Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello all and Happy Thanksgiving!  I hope everyone is doing great!  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving out here, and Monica continues to hone her turkey skills!  It was great!  Today we went to the park and flew a kite.  Brooke has really wanted to for the last few days.  She had so much fun!  I've got a video of it later in the post!

On Tuesday night I got sick and my stomach hurt a bunch which ended up leading to me not really sleeping that night.  So Wednesday I took the day off work to recover.  Not exactly the way we wanted to get ready for Thanksgiving, but I got an extra day off!! :)

On Thanksgiving morning I ran the Parker 5k.  It's not officially timed and is more laid back, but it sounded fun.  There were over 2000 runners from 27 states!  So I guess Parker is a Thanksgiving destination, and it makes sense why it's a more laid back race.  I'm still trying to recover from my plantar fasciitis, but I still ran 24:30 which is just under 8 min/mile, so I'm happy with that!  I also got some cool ear muffs for registering.

On Thanksgiving we had some friends over for dinner who were also sticking around and didn't have family near by.  Everyone came over and enjoyed dinner, and after they all insisted on playing Egyptian Architects!  Everyone seemed to have a good time, and Shaylee even won her first time playing!  Sadly we didn't take any pictures... but everyone looked dapper and we had a splendid ball!

Friday morning we decided to head out and check for some Black Friday deals early in the morning.  We hit the sweet spot where all of the night shoppers were asleep, and most people just don't wake up that early if they don't have to, so the stores were pretty much empty.  We learned a valuable lesson though, you really need to check out ads before you go to stores, because as we just randomly stumbled around we didn't really find anything we wanted that was on sale.  Brooke did find this bear holding a bear that she held for a little.  Also, we let her walk down the toy aisle and she basically pulled everything out once to play with.  She found a shopping cart that she HAD to push around the store, and we were scared of a tantrum when we had to put it back.  When we finished shopping we told her we were done and needed to go and she said "put cart back!" I walked her back to where we got it and she let me help her put it back on the shelf and we left.  If she'll put everything back when it's time to leave I sure don't mind her playing with toys at the store!

Friday night, Parker does their tree lighting in downtown.  We headed over a little early so we could play on the playgrounds before.  It was still dark, but we played on the playground for a little while and Brooke had a lot of fun.

At 5:30 the mayor said a little spiel and then turned on the lights.  We walked around and looked at the trees and even got a free cookie!

Saturday morning we made pancakes for breakfast.  Then we spent most of the day cleaning up fall decorations and putting up Christmas things.  We got our lights up on our house!!

And we got and decorated our Christmas tree!  Brooke was so excited to get a tree, and she had a lot of fun decorating it!

Jelly has also been very curious about the Christmas tree, but she seems to like it too!  And so far no climbing!

Today as mentioned we took Brooke to the park and flew her kite!  She was so excited to fly the kite and we kept going until the wind gave out and we couldn't keep it up running!  When we couldn't get the kite up any longer it was finally time to go down the slides!  Afterward we made the rounds and dropped off Thanksgiving turkey cookies at my home teaching families houses!

Today in Sacrament meeting a member shared his conversion story.  While he was sharing the Spirit reconfirmed to me the truth of the Book of Mormon.  I have recently revamped my scripture study and have noticed a huge difference in my life!  I definitely have gained a lot of new insights and felt the Spirit more on a daily basis.  While I have been reading lately I was thinking it would be nice to have a new confirmation of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, and today it came.  I know the Book of Mormon is true.  I know that it can change our lives.  I know that it contains the truths of the gospel and can bring us closer to our Savior, Jesus Christ.  I love the Book of Mormon and testify of it's truthfulness.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Brooke Turns Two!!

Hello all!  Well, it's been a pretty packed week.  Brooke turned two, we had our 3rd house-iversary, and I made substantial progress on the basement!  And that only took 3 of the 7 days!!  The rest of the week mostly consisted of preparing for Brooke's birthday party, and Monica did a magnificent job!  But we'll see more of that later!  Also, this past week we were filling out Brookes 2 year assessment for the doctor and one of the questions asked "Does your child say a 3 word sentence" and had a box to provide an example.  The example we used was "Jelly look at squirrels out the window!"  Then this morning as Brooke was getting ready for church Monica said they needed to take the wipes downstairs to put in the diaper bag, and Brooke said "in case you have a poopy diaper at church" so I think she's doing OK.

