A weekend of painting and our first tooth!!!

It was a super busy holiday weekend for us!  We have really been wanting to paint the main living areas in our house for about two years now (or really since we moved in!)  Last summer we did the kids rooms and the basement playroom and since I was pregnant and couldn't help we decided to leave a big painting project like this for a time when we both could do it.  We started on Friday prepping everything and painted Saturday, Sunday and Monday.  It really looks nice and has made a world of difference.  We joked that it looks like a new house.  We painted all the trim, kitchen cabinets, all the doors, entry way, kitchen and hallway.  It was very hard with two little kids and no outside help but we worked together and got it done.  We have a lot of home improvement plans on our list for this summer, with this being the biggest and most time consuming, so it is nice to check it off the list.  We almost have the house put back together, just finishing putting things back where they go and hanging things on the walls.

Even more exciting is Briana got her first tooth this past Thursday!  It may have taken us almost 10 months but she got not only one tooth this weekend but two!!  The bottom front two are the first to come in.  I had forgotten how absolutely adorable little baby teeth are!  She is a crawling maniac at the moment, still doing her army crawl but getting anywhere and everywhere by doing it.  She is really developing a little personality and is copying things we do and laughing all the time.  Brody makes her crack up constantly.  She is so sweet and loving but is already showing a little sass at not even a year old.  Definitely a girl thing!

Brody is doing great as well.  His talking continues to grow and grow and he is using more involved sentences and picking up words that surprise us sometimes as they are a little difficult for a barely 3 year olds language capacity.  Some of his words are still a little hard to understand but I can decode almost everything since I am with him all the time.  He has been using the potty regularly for a few weeks now.  I have been rewarding him with matchbox cars and a trip to the store so he knows if he goes we will go pick out a new car.  Tim calls this an expensive bribe but the cars are under a dollar and he has to go more than once a day to get them.  He is a little stinker though and will say "No potty, no car, right, Mommy?"  on occasion.  I have been experimenting with him in underwear and sometimes he stays dry, sometimes not.  I don't believe he fully understands the sensation to go at this point but I just take him frequently and I seem to be catching him at the right times.  We still have a long ways to go but are definitely headed in the right direction.  Hopefully girls are much easier as everyone tells me because boys are tough (and stubborn!!)

We have had some warm weather over the past two weeks so we have been getting out our pool and water tables.  Brody jumps right in and loves to splash around.  He would probably live outside if we let him!  Briana used her outside baby swing for the first time this past week and loved it.  The two of them swinging next to each other was absolutely priceless!!