Terrible Twos!

So it seems to me a bit unfair that there is a phase in toddler-hood called the terrible twos. Because, my mom explained to me, that it can happen anywhere between 18 months all the way to 42 months. Sure enough, my daughter started her terrible two stage the day she turned 18 months old. It seems that no is a much more fun word to her now that she is 18 months. Oh, my favorite part of this phase is the constant whine my daughter has. She just wakes up whining, walks through the house, whining. She whines when she wants up, down, food, drinks, you get the idea. Oh, and the joy of tantrums over not getting every single little thing the way you want when you want! Those are truly a gift from God.

I love that little girl, I really do. But sometimes she can just be a little more than I expect. When I get her dressed and she doesn't want to wear clothes, she kicks at me and says 'bit'. I can't help but recoil a bit. I know my daughter doesn't actually know that word because we have completely stopped cursing since we moved. But it's kind of shocking still when it happens.

Oh, lord, thank you for my darling husband who knows not what he teaches. Daddy taught Brooklyn that toilet paper goes in the potty and then you flush it. So that is now one of her favorite games. Let's just put toilet paper into the potty and flush and repeat. She is so cute though. She looks so proud when she does it right. She just gives this big cheesy grin that says 'I know that I'm cute, and you can't really be mad at me when I grin like this'. She has learned to close all doors and only open a few. That's given me a few mini heart attacks. I look for my baby girl and can't find her. Sure enough, she's almost always in the laundry room, the kitchen pantry, or the bathroom across from the pantry. She also seems to be particularly fond of the closet upstairs we use to keep towels in and medicine.

Raising Brooklyn is harder than I expected. I thought that I could just have a baby and everything would go magically as long as I tried. Wrong! Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't change that precious little girl for anything in the entire world, but she is just very opinionated and finicky.

Before bed, she has to say goodnight to EVERY SINGLE BABY DOLL in her room. She wants us to lay them down and tuck them in then she hugs and kisses every single one of them. In the morning when she gets dressed, the only way to get her to do it is to dress her life size Barbie along side her. Some days she loves her grandma and her pop-pop, and some days she just isn't sure about them. Life is full of little surprises lately.

On another topic, Nick and I have found a church that we really enjoy and we are wanting to call home. It's called Desperation Church and it's not a traditional kind of place. First of all, it's in an old warehouse. They fixed it up and it looks really good. When you first walk in, to your right you'll see aluminum fencing attached to the wall. It's their wall of accomplishments, and it just displays artwork of some of the teenagers and even maybe some adults. They have a little cafe and against the wall on the left a little ways back, they have three refrigerator doors attached to the wall that have pictures of the kiddos in sunday school. I know Brooklyn is safe there because all the teachers have background checks and she goes to a class called Beautiful Babies. She absolutely loves that classroom and I think that she also enjoys being around kids her own age. We absolutely love the services. The pastor is AWESOME. His name is Michael and he and Nick are kind of getting to know each other. This past Saturday there was a men's Breakfast and Nick met a lot of neat people. This church is a nice size. Not huge, but not tiny either, and they really make an effort to make everyone feel welcome.

Well, I think that I'm all typed out for a little while. I swear I am trying to get better about posting, so just be patient with me please. God Bless All of you!