Easter and 18 months!

Gig Harbor’s Uptown hosts an Easter Egg Hunt that we had checked out last year and thought was run pretty well, so we decided to give it a try again this year and let Brielle show us what she could do.

Here we are waiting for it to start. The first wave of kids allowed to hunt were 5 and under, so as the mother of a itty bitty toddler, I was a little worried Brielle would not get a chance to get any eggs. Turns out I had nothing to worry about.

I picked her up and got ahead of the other kids to give Brielle a chance to get just one egg (oh yes, I was that mom!) and as you can see, she didn’t quite grasp the concept at first, so I pointed out to her what to do.

You didn’t have to tell her twice. (Who’s more excited here, Mom or Bri. Really, I was a little crazy)

But after that first egg, she got the idea and ran off on her own to collect eggs. Check out her basket now. We only gave a little direction after the first egg, but she collected them all by herself.

The kids were limited to 10 eggs, so as soon as she go hers, we swept her up and left the egg collecting area. She had gotten to be quite a pro. What a full basket!

We went back to to start where the Easter bunny was hanging out. Bri was super excited to see such a big bunny and started saying bunny over and over again. I figured with that kind of excitement she’d be all over a picture. Again, I was wrong. Bunny from a far is pretty awesome. Bunny up close is at little different. Click on the photo to enlarge and check out Bri’s wary eyes. 

The next weekend was actually Easter weekend, so we headed over to Grandma’s for the big family egg hunt. This is picture of the grandkids that were there. And yes, this is the best we could do. The fact that they are all in the picture is truly amazing with three toddlers completely occupied with everything else but standing still. I recruited Bella to hold Bri for the photo and poor Bella had to fight to keep that girl in her arms.

Here’s Bri with Daddy (being a little of “that guy” running Brielle around to the different egg hiding spots) and Auntie Rachel during the family egg hunt.

And this is her pretty dress. :)

Alright, finally, the 18 month photos. Just like Easter, getting a toddler to sit/stand still is nearly impossible, so these are the best of the 20 some pics we took. No smile here, but look how much bigger she is compared to 1 year. (BTW, how cute is that dresser behind Jr. Cowboy Fingers?!? Just a little pat on my back for painting and fixing the rails with just a little help from Steve and his dad)

Okay, you can’t really tell, but she is a little over 2 inches taller than she was at a year. You can see she looks less like a baby and more like a little girl. It’s bittersweet really.

One way we got her to stay with the bear was to kiss his nose…

And to give him a hug. It doesn’t look like Jr. Cowboy Fingers appreciates the hug as you can seem him biting Bri’s arm in this pic. Good thing he doesn’t have any teeth.

At 18 months she is learning in leaps and bounds. I can’t count how many words she has anymore and we can easily have caveman conversations now. Ugg Hungry? Ugg Yes! Ugg Eggs? Ugg Yes! It’s been very helpful to know what she wants at meal time.

She know all the animal noises we’ve thought to teach her and/or know ourselves. I mean really, what does a giraffe say?

Today, she put her left shoe on her right foot all by herself. I had turned around to hang up her sweater and when I turned back her shoe was on and velcroed up. 

She can help get dressed but has a ways to go to do it on her own. She is getting better at stripping, including her diaper much to the dismay of her parents. It hasn’t been a problem yet, but I’m assuming it will be a challenge to keep her clothed once she really figures it out.

She’s a super helper which is great now that bending over isn’t my favorite thing to do. I can ask her to get me something, even if it’s in another room, and 80% of the time, she’ll get it and bring it to me. She is also good about throwing things in the trash and the laundry. Yes, I have had to take a few things out of the trash that I could see why she’d throw away but I was saving for some reason, and I’ve washed clean towels that she’s snuck in the basket when I’m not looking. But all in all, she’s been a huge help.

I’m sure there’s more she’s learned in the last 6 months, but being with her everyday makes me forget since I get used to her new skills. She is a rock star though and we are so blessed to have her. Can’t wait to see what her sister’s going to be like. From her activity in the womb, I think she’s going to be a wily one, but we’ll find out soon!

Snow

Since Gig Harbor did not get any snow this year, we wanted to take Bri somewhere so she could experience some snow. Our marriage mentors, Calvin and Patty were kind enough to let us use their cabin in Cle Elum for the weekend, so we packed up the kiddos (BG#2 was not very hard to pack for) and headed to the cabin. Although there had not been snow at the cabin for a few weeks, we were fortunate enough to get a light storm which brought the snow with it. Just enough that Bri could walk around and enjoy.

Suit up!

