Audrey says

While I'm cooking: "Are you making dinner for Daddy?" I say yes. She says, "This is your job."
Lying down after our preschool time: "I need to learn about rest."
After giving her a cooked carrot to eat, she dropped it and said, "It's three hot!"
Seeing bug covered dog poo: "The bugs are eating their dinner!" (Who taught her that??)
Yelling "Aaaugh!" When Daddy asked what that means, she said: "It means AAAUGH!!!"
She has replaced her earlier "Can I..." to "Shall I..." For example, "Shall I jump on the couch?" (no) "Shall I eat my sandwich?" (yes) "Shall I tickle you?" (ok).
After she screamed because the spoon she wanted at breakfast was dirty, I asked her to calm down and say, "Please can you wash my spoon Mommy?" She did calm down, and then said, "You need to wash my spoon Mommy!" Something got lost in translation there...
Watching me heft laundry around the house: "Mommy, you're a good helper!"
After failing at an attempted somersault: "I'm too hot for a somersault right now."

Audrey keeps us laughing every day. She is 2 1/2 now, and so far, I love the twos. This last year has been so fun, watching her figure out the world and become conversational. She says her own prayers, can get her socks and shoes on by herself, recognizes all the capital and lowercase letters of the alphabet, does this funny backwards spelling where she sees a word and then spells it backwards, understands how to correctly ask and answer "why" questions, and can solve the Rubix cube. Just kidding.

Ian's baby blessing

What an adventurous weekend we are recovering from! We got all packed up and off to the airport Thursday to fly to Rexburg, Idaho, for Ian's baby blessing and Sam and Audi's wedding (Sam is Mr. B's brother). Unfortunately, we got held up with kiosk malfunction and long lines and missed our flight. The next flight we could get wasn't until Friday afternoon. So we headed back home, frustrated, and tried again the next day. The flights Friday went very smoothly. Ian mostly slept and both kids were easy and well behaved. We headed straight from the Idaho Falls airport to the rehearsal dinner, where we met Audi's family and were reunited with Mr. B's entire family and my parents, brother Ben, and my sister Laura with her family. After dinner the Briens and Roods met up in our hotel room to give Ian his baby blessing. Mr. B gave the blessing, with his dad, my dad, Sam and my bro-in-law Alex all standing in the circle. It was really special to have so much family together. Grandpa and Grammy Brien, proud parents and baby, Grandma and Poppy-daddy Rood

Our family

Mommy and Ian

Brien sisters: Audi, Carly, Amanda and me

Ian Thomas Brien

Cousin Lindsey and Ian

Congrats to Sam and Audi!

Sam and Audi had a beautiful wedding in the Rexburg temple, and followed it with a ring ceremony at Audi's family home and a reception. Everything was so special and beautiful, especially the newlywed couple. Audrey had the honor of being a flower girl at the ring ceremony. She wore an elegant dress and was delighted with her job. She was full of demure smiles, and she walked very slowly down the aisle, giving each flower her full attention before gently dropping it to the ground. We had to urge her to keep moving. I think she thought the whole event was about her. Thanks Sam and Audi for including her!

Some precious Rexburg moments

My mom and me.

Grammy reading to Audrey.

Cousin Lindsey with Ian.

Smiling little boy.

First ponytail

Audrey finally has enough hair for a ponytail! Her hair is obviously still very thin, but progress nonetheless!

Letter P: Endless possibilities

We have had a fun week learning the letter P. This has been by far my favorite! We started out with our typical activity, of cutting out the capital and lowercase letters, talking about and drawing what starts with P, etc. I had made a little paper book and written a P word on each page, and printed clip art for each word. I put five or six pictures out at a time, and read the book with Audrey, asking her to find the picture that matched the word I read, then tape it to the page. There were about 30 pages. She was really into that. Once we were done she was supposed to color the pictures, but she decided to play with her toys instead. The above picture is the best I got while asking her to hold her book up so it could be in the picture too.
Another day we made pancakes in our pajamas and read about the prophet of our church in the Friend.

