Brooklyn Kranendonk

I have not been on here forever! But I decided it was time to do a little update, although there is plenty more that should be coming!

On October 26th we welcomed our sweet little Brooklyn to our family. She weighed 8 lbs 3 ounces and was 19.5 inches long. I was a little nervous about having 2 kids before but once she came it felt completely normal. I definitely think 2 kids was an easier adjustment then 1, although I forgot how demanding, tiring, and how worried you can get over a newborn. She is absolutely perfect and we love her SO much. She is a pretty easy baby and brings so much joy into our lives.
I love when we talk to her how she gives us a big gummy grin and tries to talk back by cooing and making noises.
Brynlee loves her so much and is such a good helper! She likes to help me feed her bottle, wants to help burp her, gives her her pacifier when she cries and tries to make her happy. When she is sleeping she says, "shhh. Brooke" I Love both my girls so much and feel like I am the luckiest mom around, and truly have been blessed!

Big news for our little family!

First of all I can't believe that next month Brynlee is 18 months old. Time sure does fly! It is sad how fast she is growing but it is so fun and I love watching her grow and learn new things everyday. It won't be long though till we are back in the baby mode. In October we will have another little girl joining our family! We are so excited and I think it will be fun having two girls closer in age. I always have loved having an older sister who I could look up to and be friends with. We definitely had our differences and fights, but I wouldn't trade it for anything! Guess we are keeping the Kranendonk tradition alive with these girls!

As an update on Brynlee- I know she is going to be a great older sister. She loves feeding her food to her baby doll or teddy bear, and putting them in her little stroller and pushing them around or covering them up with her little blanket. We have so much fun with her everyday. Even though she has the throwing tantrum thing down every now and then and also has much more of an opinion she is still the sweetest little thing. She is talking so much more. She is getting much at better repeating what we say and it is nice she understands a lot of what we tell her. I love when she does something she knows she shouldn't be doing and she says, "no no" and either shakes her head or moves her finger back and forth. Or she'll just wait till I look then purposely do it. I LOVE getting to have her as my little buddy all day. Lately When you hand her something or she gives you something she says, "thank you" (well her way of saying thank you!) She loves to go to the park and swing. We have a little one across the street and she looks out the window and says "awk" for park, or will bring me my shoes or bring me Nate's shoes and will hit the front door. She loves to be outside. She loves playing with the little neighborhood kids, luckily we have quite a few where we live! She is still so happy most of the time, and you can still get her to laugh easily, she loves to wave to everybody. I can definitely tell she has both me and Nate in her. She definitely eats like Nate and will eat anything (even if it is spicy) But I totally see a lot of my personality in her. She isn't one to jump into doing something, she has to test it out and be very careful before she knows she can do it. It is fun watching her grow and learn new things everyday! Here are a few pictures of her taken the last few months.

She decided this year the swimming pool might be fun and definitely is liking it more, she still has to warm up to it but at least will get in for the most part.

She loves to drive or ride on anything that she can.

I just like this picture because it shows her sweet personality. The teddy bear in the picture is to her one of her best friends!

Family Fun!

This past couple weeks we were so lucky to have my sister Bri and her family come up from Arizona for a little visit. We loved having them here and were able to do a lot of fun things. We went to Chuck E. Cheese, went to the mall and played on their play place, the girls loved playing with eachother and pushing eachother on the princess bike, we watched movies and had a lot of fun together! We are so thanful they just live in Arizona so we are able to see them occasionaly, although it'd be nice to see them more then we do! We already miss having them here!

The girls with their Uncle Kyle
Completion of the family puzzle

The face Brynlee made pretty much the whole time on this ride

The girls with their Uncle Colby

Ashlyn loving it and Brynlee hating it!

At Chuck E Cheese with my mom in the background



Ashlyn enjoying her sucker!

Brynlee being her dramatic self and panicing they hit the wall, and Ashlyn not caring!

Lately....

Brynlee is now 13 months. I can not believe it! I haven't updated what she has been up to lately so I figured it was about time.
-The top picture is of her with her bear. It is her favorite thing and every time she see's it she gets so excited. Lately she has been sick and keeps waking up at night, so the other night in the middle of the night, she would not stop crying, so I gave her the bear and she gave it the biggest hug and wouldn't let go of it. She went right to sleep after that!
-She has so many different facial expressions. The one she does the most lately is makes a big O face and puts her hands up to her face!
-Loves, loves dogs. Whenever she sees one she starts laughing, kicking and moving her feet, and pointing to it getting so excited. She will pet them slowly but sometimes if the dog gets to close she squeezes onto you for dear life and gets a little nervous.
-Anytime she eats something sweet such as a cookie, she says MMMM. Loves her food still! Although she is in this phase where she thinks it is fun to throw her food on the floor if she doesn't want to eat anymore of it.
-Will walk around furniture and doesn't sit down as soon as we let go of one hand while walking with her. She balances great by herself until she realizes she isn't holding on to something then she just sits herself down. I have tried bribing her with candy, food, you name it, and she still refuses to walk! One day :)
-Is trying to say so many words. She will point to things and try to say what it is, even though it sounds nothing like it. After she says something and points to it and I say yes, that's your blanket and she get's so excited that I understand her!
-She is in her front facing car seat and likes it. At first she loved it then she realized she could see us better and got really mad if we ignored her. She is better now but still likes the attention!
-She makes us so happy and I love seeing her grow and develop and learn new things everyday! -She is really easy going and I really am lucky to have Brynlee and get to play with her everyday. Don't get me wrong, she definitely has her days but I just love her so much!

