Momma: Britt, I give the orders, you sit quietly.

Britt: (quieter now) But, I wanna give orders.

Momma: You can give orders when you grow up and become a Daddy.

Britt: When I be a Daddy?

Momma: In a long time.

Britt: Ohhhhhh. (long pause) You're not a Daddy. Momma's a Ma'am!

Brittism #2 - Occured during dinner the same day...

Momma: Britt, could you please eat one bite of carrots?

Britt( who is on his third helping of mash potatotes): No, thank you, Momma. I am eating pobabos right now. Sorry.

Daddy: At least he's polite about it.

Brittism #3 - During our annual meeting Britt had on my brown suit for Church and Daddy was putting his shoes on for him...

Britt: I not handsome. I a wittle boy.
Momma: Handsome just means you look nice. Do you look nice, Britt?

Britt: I not nice! I a wittle boy, Momma!

Brittism #4 - Britt was outside standing up next to the cows talking to them. After I watched him for nearly an hour from the kitchen window, I walked to the door and called...

Momma: Britt are you ready to come inside.

Britt: No, Momma. I talking to the cows.

(She walked out to me with mine chair. I said thank you and sat down.)
Momma: What are you talking to the cows about?

Britt: Cranes.
Momma: Do they like the cranes in their pasture?

Britt: Yes, Momma, but they would like me to feed them more. Let's feed them oranges!
(She didn't have any idea that cows were so conversant, but sure enough we got some produce from the house and they rather enjoyed the pretty wilted, left over celery.)

Brittism #5 - In our attempts to potty train Britt...

Momma: Let's go to the bathroom again.

Britt: No, thank you Momma. I don't want to go.
Momma: Don't you want to be a big boy, and wear big boy underwear like Daddy?

Britt: Nope, I like my bapers (diapers) just fine!

Brittism #6 - On cows...

Britt: Cows drink milk from a cup?

Momma: No, baby cows drink milk from their Momma.

Britt: Their Momma give them milk like Momma and Daddy give Britt milk.

Momma: Yes.

Daddy: You drink milk, and cows drink mild. Are you a cow?

Britt: No Daddy, I not a cow. I a little boy!

Brittism #7 - You should know that Britt likes "Cat in the Hat" alot and that in one episode Sally goes to get silk thread for her swirly, swirly, princess dress. In what is beginning to be an every Sunday occurance...

Britt: Ruth has on a swirly, swirly princess dress?

Momma: Yes.

Britt: Momma has on a swirly, swirly princess dress, too.

Momma: Yes.

Britt: I want a swirly, swirly princess dress too!

Momma: No, you are going to wear a handsome suit, like Daddy.

Britt: I not want a suit, I like a swirly, swirly princess dress.

... (Hours later in the lunchroom at Church, surrounded by all of his cousins - Brystal, Lilli, and Julia - who are spinning in circles) ...

Britt: (grumpily muttering) Everybody has a swirly, swirly princess dress but me!

I've borrowed Mom and Dad's double stroller a few times, because it's hard to get out with two kids so close in age. Ruth even now refuse to walk anywhere out except very rarely, and then only in the direction and speed at which she wants to move. So by default she's almost always the one in the stroller. Poor Britt likes to walk, but eventually he gets tired, and then he wants to sit or be carried. It's way easier to let him sit and carry Ruth, but she holds on about as well as a sack full of potatoes does, except she's far squirmier, imagine trying to carry a big fat, lazy cat (minus the claws). Let's just say it doesn't work out that well for us. As a result I often limit trips out and about to either one day long thing a week, when Gary can come, or very short trips.

I had also mentioned to Gary back when we were in Gainesville, that it would be nice to have a jogging stroller. I would kinda like to start running again, or at least walking enough extra to lose some baby weight. But once again unless someone is watching the kids daily, they need to come along too, and we still have the problem of what to do with the kids as far as the one stroller logistics. When Ruth was still small and weighed much less than she does now, I could wear her and push Britt in the stroller, but she is at the weight limit for the front carrier now, and to be honest to wear her very long makes us both immensely sweaty and she is super heavy these days.

Enter the totally awesome new stroller that I mentioned yesterday. It's new to us anyway. The second hand shop down the road from us gets a fair amount of business from us, we carry girl clothes in from time to time (we have enough for triplets so some of the stuff me and the girls decide we don't care for goes down there), and we buy stuff for Britt, especially shoes. Well the Carousel Kids Consignment shop has had a double jogging stroller I've been eyeing a few weeks now ever since it was at $75. I finally bargained with Gary last week to let me cash in our change jar for it. I had 31 dollars in silver change, and thank goodness he didn't make me carry the pennies in. We got it for $50. I knew I had gotten a great deal, but I didn't realize just how good of a deal I had gotten until I started looking around online to see if I could find a manual for it.

