No more diapers for us!

Brooklyn is definitely no more my baby. She is growing up soooo fast! These are two recent pictures of her and she looks so old to me. It is definitely bittersweet and we are trying to enjoy all the moments of her becoming a little girl and no longer our baby. Over the past month Brooklyn has told me when she was going pee in her diaper. I decided when we got back from New York it was time to potty train. We made potty charts, bought stickers (which she LOVES), pull ups and all the necessities. We tried all week last week and #1 seemed to allude us. We finally put her in panties on Friday night and on Saturday she finally figured out how to pee in the potty. Once she figured it out, she was pretty much potty trained. She loves going on the potty like a big girl. We have to go everywhere we are out and many many times a day at home. We have only had 2 accidents the whole time and she is in panties unless she is sleeping and she usually wakes up with her pullups dry from those too. Woohoo, Brooklyn!!! I guess what they say is true, when they are ready, they are ready. I am just so glad she was ready. No more diapers for us!

Imaginary Friend???

So, I think Dora is Brooklyn's new imaginary friend. Can Dora be an imaginary friend, I don't know. The other day when we were on our way home from our trip Brooklyn was talking her usual gibberish. We were trying to figure out where to eat in Cleveland and she was saying, "mommy, Dora is reeeeally super hungry." I said, "well Dora, is back at the hotel and I am sure she is getting something to eat there." She said yes and we continued on with our evening. At dinner she said she wanted mac and cheese and so did Dora. When we were all done she said that Dora didn't finish all her dinner. I said "really, how do you know. I thought Dora was back at the hotel." She pointed next to Brad and said, "Dora, right there." Imaginary friend, I don't know, but it sure does give us a chuckle.

Our Crazy Summer

So I know that we have been missing for awhile and it is because we have been crazy busy. At the end of June my sister Heather her family and my mom came to visit for a week. We had a great time and I will blog about it in the future when I get some pictures. We took all the pictures on my sisters camera and I forgot to download them before she left.

On July 11th we headed out to Palmyra, NY via Cleveland, Ohio. We had free tickets and couldn't get into any of the airports in New York, so we chose Cleveland which allowed us to see Niagara Falls on the way and Kirtland on the way home. We headed out Friday night on a late flight, got into Cleveland and drove the Erie, PA the first night. When we got there we had a little mix-up with the hotel and didn't end up getting to bed until 2:30am, but we had started our trip and couldn't wait.

I have posted our trip day by day, mostly for our benefit so that we can publish it in a book later and it can be a form of a scrapbook. If you are interested in looking at it all, it may even continue onto the next page, but have at it. We took so many pictures we lost count and had an awesome time. We are thankful to be home, but are not super excited about getting back to normal life. We had such a great time, we just wanted it to keep going. Below is a recap of our trip.

Saturday & Sunday

On Saturday we woke up in Erie, PA and headed for Niagara Falls. Brooklyn watched her movie and slept. She didn't make a peep. She really was such an angel the whole trip. On the way to and from Niagara Falls we probably paid close to $10 in tolls just to get to the falls and back. They were amazing and awesome. We crossed Rainbow Bridge and went to the Canadian side of the falls. Driving on the street along the falls our car was getting wet from the mist. It was almost like it was raining. It was truly a different experience. We walked up and down the falls and took lots of pictures. Brooklyn was so excited to see Niagara Falls thanks to the Little Einsteins, they head their on their butterfly mission. She watched it in the car on the way there. Here are just a few pics from the falls.

After the falls, we headed down to Palmyra, NY to visit and spend the week with Brad's parents.

Sunday was grandpa's birthday. We went to church, which was probably more crowded than a stake conference. We came home had a birthday lunch for Grandpa and then took naps. Later that day we went and spent some time in the Sacred Grove. It was a very peaceful day and the woods around that area are so beautiful.








American Falls






Horseshoe Falls

Monday

On this day we went to the Strong Childrens Museum of Play. It was the most amazing children's museum. We were there for hours and Brooklyn still probably didn't see everything. It was the most fun place to play. There were so many cute pictures I finally had to create a slide show.

While there Brooklyn went shopping in a pint-sized grocery store. It was quite amazing they were able to not only shop, but scan their own groceries and print receipts. It even came equipped with a belt for the groceries to move on. This was her favorite place in the museum, but we also visited Sesame Street, Clifford's home and neighborhood, the Bernstein Bears exhibit, and so many more. She was so tired when we left she didn't even put up a fight. She fell asleep almost instantly.

That night we went to a park on Ontario lake and had a picnic. Our first of many. We played frisbee and catch and we all played on the slides and swings even grandma and grandpa.