Brooke is growing up so fast!  And that particular comment wasn't even about her birthday.  She is excited to be a big sister, and loves to take care of her stuffed animals.  This past week I've seen her rocking stuffed animals, burping them, and changing their diapers!  I know she's helped hold baby Lyla's bottle too.  She's getting ready to be a big sister, and I think she's going to do a fantastic job!

As mentioned, it was our house-iversary this past week on the 15th!  It's crazy to think we've already lived here for 3 years!  It's fun to look around the house and see all of the projects we've done.  We put up shelves in the garage, remodeled/painted Brooke's room and bathroom, painted the exterior, made various pieces of furniture, and finally are finishing the basement!  It's fun to see all of the improvements we've made!

This year we got Chinese food for our house-iversary.  We hadn't had Chinese in a long time... possibly since the last time we got it for a house-iversary!  It was really good, though it didn't re-heat very well...  Brooke also got to have her first fortune cookie!  I think she enjoyed it, though it was harder and not quite the taste she was expecting.

Friday was Brooke's birthday!  And Monica did an amazing job of making the whole day wonderful for her!  Monica is super great at making birthdays a very special occasion.  I really like it and hopefully some of her skill will rub off on me!

Anyway, back to Brooke.  For breakfast we had her favorite food, pancakes!  Also, Brooke has been on this reindeer kick lately where reindeer are just the greatest things ever, so Brooke got a reindeer shaped pancake!  And she got some chocolate chips!  She loved it!

After breakfast we opened a few presents.  We got her a car seat and a stroller and she loves them!  We got the idea because we went to visit Tyson and Tina and they had a little car seat and Brooke loved it when we were there!  Thanks guys!  The only unfortunate thing is that Brooke saw the stroller in our closet a day or two before her birthday, so it wasn't a surprise.  I think she would have gone crazy if it had been a surprise.

Monica spent a lot of time the past two weeks getting things ready for Brooke's party.  It was all animal/zoo themed.  She made masks for all of the kids!

And as much as Brooke loves tigers, when we asked her to pick one she picked the panda, which was not the case earlier in the week.  But in the end we forgot to make sure the kids left with their masks and crafts and bubbles, so Brooke currently has a lot of masks.

Monica also made a monkey corn hole like game for the kids to play.  I think everyone enjoyed it, though there was a surprising lack of throwing, and a whole lot of hand feeding.

Monica set up all of the decorations for the party while Brooke was taking her nap, and when Brooke woke up and came down the stairs she couldn't even make it all the way down she got so excited!  It was fantastic!  Brooke played with her car seat and stroller while she waited for her party to start.  We're pretty sure she picked up her car seat holding technique from watching people at church as 1) we don't hold our car seats like that and 2) we've never held one around her.

Also, Monica was going to take Brooke swimming on her birthday since Brooke loves to swim, and Monica wanted to try to make her whole day be filled with things she loved.  Brooke was having so much fun with her stroller and car seat that she told Monica no!  She didn't want to go swimming!  Just look at the excitement on her face!

Monica also made these little Popsicle stick alligators for the counter by the food.  Brooke even helped paint them all green!

We also made a welcome sign for our front door.

We asked Brooke who she wanted to invite to her party, and she picked a few of her friends from church.  When everyone got here we played games, such as the monkey toss game, and even painted plates to make chameleons!

Monica also made a lion cake!  It was perfect because then we just gave all the kids a cupcake instead of a slice of cake.  Much easier.  The downside, we still have an entire cake, though now it's a female lion because we gave away the mane.

Here's Brooke, listening to Happy Birthday, waiting to blow out her candle.

And here she is eating the frosting off the top of her cupcake.  And when she finished the frosting? "All done!"

We tried to get a picture of everyone all together before people had to leave, but Eden didn't want to stand by the wall with everyone else, so here's everyone minus Eden.  At least we got most of them!

And here we are!!  What a happy baby!

Brooke got a lot of fun gifts for her birthday, and she's been having a great time playing with them all.  One gift was a floor piano.  She had a lot of fun stepping on it and playing music, and it got even better when she found the tiger roar button!

I spent several hours in the basement during the week and on Saturday.  I was able to get a lot of the interior walls up and in place!  Here's a panorama of the progress.

