HAPPY 3rd BIRTHDAY!!!

Today is my little girl's 3rd birthday!
I can't fathom how this happened. She JUST turned two!....didn't she?

In the past year she has grown by leaps and bounds! She now knows colors, how to count to 20, her ABC's and what sounds they make, potty trained (except for night time), and so much more I can't even think about it all right now!
She has also learned that God made and loves her, which is something special since I probably didn't even realize that till this year.
She has made so many new friends and started new relationships with so many people.

I love how happy she is in the mornings, waking up from her little finger poking me in the eye, or "Mommy...it's wake up time". She tells me she loves me out of the blue, a hundred times a day. She LOVES her daddy and talks about him all day till he comes home from work and plays the "Daddy boof game" where she runs from one side of the living room and crashes into daddy and yells "BOOF!".
She loves her doggy and cuddles with her as often as Denna will hold still.
I love how she lights up at anything pink or princess or fairy related. She thanked me this morning for fixing her princess tiara and gave me the BIGGEST hug ever. I just LOVE this little girl.
So Happy Birthday to my Brilliant, talented, beautiful, loving, happy, amazing, special, wonderful, spectacular, perfect little girl! Daddy and I love you so much Hannah Lynn!

Loving every minute :)

Hannah just melts my heart! She is really something!!!
The other day Daddy asked if she wanted to go outside with him and watch him grill dinner. She was VERY excited and disappeared into her play room. She come back out as daddy was getting ready to go out to the grill with her toy grill in hand! She had her tongs, and her spatula, and some food along with her toy grill. She brought it outside (with mommy's help) and grilled with daddy!! It was the cutest thing!

And she says everyone is her sister. Every little girl she meets is either her "Best friend" or her "sister". I don't know what she will think if she ends up with a little brother.

She is getting very lovey, she DEMANDS cuddles and kisses. And will not leave your lap bare if you sit down, it will either be loaded with toys or she will park her butt there. She loves to be loved :)

She is potty training really well! She will go when she has to go, without asking for help or anything. The only problem we have is when she wants to wipe herself and ends up unrolling the whole roll of toilet paper!! She is doing great though. I don't think she is ready for night time though.
Speaking of night time, we love our cloth diapers. I couldn't imagine going back to paper diapers at all. I wish we would have started out doing this. It would have saved us a ton of money. We haven't bought a diaper in a really long time!
My friend makes these diapers called C0c0 bear and they are the softest, cutest diapers I have EVER seen! We are planning on buying those for tadpole, whenever he/she decides to inhabit my womb.

We have been talking about Hannah's birthday party recently. We (more "I" than "we") decided to do an under water/ ocean themed party. I reserved a room at our church, which is awesome, and I am starting to get stuff together. My mom is making an awesome cake, kinda like this one.


I am really excited about the whole thing, and I am trying to get Hannah excited about it, but not too excited since it is so far away still.
Well that is about it!
Thanks for reading!!
If you want to keep updated on our baby tadpole news check out my other blog Tadpole's Journey.

New News

Sorry, I haven't had the time to really sit down and blog lately. I started babysitting 2 boys for June and July and don't have much free time during the week.

A lot has changed since my last blog.
First, Hannah's Stereotypy. She has been doing this thing where she tenses up her hands and screws up her face. She has done it since she was about 6 months old. This is a picture of her doing it, if you have ever met her, you will recognize these actions.
Well we recently switched pediatricians because of wrong advise from the old one. SO the new doctor was shocked that she had not been evaluated for these actions that she was doing. So he hooked me up with a program called "Help me grow". This program is awesome! They helped me get Hannah's evaluation through children's hospital for FREE! I was so happy and thank full that they have this program.
Anyway, she has a team of 4 people, a behavior specialist, a psychiatrist, a nurse, and a pediatrician. They played with her and asked her lots of questions. After seeing everything she could do they declared that she was down right genius (well almost) and that she wasn't the least bit autistic, which is what we had feared. They then said that she had something called "Non autistic Stereotypy". We are still researching this, but hopefully she will just grow out of it in her childhood. It doesn't seem to bother her, and the only thing it might hinder is her social skills later in school.
So that is that and we are moving on....

