friday for a few hours to check it out and she did great so she went for a whole day yesterday and again, did wonderful! It made me sad to drop her off last week, she is getting so grown up and independent. I think we will see this even more as she spends more time at preschool! Here are a few cute stories that have happened in the past week.

- At her transition meeting (with old and new teachers) her toddler teacher told us that she has been planning movie parties at all the kids houses. She has a specific movie planned to watch at each one of her friends' houses! (She is still the social planner of the class!)

- Last night I was reading her a book with animals. There was a picture of an alligator and she said,
"Alligators, Crocodiles and Caimans!"
I told Jason about it later and neither of were sure what a Caiman was! (we looked it up, its a crocodilian reptile) We later figured out she learned this from Diego. Apparently she knows about animals that we haven't even heard of!

-"Who, What, Why, Where, When???????"
Brooke has definitely entered the "why" stage....everything you tell her is usually followed by at least 3-4 why's....I can't think of a good example right now but we are answering A LOT of questions around here!

Curly Locks

Brooke's hair is getting much thicker and very curly in the back (the top and sides still need a little work!) Here is a picture of it at its best right after a bath. She gets mad when I call her curly locks or Goldilocks! ("My hair isn't gold, its blond!)

Future Olympian

Brooke has really enjoyed watching the Olympics. Here are some of my favorite quotes:

Before they started we were watching extreme snowmobiling:
"That looks like fun, Mommy. I've never done that before!"
(like it would be normal if she had!)

While watching ice skating:
Me: "Would you like to ice skate sometime, Brooke?"
Brooke: "But I need to get some ice skates."
(later): "Daddy, we need to get me some ice skates!"

At dinner tonight:
Jason: "Brooke, would you like to be in the Olympics someday?"
Brooke: "But, I don't have any skis!"
(I love how in her mind that's the only thing holding her back from being in the olympics...the lack of skis!)

Painting

Brooke loves to color on her easel with markers but today we decided to pull out the paints. She loved it, although I need to get her some better paints (finger paints don't work so well!) and it was a nice "new" activity for us to do!

Valentines Day

Brooke is very into holidays these days. She knew that Valentine's Day came after Christmas and now she knows that Easter is next. Most importantly, she is very excited that her birthday is after Easter! (she is very excited for her birthday this year!) We had a nice Valentines Day weekend with a visit from Grandma Nickell. Brooke got to help make banana bread and of course had to wear her apron and hat! She was very excited to get a rose from Daddy and loved all the candy!

Trying to get a good picture before daycare is a challenge. Brooke is not a morning person and yes she still has her binkie, especially when she is grumpy! Here are my best attempts at a picture of her V-day outfit!

Baking with Grandma!

Dress Up!

Aunt Arianne came to visit this weekend and taught Brooke the fun of playing dress up! After playing in her flower girl dress for while we found another princess dress to try on....she has already put the whole outfit on twice and asked to a third time!