Unlike everyone else in the country, Fairbanks has been quite warm.  So Brooklyn spends much of her time without a lot of clothes on.  Especially, if mom makes a fire & cooks the entire family out of the house.  She is a funny girl & enjoys her time with dad. 

 

 

 

Slightly belated, but Happy Thanksgiving.  We shared our day at Mike, Lena & Gideon's house.  Brooklyn & Gideon had lots of fun together.  Maybe Brooklyn was a little happier to see Gideon than he was to see her (see pic 4).  She is full of energy & expressions. 

 

 Sitting down with Anne to read a book.

 

 

 Reading with Mike, Will & Gideon

 

 

First year to help decorate the tree.  Brooklyn liked putting the ornaments on the tree, than taking them off later.  Now the decorations are mostly out of her reach, but she is used to the tree being there & pretty much ignores it. 

Dad & Brooklyn in their purple hats.  Aunt Viv would be so happy.

                                                       

Too many cute pictures to share, but this was the start of Brooklyn's day.  She woke up very early this morning & needed a nap even before she left the house.

 

 

 

 

Dad & Brooklyn are enjoying some camera time together.  She is full of facial expressions.

 

Brooklyn's Halloween at the UAF museum.  She was Boo from Monster's, INC.  She loved playing in the children's museum.  We attempted to get all four 13-15 month old kids to sit still for a picture, but nearly impossible. 

 

 

 Carving her first pumpkin.  I thought she would love all the gooey stuff inside, but she didn't really want to stick her hand in their or feel the stringy stuffy. We had lots of fun, though.

 

 

 

Loving putting everyone's shoes on and "walking" around the house.

For some reason, she enjoys pulling her diaper down and showing some crack. Maybe she will be a professional plumber.

 

Before the snow flew.  Brooklyn is the new dog walker in the family.  She holds on pretty well and luckily Tahoe doesn't tug too hard. 

   It was an amazingly late start to winter.  Typically, after we return from our trip to Oregon in mid-October there is snow on the ground.  Luckily this year we had several weeks of fall before the snow flew.  I know we live on Cranberry Ridge, but I haven't taken advantage of that before this year.  We were able to cranberry pick right out our back door.  It was fun to get out and enjoy the leaves and beautiful afternoons.  Brooklyn enjoys the cranberry muffins that I make with our harvest.  We all decided low bush cranberries are much tastier & less seedy than the high bush variety.  Before this year, I ashamedly didn't know the difference.

 Brooklyn's first coloring book and crayon set.  She does tend to eat the crayons, but is starting to draw a little.  On another note, I generally don't put her in pigtails since she fights me.  However, she sits for Dana long enough to do her hair.  This day I was told that she was a little devil and therefore had horns, but gets one pigtail "halo" if she is a good girl.

 The snow has flown.  Brooklyn likes to eat the snow, however her hands get really cold outside without gloves on.  Kevin had a great idea to bring the snow inside to her, plus we could make sure it was clean snow (i.e. hasn't been peed on by a dog).  She was a happy girl.

Attempting to get Christmas card pictures with a toddler & two dogs is challenging.

 

 

 Those poor dogs of ours.

 

 

 Peek-A-Boo

 

As we speak, I am home with Brooklyn listening to her chat in her crib, even though I really think she needs to take a nap.  She has decided to cut four molars at once & get a respiratory virus at the same time, so has had a rough few days.  We are taking it easy at home and trying not to expose her friends at day care to her sickies.  Luckily, she is a pretty easy going baby and is relatively happy, even though not her normal chipper self.  I found some pictures on Kevin's phone, some of them several months old, that I wanted to share.

 

 

 

This was the end of May (after winter decided to leave). 

She continues to love all forms of water. 

 

 

Dancing in the living room right after she learned to walk in June.





 

Aunt Sue has introduced Brooklyn to her very patient cat. 

 

 

 
Destined for the Tour De France

 

A few of the many happy moments with father & daughter. 

 

 

 

 

 

Looks like she's headed off to school.  Not really, but off to daycare at least.

 

The Seattle airport has this amazing play area for little kids with cars & planes to climb on.  They look like are hard plastic, but are squishy soft.  While on a layover in October we spent an hour trying to burn off some energy for another 3.5 hrs on a plane home.  She is generally happy on the plane, but doesn't really like to sit still for that long.  Too young to keep her attention on any one thing for more than 30 seconds and too old to want to sleep on the plane.  Easy days of flying are over for a bit.