Baby Tadpole.
So after a LONG discussion we decided that Hannah needed a brother or sister. So Michael is having his vasectomy reversed NEXT WEEK!! July 1st he will be going in for the 2 hour procedure and then he is off Thursday, Friday, the weekend and Monday for the holiday. Then we have to wait 1 month to start trying for baby Tadpole. http://tadpolesjourney.blogspot.com
We are VERY excited!


Well I guess that isn't a lot, but it is 2 really BIG things in Hannah's life, so it's a lot to us :)
Thank you for reading!

The TERRIBLE 2....1/2s?.

So Hannah just turned 2 1/2 years old. I thought when she turned two that this was as bad as it was going to get....NO WAY! The second she turned 2 1/2 she started the:
"NO" "MOMMMMMMY!!" "BUT BUT BUT I DON'T WANT TO!" and she has done nothing but Whine 24 hours a day, even wakes up at night crying! I don't know what is wrong with her! She isn't sick, she isn't regressing in anyway to make me think something horrible is happening to her. She is just...different. I don't know what is happening to my sweet little girl!
And to top it all off she is now a "Daddy's girl" and wants NOTHING to do with mommy. Bedtime used to be my time with her and now she only wants daddy. Not that I am stopping it or upset, its just frustrating.

But there are the occasions where she cuddles up on my lap and I read her a book and she says "I love you Mommy" and turns around and gives me a big kiss and I melt. I know my little girl loves me and she just can't control her emotions the way she would like to. She has a very big heart and it shows when she wants it to.

She has started becoming a tom boy, or a dirty girl...which ever you would like to call it. She wants to dig, and pick up rocks, and play with dirt and worms and pick grass by the hand full and throw it in the air. She LOVES being dirty, but hates having food on her hands.
And she can swing in the big girl swing outside now, she loves it! She can climb up the ladder and go down the slide all by herself. Which is the only thing she wants to do..."All by myself" is her new saying. And she says it all the time.
She loves helping....but it ends up not helping, but I encourage her to help as best as she can and tell her what a good job she is doing, even if the toilet paper pack is in the bathtub instead of the closet when she helps put away groceries.

She is growing every day and I almost don't want to leave this stage in her life because I know I will miss it when it is gone, but its very hard to tell a 2 year old that the world can't go her way.

We got a new dog, a little rescue doggy. She is a teacup Yorkie and her name is Tinker bell. We call her Tink.
She is about the size of my foot. Her old owners severely neglected her. She lived in a cage with a long haired chihuahua named Pixie (Michael's parents own her now). They were malnourished and timid. They clung to each other a lot during the first few weeks that Scott and Carol had them, then we got Tink, and she took a while to come out of her shell but I think she is okay now.

This is Hannah with Tink, in her time out spot. She knows she isn't supposed to pick her up, so she snuck while I was vacuuming and grabbed her and hid behind the door! LOl (The door is closed when she is in time out, of course!)

We aren't going to get my mother's house, even though we were approved, we are waiting for a while. We think there are other things we want to do first and thinking maybe a baby in the near future...we have to jump through some hoops first, but it is going to happen one way or another.

Thanks for reading!

Happy Easter!

Playing in the back yard

Swinging!! YAY!!

Being cute...and waiting with mommy by the car.

April rolled around way faster than I expected so I am hoping that summer rolls around just as quickly.
Hannah is doing great, growing by leaps and bounds! She is still rear facing in her car seat at 27lbs and 34 inches tall. She can say her whole alphabet, point out all the letters by sight, can count to 19 (Twenty is "fourteenineteen" LOL). She loves to sing and has started telling us stories that start out once upon a time and usually end in "Hey I have an Idea" then we go play....she never finishes her stories! She is amazing me more every day with what she says and even the doctors are amazed at how well she can speak and form full sentences.

Michael and I are in the process of buying a house. My mother is moving and selling her house and we are planning on purchasing it from her. We should find out this coming week if we are approved, which they don't see any reason we wouldn't be.

I am getting excited about the process, but I know it is going to take a really long time to close.

