Happy Halloween!

Hello everyone! I hope everyone is doing great! I think I mentioned that we had family pictures last Saturday.  We got the pictures back, and just look at Brooke!

 And here's a picture of us.  I really just picked a random one, and it looked like a good pick from the thumbnails, but it might not be the very best picture.  Really all of the pictures looked good though.  Thanks Chrysti Burton!

 This week we wandered on down to the city center.  They do a bunch of decoration for Halloween, and even had a little maze made of hay bails!  I was really excited to take Brooke through it, but they had bails over the top that you had to go under, and that just wasn't going to happen while carrying Brooke... maybe next year.  But they did dress up the statues where they could.  I think my favorite was this one of a guy showing a foot to a kid.

One of the restaurants was Harry Potter themed too!  It was a lot of fun to walk through and see all of the decorations.  They did a really good job!

 Saturday was our ward trunk or treat.  Naturally we went as Shawn, Juliet, and a pineapple!  We were the talk of the party and everyone loved our costumes!  We were told by a few people that if there were a best costume award we would get it.  We were also told that if there were a best chili award we would have gotten that too.  Considering I was the first overall male finisher at our 10K a few months back we need to enter more competitions! ;)

Today we wore Halloween colors for church, and just look how cute Brooke looked!  What a great baby! and she was so energetic at church too.  I just had to let her crawl all over the place or she'd go crazy!

 And here we all are together as a family!

As you may have noticed we're gearing up for Halloween full force!  We did some more decorating and we've got pumpkins to carve, so we're almost there!  I hope everyone is having a great week, and is ready to have a super Halloween.  Till next week... BOO!!!

A week without

Howdy powdy!  Hope everyone is doing well.  I can hardly believe it's already been another week!  Last Sunday we were up at my brother's house watching their kids so they could attend the temple dedication.  I don't really remember what time this picture was taken relative to me writing my blog post, so I may have already shared this, but it never hurts to be thorough. Brooke got tired while we were there and needed to take a little rest on the floor with her blanket and thumb.

Monica and Brooke left on Tuesday to go out to Utah to see Michelle, Monica's sister's new baby!  So after Tuesday I was home alone... well maybe minus that home part.  Taking them to the airport left me at work last Tuesday night, and on Wednesday we had mutual and basketball at the church.  On Wednesday I also got a flu shot at work.

 Also on Wednesday when I woke up to go running it was a balmy 28 degrees!!!  I did NOT have my super cold running gear ready, and the result of that run was a change to my Christmas list!

 But after Wednesday things slowed down and I had much more time at home on Thursday and Friday.  Brooke had been missing me a whole bunch so we called each other!  She'd get so excited to see me and yell out "Dada! Dada!"  It was really cute, and she definitely missed me a lot!  Good thing we have technology so I could keep in touch.

I also took advantage of Monica and Brooke being away to work on my 3d printer some.  It's been a long time since I tinkered with it, but it didn't take much work to get it running again. You can see it in action in my blog video album here (sorry for the background chatter, Brooke called).  It was pretty exciting to get it up and running, and I hope to start using it a little more.  The only real problem is that at the current moment I'm not really comfortable just leaving it running, and as you start to print larger objects you start getting into multi-hour print times... so hopefully I get comfortable with it soon.  I also want to try to get finer detail with it, as I wasn't too fond of the rough quality of my print, but maybe I just had too high of expectations...  we'll see.

Monica and Brooke returned on Saturday morning, but I was able to squeeze a run in the morning before they got back.  They were exhausted from the trip, so I put Brooke down for a nap, and then the same for Monica!  I then proceeded to fall asleep watching a BYU Volleyball game on the couch, so I guess I can't really complain about everyone sleeping!

And I think that catches us all up!  I hope everyone is doing swell and has an exciting week!

Fall Fest(ival)!!

Why hello there all y'all y'alls!  Fall has been putting up a valiant effort to sweep into Colorado, but summer just doesn't want to leave.  We keep having the temperatures drop into highs in the 50's for a few days just to have it spike back up to 80 this weekend!  Summer and Autumn are definitely battling it out right now, and I just want summer to give up!

On Saturday we ended up at Costco, and we walked through the toys looking for things Brooke might enjoy.  She definitely loved the bear that was bigger than her dad!!

They also had one of those little... scooting things...  The ones that you sit on with your legs on either side and slide around on it pushing with your feet.  Well, the one at Costco had a horn and a drum and... another thing on the front, and when you push them they make noise.  Monica was showing it to Brooke, followed up by us chilling there for about 5 minutes while Brooke hammered on the trumpet.  She really liked that one.

Brooke has also started sleeping with a blanket as it's gotten colder.  When we put her down to sleep and put the blanket on her she'll grab it in her hand and pull it up to her face and suck her thumb and snuggle the blanket to her face.  She also does this with her fuzzy moccasins.  She seems to like to cuddle up and sleep now... well, unless cuddling involves a second human...

Also, one night Monica sent me to the store to get some taco sauce while she was making dinner.  Next to the taco sauce I saw this very lumpy pepper sauce.  In fact, I'd maybe call it peppers floating in vinegar... but I guess it's a a sauce... at least in Texas.

This weekend was the local Fall Festival.  There's a farm close to our house that does a festival each year.  I think I wrote about it last year... unless I wasn't blogging a year ago.  Last year was also a very hot year, and Monica was pregnant.  We parked at a park near our house and walked over last year and it was terrible for Monica in the heat, so this year we drove over and parked at the farm.  Parking was very busy, and you had to walk through a hay field to get in.  The hay left remains in my socks all day and I kept feeling like I was getting poked throughout the day at various times!