One night we made pizza for dinner. Audrey had her own dough and pan, and copied me while I pushed out the dough. Then she put on her own toppings (I did the cheese).

I don't know if you can tell, but she made a small pile of veggies in the center only.

The finished product (it got a bit overdone, but still tasted great). Audrey was very pleased to eat the pizza she made.

Another day we played pirates. Under all that pirate gear, she's wearing princess shoes. It works. We also had a picnic in the park one day, and it was actually quite peaceful for me. I relaxed on the picnic blanket with Ian while Audrey ran around.
We made popcorn and glued some to a picture of a tree, singing Popcorn Popping. Audrey was fascinated by the air popper. We did puzzles. I was going to make a puppet show about the three little pigs but never got around to it. Maybe this week I will. There are so many words that start with P and I kept pointing them out when we'd read stories or talk at the dinner table. I think Audrey started to get irritated with me saying, "P-p-peas starts with...?" or "What does p-p-purple start with?" Don't worry Audrey, I'm sure I'll tone down the enthusiasm with letter Q.

Love my baby brother

Audrey holding Ian. I couldn't decide which of these pictures to post, so here they all are. Sometimes a sister's love means a smushed head, but Ian was remarkably tolerable.

Braces off!

After two years of braces, I finally got them off! I picked up my retainer today and it's the wire across your teeth/appliance type, and I have to wear it all the time for up to six months (then only at night after that). So it's uncomfortable and still makes me a metal mouth, and I still have to have regular appts, but at least I can take the retainer out, and my smile looks so much better.
Feels good. Here's a picture of me right before I got my braces on:

Mother's Day/Acworth Beach

I've never been too excited about Mother's Day. It's a nice idea, but I have always regarded it as just another holiday which obligates your husband to do some grandiose thing, or disappoint you (i.e. Valentine's Day, anniversary, birthday, it seems excessive--just spoil me on my bday and I'm good). However, I have been reflecting on motherhood more lately, and now that I've been a mother for a few years, I realize that this holiday is a great idea--a day to truly celebrate the calling of motherhood. It is my most amazing blessing. However, I still have issues with how some people celebrate (I don't want a gift from my husband; I'm not his mom. I don't want a vacation/spa day/etc. away from my children; I should be with the people who made me a mom. I don't need a break from all housework and cooking--that doesn't make sense to me either).
Mr. B and I discussed it, and we decided to begin a tradition of a special family outing on Mother's Day weekend, so that I can enjoy my kids and enjoy being a mom. So, yesterday we went up to Acworth Beach, which is about 45 minutes away, and we had a wonderful time! Audrey has been asking to go to the beach for months, and since we can't make the five hour drive to the ocean right now, we went up to Allatoona Lake, where they have a little stretch of sand leading to the water's edge. Audrey was in heaven, and I was too. Ian just slept--good plan, Ian.It wasn't quite swimming weather, but boy did she want to get all the way in that water!! She was completely fearless.

So Happy Mother's Day to all--I am enjoying my kids in honor of the day!

Some cute moments

Above: Pretending to be a baby.
Below: Being a super cute two year old!

Hanging out with the Wolfers

We had a spontaneous outing to a national park in Kennesaw with Tracy, Carlie and Ellie on Friday. We really enjoyed having fun together--we miss them a lot!
We got them to smile for the pictures by telling them to laugh.
Ian wasn't into that idea. After running around and a picnic at the park, we headed over to Chuck E Cheese to play for awhile. I hadn't been to one of these since I was ten or twelve and so had no idea it was such a great place. I only spent $5, and Audrey got to do 25 games/rides. It was very two year old friendly. She even got tickets for some of the games, which she traded in for a lollipop and a ring.
Thanks for a fun day Tracy!

Birthday Bash

We had a very fun party last night with a bunch of our friends to celebrate Mr. B's milestone birthday. The spread: we also had a ton of hot wings that we ordered--Mr. B's special request!
I made a crossword about Mr. B that our friends tried to fill in--only a few clues eluded them!
We sure love our Mr. B!! Happy Birthday!