Round and Round We Go

The St. David's Carnival rolled into town recently, so we went to check it out one Saturday evening. Brianne got her hair put up in a pony tail before we left for the carnival. Probably my best one to date! It was dinner time when we got there, so we had an assortment of yummy food - fried fish, quesadillas, and sweet potato fries. Here is Brianne discovering marshmallow fluff. She was definitely a fan! Most of the rides were for bigger kids, but all Brianne wanted to do was ride the carousel. This was probably the fastest carousel I had ever ridden. I had a death grip on Brianne the whole time to keep her from sliding off the horse. Even after nearly falling off, she wanted to keep riding. My head was still spinning, so I let Marty take a turn. They opted for the bench the second time around. Much safer :o)

Cool Chick in a Hot Tub

One of the benefits of living so close to your family is the use of their lovely pools. Aunt Casey and Uncle Scott have a particularly awesome back yard set up, and are kind enough to invite us over to beat the heat in their pool from time to time. A couple weekends ago, we stopped by to take a dip. What we didn't realize was that the pool heater wasn't turned on, and it felt like a frozen lake in there. Scott checked the temperature and it was actually around 75, but it felt much colder. Brianne didn't seem to mind and enjoyed sitting on the step and splashing around. The hot tub heater wasn't turned on either, but it was still a little warmer than the pool. So we turned on the jets and hung out in the somewhat warm tub (think leukwarm bathwater). At first, the bubbles kind of freaked Brianne out, but she warmed up to them (pun intended). Toweling off after a fun and relaxing day!

Pass the Ketchup, Please

Brianne has recently developed a taste for ketchup. Marty, who has a well known passion for ketchup, has been thrilled to share this with Brianne. She likes ketchup so much, she will eat spoon fulls of it, so I can only give her a little at a time.

Here she ate all the ketchup before touching her real dinner (chicken nugget and mashed potato).


Super size my ketchup please.

Luck o' the Irish

Since St. Patrick's Day falls on a Thursday this year, so our local cities had their St. Patrick's Day celebrations were held over the previous weekend. So Sunday found us trekking down to Hollywood to enjoy their St. Patty's fest.

Brianne's nap time ran late so we missed the parade, but we still had a nice time walking around and seeing all the drunk people. At least Brianne and I remembered to wear green!


Marty taking a turn with the St. Patty's head band. We tried to get Brianne to wear it, but she was not into it.

With so many people, we opted to use Brianne's leash. We have to put some serious effort into teaching Brianne how to hold hands so we can do away with the leash.

You know its St. Patrick's Day when there is a bottle of Guiness the size of a building and bag pipers wandering about.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

This Saturday (March 12), we made the drive up to Jupiter to visit our good friends, Kristy and Josh, and see Brianne's very first baseball game. The St. Louis Cardinals have their spring training in Jupiter, so that is what we went to see. Baseball is not a very popular sport, and the Marlins do not have very many fans (unless they happen to be winning). So I was not expecting to see too many people at this game. But wouldn't you know it, the game was sold out! Over 7,000 people were there!

When we got there, Brianne had just fallen asleep in her stroller. I didn't want to wake her up, so I brought her and the stroller into the stadium. Baseball stadiums are not very accessible, so Marty and I had to lift the stroller up several flights of stairs - no easy task with 27 lbs of sleeping weight added into it. Also, I thought that I could pull the stroller into our row and just sit indian-style. Did you know that stadium rows are too narrow to accommodate an umbrella stroller? I didn't - learn something new every day. Our seats were in the middle of the row, but luckily, there were two end seats available, and have Brianne in the stroller in the aisle.

When Brianne finally woke up, she was happy to sit in my lap and check everything out. She had a soft pretzel and some Italian Ice and just enjoyed the day. Believe it or not, but she sat through the entire 9 innings! Kristy and I were both blown away at how good she did. Looks like we'll be able to take our little sports fan to more games!

Marty played baseball in college, and is a big fan. He enjoyed explaining the rules of the game to Brianne.


Brianne was more interested in eating her pretzel and looking at everyone at the game. Who knew there were so many Cardinal fans in South Florida!

Slip and Slide

We met our friends, the DiPaolos, on Sunday, March 6, at a local park. This was the first time we had been to this particular park, and I will say, I was very impressed. It had the rubber flooring instead of sand or wood chips, it had a big awning to block the sun, and it was fenced in so small children can't wander away. The play set itself was great as well, and had plenty of slides, which are Brianne's favorite. She is big enough now that she can climb up the play set and slide down all by herself. She loved climbing up, sliding down, climbing up again, and sliding down again... over and over and over. I was exhausted just watching her.

Brianne's favorite slide was the big tube slide. She tried sliding down every possible way - feet first, head first, on her knees. If sliding were an olympic sport, she would be the champion.


Trying to climb up the slide. Bradley was showing her how it's done.


We don't know exactly what this was for. But it looked cool.


Brianne having a blast swinging. The was the first time she actually liked being on the swing.

Love this picture. Just pure fun :o)

Attack of the snack traps! Enjoying some gold fish crackers after a fun afternoon of playing.

Bonus Video! Brianne sliding.

Passion for Pony Tails

Brianne will still not let me put any bows or pony tails in her hair, but I am not giving up! I was finally able to get a half pony tail in her hair, and she let it stay for about 20 minutes. Progress! Her hair is long enough that it gets in her face, and I see her trying to wipe it out of her eyes. I try to reason with her, but still hasn't quite gotten it yet. Soon I think she will let me put stuff in her hair. Can't wait!

Here's the best I could do. I actually had to do this while following her around our house, holding a brush in my teeth and the rubber band around my finger. Not too bad!


What a cutie!

Swimmin' on a Sunday

My sister-in-law had some relatives down last weekend (February 27), so she invited all our local family over for a pool and pizza party. Marty and I were feeling lazy and didn't bring our swim suits over. When we got there, there was already 5 other kids in the pool, and poor little Bree Bree had her face pressed up against the patio door wanting to go out. At first, we tried just to hang out on the patio, but she kept trying to dive in. We gave up trying to keep her out of the pool, and stripped her down to her diaper. Cousin Taylor volunteered to swim with Brianne so we didn't have to get in. Brianne had a blast splashing around with all the big kids!



Brianne was content to sit on the step and watch the action from there.


Practicing her swimming from the safety of the step. Since she wasn't wearing a swim diaper, her regular diaper soaked up what seemed like half the pool.

After a long evening of swimming (and before her diaper exploded), we had to pry her out of the pool. Time for some pizza! She ate two whole slices!

Orange You Glad to be in a Parade?

Every year, Marty and I ride in the Orangle Blossom Festival parade in the Town of Davie. Brianne is still too little to ride in a car without a car seat, so she had to watch from the side line. But she still enjoyed cheering us on. There were a lot of neat parade floats, horses (we were in Davie after all), and other kids dancing or playing instruments. We also collected a lot of good loot, including a balloon, a pom pom and an orange!

Playing with our balloon before the parade.


Pretending to drive a tractor, while still holding the balloon. Big Bird got to drive the tractor as well.


Smile and wave!


After the parade, we wanted to walk around the festival for a bit. Brianne had all her gear and was ready to enjoy the festivities.

Big girl sunglasses just like mommy!