MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

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Change

Here are the physical changes in Brooklyn that has happened all in one year. They do grow up fast! The first picture is when she was just about 1 week old and the second picture is when she was 1 year.

Happy 1st Birthday!

Wow--I had a whole year to prepare for this day, and I still wasn't ready! Oh well, I think she had a great time. We did make a cake for her, but it was too hot to frost before she was ready for bed. I guess we'll just have to celebrate more tomorrow.

Pure Joy!

The pure joy that comes from a child's laughter. Here is a minute well spent--visit this post often to cure a bad day.

Joe was running around the house trying to catch a fly that had been buzzing around all day. It would have been a lot easier with a fly swatter but not nearly as entertaining. Brooklyn just found it hilarious!

Precious Moments

I love the time that I get to spend with our little girl, but I love the precious moments she spends with her Dad.
She has started walking with just holding onto one hand now.

So Much Fun!

We have. . .
. . . a Climber,

. . . a Cruiser,

. . . and a Chatterer.

First Houston Visitors!

There has been so much stuff to do and blog about lately that I failed to make mention of one of my favorite weekends. It was a few weeks ago now, but Joe's parents came to visit us, and we did lots of fun things. I actually made dinner a few times, Joe helped me make the birthday cake I planned on making for him before it was interrupted by Hurricane Ike . . . (It took so long to make this cake that I told everyone to lie to me if it wasn't good. Don't worry, they didn't have to lie at least that's what I tell myself--I thought it was sooooooooo good!)

. . . Joe and his Dad went to the BYU game, we went to the zoo, and just had a fun time spending time together. Here are some of the pictures I took. You can also find more pictures and details about their trip by clicking here.

On our way to Fort Worth/Dallas area:
Statue of Sam HoustonSad game for BYU
On our way to Houston:
Downtown Houston
Houston Zoo

The Bird House
The giraffe licking Dad's head (not really, but I thought it was funny).
Brooklyn in the bald eagle's nest.Brooklyn standing next to ? (a warthog maybe)--I just thought it was cute.

We know how to have fun here so come visit us anytime. The weather's great right now--no snow, mid 70's. Doesn't that sound nice to those of you who are freezing in WA, ID, and UT? Those living in a nice warm places are still welcome to come visit also.

11 Months Old

Wow! I can't believe our little girl is almost a year old. She is getting faster and more mobile every day so it's getting harder to catch her and take pictures of her looking at me before she tries to run and grab the camera or hides from me.

"Peek-a-Boo Mom!"

I caught her with my legs. She thinks that's so funny!

She doesn't smile with her teeth showing so here's the best one I've got. She's got 4 teeth on top and 2 on the bottom.

Our New U.S. President

I pray that he as well as all the other people voted into offices yesterday do what's best for our country. God Bless America! I love this country and feel blessed to live in it.

Happy Halloween

This was Brooklyn's first Halloween. Who would have thought that skulls and scary pumpkin faces would actually be funny to her.

We may not have dressed up, but we had a fun time dressing her up and decorating our trunk for the ward's "Trunk or Treat" night.

Isn't she the cutest bee you have ever seen. She even has wings! I was pretty happy with my little creation (I just couldn't find any black socks).

Halloween day we thought we'd start the evening events with being a bit adventurous . . . we tried our first "Whataburger" hamburger. That seems to be the famous place here to get your hamburgers. They were better than McDonald's if that's saying much. Anyway, we went home and had some more dinner and then made (or tried to make) mini caremel apples (thanks Sue for the idea--we got it from your blog). We'll have to keep practicing!

Well, we thought we'd watch a move while waiting for trick-or-treaters to come. We started on 2 different movies that we ended up turning off and then ended up watching "Tuck Everlasting" and went to bed with no trick-or-treaters. Oh well, at least we bought candy we like.

First Step

I think I saw Brooklyn take her first step yesterday. She's been standing by herself for a while now but usually when I let go of her hands she just freezes and then slowly squats down to the floor (she rarely plops to the floor). But yesterday, she moved one foot forward before she face-planted into my lap. I may be over excited, and it wasn't that big of a deal . . . but . . . it was a big deal to me. My life has slowly evolved with a little cruiser in the house; now what am I going to do when I have a little walker?--Enjoy life! It's been some fun learning experiences being a mom, and I love how life just keeps changing and evolving so we can continue to learn and grow.

