Brooke's Baby Book

So...as of Brooke's age of 6 months, I stopped writing in her baby book. GASP...I know, bad mom. This blog became my way of documenting all of her milestones and day to day activities. I recently realized there are so many things that she does that I would write in a baby book, if I kept one. For her 2nd birthday (as a present for Scott and I) I am going to have the blog printed entirely so I will have everything in 1 neat and tidy book. Good idea, right?! By the way, Carrie.. I need to get the website from you! Here are all the little Brookeism's I would write in her baby book.



- She is 22 months at the time I am writing this.

- B is OBSESSED with Winnie the Pooh. I used to think she was obsessed with Elmo but this is a whole new level. She wants to watch the original Winnie the Pooh movie as much as she can. She sleeps with Pooh in her bed and Pooh is now part of Mommy, Daddy, and Roxy. When she asked for all of us, she also asks for Pooh. He is now officially part of our family.

- B has started pushing Melaina when she gets frustrated at her (of course it is always over a toy). I know, part of being a toddler, but when she does it I have told that her we don't push, we can either hug or high five. She now will push her and then follow up with a hug. Parenting gone wrong, huh??

- She loves to slide, swing, or do anything that moves. She is not a child who loves to be in any kind of buckled device. No strollers, high chairs, and sometimes can barely get her in her car seat.

- She gives the biggest smiles and the best gut laugh. There is no way to keep a straight face when she flashes those teeth at me. By the way, she is still getting teeth. She only has 6 up top and not sure how many on the bottom. Will have to count.

- She LOVES to color. That is our new restaurant tactic is to take a bunch of markers/crayons and coloring books with us and she will just color away. She looks like such a big girl when she is so serious coloring.

- She is a great skipper. Her fav is to skip to the song "Skip to my Lou"....or any music for that matter.

- We are so proud of her of how easily she gave up the pacifier. We thought that was going to be a lifetime battle.

- She is not a fan of getting dressed. We have had some pretty nice struggles getting her diapers changed and clothes on. Can't wait till she can dress herself. :)

- She is Roxy's biggest fan. Our poor dog cannot get away from Brooke. Roxy will be sound asleep and Brooke will pounce. I used to always worry about Roxy hurting Brooke now I'm always telling Brooke to get off Roxy and to stop pulling her tail.

- B is a child who LOVES to get dirty. For example, yesterday we went out to get the mail and 1 1/2 hours later we came in after she had sat in the flower bed and put mulch in every crevice of her shoes, pants, shirt, and hair that she could find. Then she wanted to go out back where she laid in the sand and proceeded to do the same thing. Hard thing is that she isn't loving bathes right now so I had to bath her while she was standing in the tub. FUN!

- She has her 1st boy crush on Jacob next door. Jacob is 4 years old and B bolts over there the minute she sees him. Seriously, it starts this early??!!

- B yells "HEY" at most any place or any store we are in. Anyone walking by gets a big ole "HEY... or sometimes BYE BYE"

- Her vocabulary impresses us everyday. She is saying 2-3 words phrases now and is always just talking away. I love it!

- Her favorite songs to sing/dance to are "Ring around the Rosy", "Wheels on the Bus", "Twinkle Twinkle", "If you're happy and you know it". She does the hand motion for all of these. She also loves "Chicken Fried" and "Toes" by Zac Brown Band.

- B has always been pretty small for her age. I'm excited to see when she goes back in Nov for her 2nd bday checkup because I feel like she has grown in height and weight lately.

- B constantly falls and scrapes her knees probably every other day. I cannot remember the last time one of her knees wasn't scraped up.

- Mealtime is not so fun these days. Brooke is extremely picky and to be honest, would rather drink milk all day versus eating. I don't get it. FOOD IS DELICIOUS!! Our go to foods that we know she will eat are pizza, chips, and cookies. ALL foods that are not good for her. The girl drinks more milk than Scott and I do...and that is A TON OF MILK!! Ughh... one day she will discover the beauty of food.

That's about it for now. I will keep the updates coming as this is going to continue to be her baby book. Technology is wonderful, isn't it?!!

Labor Day Weekend

We stayed here in Greenville for the weekend and had such a great 3 days!! Lisa and the kids came over Friday afternoon and stayed till Sunday. We played hard while they were here and it is so fun to see how Brooke can really play so well with them. She calls Adelyn "Addy" and says Caden's name too. She LOVED having them here. She kept saying their names after they left.

