I promise I don't beat my child

Yesterday Peter helped his brother and his brother's wife move. Brita and I were hanging out at their apartment and watching them load the truck and stuff. As I was carrying Brita down the sidewalk I fell off the side and totally biffed it. Stupid Andrea. Unfortunately, Brita got the worst of it. I got a bruised and skinned knee and a skinned finger. Brita got a bruise on her head and a really, really scraped arm. A nice man that was helping with the move took Brita and me to his apartment and he and his wife patched Brita up.

Here's what her arm looks like a day after.

Scarred for life

A few weeks ago Monica got a new belt. While she was wearing it she let Brita slide down to the floor and Brita got her tummy scrapped up a little bit from the belt buckle. Monica felt horrible. I figured it wasn't that bad and Brita would recover.

Apparently I was wrong.

Monica is wearing the belt again today and Brita is always pointing at it ans saying, "bad belt." She probably mentioned it 25 times today. I think Monica will have to break down and get a more friendly belt.

Dancing with the Stars

Monica got Brita hooked on Dancing with the Stars this year. After the results show Brita was walking around the house saying "10!" exactly like Bruno (complete with annoying gestures).

Hopefully she won't be scarred for life.

For ages 7+

I think there's a reason that they have recommended ages on games. I think it's so moms don't get schooled by one year olds.

Brita and I were playing connect four yesterday and she beat me. Twice. It was a little on the embarrassing side. The only thing Peter would do is point out when she had trapped me and there was nothing I could do. Oh--and celebrate when I lost. And teach Brita to gloat.

The first win


The second win


You should always follow these recommendations

Grow, garden, grow

One time I was craving fresh vegetables. I love vegetables. I looked out at our garden, which was just dirt, and yelled "Grow, garden, grow."

Monica evidently thought that it helped the garden grow because she started yelling at the garden every so often.

Now Brita will go up to the back door, look at the garden, and yell, "Grow, garden, grow!" It's pretty stinking cute. See:



I think it's been working, too, because all sorts of plants (the good kind of plants) are starting to come up in our garden. Yeah for vegetables.

I think I might have too many baby clothes..

Each size has more clothes than I do. Well, maybe not boys 9-12 month. Oh wait, I don't even have a boy. :)
I should have just left the boxes in the closet.

Rice crispy heaven

A couple weeks ago my sister Pamela's former roommate got married in the Salt Lake temple. That meant that we got to be the hotel for Pamela and John. Lindsie and Chris didn't quite finish decorating their cake before their first reception, so Pamela offered to redo the layer they cut and finish the rest before their second reception. She redid the layer that they needed to cut at about one in the morning so she decided to just not finish the other layer and they could have a three layer cake again instead of a four layer cake. So they left the bottom layer of the cake with us. Happiness. The best part was that the layers that they weren't planning on cutting weren't really cake: they were rice crispy treats.

I LOVE rice crispy treats. And we ended up with a huge hexagonal one on our kitchen table. We thought about taking some to our neighbors, but I guess we're just not that nice. It did last a long time. But now it's gone. It was great while it lasted, though.

Last weekend we went to a May Day celebration at a historic farm. It was really fun. Brita loved the animals. There were tons of geese all over the place. Brita cock-a-doodle-dooed at the roosters and we watched a sheep being sheered.

I proudly present..Brita's dinner.

Brita eats pretty well for a kid her age. She's pretty much always eating. But last night she decided that she'd rather play with her food than eat. At least she's cute, right?

She dresses herself!

Not quite, but almost. We were out in the garage last week and she came to me with work gloves on. They were on the wrong hands, but she got both of them on by herself.
Today she wanted help putting her shoes on. I was kind of ignoring her because I didn't want to go outside. Then all of a sudden her sandals were on. The straps weren't tight, but she still did a great job.


A totally staged picture of the gloves incident.


Brita and her cute shoes that she put on herself by the gooseberries that have actual gooseberries on them.