10 Months Old

9 Months Old

Brooklyn is now 10 months old and doing well at her current weight of 16 lbs 4 oz. I haven't taken her 10 months pictures yet. I'll probably do that sometime this week and hopefully get them up by next week. I'm not going to apologize for not being up-to-date with everything because I realized I'm not "super-woman" and it's too tiring thinking I can be. I learned from the General Relief Society broadcast last weekend that I should be proud of my accomplishments and not focus on what I haven't done (that's not to say that I don't try to improve myself), but I'm enjoying more of what I do get done (some days it's more than others). Anyway, hope you enjoy the pictures. I don't know how you can't--she's a doll!!!

Yikes to Ike!

(Here is where the fence was about 60 ft from our home)

Many of you know that Hurricane Ike paid a visit through Houston (where we are currently living) early Sat morning on Joe's Birthday (13 Sep). We were not required to evacuate, and we did not consider our leaving an evacuation--it was more of a vacation to celebrate Joe's Birthday. We decided to leave late Thurs night (11th) after Brooklyn went to sleep and headed for Austin. We figured if we were going to lose power as was predicted, we were not prepared to go days without it. I mean I guess we could have survived eating cold-cereal, cold canned food and soup, water, and powdered milk but why live that way if you don't have to. Besides, Joe ended up having a great birthday with not having to go back to school until last Wed (24th).
We spent a couple days in Austin and then my Mom informed me that I had relatives that lived just South of Waco (about 90 min. SW of Dallas). We ended up staying with them until we found out that our apartment had power again which was Wed the 17th. The more stories I hear about the damage that was done from Hurricane Ike, the more blessed I feel. The fence around our complex was about half gone, a few big trees fell down on some houses just right behind us, some people in our ward were out of power for 2 weeks, and many of the buildings in our complex are getting new shingling put on because of leaking problems but there were NO problems at all with our apartment. Well, we did lose all the food in our fridge, but I'm happy to say that we didn't really experience any major effects of the hurricane. We had to watch our use of gas and food until the supply was back up, but we made the best out of our experience.
It was really nice after we returned home, Joe didn't have to go back to school for another week so I had him help me finish unpacking our stuff from our move. I feel like we have finally moved in to our new home--everything is put away, pictures are up on the walls, the floors are clear to walk around, and the kitchen is usable! With the rate I was going by myself (and with Brooklyn's help), it would have been a couple more months before our place looks like it does. But thanks to Joe's help (even if it was just watching Brooklyn at times), it feels like home.

New Car

Can you tell that I'm trying to make up for lost time? I've been wanting to post more; I just wasn't able to get around to it. For those that wanted to see our new car, it's nothing fancy, but it didn't brake our bank and it runs great . . . or at least until the battery died! That's kind of a funny story because we got this car about a month after we arrived in Washington after dealing with our other 2 cars not starting and then this one wouldn't start one day. I just prayed that the only problem was the battery--and it was. The battery was about 6 years old so it was ready to go at anytime. I'm just glad it wouldn't start in front of my parents house, and I wasn't stranded anywhere. It did great on the trip down here to Houston, and we hope it will last for a long while.


Yes, that's right, it's a Ford Taurus! I never thought I would buy one of these because they're not very appealing to me, but it was honestly the best deal and the best of all the Taurus' we were shown. That was a funny story too because every car dealership we went to and told them some of the things we were looking for with the budget we had--without fail, ALL of the dealers pointed out their Ford Taurus' (we didn't even go to any Ford dealerships). I guess it was meant to be.

P.S. I posted a picture of Brooklyn's baby teeth under the post titled "Pearly Whites" (posted in July) for those who haven't seen it already.