Sunday afternoon we went over to our friends (Julie and Derrick's) house for a BBQ. The girls there and I get together every week with our kids and we try to all get together (with the hubbies) at least once a month or so.

Monday we went out on one of our neighbors boats and had a blast!! The lake was absolutely beautiful and the weather couldn't have been any better.
At the zoo on Saturday....

Look how cute they are!!

Caden in the big Jeep!

The playground at the zoo...it's such an awesome area.. play stuff for the kids and rocking chairs for the adults!

Luke, Thomas, Melaina, and Brooke ... trying to get a picture of all of them together is ridiculous!

Brooke and Daddy on the boat! She was NOT liking the life jacket...

The boat was going fast and she was loving the wind!

If you click on this picture you'll see the mountains in the background and the 17th hole at one of the Cliff's golf courses. It was beautiful. Tiger Woods is building a course within this club.

Click on this picture and you'll see Scott jumping off the rock!! So fun!! He did it twice and loved it!

Brooke and Lexie on the boat. I know, Brooke's hair is all in her face....we are growing her bangs out and she wouldn't let me put anything in her hair to keep it back. I pick my battles sometimes. :)

Nana's New Bike!

Happy Birthday to Nana!! Mom has wanted a bike for so long and she said once she moved down here she was going to get one. Scott, Brooke, and I surprised her this morning with her own pink cruiser! Here are some fun pics of her "crusin" around our neighborhood. She looks so cute on it!

Big Girl

Today I went to the church open house where Brooke will be going 2 times a week to "Mother's Morning Out". She'll be there for 5 hours each day and will have a blast! I was so impressed with their schedule for the days and how organized everything was. They have 2 fantastic playgrounds and lots of fun toys/activities for her to play with. As I was there I had to reflect for a little bit just watching her run around and playing with everyone. How did she grow so fast? How is she such a big girl already? Below are some pics from the past week where I feel like she looks like such a big girl.

I know, I know...the robe is way TOO short. I think it was for a 6 month old!! hee hee

Where did the summer go???

I just sat down to FINALLY update this blog and realized that it is almost the end of August! It truly is crazy how fast time goes by these days, especially with a child. There has been lots going on in the Garrett household in the past month!! It has been such a great summer. Here are some highlights:

• One of the BIGGEST events this summer is that my Mom MOVED HERE!! She found a great job in downtown G-ville and moved down here 2 weeks ago. She is living with us at the moment while she is house hunting and actually just put an offer in on a house today!! We could not be happier to have family in town and for her to enjoy this wonderful town with us.
• We finally got Brooke off of her "night-night" (her pacifier). We were so nervous to get rid of it but she did AWESOME!! We had just been to Charleston with the Manley's and she met Jenny's little baby, Annie. Annie is precious and is 8 months and Brooke loved her! We told B that we sent all of her night-nights to Annie and she understood us and has not complained at all. Anytime she says night-night she follows it with a "Baby". Phew...we thought we were going to have many sleepless nights.
• I joined a tennis club and am playing on a league once a week while sometimes twice a week. I'm loving getting to play so often and am learning so much. I had never played doubles before so it's been interesting learning all the rules of it.
• Scott is getting to play golf a decent bit. He tries to play every chance he gets but he ends up going to the driving range more since it is much quicker to do that. Maybe now that Mom is living here, he and I will get out to play more.
• Brooke's vocabulary just keeps amazing us and said her 1st sentence the other day. She said "Where'd Nana go?? Work." She asked a question and answered herself!
• B is definitely starting to hit the 2's stage. Many meltdowns, tantrums, whatever you want to call them. Sometimes I just turn my head and laugh. :)
• This morning was the 1st time that Brooke ever fell/climbed out of her crib. We heard a big thug and then a scream and went in and found her lying on the floor. SCARY!! She is totally fine but you better believe she'll be moving to her big girl bed very soon!

We traveled a good bit the end of July and a couple of weekends in August. We celebrated my birthday on July 20th and Scott surprised me and invited about 15 people over to the house!! I had a blast!

This was the night before my birthday that we did our own little celebration. It was perfect!!

My sweet husband. He truly is my rock.

Some of us hanging out in the kitchen...

Josh, Chris, and Scott chatting away...

Brantley and I cheesing it up for the camera!



