Brindi's Question

We are exctied to announce we are pregnant! We are 13 weeks along and will be expecting our newest member of the family the first week of January. So Brindi wants to know...what do you think, Girl or Boy? (Please excuse the dirty face, wild hair, and dirty shirt) She is quite hilarious when it comes to the baby. When we went in for the ultrasound she looked at the monitor and said "baby, baby" and was insistant on carrying one of the pictures around most of the day. Now when we ask her where the baby is, she points to my stomach and then points to hers and tells me she has a baby in her tummy too. It's amazing to Joe and I how she seems to naturally know how to take care of her babies, I can say she is a girl through and through in every aspect except wanting to keep clean/do her hair. I hope her desire to take care of babies translates into a easy transition of being the big sister!

Mind Games

Brindi is becoming too smart for her own good and is learning how to use past situations to her own advantage. For example, Brindi is in a climbing stage and steps and climbs on about anything. Occasionally in church she will step on my scriptures or lesson manual or the hymn book and we immediatly tell her no, sometimes scold her which sometimes results in us taking her out in the foyer depending on how she reacted to the scolding. Well today in church we were sitting and listening to the talks and we were getting close to the end of the meeting. Brindi, feeling its time to go, proceeds to pick up the hymn book place it on the ground and tries to step on the book. We quickly lift her to her seat, tell her no and place the book back. Brindi again gets off the seat, grabs the book, sets it on the ground, opens it and then very slowly while looking at me, as if to say "what are you going to do about it" proceeds to try and step on the book again. So I grab her and lift her to my lap and hold her. At this point she points to the door next to us and says "uh...outside." Now I do not know about you but I am convinced her whole purpose for stepping on the book was for us to punish her by taking her out in the foyer, which I think is what she wanted to do anyways. And so it begins. The mind games and psychology of raising our child, and were not even to the teenager years.

Fip Fops

Were not sure where she picked it up, but one day Brindi starting asking for Fif Fops. We didn't understand her for quite a while but we put two and two together when she kept trying to put on our flip flops. She didn't have a pair of her own but always wanted to wear some. She would prefer to wear ours instead of her own shoes. Below are the pictures of her hinting that she wanted a pair of her own.

This pair is actually Brindi's but she will not be in them until she is at least 3 or 4.

Again wearing her future flip flops.

Wearing Dad's flip flops.

Wearing Mom's flip flops.

When Grammy came out she understood Brindi's hints and quickly went out and bought Brindi her very own flip flops that fit now and not in the future.

What a cute little girl we have and she loves having her own flip flops. We can't remember the last time she wore regular shoes outside of church. Thanks Grammy!

Our Artist

Brindi always needs to be around one of us, so when she disappears and things go really quiet we know she is up to something. The picture to the left is her latest alone and quiet time activity. The canvas...our wall! Luckily Celeste saw this coming a long time ago and bought washable markers. Its a good thing my wife is on top of things.

Memorial Weekend

Over Memorial weekend, Celeste's parents and her little brother flew out to visit. It was going to be the last time we would see Brennon for two years. He is headed out on his mission in the middle of June and because of our schedule we are unable to make to if farewell so they came to us. They were also able to celebrate Brindi's birthday which is always nice to have family around for those type of events.

After Brindi's party, we headed to a bar-b-que for dinner are a friends house. They do this party every year and have a pool, basketball hoop, badmitton court, and then thier tractor lawnmower to pull the kids around. It was a fun get together. Later that night we headed to the Rascals ball game with the free tickets from Lindenwood. We left early but had a great time cheering, eating nachos, and playing the fan games that they do at these small market games.

Sunday we headed over to the St. Charles riverfront. St. Charles was the first capitol of Missouri back in the day. It is also the location where Lewis and Clark started their trek west. At this point of the trip Brindi had forgotten she had parents or just did not care to acknowledge us. It was all about "pop pop" (Grandpa).

Monday we headed up to Nauvoo for the day and did a temple session with Brennon. While in the temple, Sonja and Brindi went throughout the town and visited with the reenactors and got a personal brick. After the temple we grabbed lunch and of course some fudge and then walked around the town and visited the store and family grave site of the Smiths. It was great being able to visit such an important area in our Church's history.

You will have to tilt your head to watch the video, but it was taken when we were in Nauvoo. On Tuesday we headed to the Boone Home to do a little fishing and to walk around the Boonefield Village and throw a couple tomahawks. Celeste's family left later that day. It was a great little vacation and we loved having family visit.

Ever since they left, Brindi has been carrying around a picture of "pop pop" and insists on sleeping with it. Its been a little tough on her having no one but her mom and dad around. She is such a cute girl and loves her family a lot.