We've Upgraded

I can't tell you how excited I am to sleep tonight. This may sound funny until I explain. Since our move to Texas, we decided to buy an air mattress to sleep on until we found a bed down here in Houston that we wanted to buy. Now, don't get me wrong, it was the nicest air mattress I had ever slept on but come on--it's an air mattress--they just don't get very comfortable. Well after just over 2 1/2 years of being married, we finally purchased our own bed! We went from borrowing 2 twin beds and pushing them together because that was the biggest size we could fit down our first apartment's staircase; downsized to a full to make room for Brooklyn's crib because we moved into a one bedroom apartment; then to an queen air mattress; and now to our very own king size bed! Now that you got me thinking about it, I think I might just go lay down while Brooklyn is asleep.

From an air mattress to a mattress with springs and foam-aw

Okay, so we don't have sheets that fit it yet. But those along with everything else that we own is still in the process of being transported by our moving truck.

Here's the Proof

When I say, "Brooklyn loves to walk," this is what I mean.

Too many bugs!

Several weeks ago I made a goal to be more diligent in contributing to the blog. Well I guess it is time to start. Many of you have been asking me about my job in Washington where I spent my time hunting down and killing mosquitoes, so today I'll give you a synopsis of the daily routine.

Every morning a group of 6-8 workers would meet at the shop where we would receive our morning announcements and assignments. We then went out to different areas in side the county lines and looked for mosquitoes, in their different stages (egg raft, larvae, pupa, and adult), and treated those areas accordingly. The job itself was very straight forward and not complicated at all, but what was difficult for me was learning the surrounding area and getting used to the different creatures I would encounter along the way. (It's probably good for you to understand at this point that I don't like bugs, snakes, spiders, etc.)

Well, it isn't very hard to guess that I had a few encounters with some different wild creatures. If you look at the pictures below you can see exactly what I saw this summer.

A lot of cows - never get between a mom and her calf!

goats

It seemed like horses were everywhere

Frogs in almost every pond

You never knew when you would walk across a rattlesnake - You just had to listen for the rattle

I had to check myself every day to see if I had any ticks attached to me. I made it through the summer tick free!

On my last week of work I was stung by three wasps.

I could write a much loner list of everything I saw but this should give you an idea of what I saw during the summer. Because I don't like half of the creatures I told you about I spent most of my time trying to avoid them, which was nearly impossible. When I wasn't running away from bugs I was looking for mosquitoes. Here are some more pictures that show what I was looking for.

It might be hard to see but if you look close you can see all of the mosquito larvae. If I found some of these in my dipper then I would get the appropriate larvacide and spray the mosquitoes. Like I said earlier, the job wasn't too difficult but I definitely gained a better appreciation for those who do this all the time. Just imagine if no one killed the mosquitoes. You'd be scratching all summer long.That about wraps it up for now. In the next few days I'll try to write down what life is like down in Houston. I start my first day of school tomorrow and am really excited to start teaching. I'll keep y'all posted.

Moving Forward

Brooklyn's pretty playful and active. She loves to sit up by herself and walk while she's holding onto someone's hands. Yes, that's right, she can walk (with help). I don't have a video of that yet, but I will. I was afraid that since she liked to sit up she didn't want to spend anymore time on her tummy. And since walking is much faster and more fun to her to be up high than crawling, I was beginning to think that she was going to skip the whole crawling stage. I'd still try, but she only managed to push herself backward, side-ways, and in a circle--just about any direction but forward and where she wanted. This was getting pretty frustrating for her. This first video shows you what I was describing.

She finally figured out how to crawl forward last night! I think her help and inspiration came from her younger cousin Reagan. We went to visit my brother Tony and his family one last time before we left Washington to move to Houston, and Reagan worked so hard to get up on her knees and lunge forward. Since then, Brooklyn has been trying to do the same thing. She is such a watch and learn kind of a girl. Here is a video of her crawling forward this morning. I thought it might take me a few days to get a video of her crawling, but I think she's got is down, and she hasn't stopped moving since (and when she moves, she really moves). Needless to say, today has been a much busier day!

It's not too hard to baby proof our house right now because we don't have of our stuff; we're still waiting for our moving truck to get here. But then again, the computer is on the floor and all these buttons are fun for Brooklyn to push (we'll have to get creative for now).

8 Months Old