You guys leave so many great and nice comments. There are so many times where I want to respond to you. So I've added the Disque commenting system. I hope it works! :)
Sorry this post is so lengthy, but I like to have it as a record for my Brynnie Boo some day! :)
Brynn's stats: 37 inches and 33 pounds
Ahh, my little firecracker. I have had quite the year with this little one. Let me tell you a little bit about Brynn. Generally, she is a very well behaved young lady like her big sister. However, more and more she has been known to push the envelope, something her big sister just never attempted. Thankfully, it usually only requires a stern re-direction or talking to to bring her back but it has been a definite new experience for us. Another thing about Brynn is one minute she is the sweetest, fun loving, humorous little girl and the next she is grumpy, moody, unfriendly, and a down right rude individual. The thing with Brynn is you never know which Brynn you will get, she can switch on a dime. One thing I've started doing is before we go some where just reminding her to nicely say hello when someone says hi to her. I know its probably just her shyness but if you don't know her it comes off quite rude. I want everyone to know the sweet, adorable, funny little 3 year old I know so I want to try to break her out of her shell a bit.
Brynn also struggles with whining. I know it's probably an age thing but its driving me crazy! I know we went through this with Bella (and still are at times) but I don't feel like it went on this long. :) We are just constantly reminding her to use her words.
Also she is really good at pushing Bella's buttons and causing fights. This is just exhausting for me everyday and I could really use suggestions if anybody has them! :(
I don't want this post to be rag on Brynn post but we have just been going through a really hard period with her and I'm really looking forward to putting it behind us. In the midst of these hard times she brings many rays of sunshine. She can be down right silly. She has such an extensive vocabulary and acts so much older than her age. Her laugh and smile is down right infectious. She is also super snuggly, when she wants to be of course. She's always good for a sweet hug and smooch. Brynn has a huge compassionate heart. It seriously breaks her's to see others hurting or crying. She constantly wants to make sure I'm happy.
Brynn is SO smart. She catches on to so much. She has always been good at picking up on what we say, something Bella never really did or does, so we have to very careful about what we say around her! :) She knows how to count to 15 most of the time, recognizes numbers to 10, knows just about all her letters already and even some of their sounds! I can't believe it but she just picks up so much from her sister. She's even picked up on a couple of Bella's sight words that we've been practicing. She has also mastered some of Bella's easy reader books (they're just repetitive books, so she's got them memorized, but still amazing!) One night Bella was having trouble with one and Brynn took it, read through it, finishes it, hands it to Bella and goes "see." It was hilarious! A firecracker I tell ya. :)
Brynn's newest accomplishment is being potty trained!! Since she turned 2 we've tried a couple of times but she just wasn't ready. After Brooke was born she was ready but I wasn't. :) So in coming up on her 3rd birthday I told her we had 2 things to accomplish. One using the potty and 2 leaving blankie in bed. I asked which she wanted to do first, and she chose potty training. Once I was finally able to get her to tinkle on the potty (she can hold it FOREVER) she got that down quick. Now for #2. I thought for sure this would be the easier of the two cause I always knew when she was going and she'd always make me change her right away, etc. Boy was I wrong. Brynn would hold it all day and save it for nap time and bed time literally every day. In an attempt to FINALLY break her of this (this had been going on for a couple of months) I put her to bed in underwear so she wouldn't want to go in them (biggest mistake EVER). So...she just stopped going. After 6 DAYS of her whining about needing to go but then refusing go in a diaper, underwear, toilet, anywhere, we knew we had to do something. We gave her a suppository. Very unpleasant for us all. But after an hour, she PAINFULLY went with a little assistance. So we finally were able to get her to go but of course it was super painful so of course she didn't want to go again. So again I had 2 or 3 days of constant whining every 10-15 minutes. Just imagine having that feeling but then pushing it away over and over. :( Thankfully my mom came in and I looked forward to getting some reinforcement. On our way home from the airport we stopped by Toys R Us to get Bella her good behavior award. While we were there I told Brynn she could pick hers out (she hadn't earned all her stars yet) and if she went poop I would just give it to her early. She goes "ok" we walk into the bathroom and she just goes!!! What?! I tried every bribe in the book and suddenly this time it worked?! She must have really wanted a Barbie horse. I thought maybe we'd go up hill from here now. Nope, back to usual. Again the next week consisted of constant whining and trying to get her to go #2 anyway she wanted to. We did another suppository sometime in there and she went immediately after, with more ease. After their birthday party, we were out to lunch and she started her whining and really needed to go. I took her into the bathroom - and TMI just to warn you- and said ok we're putting medicine in but instead just applied some pressure there with toilet paper and she went immediately! Ever since then she has been completely potty trained and going well on her own!! Every now and then she asks to me to hold her hands if its a little hard, but most of the time she does it all on her own! I just avoid constipating foods and give her a fiber cereal every morning. PTL! I think once we got her system cleared and she could go more easily, she got it. She even stays dry all night!! Sigh, we can not tell you how happy we are to have that behind us. That was not fun. I do not plan to potty train Brooke until she has to go to school. :)
Brynn, like her big sister, is totally into princesses, but also enjoys My Little Pony, Littlest Pet Shop, puzzles, coloring, singing- she actually has a beautiful voice and has actual melody, I think some day we may have a singer on our hands, to snuggle, try to do knock knock jokes with her sister, being with mommy and helping out with baby sister, to do anything her big sister is doing, reading books, playing on her own and anything sweet to eat! :)
We finally got Brynn in to her first class! All these years of watching Bella in her classes like a champ but now it was her turn. Both girls are currently enrolled in gymnastics. I thought Brynn might be a little too fearful at first but she's taken right to it and its even helped a little bit with her fears! We're quite impressed! :)
So Brynn has had a tough year, becoming a big sister and the adjustments that come with that but she, and we, are taking it in strides. We love her very much and she cracks us up daily. We love what she brings to our family!
Here are the pics from her day!
Brynn's birthday was one of the worst she had with her #2 issues, so unfortunately we didn't do a whole lot. :(
Growing up we had the tradition that on our birthday we got to pick our own cereal to have in bed. While I'm not quite ready for them to have breakfast in their bed, we did let them pick their own cereal. So we said goodbye to Fiber One Honeynut Clusters for a bit and hello to Captain Crunch's Oops Berries. Which is captain crunch with ONLY the colored berries. Yuck! The girls loved it though of course. Warning!! TMI to follow: this lovely cereal turned their BMs BRIGHT GREEN. Can't be good.
Enjoying her berry cereal!
That evening the girls had their gymnastics class. Beforehand we celebrated with dinner at McDonald's with their buddies!
Later when we got home, we sang Happy Birthday and had some cake.
I carried on my lovely baking tradition. Look, it came out slanted??!! I have no idea what is up with me and cakes!
Bella goes, "Brynn let's blow out the candles together, ok?" Brynn of course obliges. :)
And big sis does most of the blowing. :)
The day before we popped some popcorn and watch Despicable Me. That movie was WAY cuter than I was expecting.
Brynn's birthday is the day after Valentine's Day so we were all dressed up in our V day outfits. :)