1 Year Already!

The top one is my family who came to the party and the bottom one is the classic cake picture!

Okay, this post is a little overdue. I have been such a slacker with keeping up on this thing! But, I wanted to write a little bit about Brynlee.... Surprise! (What else do I ever blog about?)

On January 22 Brynlee turned 1 years old. We didn't do anything big for it, we just had family over for a dinner and cake, nothing big. But she got to do the things she loves most: Eat and play with balloons and her toys. I can't believe it's been a year since the GREATEST blessing entered our life. Our life was great before Brynlee but I would have to say its a billion times better with her in it. I could not imagine life without her now. She is my favorite little buddy and the best person to get to spend all day with! She's pretty much like one of my best friends. I was a little sad that she is already one, because to be honest, I don't think I valued the moments when she was younger, especially a baby! I remember when she would cry all night long and how I never thought she'd be old enough to sleep train. I always wanted to her to get bigger and move onto the next step. I don't think I really stopped to enjoy 100% of the moment we were in. It was also a happy day when she turned one because I love seeing how much she has grown up and developed. She is such a smart little girl, crawls all over the place, is still unsure about the whole walking thing, but will stand up on almost anything. No more formula (yay!) she definitely understands pretty much everything we tell her, and she is saying more and more words. I love watching her try to figure out life. Whether it be how cool and fun it is to open and shut drawers/doors or how to get that spoon into the bowl and into her mouth. Sure do love my little girl and am truly grateful that I get to have her as my daughter. She may just be 1 but I learn so much from her everyday! Here are some recent pictures of sweet little Brynlee.

11 months already!

Brynlee is 11 months now, almost a year. She is just as fun as ever and definately has quit the personality! Since I keep track on here with what she is doing, here are some things about Brynlee at 11 months:

-Loves, loves, loves to play peekaboo. I say, "Brynlee, where are you?" and she puts both hands either over her ears, on her head, and sometimes gets them to the right place (her eyes) and gets a smile on her face then lets go and smiles even bigger or laughs. She'll put blankets, or anything over her head so she can play peekaboo.
-Likes to play pat a cake. She has it pretty much down on her own except the rolling her arms part. She just claps when we get to that part of the song.
-Blows kisses to you
-Likes to give high fives
-Now pulls herself up to stand on things and likes us to hold her hands and walk with her. Before she hated it and could care less about it. She'll be in the middle of floor and try to push herself up
-Loves to try to put her buckle together in her car seat, high chairs, anything with a buckle
-Loves to figure out how things work
-Loves to open and close things, especially lids and doors
-Loves to turn on and off light switches, push the garage button and knows where they are all at
-She is very smart
-I'll squeeze her hand 3 times and say,"I love you" and she squeezes mine back. Even if I don't say it she'll still do it
-Loves to pull things out of stuff and put them back in
-Still loves every food. Haven't found one she won't eat. Points to food and says, "mmmm"
-Loves to play catch. She throws everything to give it to you. Loves to roll or throw the ball back and forth
-Dances when she hears music
-Understands a lot that we say to her. Share, no, clap your hands, give me a high five, kiss, hug, your okay, (she'll stop crying sometimes), give it to me, can I have some, ect...
-Loves to share with you. Especially her food
-Says, dada, mama (only sometimes) ball (ba) Hi (ha of hi) bye (bah) baba
-Has 6 teeth, has all 4 bottom ones, two top ones, and the top sides ones are coming in.
-Loves anything soft. Her favorite toy still is her white bear. I think its one of her best friends!
-Still the happiest baby ever! She laughs very easily :)

It is cold outside!

Nate's dad came into town last week and we had so much fun! We went and drove through Thanksgiving Points light and I put Brynlee on my lap (we were driving very slowly and we were in the back seat) and I had my window rolled down. She was clapping, pointing and laughing through the whole thing. It was cute, she layed her head on the window and kept saying, "Aww" or "babada" just talking to herself. The next night we went to the festival of trees. She liked the lights on the tree, I think her favorite tree was an Elmo/Sesame street one. The pictures are from that. Even though it was freezing outside she was still smiling! You can tell by the pictures how much she just loves her dad! The last picture is of her looking at the ceiling, its a kind of new thing she does is tips her head back, and looks up or behind her. She doesn't want to miss a thing!
Then the next night, his dad and Grandma came over and we just hung out at our house. We put our tree up and had a nice little dinner. It's always so fun when he comes into town and we get to see him. Brynlee sure liked her Grandpa Kranendonk!