They had some picture taking spots at the fair this year, and how can you not just stick Brooke's head into those?  This one didn't work great because there was a 2x4 right under the head hole and Brooke got her arms on it and was pushing against it so I couldn't get her head in very well.

But this one did not have such a defect, and I could get her head into the light much better.  She get's really happy when she gets to take a picture in one of these!

Today we drove up to Tyson and Tina's house to watch their kids while they went to the Temple Dedication.  They watched Brooke this morning while we went.  We went to the 9 o'clock session, so we got to see the corner stone ceremony too!  It was great to get to attend another temple dedication.  The Spirit there was great, and the Temple truly is a wonderful place where we can perform covenants so we can live with our families for eternity.  It was great to have a meeting entirely focused on the blessings of the temple!

Now we're currently out here on baby sitting duty.  Just chilling, eating their snacks, breathing their air... it's great!  It's currently nap time,  and I think I'm required to join in, so I think I'm done with this weeks update!  Hope everyone is doing great!  Have a great week.

Cafe Rio

 This week marks Brooke's first trip to Cafe Rio.  We went down to the outlet mall to exchange some of her clothes for warmer items, and while we were there we had lunch at Cafe Rio.  Cafe Rio even has free quesadillas for kids!  Good thing I read the whole menu!  So Brooke even got to eat with us, and for free!  She loved it!

Someone at work has a garden that is doing well.  We have a "free" table in the lunch room where people can leave stuff for others to take and one day I found an assortment of gourds!  I don't really know what I got, but I got something!  It's up to Monica to figure out what it is and how it can become food.

 We also did some more Halloween decorating.  Monica did a bunch of it while I was at work, but we got a little kit to make ghosts to hang up, so we put those together and out in our trees!  We maybe should have turned off the porch light to make it look more creepy...

 Here's a shot of the ghosts over in the trees, you can see them better in this picture.

While we were at the outlets I found the perfect shoes for Brooke.  She tried them on and loved them!  Monica claims they are too big though, so we had to put them back.

This week  elders quorum basketball was moved to the stake center so we would have a bigger court and could play 5v5 because we had so many people coming.  I knew a full size court would be bigger than the one we played on in our church, but I did not remember how large a full size court truly is!  It was almost daunting when I got there...  Guess I don't play much official basketball...

The BYU football game this week was great!  I must admit that I was quite worried about playing Michigan State.  Now it is possible that Michigan State also isn't quite as formidable as I thought they were, but I did not think we'd come out of it with a win, and I'm very happy we did!  I feel like our team is finally starting to click together and play well, so that's a good sign for the next few games that also look to be tough.

We also spent quite a good portion of our evenings this past week using a photo editing tool called GIMP.  Monica was using it to make bridal shower invitations, primary program invitations, and various other things for the primary.  It took a lot of time, but we ended up with very good results!




And I think that's about it for this week.  Hope everyone's doing great!

Brooke-centric Week

Why hello all!  It's been another fine week, and General Conference is such a great way to cap it off!  I've really enjoyed the talks so far.  To start off here's a picture of Brooke.  We tried on a 12 month jacket and it fit pretty well, and has ears!

 At the end of last week we went to pick up some Halloween decorations (I probably mentioned that last week I hope).  While we were there we also saw a part of a costume for little kids which we picked up for Brooke.  I don't know if she'll be a tiger for Halloween, but at least she's got a tail (and matching ears, and a bow)!

She found it pretty quick and started to pull on it to see what it was.  It looks a little less authentic that way when you see the waist band and all.

 Brooke also loves to curl up the rugs in the house.  I think at least part of the reason for this is because the first time she curled up our big rug she found the tag, so I think she's always looking for treasure there now.  On the plus side with all this practice rolling things up from the edge she should be an excellent sleeping bag packer when she's older!

In addition to Brooke crawling around and being great we did a few other activities this week (though without pictures).  Last Sunday night Monica and I played lawn darts in the back yard, and only had 1 or 2 rounds that I didn't get a dart in the target!  It was a great game for me, but not so much for Monica.  She's already fervently demanded a rematch.


On Monday night Monica and I decided to watch the presidential debate for our FHE activity.  Neither of us had watched one this year, and thought it would be nice to try to learn more about the candidates before the election.  We quickly found out that watching a debate is not a useful way to learn about the candidates or their opinions... so I don't think we'll be watching any more of those.  To (near) quote Monica "We should have watched the football game instead!"

 On Wednesday we had the missionaries over for dinner.  That was a lot of fun, but Brooke spent about half of dinner staring with her mouth closed.  She eventually came to and ate with us.  We had waffles and introduced them to putting salsa and cheese on waffles.  This may be a new thought to many of you, but it is amazing and you should try it!  Dinner was great!  We made a double batch and sent them home with the extras.

 BYU finally won another football game!  That was great, and it was a pretty exciting game to watch because there were a lot of big plays and a lot of scoring! (Ended 55-53 for those who missed it).  It kept us up far later than usual, which means we didn't get up in time to all go running together Saturday morning.  I went in between conference sessions and it was quite hot (at least compared to recent runs which have all been in the morning)!  I was so tired for the rest of the day because of it!

This morning we went on a walk through the new neighborhood and realized that a lot of the houses don't have sold signs up.  They're just building the houses and hoping people will buy the completed homes.  I don't think there are any upgrades/alterations on the homes though, it's supposed to be an "everything's included" plan, so possibly there's not a lot of choice outside of which house you want built anyway.  We went to the swings and Brooke had a wonderful time on them.  I swung a little on my own too and it's been a long time since I've been on swings and it was a lot of fun!  Who knew?!

Well I think that catches you all up on the going-ons out here.  I hope everyone is having a great week!