Things I learn from my daddy...

1.A love for football and the Missouri Tigers: the girl will watch football for hours and if basketball is on, tells you she likes football better!

2. Tickling! Watch out if you are on the floor...Brooke will come up to you and say, "I tickle you" (especially feet)..wonder where she got that?!?

3. Salsa: I gave her some pretzels the other day and was told, "I need salsa!" Who eats salsa and pretzels? Apparently Jason and Brooke do!

4. Right and Left: the other day in the bath, Brooke was playing and put her cup over her hand. She looked up at me and said all nonchalantly,"it's on my right hand!" I said, what? and she repeated it, so I asked her, what is this? "my left" (with the tone of voice, duh, mom!) Apparently, Jason has been telling her left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg as he gets her dressed...and so now she knows her right from left!

5. Red light, Green light: Jason has the duty of picking up/dropping off from day care. In the many short trips they take, he has taught her with the stop lights that red means stop and green means go!

I am always grateful and thankful for everything Jason does for Brooke and me ...he is as much her caregiver as I am (if not more some days, because of my schedule :( But he is so much more than that, and these things that she has learned from him (minus the salsa and tickling) just re-iterated to me what a special daddy he is!

Warm Winter Days

We took advantage of the nice weather today and had a fun visit to the park. Brooke had fun sliding and swinging (until it was time to go home--see last picture!)There isn't much opportunity for picture taking when you are stuck inside in winter and aren't going anywhere fun, so I brought my camera to the park to try to get some pictures.

Grandparents Visit

Grandma Barb and Grandpa Stuart visited this weekend. We had a lot of fun (as you can see). I played Legos, read LOTS of books, and made lots of pretend hot dogs (complete with mustard and syrup) in my play kitchen. I am becoming quite the comedian, as you can see in the last picture...I think its funny to put anything I can on my head and call it a hat!

Itsy Bitsy Spider

The other night, Jason and I were in the kitchen and I looked in the other room and found Brooke as you see her in the picture: feeding her baby, legs crossed, watching tv! It was pretty cute. She sat there content for quite a while. Below is a video of her singing the Itsy Bitsy Spider. To save you all (ie: Jen, Jason M.) some comments, I hope she doesn't get her voice from me...too early to tell, I think. I do worry though when I sing to her that she is learning to sing tone deaf...I need to encourage Jason to sing to her more, so she can hopefully carry a tune! She is very shy about singing so this was the best I could do. It fades off at the end, but you can catch most of the song.

Painting!

We haven't had much to take pictures of lately...Brooke got to stay home with Daddy all week since her daycare was closed. Although Daddy loved the extra time with her, I think he is ready to get back to work. One of Brooke's presents was some finger paints...at first she just sat there and said "I need a brush" (she doesn't like to get messy) but she decided it was okay eventually. Here is a before and after picture, as well as a short video of her talking/painting. I couldn't tell what she said she was painting but Jason interpreted it for me as: cows!

Christmas in Stanberry

We had a wonderful long weekend in Stanberry for Christmas. Brooke doesn't quite understand the meaning of Christmas yet, but she knows who Santa Claus is and she knows about getting presents. She also understands lighting the candles for Hanukkah and then getting presents. (She gets the present thing!) Here are a few highlights from her weekend....

Presents! She woke up Christmas morning and looked at them and said, "they're ALL mine!" The day after Christmas, after we ate breakfast, she said, "I open presents!"

Cows! Grandpa and Daddy took her on a ranger ride to go see the cows..she is still talking about it!

Running! She had a blast playing with all of her Boyer cousins and exclaimed, "I running, I running!" as they ran all over the house!

Jewelry! This was just one of many times trying on jewelry with Grandma and Aunt Arianne.

Biscuits! She had fun helping Grandma bake biscuits (and enjoyed eating them too!)

Flying! She went "flying" with Uncle Jordan many times (we didn't get a picture of it though)

Great Grandparents! Brooke enjoyed seeing both sets of Great Grandparents and even understood that she has multiple Grandmas and Grandpas!

She was done taking picutres by this one! (I hope that isn't foreshadowing to a future eye roller!)

As you can see, she had a great weekend! There are many more pictures on this link. Brooke started calling Jason, "Dad" this weekend, instead of Daddy. Its a little sad to hear her say, "Hi, Dad" or "I eating, Dad"...too grown up! There was snow on the ground when we got to Stanberry which melted while we were there. Brooke noticed that the snow was gone and asked where it went. Someone told her that Jay (Jordan's dog) ate it. She remembered that and on the way home tonight when she didn't see any snow in Manhattan, she exclaimed, "Jay ate all the snow!" I guess that's easier to understand than the concept of melting!

Dancing Queen

Brooke got a music set for Hanukkah tonight. (cymbals, tambourine, maracas, triangle, etc...She likes to play her music and dance. You can't see Jason accompanying her with the tambourine and maracas) but you can see her moves!