Beautiful Brooke

It takes a SNOW DAY (or 2!) to find the time to tell you...

...that Brookie has been sleeping in her BIG GIRL BED for almost a month now!

Although I must use the term 'sleeping' carefully, as she actually isn't doing much sleeping these days!

Mommy and Daddy take turns every other night staying up with this precious angel. She's up anywhere from 1am to 4am... The latest method of survival is to 'camp out' on her floor so that she lays down in her bed alone and falls back to sleep. This has been working for the last few weeks...
Having her in a BIG GIRL bed that she can actually escape from, has forced us to put a door knob lock on her side of the door to avoid her lurking in the hallway outside of our room at night.

Maybe it was the freedom of being able to get out of bed on her own, or the newness of the BIG GIRL BED, or maybe something is still startling her at night... She doesn't sleep well, but she's our BIG GROWING GIRL just the same!

And speaking of GROWING, our big girl has taken a big interest in the potty lately too!
Just last week, she peed in the potty 11 times! I barely had time to make her sticker chart between trips to the princess potty!

11 stickers in one night and lots of pink marker...THE PERFECT BIG GIRL POTTY STICKER CHART!

The princess' throne! (A permanent fixture in our living room.)

Good Girl, Beam!

Sunday mornings and snow days... Brooke. Loves. Mickey Mouse. Pancakes!

After devouring this pancake, she announced to everyone she saw that Mommy made her a 'mouse clubhouse pannycake!' It's the simple things in life...

It takes a SNOW DAY to be able to share with you the recent love affair that has taken place between Brooke and Freda!

We've spent some wonderful time with Nana, Pap, Pappy Fred and Freda lately -in church, and at a variety of family gatherings!

Freda is simply WONDERFUL with the kids in this family! Brooke adores her! She takes time to play, pretend, and READ with Brooke...and we are so thankful that God has blessed us with her in our lives!

LOVE this picture! Pap, Zig, and Freddy making homemade ice cream before the Steelers game last week! (Our family is NOT an NFL family, but any excuse we can find to get together and EAT - we'll take it!)

And most recently, we got to share in baby Noah's first birthday party!

I'm ashamed of myself for not catching any pictures of the big birthday boy, but Zig took LOTS of these angels playing during the party!

CHEESE!

Jenn and Mike threw a great party for their precious miracle boy, and we were so happy to share the snowy day with them!!

I'm truly sorry that it has taken a SNOW DAY for me to find time to upload pictures and update the blog -

Life is passing us by at an incredible speed and we truly are enjoying every second with our angel!

A few things to look forward to in the Wray family...

1. Aunt Meggie and the crew are coming this weekend! (Brooke is already excited about taking tubs with the kids at Nan's!)

2. Stacie will be taking some model pictures of Brooke on Saturday! We are so excited to be Dee-Dee's guinea pigs in her new career as a photog!! JUST WAIT til you see the back drops that Stacie picked! Oh. My. Word.

3. Mommy's Birthday month has arrived! 16 days and counting til the big 2-8!

Praying that all of our loved ones are safe in the snow today!

Maybe we'll head out to play this afternoon - that would make for some great pictures!

More soon!

Please, OH PLEASE forgive my absense and tardiness in regards to Christmas pictures and details from our holiday!

I'm back - with LOTS of pictures to share!

Daddy and his baby girl admiring their work!
What did they DO!?

Can you believe that I allowed this?

After almost 5 years of living in this house, I finally gave in!
I permitted Zig to hang this deer head...

Partly because I was sick of it laying on the floor downstairs (since he had 'no where else' to put it!), and partly because the space is hardly ever used, the 12 point buck is hanging nicely in the corner of the room!

What do you think? Does it ruin the beauty of the Christmas tree?

And speaking of beauty, this chubby-cheeked little one had the most wonderful holiday! I'll never forget all of the 'holiday-hype' that went along with my childhood Christmas seasons, and I'm so happy that my daughter is beginning to understand/appreciate/experience all of the wonders that this season has to offer!

This was Beam on Christmas Eve! I don't think she realized all of the excitement that was to come on this night, but I'm so glad that she got some rest before the festivities began!