Turns out it's a Dream Design Ditto Jogger Stroller (we have the older model in navy blue), and the older model and the newer model both sell for anywhere between $350 and $450, which lots of people say are totally worth it, but I would have trouble justifying that expense for any stroller, even if we were making tons of money. Even the used ones I saw online were going for no less than $150, so I really did get a steal. My only complaints are that it's pretty bulky, but I've yet to see a double stroller that isn't. I did learn online, that the wheels have a button to pop off, and then the stroller will fold flatter. And my other complaint is that the hood seems to be pretty close to the top of Britt's head. He doesn't mind, and when it's folded up, he uses it as a

pillow, but I read that most kids seem to be close to the top of it. It really does turn on a dime, and is very light (considering the size). It drifts a bit to the left when you run with it, but I think it's because Gary took off the front wheel, piddled with it, and didn't get it one quite right. It's really easy to push, and they will almost run away without me. Britt told me "We all wide together, Momma. It's soooo fun!" I saw where the company has gone out of business so the 20 year warranty isn't any good, but I think it's a great design, way better than any of the other double strollers I've played with. If you need a double stroller have the chance to get one second hand, I would recommend it.

This weekend was McClenny Church's annual meeting time, which was the real reason that Gary arranged to meet this gentlemen there on Friday. It was wonderful to head up and visit with some dear friends that we made in the year we spent in Gainesville. Gary and I greatly enjoyed the visit with members we love and respect like the Whiteheads and the Connors and the Crawfords. We also enjoyed the chance to hang out with some other young families our age like the Mizells and the Fords and the Ferrells (you know, all those blogs we, I mean, I stalk).

The most endearing part of the weekend was the chance to watch Britt and Ruth play with kids their age. I didn't grow up with kids my age in the church, as a teenager we visited a few other churches like Zion's Rest were there were some kids my age, but for the most part that was something I missed out on. And I cannot express how much it thrills me to watch Britt jump on the trampoline with "Ate" and see him have the opportunity to play with some boys his age. It cracks me up to no end to see Ruth follow the big girls around and plop herself down in the middle of whatever they are doing and mimic them. We all had a great time together, and shame on me, I had the camera in the car the whole time, and never got it out.

As you may have guessed we've been trying to do a little more cooking around here lately. I would like to be a better cook, and I know it's unfair to expect Gary to do all the cooking, even if he does enjoy it. I have about three meals that I can cook without too much trouble, and no one wants to eat oven fried chicken, tacos, or roast every night. It would be nice to expand my horizons a bit. When Gary and I first got married I cooked dinner almost every night, until I got pregnant with Britt and merely smelling cold, uncooked food made me sick. Gary took over cooking, and he really loves it, but I would like to help him with that when he starts back to work. (Which we hope will be very, very soon.)

I've been saving interesting or easy looking recipes on Pinterest. One that I came across was for pizza crust. I liked it for a couple of reasons, one being that I wanted to make pizza for Britt's birthday (Gary nixed the idea, because of time constrains), but the other is because it would give me the chance to try baking bread with yeast. I've been thinking awhile about doing some serious bread baking. I always enjoyed baking (it's nothing like cooking) and I've been wanting to try out the kneading attachment on my Kitchenaid for a while. And this seemed to be a simple initial recipe to try.

The dough recipe comes with a cheesy bread recipe which is fantastic. The explanations are very clear, and there are plenty of good pictures. The only time consuming part was waiting for the dough to rise. The recipe makes enough for either two pizzas or a cheesy bread and a pizza. We made one of each. Gary says he thinks the pizza was too expensive to be worth it. (Do you have any idea what a quarter pound of mozerella cheese cost? and pepperoni too?) Oh it was so delicious though. We ate tons of it, and liked it so well, that we made the dough to make more cheesy bread for Britt's birthday. I have a feeling we'll be trying more of her recipes.

The thought that the potatoes were fabulous, but Gary thought the garlic was a little too strong, so next time we won't use as much garlic in them. I think he put a bit of garlic in every other spot where he cut them. We ate them with a little more butter drizzled across the top, and some sour cream. If you are a fan of baked potatoes or pan fried potatoes I suggest you try it.

We have modified the chicken recipe a little bit. Since Gary typically grills the chicken out on the grill, we don't use the liquid smoke when cooking outside. We also add 2 teaspoons of onion powder. We have used several types of mustard, the regular, honey mustard, and the spicy brown, and we like the spicy/bold brown mustard best.