I took some additional pictures so you could see things better.  Here's a picture of the utility room framed in.  Through the door on the right is were the bathroom will be.

Here's a picture of an open room we'll have down there, mostly likely a play room for the kids.  On the left side is the bathroom again.

On the opposite side of the basement I got up this wall that splits the bedroom from the storage room.  We'll build bigger/taller shelves in there to replace the ones we currently have.

And this is the space that will have the bedroom.  I still need to put in the rest of the walls around the bedroom.  I'm hoping I can get that all done this week!  Once the framing is done it'll be time to start running the electrical!

Jelly has been having fun this week.  She climbed into my drawer when I was changing into my pajamas one night, and then went all the way through to the back of my dresser.  She also likes to come in and drink water while we brush Brooke's teeth!

What a full week!  A few weeks ago in gospel principles we had a lesson talking about the spirit world, and a quote was shared that said something along the lines of when we are in the spirit world most people will accept the gospel and want to repent.  I had been thinking about that the past few weeks, and then this last week I read through 3rd Nephi and read about Christ coming to the Nephites.  After Christ ministered to the Nephites, and subsequently the disciples he called, there was peace in the land for about 200 years and everyone was righteous!  Just think of that, an example of what happens when Christ ministers to his people, and it aligns with the quote.  It's incredible!  I know that God loves us all, and want's us to return to him.  I know that through the gospel we can return to live with God, and that those we love can return with us.  I share this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Building Brooke's Game Collection

Howdy all!  I hope you are all doing great.  We're working through Brooke's tantrum phase.  I'd say most of the time she's still good and things are fine, but she only wants to eat snack, never breakfast or lunch or dinner, and she'll just scream and cry for seemingly no reason... sigh.  Hopefully it doesn't last too long.

Brooke continues to love to take care of her stuffed animals.  She puts them down for naps and makes sure they get their milk!  What a great big sister she'll be!... unless the baby isn't ready for a nap... or just ate... ;)

Jelly loves to join us in the bathroom when we brush Brooke's teeth.  She seems to be getting more and more comfortable with the sink, whether wet or not.  I just missed getting a picture of her biting at the stream of water coming out of the faucet!

This past week Monica and I played a board game, and it was still on the table the next morning when Brooke woke up so she wanted to play.  So instead we pulled out a game called "Feed the Kitty" that I bought from Salvation Army a while back.  It's a game for kids, and basically you roll some dice and then either put mice in a bowl, take them out, or pass them to another player.  Brooke loved to play it and we had a lot of fun.  She even let me help her take her turns and we played the full game!  She won too!  Mark that down, Brooke is currently undefeated at board games!

And here we are that night brushing teeth.  You can see Jelly taking up her spot in the sink again.  Also, Brooke always looks straight up when I brush her top teeth.  It makes it a little easier so I won't complain.

We pulled Brooke's blocks out again this past week.  She hasn't played with them for a long time, so I figured we should change that.  She had a lot of fun, and loved to build a tower as tall as she could.  This was the last piece she was able to put on the top.

This past week on Monday night Brooke got sick.  She wasn't sleeping well, and then at midnight when we went in to check on her she had thrown up!  So I cleaned her up and Monica pulled out her sheet, etc and I cleaned them up and went and started the laundry.  Then we went and watched Frozen to help her calm down and be happy.  I let her sip on water through the movie, and when it was over I took her up to go back to sleep.  I was rocking her in her chair and she threw up again, the water I let her drink...  So I cleaned up again, and then we watched a Phineas and Ferb and she was falling asleep through it, so after I turned it off and we slept on the couch the rest of the night with no more incidents.

Well, fast forward to Friday night and Monica was sick and throwing up all night.  So when Brooke woke up in the morning we had a full day in front of us.  We went to get some bagels for breakfast, and then when we got home we played nintendo for a little.  We turned it on, and like 30 seconds later she told me she wanted to play the tiger game...  Unfortunately for Brooke you can't just pick a subject and a game exists for it.  Fortunately for Brooke I remembered there was a Lion King game, and lions were close enough.

I taught her which button made Simba roar, and then she would literally set the controller down and watch the screen with nothing moving.  If I tried to pick up the controller she'd say no, ask for it back, and then maybe press a button, and then set it down on her lap again and watch the unchanging screen.  I don't think she quite gets it yet... which is probably a good thing.