On another note, I was getting fed up with Hannah's pediatrician trying to tell me that my daughter HAD to get this and HAD to get that or she couldn't go to school, or she couldn't do this or that. So I looked around online and found a "vaccine friendly doctor" a little farther away. So today I went and had an appointment with him. I wish I would have found him sooner!! He was thrilled I was ERFing Hannah and pretty much said that I was in charge of her vaccine schedule, he would educate me on what the vaccines were for, and what the risks and benefits were, but it was up to me in the end. He also said that my old Dr was crazy. He immediately recommended a natural remedy to Hannah's allergies then said if THAT didn't work to try over the counter stuff. Then he addressed her "tensing up" episodes which we have been worried about since she started at 6 months old. He said that the old pediatricians recommendation that it was just a faze and that she would grow out of it was very nonchalant and that he wanted to take a closer look at it. He asked me questions she never asked me about it and plans on following up with some tests after a while. He brought up the question of "Rett Syndrome" which is quite scary but since no one in the family ever had it and Hannah is developmentally on target (advanced actually) that we should have no reason to conclude this as the cause. But it had never been asked, WHAT IF SHE DID HAVE THIS? And the other Dr over looked it?
I am just very glad that we found him :)

Well I hope everyone has a great Easter weekend!
Brittney

Spring....are you there??

So I haven't posted a blog in a really long time. I am not really sure why, I think it has something to do with time. But things are going well...we have been at this house a year this month and we are staying at least another year. I am looking forward to the summer with just Hannah and I!
We have had a great couple days with nice weather, my windows are all open in the house and it is starting to feel like spring :)

We have had quite a number of things happen in the past couple months.
The twins turned 1 year old!!
Hannah had her first big stomach bug (ewwww!)
I turned Hannah back to rear facing in her car seat and she likes it.
My mother and step father parted ways.
My mother found happiness! YAY!
Baby Robert had a viral brain infection with 3 seizures, he was in the hospital for a couple days till they figured it out, they say he should be fine in a couple weeks.
My little Brother found freedom and plans on joining the military after he graduates this summer.
My Grandma had to stay in the hospital for a couple days for some medical issues, she is home and is getting better.
I found God...again. Yeah that should be at the top of the list, but I am trying to do this in order.
Potty training is getting easier...some days.
My other Grandma is moving back here in a couple weeks!
Michael and I went on our first date in almost a year and a half. :)
I got in my first fight with my best friend of 2 years. Then we made up.

So, yeah, that is about it.
Not much.
More interesting things are bound to happen once the weather warms up.

Ode to the Dog of two year old...

This post is for the poor little doggies that have a 2 year old.
Oh the misery of the poor defenseless dog of a two year old.

(When you read this, make sure you read it like the movie announcer guy, makes it so much better)
Let us start with Little Miss Denna. Purchased as a puppy before Hannah was even a twinkle in my eye. We spoiled Denna with treats and clothed her in ridiculous things not meant for a dog to wear, pretty sure she was actually embarrassed. We let her do what ever she wanted. Then on that fateful day, October 16Th to be exact...it all changed. Denna had to contend with at newborn for my attention. She was now 2ND best and she knew it...poor Denna.
Then as the months started going by that newborn realized that she had a DOG! She started trying to catch her...crawling toward her, stealing her toys, trying to eat her food! OH THE HORROR of the dog of a baby!
Then that child turned 2 years old and Denna just couldn't get away any longer. The two year old has speed, has whits, has finger nails!! AHHHHHH!!!
So now poor little Denna can't even take a nap on the couch without worrying if she will be pulled off by her hind legs, or given a cup of invisible tea shoved into her nose hard enough to knock her off her sleeping spot. OH the sorrow -of the dog-of a two year old.

Then there is Mister Rosco. Lovable Mister Rosco. Rescued by his mommy from an animal shelter (please correct me on any of this Danielle, LOL) before Lea came to be. Loved on day and night, given all kinds of fun food because he wouldn't eat his dog food. With no one to contend for attention he was on top of the world.
Then on that fateful day, October 16Th to be exact (yes they have the same birthday) everything changed....poor Rosco was 2ND best. He tried to get more attention, pooing in the house, chewing on things that are not for chewing, leaping up and getting Danielle very muddy, running away, then coming back of course....oh the things he has done, and still does!
And Miss Lea, she can run, she can jump and can climb! There is no where for Rosco to escape the wrath of the TWO Year old named Lea!

But there are those rare moments of tranquility between K-9 and toddler. Those seldom pictures of loving and cuddles and cheek licks, they really do love each other....most of the time.

So today, make sure you give your Dog of a two year old extra love and extra treats, because its hard being the dog of a two year old.