The Spinach Strawberry Salad is actually a recipe that we have quite a bit, in fact it's the only way we like to eat spinach. (Well, actually I love a good spinach cheese dip, but Gary doesn't.) It goes with almost everything. I was surprised to find it on allrecipe.com awhile ago, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised at it, I'm sure I'm my family isn't the first family to eat it. The key to it, is in how long you leave the dressing in the fridge before you serve it. The shorter time it's there the warmer and spicier it taste, it's got a great slightly sweet taste if you leave it in there long enough. I personally like it slightly vinegary taste over the sweet Florida strawberries.

Anyway, so I'm talking more. Momma and Daddy still don't understand that much of what I say, for some unknown reason. I saw "MaaaaaMaaaaa" really clear and "DaDaDa". After Momma is done getting me dressed or fixing my hair she always looks at me and says, "There!" So, I have started saying "dar" and nodding my head too. I usually point and screach when I want something, but sometimes I do rarely say "cup" clear as day. I can say "bye-bye" though Momma laments that I only choose to say it after everyone is gone. I tell Britt "ni-ni" (night-night) at the end of the day. And Momma has convinced me to say "hay" (hey) a time or two when someone comes to see us.

I don't say a whole lot, because I don't really need to. It's much easy to just yell "ehhhh" and wave wildly around, lots of people jump to do lots of things then. Britt brings me all sorts of stuff if I start crying, and he always asks for me a cup when he gets one too. He usually brings mine first. He does have his useful moments. Momma has been working on me yelling though, she says it's not polite or very lady like. When I want something she has started asking me to say please, so I now say "eease!" If you don't believe me watch.

He sung to himself at Church, and was very excited after he realized that he got some special surprises for his birthday. We let him pick out breakfast, and Gary thought he would pick cinnamon rolls, but I wasn't surprised at all that he picked pancakes. I let him eat a cookie before supper, and he got as many capri-suns as he wanted yesterday. I wanted to make him a pizza that looked like the ones from Pizza Planet, but Gary didn't think we had enough time so we just made cheesy bread. The cheese bread was fabulous. I tried making two different kinds of cookies - Woody's star badges and a brown version of Jessie's Cowboy hat (to be Woody's hat), but the stars just didn't turn out at all and the hat would have probably looked better if I had actually remembered to by some icing for them. I looked at a couple of different ideas for cupcakes: Buzz, the aliens, but I decided to let Publix do that. It was out of my limited baking ability range. Pinterest was great for ideas though. I asked him if he had a good birthday several times and he always replied "Yes, Momma!"

His three cousins came over the the house and they all played outside on the swingset, and ate pizza and cupcakes and cookies, and all after dark destroyed the living room and bedroom. Meanwhile us adults sat around and visited, it was a great evening. Britt was thrilled to death with all of his presents and I read him the cards and messages on the computer, and he was surprised how many people wrote him notes for his birthday. After everyone went home Britt and Ruth spent some time in the bathtub while I cleaned up their room. Then Britt called Grumps and Ahna and then Grandmother and Granddaddy on Skype. By the time he got in bed at 11:30 he was wore out, a little cranky, but went to sleep fast!

Today you are 3 years old. Happy Birthday, little man! Even as I type this I can hear you say, "I not a wittle man, Momma. I a wittle boy!" You are full of mischief and are constantly telling us what you do and don't like and often push the line to determine you can stretch the boundaries of acceptable behavior. We butt heads often, mostly when you conveniently don't hear what I said. (Ahna is probably laughing as she reads this, and Grumps will say something to the effect of, "I'm glad those days are behind us now.") But as your Daddy has pointed out, you decline to obey in such a well mannered way. Just a couple of nights ago, when I asked you if you were ready for a bath you replied, "No, I'm playing right now. Sorry, Momma." You didn't say it with a mean thought or a bad attitude, just a matter of fact, no I'm busy right now. After saying you were sorry, you reach over and patted my knee, as if to comfort me.

You are the most loving little man for all your stubbornness. You are quick to run to Ruth when she is crying and rub her hair and say "What's wrong Roof? Don't cry!" in your most concerned voice. When I don't feel well, you are quick to come and cuddle and pat my arm and say, "I wuv you too Momma." Somewhere in the last few months your "super independent do it all myself" outlook on life, did a sudden 180 and became "Momma must do everything for me." While it is wonderful to be needed, I'm pretty sure you are more than capable of picking up your toys without help, and eating your food without my assistance.

