If there is one thing our daughter absolutely loves, it's Spring Time! She just can't wait to get outside to play, smell the flowers, spots birds and butterflies, etc. I don't even think the first nice day was into its 12th hour when Mommy and Brianne bought a few pansies to plant outside of our apartment. Needless to say, Brianne was excited. She and Mommy picked out a princess shovel set so she could help Mommy plant them.
I literally didn't have any time to set my lunch pail down after walking in the door before I was bombarded with Brianne to go check out her flowers. To say she was ecstatic would be an understatement, in a split of a second, she grabbed my hand and led me out the door to check them out. She bent down pointed out the dirt she dug in, pointed to the flowers, their petals and leaves, and then took a large deep breath taking in their scent. You could tell she was proud of her flowers.
Once I was actually allowed to spend time inside, it didn't take long for Mommy to tell me 20 minutes after they planted the flowers, Brianne was looking out the window asking why the flowers weren't growing. Yep, our daughter as a bit of an impatient streak in her (but don't we all?).
Prior to planting her flowers, Brianne was constantly going out in front of the apartment and picking dandelions to put in a glass of water. She didn't care that they were weeds, she just loved the yellow flowers they produce before seeding. We were driving to a park one weekend and she was pointing out all of the pretty yellow flowers, and I told her "Brianne, those are actually weeds, not flowers" to which she replied, "No Dad, none of that, they are pretty flowers, just flowers."
With the beautiful weather we've been having, daily trips to parks, the zoo, and so on are just too good to pass up. Let's face it, why stay inside when you can enjoy such amenities? At the parks she likes to find sticks and point out bugs (but don't step on them!). Then she is off and running chatting with every child she meets.
When spring started to appear, we couldn't wait to order the caterpillars for Brianne's butterfly habitat. They couldn't arrive too soon, and once they came, Brianne was excited. She stared at them asking why they weren't moving yet for at least 20 minutes after they were unpacked. It didn't take long before they started to move and grow, and it hasn't been a week yet and they are at least 4 times their original size! It won't be too much longer before they start their next stage and ultimately become the butterflies she is desperately waiting to see.
Of course, we can't go a whole month without baking anything, so it shouldn't surprise you that Brianne absolutely loves our new brownie pan. It makes individual brownies and therefore she got the opportunity to customize each brownie by adding chocolate chips, mint chocolate chips, and marshmallows to them.
If that weren't enough, one evening she decided to make her own cake. She asked me for a bowl and a spoon, placed them on the floor in front of the pantry. She then proceeded to take an unopened jar of BBQ Sauce and pour it into the bowl (imaginary style, we didn't let her open it), next came tomato paste, then sweeten condensed milk, and finally chocolate chips. She stirred it and then we poured it into a pan and placed it in the oven of her kitchen set. No more than 2 minutes later, it was ready! So she took it out of the oven (without oven mitts or a hot pad), and proceeded to serve it on two plates. Mmmm was it delicious! By far one of the best cakes I've ever had (hey!, Don't knock it unless you've tried it and I dare you to try it!). So visitors beware, you may be subjected to trying experimental cakes when you visit, thankfully, they are imaginary at this stage in her life, just wait till she wants to "really" bake it; YIKES!
Also new this month, glitter paint! Well, technically not new, but we haven't had it for a while but we found this really neat store where you can get it in gigantic bottles, so we bought it and man is it a hit. We've got a bunch of butterflies that just glitter when light shines over it up on Brianne's wall right now. Soon after they were put on her wall, Brianne was laying down on her bed just staring at them. Mommy asked, "What are you doing Brianne?" to which she replied, "Just laying here, relaxing and watching my butterflies."
Of course each month has its ups and downs, and this month we had two moments that seem to have devastate Brianne. The first was when Brianne and Keaten got to go to the dollar store to spend their Easter money. Brianne decided balloons were the way to go and she picked out two sports related balloons. So as we headed to the checkout, Mommy and I tried to sneak one of those balloons and replace it with a princess balloon, OH NO, bad idea. She broke down in tears in a heartbeat, she was dead set on the sports balloons and you couldn't change her mind if you wanted to. You'd think it would end there, but unfortunately the balloon devastation continues.
You see, we had more errands to run and it was upon returning to our vehicle after one of these errands that the balloon devastation continued. You can probably guess what happened, and you're right. Mommy opened the back of the van and swoosh out went one of the balloons. Daddy tried as hard as he could to reach for, but it was too quick. Brianne was heart broken, constantly asking us to go get it or to go find it. So we did what any respectable parent would do, we went to another dollar store and bought a new balloon.
Unfortunately that wasn't enough. Or at least, our daughter still felt it necessary to tell the balloon disaster to everyone she met! "My balloon, it flew away, we can't find it. Mommy let it out of the van..." she would tell them. Mommy and I were dumbfounded, we didn't know what to say other than, "Yep, that's what happened, but we bought you another one didn't we?" Thankfully, she seems to have forgotten the incident by now, so don't bring it up!
Lastly Brianne accidentally broke her Piggy Bank. Daddy mistakenly told Brianne to place her newly received pennies into her Piggy Bank (not realizing that Mommy was helping her all this time -- silly Daddy). So Brianne attempted to lift the (now) heavy bank from her dresser and onto her bed, unfortunately a few steps towards her bed, the weight of the bank was just too much and went crashing to the floor leaving a big gaping whole. At first we thought it might not be a big deal to her, but boy were we wrong. All night we heard about how her Piggy Bank was broken and Daddy needed to fix it, and she was sad.
Again, we did the respectable thing any parent would do. We told her that her Piggy Bank needed to go to the Piggy Bank hospital to get better, then we scoured the Internet to try and find an exact matching Piggy Bank. Guess what? They don't make them anymore (though there was one in Australia...). So we did the next thing we could think of... we told her she'd have to get a new one. Mommy had gone to several stores earlier in the afternoon and found one at Target that was a Pig dressed up in a Tutu. Brianne loved it (phew!).
That ends another month in the life of Brianne and her impact on our lives. We thoroughly enjoy her antics, her growth, and she continues to amaze us in what she considers to be important to her. Hopefully each of you do as well and we can't wait to tell you what happens over the next month.
Love,
Matt, Kami, Brianne, and Keaten