At the end of August we went to Wild Dunes, SC to vacation with the Manley girls (Laura and I have been best friends since 6th grade and Jenny has always been my 2nd older sister. Dee Ann, their mother, has been my Mom's best friend since Laura and I have been.) Laura's husband, Joe, and Jenny's husband, Matt, were of course there too!! We got to meet Jenny and Matt's little girl, Annie, who has the sweetest demeanor and is going to be amazing, just like her parents. We had such a great time!! Can't wait for next years trip already!

Brooke loved sitting in the ocean and digging in the sand. I never thought I would actually get to lay on the beach again but she was having a blast and we got to just hang out!!

Jenny, Matt, and Annie

Playing in the pool with Daddy.

Trying to boogie board!

She did it!

My big girl!

Joe (Laura's husband) who makes an awesome mix CD!! Thanks again Joe! I listen to it all the time!

Matt and Annie!

The 6 of us "kids" played golf while the Moms watched the kiddos. It was such a gorgeous course.

Sisters!

Laura and I. I was looking at this picture close up and I got teary eyed just thinking of how well and how long I know this person. She is such an amazing friend.

We have a minor league baseball team (for the Boston Redsox) here in Greenville. We had always heard how fun they were and that the stadium was built to look like a mini Fenway Park. We took Brooke the other night to the game and had such a good time until she saw their mascot and thought it was Mickey Mouse. YEP... we had to go find the mascot so she could see "Mickey" because she was freaking out so bad to see him!! We only stayed for a few innings but definitely want to go back. Maybe until she is a little older we'll just make it a date night!! Hee hee

Brooke all serious getting into the game.

Close to the field where she discovered "Mickey".

She wanted to see him but she was so scared when she got close!! :) She was so cute.

Living in suburbia is what we are used to but I have to tell you that I truly felt it on Friday night when Scott participated in our neighborhood Dad DODGEBALL tournament!! Yep... like elementary school..they threw the balls as hard as they could at each other and were so into it. Let me tell you though, it was a great time and there were probably about 500 people at this event. It was a tournament between 3 neighborhoods and was held across the street from ours. There were kids running around everywhere and families galore and it felt so homey and it just warmed my heart. And, you better believe that when they spontaneously put together a Moms dodgeball game during their "halftime", I certainly wanted in. I ran in there in my long skirt, went barefoot, derobed myself of my chunky necklace, bracelet, and sunglasses!! Let's just say I was terrible and my arm is still sore! Enjoy these pics.

Yep, the guys had matching shirts made. All the teams matched...too funny!

That's me trying to run barefoot in my long skirt.

The guys walking out cool to the court. :)

My Aunt Judy and my cousin, Jill, came to stay with us for a week last week. We had such a great time all week antique shopping, eating yummy food, and just catching up. Saturday we all headed over to Alpharetta and met up with Lisa and the fam, my Dad, and Edie. Dad and Edie flew in from Cleveland for the Freedom Concert we all went to that night. For lunch that day we surprised Aunt Judy with a 60th birthday party since we all won't be able to be there on her real day (which is in Sept). Here are some pics from her b-day lunch!

The birthday girl!!

The crew celebrating!

Aunt Judy, Dad, and Edie waiting on the yummy food! About to open presents...

We had such a great time all visiting and we wish that we would've had more time to spend with everyone. Love you all.

Adelyn's 4th Birthday Party

Happy 4th Birthday, Adelyn!! I cannot believe our niece has grown up SO fast! We headed to Atlanta a couple of weeks ago to celebrate with her. It was a great day with Lisa, Devin, the kids, Linda and Frank (Devin's Mom and Stepdad), my Mom, Aunt Judy, Uncle Kurt, and Jill. What a fun day of playing in the sprinkler, on the slide, in the basement, and running around all over the house!! Thanks again Lisa and Devin for a fun weekend. The 2 beautiful grandmothers and sweet Adelyn.

Linda, Frank, and the birthday girl!

Jill, Adelyn, Uncle Kurt, Aunt Judy, and Brooke partying!

Me and my sweet niece.

The proud parents with their girl...

Brooke primping her hair before she went down the slide.

Family pic!

The Whalen crew!

All the cousins...it is impossible to get them to all sit or stand together. This was the best we could get.

Adelyn is always so sweet with Brooke. Brooke is not always so sweet with Adelyn. :)

Nana, Scott, and Brooke running through the sprinklers

Lisa's turn!

She loves the water..

I just love this little backside. :)

Caden and Brooke getting soaked.

Uncle Kurt wathing all the action!

The little girl was pooped...time to take a seat....