I know that you are a bright and capable little boy, you are eager to approach any challenge, and dislike being told that you can't do something or that you are too little. You often tell me that you are not a baby any more if I try to tell you that you are too little to do something. And after all, you are a good helper, as I often tell you. You can load laundry like a pro, even if I have to help distribute it around the agitator since you can't actually see over the top of the washer. I have to watch you carefully, since when you put a load in, you'll start on the next load too, if I don't stop you. You can open the drier and carry everything to the couch to be put away now, and I have caught you unloading it a time or two after the bell went off, even when they might need to go another round. You are a pro at washing dishes now. Infact, it's pretty rare for me to have to go back and wash out one of your cups behind you now. Of course, washing dishes often turns into a free for all with water and suds going everywhere. Each day you feed Mara, with a little help in opening the door and scooping the feed at the bottom of the bag. Then we go and you check on the chickens. While I rinse out their water bucket, you like to throw feed in the pen. And after I lift the eggs out, you can carry them back to the house without breaking them. At night you love to help Daddy cook. You stand on your little chair/stool, and he lets you mix things and shake things to your hearts content. You are quick to go and get Ruth a toy, if only to trade because you want what she has.

Your sister and you have a special bond. You lay and watch movies together or play side by side. You wrestle in the cardboard box, that you have named "Mine home." Other than your attempts to completely soak her in the bathtub each night, you play really well together. Often if I let you do something different while she is napping you want her to play too. You will go in the room you two share a hundred times during naptime, until she finally wakes up, and you shriek, "You wake up now Ruth. We can play!" Naptime is beginning to fade from your life. You promise each day to take a nap in exchange for a cup, and as soon as it is downed you come to tell us that "I wake up now!" Sometimes we get a late evening nap, but not always.

Son, you are bright, energetic child, with lots of love (especially for cows). You are a wonder to behold in action. You are trying and exhausting. I very often wonder, what in the world goes on in your head. You laugh your manic laugh often, and think your jokes are amazing... especially the one where I ask you who someone is, and you always reply with the wrong name (usually Daddy or Grumps). You will do almost anything for cookies. You are the most wonderfully endearing person and the child most likely to drive me crazy. I hope you never lose your wonder at the world, your drive, and your enthusiasm. I do hope you learn over the years to train that will of yours. Determination and a strong will are wonderful traits if you can learn to direct them. A water hose left running in the yard will just make a muddy mess, but a water hose with a tight nozzle and a little aim, can carve a mini grand canyon in the flowerbed. If you can tame and direct that will you can do anything you set your mind to accomplish.

Your Daddy and I look forward to watching you grow into the man you will one day become, and we love you dearly.

Love,

Momma

I might not look much like Momma, but there's no doubt that I favor Daddy's side of the family. I have heard that I look even more like Daddy than Britt does. I've heard that I look just like my Granna and Memaw. I have heard that I have Aunt Manna's smile and chubby checks. I have heard most often that I have my Aunt Joan's eyes. No matter how many pictures Momma shows me, you can't find a one that doesn't look at least a little like me.

(Ruth, 4 months) (Gary B., 3 months old, 9-1979)

(Britt, 35 months old, 12-29-2011) (Danielle, 30 months old, 11-29-1987)

Sometimes Momma thinks I look like Unca Maffew, she says we have the same crazy face, when soemthing is about to happen. But we don't look much alike.

I've been meaning to do a blog for me and Ruth like I did for Britt and Gary for the last 6 months or so. The only problem with this plan is that Ruth still doesn't look a thing like me. In case you thought she did in some way view the following exhibits.

(Ruth, 16 months old, 12-29-2011) (Danielle, 19.5 months, 1-1-87)

The only resemblance in this set of pictures is that we are wearing the exact same set of clothes. Really. This is one of the few outfits that were saved from me. While she may not look a thing like me, I couldn't be more proud of the little girl who comes to show me her treasures, who runs to me to kiss away bumps on her head, and how snuggles better than other living creature (I'm sure of it).

This year since New Year's Day fell on Sunday, we had a slight change to our usual plans of camping out down at the Church. This year we set up our tents and camped out on the 30th, and had the big New Year's picnic on the 31st. While everyone was putting up their tents, I let the little one's play on the air mattress in ours. It kept them corralled and I enjoyed listening to them laugh and play.

We had a great time. There were 7 tents this year, and a few more of the sisters stayed in the Church house. We had a camp fire in the yard, grilled hot dogs and sausage dogs, Bro. David cooked some pizzas, and we had smores. Dad made his famous peach cobbler in a cast iron pot over the camp fire. We ate and visited. We talked about politics and church stuff. We talked about raising kids and making spouses happy. We had the best time visiting late into the night.

The kids had just as good of a time. They ran around the Church yard playing Ghost in the Graveyard, tag, and sardines all with Bro. Chris. We all suspect he's just a big kid sometimes. Britt had no idea what most of the games the kids were playing were, but when Bro. Chris would start counting and they would all run, he would take off behind them.

After all the kids got to bed, I had a nice time pulling out the binoculars to look at the stars. There were tons of stars in the sky to see with the naked eye, despite a half moon, but then to us the binoculars you could see hundred more. To me the starry sky is the most wondrous part of His creation, and the bible tells us it was the work of his finger tips, that he also made the stars, almost like an afterthought a final touch.