two years old!

Brooke turned two on December 6. We had a small family party for her at my parents' house with pizza & cake. She definitely had a better reaction to the cake this year...last year she cried because of all of the sticky icing and hardly ate a bite.

I asked Brooke what she wanted for breakfast that morning and she said "peanut butter sandwich and cheese"! I decided not to give her the cheese, but here she is enjoying her PB&J for breakfast. Funny girl.

Here she is at the party...she actually kept the hat on through most of the meal!

Hmmm, how much pizza can you fit in your mouth at once?

Inspecting the icing before taking a bite...

Brooke loves the cards with music inside, and so most everyone bought her one. She loved opening them over and over to hear the different songs. We, however, don't love when she opens them over and over! We have put a few of them in the basement playroom so that we don't have to hear them all day long upstairs.
She got this neat new puzzle from my grandparents. It is a giraffe with numbers on one side and letters on the other to help know where the pieces go.
The funniest part of the day was when we told Brooke to blow the candle out on her cupcake. I guess we have only ever told her to blow her nose, so she started trying to blow air out of her nose instead of her mouth! I didn't get all of it on video, but you can see her concentrating and trying to figure out how in the world to get the candle out! Luckily daddy helped her out.

And here is a comparison of Brooke at age one and age two. I am amazed at how much lighter her hair has gotten (and how much more hair she has)! Happy Birthday, sweetie! We love you!!

playroom

A few weeks ago, Ken started working the 10pm-6am shift at work. The biggest challenge for us has been trying to find a place for Brooke to play where she doesn't wake him up now that he has to sleep during the day! We decided to turn part of our unfinished basement into a makeshift playroom, and it has worked out great! We already had some carpet down that we salvaged from Ken's old house, and I created a barrier around the space with toys and boxes so that Brooke can't reach the water heater, dog bowls, etc. It has been a great space for her to play! We hope to finish the basement someday, but until then, this has been a great solution for a temporary playroom! Here are some shots of Brooke enjoying her new space:

This one cracks me up...you can see that her PJs are a bit too big, as the pajama feet are dragging behind her! It doesn't seem to slow her down, though.