 

Steve and Bri checking out the scenery.

Bri testing out the snow. Pretty cool stuff. Ha ha, pun intended.

Sled ride. Dad's the best.

 

Thanks Melisa and Michael for letting Brielle check out your cabin.

Steve thought this was funny so he had me take a picture of it. It was some steak place that, as you can see, is closed for winter. Guess we’ll have to go back in the summer to see if their food is any good.

After a great weekend of snow and relaxation in Cle Elum, Bri decided she would drive home. As you can see, she’s using the proper move to begin the backing up procedure. Such a natural.

Trend-setter

I’m sure this doesn’t surprise you, but Brielle is quite the trend-setter. I’m sure you’ve seen how streaks of color in your hair are all the rage these days, well, this trend did not pass my little one. She decided to try a cheaper version with my mascara… all by herself mind you.

Watch out fashion world. Here she comes!

NorCal visit and Train Ride (etc.)

Steve and I wanted to take a vacation this year, but with the Baby Girl #2 coming and Steve’s limited vacation time, we decided to make it a short one. So we came up with flying down to Northern CA to meet Bri’s second cousin Austin and Geigy for the first time! Fun. And, we wanted to add to the adventure by taking a train back from Northern CA all the way to Tacoma, WA. A 20 hour ride, mostly over night. It’s actually an easy way to travel with a toddler since unlike a plane, she can get up and walk around whenever she wants. Bonus!

So here’s Brielle and second cousin Ashlyn. Ashlyn is the older sister of Austin, but I didn’t get a picture of his cuteness, so you’ll all just have to wait ‘til our next adventure down South to meet him yourself. Ashlyn and Brielle played quite a bit and I can tell Ashlyn is a very good big sister. I’d like to send Brielle down to take ‘Big Sister Lessons’ from Ashlyn to prepare her for her little sis to come in May.

We drove to Santa Rosa with Steve’s mom and Steve’s Aunt Peg to visit Geigy. Brielle just loved spending time with Geigy. She also loved to wear her necklaces which you can see her wearing in these two pics.

The only way to travel… This is on the train platform after our bus ride from Santa Rosa to Martinez where we caught the train. The bus is not a recommended way to travel with a toddler by the way. Poor Bri tried to get off the bus at every stop. Kind of exhausting for her parents.

Our train didn’t leave until 10:45pm which is 4 hours past Brielle’s bedtime! We were able to visit with some friends during that time who drove up from Fremont to have dinner with us. At some point during our wait, Steve was able to get Bri to sleep. See the use of her car seat, blanket and luggage cart maneuver. This is a pretty advance parenting technique. Please don’t try this at home.

We didn’t end up taking many pictures of us on the train. Lame, I know. But here’s Bri and I during our nap. We opted for the room for this exact reason, to give Brielle a chance to get as much of her normal sleep as possible. It wasn’t perfect, but for this nap, we were down for 1.5 hours! Not bad for a little girl who usually only naps for 45 minutes.

Well, these next pics have nothing to do with Northern CA or traveling by train, but with a Dad’s desire to get his girl riding a motorcycle when she turns 2. We happened upon these little 4 wheelers at Toys R Us and Steve ordered one shortly there after. He figures she can start out on 4 wheels and get the idea of turning the handles and holding down the starter. As you can see here, we didn’t need to help her get on.

Adjust the cap.

Pose for a pic…

Then get off and push! Okay, she actually did ride it on her own for short bursts at a time. But she seems to prefer pushing it for some reason.

 

A couple days later pushing again.

I just liked this face she made.

Ah, here you can see the wheels moving a bit. Just making Daddy proud!

Lucky #13

It’s a girl!!!

That’s right, we are having another Baby Girl. =D For those of you who do not understand why I call her Lucky #13, no it’s not because we have 12 previous children, it’s because this baby girl will be the 13th girl born in a row for the Teodoro family! What are the odds?!?

The ultrasound pics where not as good as Bri’s since this little one was a little more snug in her location. Not that she doesn’t have plenty of room in there, but she was nuzzled up against my side and hiding her face behind her hands most the time. But we could a couple of decent pics. I’ll only post the ones that should be fairly easy to recognize a baby in. (That I couldn’t tell you what all of them are all of. Sonograms are still a little hard to read)

And here’s one of her feet crossed. She was pretty kick back throughout the whole ultrasound with her feet crossed and one hand behind her head. Just chillin’

All the others are tough to read so I’ll leave you with those too. Steve and I are super excited to be having another girl and now can’t wait to meet her in person.