**Please note, the couch (whether at home OR at Nana's) has become the 'napping spot.'
We've been having some strange sleeping issues with Brooke over the last month or so. She was waking up at all hours of the night in complete hysterics - terrified of SOMETHING. She would scream and claw out of her crib, to the point of making herself sick! She would wake up quickly...as if something had startled her...and scream until we came to rescue her! I've never heard that kind of cry from her before, so we knew that something wasn't right.

Since raising a 2 year old is sometimes just about 'surviving' day to day, Zig and I did something that we swore we'd never do.

We brought her to bed with us.

No matter what we did when she woke up, she would only sleep as long as she was held. The minute you would stand to put her back into her bed, she would pop right back up and scream as if she was in pain! We both got extremely frustrated with rocking for hours in the middle of the night for NOTHING and Zig spent many a night sleeping with her on the living room floor - where she knew she was safe.

So, on some of these nights, putting her into bed with us just meant that we could at least be laying down while she got some rest - and try to get a little bit of rest ourselves.

And, since this was happening EVERY NIGHT for almost A MONTH STRAIGHT, we were worried about the sleep that she WAS NOT getting and about her getting used to being with us.

However, by some stroke of miracle, Christmas break was a turning point for her! She's doing much better through the night, but she still won't nap in the crib.

Anywho...can you guess what Beam and Mommy were doing under Nana and Pap's tree!!??

My family takes part in the fun tradition of hiding a 'pickle' among the many tree branches and fancy ornaments on their tree! My Dad offers a cash prize to the family member who can find the pickel. My dad stands well over 6 feet high, so you can imagine me and my cousins scale the stairs to get a glimpse of this pickel!

The boys make jokes and pretend to see it...we begin to belive that the stupid thing was never hung on the tree...and every 15 minutes of searching, my Dad 'ups' the cash reward! TOTALLY worth your time to find this pickel...

So, what did I do? I got underneath the tree to see if I could spot it from down under! I couldn't, but it was great strategy!
After spending a few hours with the Richard gang on Christmas Eve, we came back to Burnham to spend some time with the Hertzler clan! Yummy food, laughing children, and tons of Christmas excitement!

I love this picture of sweet Halle girl and Brooke - I know they're going to grow up to be such great friends!

After 10pm, we brought Brooke home to prepare for Santa's arrival!

My new favorite Christmas tradition!
Brooke was so amazed to think that Santa would actually be snacking on her cookies and milk! And don't forget the carrots for the reindeer!

This was the view of Santa's entrance after Brooke had gone to bed!

And, after a great (and complete) night's sleep, Brooke awoke to find that Santa had stopped at her house!

It was such blessing to wake up in our own home on Christmas morning! I had to laugh, because I was the one who couldn't sleep! Brooke and Zig both got a great night's sleep and slept well after 8am! I was wide awake at 6:30, showered, ate breakfast and had my cup of coffee...and was getting very anxious to start waking up my sleepy-heads!

Santa brought her so many special gifts! Toothbrushes, art supplies, more baby dolls than we can count, Tinkerbell stuff, everything Dora under the sun, lots of Disney movies, a new art easel, baby doll accessories, new clothes, games...the list goes on and on!

...and we enjoyed every single second of watching her open these gifts in amazement! What a lucky little girl!

...and as if this wasn't bad enough! Santa also made a stop at Pap and Nana's, Grammy Kathy's, Grammy Janet's and Aunt Meg's for Brooke!

See!?

My parents work all day to prepare the most amazing meal!

And after opening more presents from them, Brooke slept through all of the food!

YUM-O!

After spending the afternoon with my parents, we packed up for Grammy Joyce's house again to visit with Grammy Kathy, Uncle Scub, Aunt Stephanie, Zoe and Marlee!!

...and this was the aftermath!

It took me a few days to get the playroom 'weeded out' of some older toys to take to Nana's house to make room for the new Christmas toys!

On the 26th, we made the BRAND NEW TREK to Turbotville to have Christmas with my sister, Jason and the kids!

I was so excited to see the new house for the first time! And it was so awesome!

No one would have ever known that they had only been in the house for a few days! Pictures were on the walls, everything was perfectly decorated, and the kid's things were everywhere! The house looked perfectly lived in!

The kids enjoyed ripping into lots of new gifts and playing together!

This was the first year that I was without my sister on Christmas Eve, so I was so thankful to get some time to spend with her and make it really feel like the holidays!

These pictures of Josh and Lo crack me right up! Quite the characters, they are!