After our short video game stint it was time to get ready to head out.  We had the much beloved "Farmyard Beat" waiting for us at the library, and we stopped at Salvation Army on the way to see if they had any games worth grabbing at a great price.  We found "Take the Cake" for $1.75!  Brooke loves it!  You shake out sprinkles and then match the shape and color on the cupcake.  We've never played this one for real, but Brooke loves to shake out the sprinkles and match them to the cards!

Monica still wasn't feeling great today, so I took Brooke to church.  Shortly after we got there Brooke handed me her bear finger puppet and said "Put nose back on!"  So now we've got to figure out how we're going to fix that.

Egyptian Architects has some news this past week as well.  After getting everything shipped out last week I listed my game on Amazon.  You can also buy it off my website for a few bucks less (I can't change the shipping charge on Amazon, but can set it myself on my website).  I also released a digital version that is free to play, if you'd like to try it out, which is available here.

Today we had a lesson on the Gathering of Israel in Gospel Principles.  We talked about how there is both a physical gathering, and a spiritual gathering.  I think the spiritual gathering is often overlooked, but I am glad that the teacher made a point to talk about it.  We talked about looking for ways we can try to help with the spiritual gathering of Israel, and always looking for people we can help or who might be looking for the gospel.  I encourage everyone to share their testimony whenever they can!

Halloween and Daddy Daughter Date

Hello, hello!  I hope everyone had a fabulous week!  Things were great out here, and Brooke loved her first time trick or treating!  Halloween was definitely a blast, though we should have left out more candy when left to go with Brooke... But we learned for next year.

Here is Brooke with all her candy!  She got a TON!  This is combined from the ward trunk or treat on Saturday, going to a Parker main street trick or treat event where businesses handed out candy, and trick or treating in our neighborhood!  Definitely more than she needs, maybe more than we need...

When we got home Brooke noticed her makeup needed a little work!  Then when we were getting ready for bed after trick or treating Brooke wanted to wear my hat.  It's basically her size.

As for pumpkins, I think I found a pretty winning idea!  Monica said one day we had a package delivered, and then right after she saw the delivery guy walking back up to the door and pull out his phone.  She realized he was taking a picture of my pumpkin!

Monica went Harry Potter themed.  I wish I had gotten a picture earlier before the eyes fell down. :(

One day when I was leaving for work I saw a squirrel on our roof above the front door.  We see squirrels a lot running around in the trees in the back yard and such, but I haven't really seen them in the front yard and thought it was weird so I snapped a picture.  I'm glad I did...

Because then a day or two later our pumpkins looked like this...  Guess they were hungry.

Last week I mentioned that my games all came in for my kickstarter.  Well, I got them all assembled and packaged this week and shipped them out on Friday!  So if you backed the project they should hopefully be arriving this next week!  Please enjoy!

Jelly continues to be ever so cute!  Friday we opened a window and she sat in the window watching the squirrels for a long time.  So long, in fact, that she missed her afternoon nap.  She was sooo tired  when it was finally time for bed!  Such a kitty!

Last night Monica had a party, so I took Brooke out for a daddy daughter date.  We went to Noodles and Company, and Brooke got chocolate milk.

We enjoyed the ambiance, it really set the mood for the rest of the night.

We of course got Mac and Cheese all around!  What a meal!

On our way out one of the near by businesses was playing music so we stopped at the bumpy and danced for a little. (Note from Monica: Please notice Brooke's reindeer shirt she is wearing. She HAD to have it and will probably be wearing it in just about every picture you see of her until she grows out of it! She is obsessed with it!)

On the way home we swung by the mail box and grabbed the mail, a favorite of Brookes.

And it must have been a pretty good date cause I got a kiss on the doorstep!  What a date!

Then I changed Brookes diaper and put her to bed... :)

Brooke always want's to go see baby Lyla at church.  When the Ruckers got to church I took her up to see her.  Brooke just stood there silently staring at her for quite some time.  Eventually she wanted to sit down next to Lyla.  She even held her hand for the picture!

Church was good this week.  In gospel principles we had a lesson on the post mortal world, or spirit world.  It was a great lesson with lots of discussion.  I am so grateful to know of life after death.  I am grateful that we can live with our families again forever, and I am grateful that all will have the opportunity to receive the gospel whether in this life or the next.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.