Easter and WALKING!!

Hello everyone!  Sorry I missed last week.  I typically write this during Brooke's nap after church, but last week we were waiting for her to wake up to do our Easter egg hunt, so I wanted to wait and get those pictures in too!  So now you get a huge giant monster post!!!  We'll start with Brooke celebrating Easter!

So to rewind back to two weeks ago Monica's friend Nicole came out to visit us.  While they were here they all went to the zoo together.  We're putting that zoo pass to good use!  It was potentially the best day of Brooke's life as the tiger was not only visible, but right at the front!  Sadly we only have this one picture, but Monica said Brooke was blowing kisses and saying roar and waving and just loved to see it.  She stood up at the side of the enclosure and was bouncing up and down with excitement, and I think she might have cried when they left... but maybe I'm just adding that part.  Anyway, Brooke loves tigers!

On Friday we decided to cook hamburgers over a fire.  This is the first time we ever tried using our burger basket.  They turned out well, though a little scorched on the outside, but still very good!  It was a lot of fun, and this probably kicks off our summer of try to have a fire at least once a month!  Hot dog season already?!

Sadly, I left our new hose sprayer attachment outside last winter, and some water apparently froze in it and cracked it a little, so it leaks... but the good news about a small leak is that it doubles as a baby drinking fountain!  This is Izzy, who is Nicole's baby.

That night when getting ready for bed, Brooke and I had a toothbrush tug-of-war!

And here's the champ!

Brooke has started trying to use utensils.  Here she is trying to use a fork on her waffle.  This was a tough one because the waffle was pretty soft so the fork didn't poke it very well.  She tried again another night with watermelon and was able to stick a piece that time!

Then last Saturday was the big Easter egg hunt put on by the city.  There were a lot of people there!  Good thing they had 30,000 eggs!

Brooke and Izzy got into the fray and were both able to pick up several eggs!

And Brooke even got to meet the Easter Bunny!!!

One of Brooke's eggs came open when she was playing with them, and that's when she found out they were filled with candy.  This started a new fondness for Easter eggs.

At the event they also had balloon animals.  We wanted to go to lunch at Indochine, which is right by the park, so it was nice to have some other stuff to do to kill the time!  The lady was nice enough to put some stripes on what would have been a dog so that Brooke could get a TIGER!!!  And she loved it!

We also took a picture in the giant chair.  You may be wondering why you've never seen a family picture in this chair.  Honestly, I don't have a good answer for you.

The curry was great at Indochine, as it always is.  After we finished eating Brooke wanted my fork, and it didn't take long before she decided she needed to get some ice with it!

She kept sticking the fork in my water, and then licking the water off.  Over and over.  A couple times she got a little excited and knocked ice cubes out too.  I'm not sure, but I think she might have been trying to get my lemon, cause she loves citrus!

Later that day was Connor's first birthday.  Connor comes over each Wednesday morning to play with Brooke.  All the babies in the ward were invited to his birthday party, and it was monster themed!  They had great baby things, like a ball pit, lots of balloons, and a bubble machine.  There were even a few balloon monsters scattered around, and when we left they said we could take one!  Brooke was a little scared of it at first, but she eventually got used to it.  Eventually we ended up cutting some balloons off for her to play with, and she enjoyed that even more!  But more on that later.

For some reason Brooke likes to push on the pointy end of pens...

And here are the Easter eggs we dyed this year!

While taking a bunch of pictures of Brooke she decided she wanted the camera.  I don't think she quite ever touched the lens... at least I hope she didn't.

And the danger of being on the couch is that it's just so fun to hang over the side...

After Brooke's nap we changed her out of her Easter dress and took her into the back yard for some hunting.  In spite of this being her 3rd egg hunt she still hadn't quite figured out the right distance to stop and bend over...

But she still managed to get the eggs.

And put them in her basket.

We hid some of the eggs inside as well.  This way they could be a little more hidden than just sitting in the grass.  She did a great job walking around finding them all.

Once we were all done it was time to show the balloon monster all the great candy she found!

As well as try to put away the rest of the balloons.

Monica and Brooke went to Costco on Monday and came home with a new play set for Brooke!  She just loves to sit in a box full of her favorite things.

I was hoping this would happen naturally, as I thought I'd get in trouble for rubbing a balloon on Brooke's head.  Luckily Brooke did build up some static electricity!

Monica is working on a fabric quiet book for Brooke to take to church.  One of the pages will have Noah's ark, and Monica made little finger puppets to go in it.  Brooke loves them!  Also, I'm not sure where she learned this, but she puts them on her fingers!

And thinks it's the greatest thing!

Brooke got sick this past week.  It might have just been a teething related fever, we're still not really sure.  She looks close to getting most if not all of her canines.  We let her watch some of Frozen again.

When we were getting ready for bed she was really tired and just had to lay down.  While sitting on my lap she actually just laid down with nothing behind her head, so I put my hand back there, and she decided that was fine.  She just laid like this for a couple minutes...

And possibly the biggest news, as mentioned in the title Brooke has started walking!!  And here while carrying balloons!  We have to thank Connor for this.  He was over that morning and he is getting close to walking.  He can take a couple steps before falling over.  I guess after watching him Brooke figured she could do that too.  She's not exclusive to walking just yet, and there was a little while where she wouldn't walk in footed pajamas or shoes, but she's gotten over that and does walk around quite a bit.  In fact, on Saturday I made a paper airplane and I'd toss it and she'd go get it and bring it back to me to throw again!

Lastly, in game news I've got a few updates.  I finally finished up the design for the deck box, and that's out for printing.  I'll hopefully get it this week and have some pictures next week.  I also was able to put together the rule sheet, so the game is almost ready!  I settled on the name Egyptian Architects.  I say settled because I really wanted Builders of Egypt, but I found a game that already has that name... sigh.  Anyway, I'll hopefully have some pictures next week, and if everything comes back looking good it'll hopefully be onto kickstarter shortly after that!

That's all the news for now!  Have a fabulous week. And congratulations if you made it to here. ;)