trucks + art

Brooklyn is quite the little artist. She has enjoyed drawing, coloring, painting, chalking, etc since she was 2, but just in the past two months her skills have really sharpened. She learned how to draw hearts and sat at the table during "home work" time and drew hearts all over her paper like a love sick teenager. I was just beaming watching her beam at herself. She also loves drawing pictures of our family. The other day she made one that had three people of different heights. She announced proudly that it was a picture of our family and when I asked where daddy was she said "daddy is at work, so  he can't be in the picture".

Ben is officially obsessed with trucks. I am not going to lie, I adore this. I think it's not only hilarious- the way he gets really high pitch and screeches with joy at the pictures of all the tractors, excavators and fire trucks, but really cool to see the difference between boys and girls. Brooklyn at this age was OBSESSED with babies. She would bring me multiple baby dolls and ask me to swaddle them over and over and over.

So this is a totally different scene. A hot date in our house has become Monday mornings when the garbage, recycle and yard debris trucks come up and down our street. I have been trying to get a picture every week, but keep missing it. He quite literally flips his lid over those trucks, and all trucks for that matter.

Brooklyn has begun to ask some pretty interesting/insightful/difficult questions. She asked the other day how big God is. As I stuttered and stammered to explain the ALMIGHTY, I watched her face, gazing out the window soaking the answer in and formulating her next question.

Tonight while Matt and I were cleaning up dinner she came running in from the back yard saying "mom, dad, can you come handle this situation". She was referring to the fact that her baby brother had climbed up on top of their play kitchen that we have in the back yard.

As I was leaving the bank today I said to Ben who was whining the WHOLE drive "Benny please stop whining", Benny "Whhhyyyy?" Brooklyn "Because it's making her crazy", Benny "Whhyyyyy".
How can I not laugh at that. It's seriously priceless gold.

I have also been noticing more and more lately that Brooklyn's love language is words of affirmation. She absolutely loves and tends to crave praise and appreciation from us. As I was out helping her ride her bike today she kept getting overly frustrated, which in turn made me frustrated and we both (being that we have such similar personalities) butt heads. It's a very easily combustible situation. I have to make myself find something to praise her on rather than correct her, which always gets her back on track. She was so frustrated with something on the bike ride and finally when she got back on track I said "GOOOOOOO Brooklyn" and clapping. She light up like a fire work.