creating problems

Before Brinlee was born McKay and I heard a lot about how children seem to get attached to things like a blanket, teddy bear, or binky. So we thought we would be such awesome parents and stop that issue before it started. We decided to rotate through her stuffed animals and blankets every night so she wouldn't feel like she had to have the same one every time.
BIG mistake! Everything was going pretty good until recently. Now she has decided that she wants all of her friends and blankets in the crib with her EVERY night and EVERY nap time! That's 6 stuffed animals and thankfully only 2 blankets. And if you try to be sneaky and leave one out, she will know! She will get a confused look on her face and then say in a worried little voice, "bummy bummy!"  So instead of avoiding a problem, we created a monster!
As you can see in this picture there are only 5 stuffed animals. We are slowly, but surely trying to get her down to one friend a night. It's pretty cute though. When she wakes up she sweetly picks up each friend, one at a time, and hands them to me until all are safely out. Even though this is becoming an issue. At least she is learning to be a good friend.

Brinlee is starting to understand what parks are all about and is loving them. And since Portland is just so awesome we can go in the middle of winter and only need a light jacket, if even. It's fun to watch her learn new skills like climbing and going down slides.

 This is a big twirling slide. I can't believe my baby is big enough to go down one of these things! I don't know if even I could be that brave.

 We were going through and organizing Brinner's clothes that she wore only a short time ago and she decided to reminisce by trying to see if things fit her still. Now this is the part I love about having a girl! She is starting to love playing dress up. : )
Sometimes her "outfits" are a little silly. For some reason she loves putting on just one shoe and always on her left foot. And if you were wondering, her hat is a pair of bloomers of course.

She found her baby snow suit and a binky. She never liked binkies and didn't even know what to do with it at first, But once she figured it out she was liking it. Just don't get too attached Brin! She had to bend her knees to fit into her snow suit and her arms were a wee bit too long, but she looked like my little baby again! There are many times that I look at her and can totally see my family. Like in this pic. But I still see a lot of McKay's family too. I still get lots of comments about how she looks like her daddy. (But less and less now that Brinlee is getting more hair and someone else is getting less. : ))

 Here she is dressing up with the stuff she got from grandma and grandpa Jones!

When I look at my photo albums of me as a baby I always squawk about how big and round my eyes were, but I just love Brinlee's big blue eyes! She wears them much better than I ever did.

 One more thing I just had to add. The other day we were at Joanns and when I was checking out I set my phone down on the counter to pay. The lady said, "wow I haven't seen one of those phones in a long time!" And gave the same look that I would give if I saw a brick cell phone that was used in the 90s. Am I really that behind on the times? Ya I'm afraid so.