Tuesday

On Tuesday we went to Watkins Glen State Park which is at the very bottom of Seneca Lake, one of the New York fingerlakes. It was gorgeous. It was a 1.5 mile hike in and 1.5 mile hike out. For the majority of it Brad and Grandpa Beckstead carried Brooklyn. It was all stone walkways and it had over 800 stone stairs you had to climb to reach the top of the gorge. The brochure said it had 21 waterfalls, I am sure that was only the major ones because everywhere you looked there was waterfalls. It was one of the most amazing hikes I have ever been on. At the very end there is a part of the trail called Jacob's Ladder. It is 180 almost continuous stone steps up to the top. We were all very exhausted when we got to the top, but it was so worth it.

After we finished at Watkins Glen we found a park in the town and had a picnic and played in the park. On the way home we circled Keuka Lake, another of the fingerlakes. It was such a beautiful drive.

When we got home we all rested for a while and headed to the Hill Cumorah Pageant. It was a great time and we all enjoyed it. It was a little cold, but it seemed to keep the bugs away.

These are just some of the many pictures we took on our hike in Watkins Glen. We had taken over 150 pictures by this point in our trip.

Although you can't really see them, this picture is of Grandpa, Grandma, Brooklyn and Brad.

She looks well rested doesn't she, thanks to Brad and Grandpa.

We took a different trail down without so many steps. Here is Grandpa carrying Brooklyn on the way out.

They made it!

Wednesday

Wednesday was a recovery day from the first few. We went to Wegman's grocery store, which is an even more glorified grocery store than HEB's central market, and had lunch. We went home and took a rest and then headed out to pick raspberries at Chase Farms. There are farms all over in upstate New York that will let you pick your own fruit when it is in season. It was so much fun. Brooklyn loved it and was quite good at it. We picked purple raspberries and she made sure that she only picked the purple ones. We ended up getting a pint more than we planned because it was such a good time and Brooklyn was too good at it. We left when a thunderstorm started to roll in. We missed it by minutes and were sure thankful when the rain started pounded down with no mercy.

Thursday

Thursday we went to a beach in Sodus, New York on lake Ontario. They had an old lighthouse that we toured that was no longer in use. It was a beautiful area. We had a picnic lunch at the lighthouse and then headed over to the beach. This spot actually had a sandy beach and a fun park to play at. They only had a few swimming areas and all but one were closed due to high levels of ecoli. We also walked out on a pier. Brooklyn played in the park and then we waded in the water for a few minutes and she was ready to head back to Grandma's house.


That evening we went back to the pageant for a second time. It was an amazing production and Brooklyn asked to go again, so we did. It was warmer this time, but that also meant more mosquito bites.


We were almost out of room on the camera, so we didn't get a picture of the Old Sodus Lighthouse, but we have one of the functioning lighthouse on the pier. Here is a link to the picture of the Old Sodus Lighthouse. http://www.photography-plus.com/images/SodusBay/With%20copyright/SodusBayLt2_100205_36.jpg

Friday

Friday was kind of a slow day. We really just wanted to enjoy the last little bit of relaxing time we had. We went to Tim Horton's in the morning because anyone who has been to Canada or anywhere that has Tim Horton's knows they are pretty good donuts. Went up and spent some time at the top of Cumorah Hill, and Brooklyn didn't want to leave. It was so pretty and there were flowers everywhere. She just loves the outdoors and thought this was the greatest place to rome around. That night we went to Canandaguia Lake to play at the park by the water. It was a nice relaxing day.

Here are a few pictures from the day...



This is the view from the top of the hill. There are 9,000 chairs set up below for the pageant.


Brooklyn sitting on the Angel Moroni monument at the hill.


Just smelling the flowers...


This is Brooklyn at a park in downtown Palmyra. I guess she got to go to two that day. They had these short little monkey bars. Brooklyn grabbed on and pulled herself up. I was just surprised she could do it.

Heading Home

So we had a great time on our trip and we started our journey home on the 19th. We were not quite through with our trip though, we decided to stop in Kirtland, Ohio on the way back to Cleveland and see some of the church sites there. Brooklyn was an angel the whole car drive which was about 4 and a half hours. We had no idea how much the church owned in Kirtland or how long it would take to tour it. We started at the visitor center in what was downtown Kirtland, there were quite a few interesting things there and lots of information. They had a sawmill and and ashery some of the old homes and the Newel K Whitney store. We arrived around 12:30 and we were all quite hungry, but we thought it would only take a short time to tour the homes. It took almost 2 hours because they were so busy and the tours were so informative. Needless to say by the time we were done we were all starving and Brooklyn was ready for a change. We grabbed some food and headed on to Cleveland.


We went swimming at the hotel later that afternoon and Brooklyn actually allowed us to get her wet, she let daddy try and help her float, swim and even put her face part way under the water. Brad told her they were looking for Dora. She thought it was the best time and when they didn't find her she said Dora went in there and pointed to the bathroom.


We headed home early Sunday morning (we got up at 3:30 our time) and were thankful to sleep in our own beds that afternoon.




We just wanted to make you feel like you were on our journey with us. Everything is so green and gorgeous back there. It was amazing!




This is Brooklyn watching her movie, with headphones I might add. These portable movie players were a fantastic invention.