Dear Brinley,

Doll face, 

You are TWO!

I didn't believe it when people told me that year 1-2 would fly by even faster than birth-1 year. I cannot believe we are here again to celebrate your birthday. You my dear, are such a sweet little girl.

You may look like your daddy 99% of the time, but you are definitely feisty and stubborn just like me :-). Your daddy and I seem to laugh constantly at the funny things you do and say. You love to be with us all the time. And you definitely get possessive over us. Like when your daddy kisses me in the kitchen or even when we hold hands, you scream, "No daddy!" We still haven't figured out why this has ticked you off, but it seems that any pda we display, you are right on our heels about it!

I still find it amazing that we communicate and understand each other perfectly through your talking. You started to talk pretty early on after your first birthday, and it has just taken off. Each month, you are speaking clearer and with longer sentences. I love that about you because you love to talk to me about funny things that are going on.

Brinley, you know your colors really well and your shapes sorta well. You can pieces all the shapes together on your puzzle board, but picking them out at random is challenging for you. Especially, rectangles and octagons! Who needs them anyways :-). You love to color and you sorta kinda drew a circle last week. You had the circular motion down and kept saying, "circle circle circle!" 

Nursery at Church was kind of challenging during the summer for you. I blame it on our traveling and a bit of separation anxiety. For some reason, you have completely turned a corner in nursery. Daddy drops you off and there is no turning back. You love nursery. We review your songs during the week and I love to see you add the hand motions to certain songs. When I sing to you at night, you sometimes add in a few words that you know and it melts my heart. For just a moment, we sing together in the dark and I love it.

Like clockwork, when those 2 weeks pass by, you remind me that it is time to repaint our toenails together after lunch. You sit so patiently and love to play with the different bottles of color while I work away on your tootsies. You are my little buddy and I fall in love with you more and more everyday. Thank you for being the light in my life that I need right now. Brinley, you definitely challenge me everyday with entering your "terrible twos" as they call it, but I think you just want to do everything, that when you can't, you get frustrated so easily. I promise to go easy on time outs this year, but you promise to keep the tantrums to a minimum!

I love you Boo Boo,
Mommy

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Brinley Kaethe. You are my sunshine and happiness. I can't explain in words how much I love you and the kind of joy you bring in to our lives. The more I watch you learn and grow the more amazed I am to see your personality come out. I can't wait to get to know you more as you grow and to continue our fun family adventures together. One of my favorite things is to hear you get excited when I come home from school and you hear the key hit the door. I love coming inside and finding you and your mom hiding under the table ready to surprise me. I love hearing you say "daddy!" and seeing your run towards me ready for a hug.

One of my favorite parts of the day is bath/bed time. I know you don't always want to go to bed, but I also know how tired you get. I like when you have fun splashing and playing with your toys. I love reading books to you, especially ones my parents read to me growing up. I love that you want to cuddle with your mom every night. It makes me happy to know how much you love your mom because I know how much she loves you.  I laugh out loud hearing you doing the war chant and saying "go Noles!" on your own. You make me happy and laugh every day.

I love you boo have a happy birthday!
DADDY
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first birthday
birth story