A Brinley Update

I regret not doing A Brinley Update more often because she is growing up so quickly.

One of the biggest things we have noticed since Brinley turned 2, is that her little baby body is turning to a KID body. She is tall and skinny. We just bought her 2T clothes and I feel like she is already growing out of those. Her cute little baby feet are now stinky toddler feet. She is finally growing into a size 6 shoe. We are constantly buying new shoes for her it seems. I have put my foot down. Only one pair of play shoes and church shoes until this growing is under control! 

Brinley has such a sweet personality and is very loving and caring to everyone. Granted, she is feisty like her mama, so at times she loses her mind and goes crazy on everyone. She is still a toddler, but I feel like she has a much older personality and spirit about her. I have frequent headaches and migraines that seem to knock me down for a few days, but Brinley is aware that mama isn't feeling well and sits next to me, gives me kisses spontaneously, and is extra loving. She even calls me sweetie or honey from time to time. I call her sweetie and honey all day so I'm not surprised those two words are now part of her own vocabulary!

Speaking of vocabulary, this girl is a chatter. I have noticed that in the last few weeks, she is really starting to imagine things and make up funny details. Every morning when I get her from her crib, she tells me about her dreams of Sophie and Penny (my parents dogs). She tells me they licked her face, or chased her, or she just starts giggling about them. We also love to pretend to be animals. Brinley always claims the lion or cat. We crawl around on all fours and growl or meow or bark. Our favorite thing Brinley does is fake sleep. She loves it. And she loves it when we do it. I tell her to close her eyes when she does it, but she still just puts her hands over her eyes instead of actually closing them. It is super adorable.

Whenever Ryan and I are deep in a conversation about school or life or something, Brinley thinks we aren't paying enough attention to her. She will say, "mama!!!!" so loud and one time last week she grabbed my cheeks and said, "Listen Mama!!!" I don't get it because Ry and I are just talking, definitely not arguing in front of her, so she feels like we just aren't playing with her enough.

Brinley didn't just get her good looks from her daddy. She definitely inherited Ryan's enthusiasm for everything. I was a very happy, easy going child too, but Ryan was excited about everything. And he helped his siblings and friends really pumped up about everything in life too. My favorite is one of the Briggs' home videos on Christmas morning when Ry was probably 9 or 10. His brother Stu is opening a gift and he pulls out a sweater. Stu is less than thrilled about a sweater but Ryan chimes in, "WHAT AN AWESOME SWEATER!!!!!!!!" and Ryan on camera is hilarious because he is very dramatic with his arms and booty shaking. Ryan is still like this (yes booty shaking and all), which is one of my favorite qualities about him. He has this light about him and an excitement in his eyes. Brinley definitely has this wonderful quality and I love seeing her face light up.

We have noticed that anything in "baby" or in miniature form is magic in Brinley's eyes. We have had a constant stock of clementine oranges in our kitchen for over 2 months now and we started calling them baby oranges to Brin, and of course she latched onto that immediately. She looooves saying baby orange. I have also caught Brinley ask for "special" things either it is food, or pants, or shoes. I call things special to get her really excited about something so she will say, "mama, can I have my special snack?" which usually means like goldfish or rice cakes. She kept asking one morning, "mama, where my special new pants?" I think she was talking about some new leggings she got for Christmas but I'm still not positive.

I am currently going through her many clothes bins that she has grown out of. I found a zip lock that had my old manual breast pump and of course Brinley's eyes got all big when she saw it. It is now her favorite toy whenever we go up to play in her room. I told her that mommy's use it to get milk for their babies and then of course she asked how you get the milk out. hahaha that's a conversation for another day. Anyways, I know she is going to be the best big sister because she loves playing with her baby dolls and feeding them bottles. Last night when we were playing the the baby dolls she made a fake cry, picked up the baby, and started shh shh shhh-ing the baby. It was so adorable!

Nursery has been such a great thing for her. Brinley knows mostly all the words to the songs they sing. We have 2 of The Living Scriptures DVD's and she loves watching them after naps on Sunday. I put her down for bed one night this week and she always says, "Mama, you sing the special song?" aka I Am A Child Of God. So I started singing it, and it looked like she was mouthing the words through her binky, so I took her binky out and told her to sing with me. We sang the whole first verse together and it was the most precious thing ever.

My heart is just so full when I think about Brinley. She truly is the greatest thing in our lives right now and we are so grateful for her. She definitely has her moments of attitude and struggles with a lot of things toddlers deal with, but she is just so amazing. I appreciate her constant chatter. She loves to have conversations with me about everything.