Christmas time

Before we get to a couple of cute Santa pics, I wanted share with you the video of Brielle eating her first cupcake at her birthday party(especially for those of you who did not get to experience it first hand).

Now onto Christmas photos.

Here we are with Santa. We you ask? Well, she wasn’t too excited to sit on Santa’s lap this year.

Sorry for the screen shot. This picture was in a weird format and could not be resized. Either way you get the idea. And now for the fun photo: I present Bri and cousin Trevi actually on Santa’s lap.

Classic

I just couldn’t get our family pictures done in time for Christmas cards, so Steve and I set up the camera in front of the (short, we do have a toddler now) Christmas tree and did our Christmas photos the good ol’ fashion way. Here are a couple of winners.

We took at trip to downtown Gig Harbor to check out the annual tree lighting. Grandma and Grandpa joined us for the big event. As you can see, we brought the good camera ;), so the photos turned out amazing. Well, the one with Grandpa isn’t too bad at least.

Although you would think this would be incredibly cold being WA in December, the night was actually perfect, the best part being that it wasn’t raining! Good for all those kids who waited around after the tree lighting to sit on Santa’s lap and tell him what they want for Christmas.

We had our family Christmas morning a couple of days before Christmas since we were heading down to sunny southern CA to spend the week with my parents. She seemed to enjoy all her gifts from us, but this one took the cake. As you can see from her face, she enjoys her new car.

As I said, this year was our year to be down in Ventura for Christmas. Most of you think we were lucky to be in such a warm weather state during the Christmas season, you probably assumed we packed our swim suits and shorts, but you’d be wrong! It was actually quite cold down there (for southern CA at least) reaching high 50s during the day and low 40s at night. Brrrr.

The night we got there Bri got started on a new diet where she ate anything and everything we put in front of her. The picture doesn’t do it justice, but check out that belly! Turns out, after a full meal, Brielle get’s an outie (belly button that is). This was proven to us time and time again thru the week.

Christmas morning she did really well. She’s really starting to get the hang of opening gifts.

She’s even eager to help others open their gifts!

My uncle Rob is a huge Packers fan, so he got her this Green Bay jersey for her birthday. I made sure she was wearing it the day they came to visit. But really, the reason it made the blog was because of her cute crossed feet just like her dad. She did this all by herself, no assistance from Steve needed.

Speaking of Uncle Robb, here is his wife Teresa after opening her Christmas gift from us. We got the whole family Nerf guns. My aunt Teresa was a little worried about her husband and daughter shooting at her so as you can see she is hiding behind a pillow with her sunglasses on. No poked out eyes for her!

Cuz Amanda taking aim at her mom.

And always, I can’t leave the blog without telling you our fun airport adventure as we headed home from Venture. I know, never fly with us, we are trouble. Our flight wasn’t scheduled to leave until 12, so we decided to see some friends for breakfast before catching our flight. Brielle, who was nearing her nap time, was not happy at breakfast and instead of hanging around and talking after eating, Steve and I decided to head to the airport to let her stretch her legs before the 2 hour flight. We got up to the check in terminal, and the darn computer told us we couldn’t check the car seat since there was only 30 minutes before our flight. But it’s 10am and our flight doesn’t leave until 12! So we figured something was wrong with the computer. After talking to an agent, turns out the computer wasn’t wrong, and our flight was now at 10:38am! Yikes!!! (Um so yeah, we both got the email stating our flight had changed, and both deleted it thinking it was just the reminder we usually get saying to print your boarding passes ahead of time. Lesson learned). So, here we go. One 4 month pregnant woman, one 15 month toddler, 2 carry on bags, a diaper bag (which let’s face it, is as big as a carry on bag itself) a backpack, a car seat and a partridge in a pear tree (It is Christmas after all) running through the airport. The security line wasn’t too bad, but being that we were late, the kid in front of me had to have his bag checked and the TSA agent took his sweet time clearing the belt so our luggage could get scanned. Oh, and then, I left a water bottle in the diaper bag since I wasn’t thinking to clearly so we had to wait for another slooooow TSA agent to come and check my bag. Weird thing though, I got to keep my water. Hee hee. And then the running. We are at LAX, not a small airport. Steve took both carry ons, his backpack and the baby carrier. I had Bri, the equally sized diaper bag and a 4 month fetus. Steve could have lapped me I was so slow. Bri loved all the running. She giggled the whole time while other people in the terminal asked if I was okay since I was breathing so loud. But we made it, even if we were the last ones on the plane.

We had a layover in Portland so I’ll let you go with this pic of Steve’s genius idea to carry Brielle around the terminal.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!