Happy 70th Birthday, Mom!!

This past Friday Brooke and I flew out to Utah to surprise my mom for her 70th birthday!  We got in a day before the festivities, and stayed until Saturday afternoon.  We had a great time hanging out with my sisters, and of course a superb time surprising my mom!  Here we all are after brunch on Saturday!  Brooke was a little sad at this point, but I'll tell that story in it's place.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!  Also, Saturday was actually my dad's birthday (my parents birthdays are 2 days apart), so HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!

Brooke continues to be more and more clever and funny.  She's realized her coat also fits backwards, and was running around like this.  Fortunately she never got hurt... yet, but she had a great time of it!

One of Monica's friends, Julia, does a story time at her house.  This past week was pretty well attended!  The girls love to go and hear stories and play with the other kids!  So they all had a wonderful time.

Brooke and Winry continue to be best friends!  Here they are, snugga-bugga-ing!  In fact, they love each other so much that it was the main sore spot on Brooke's and my trip to Utah!  Brooke missed Winry, and Winry missed Brooke.  They even called each other a few times.

Here's Brooke and I at 4:45 in the morning getting read to go to the airport!  Brooke was so excited the second she woke up!

Monica dropped us off at the airport and got this cute picture of Brooke and me walking in to check the car seat.  There was no line, so that was great.  I signed up for TSA pre a few months ago, and this was my first trip with it.  It was AWESOME!  I highly recommend it.  The line was very short, and you just leave everything in your bag!  We flew through.

We stopped and got a bagel on our way to our gate.  After eating our bagels we opened Brooke's backpack to find something to do.  We spent some time doing a coloring book that Monica had slipped into Brooke's  backpack and surprised us with.  Brooke also brought her binoculars "in case we went to the zoo."  We used them to look at the planes out the window.  We had a great time.

Finally it was time to board.  Just look how excited Brooke is to get going on our trip!  The flight was great, and Brooke got to watch a bunch of her favorite shows.  She watched a little of everything with TOTS, Doc McStuffins and Goldie and Bear all available.

Our flight got into Salt Lake about 30 minutes early, so we had a little extra time at the airport since we surprised my dad by landing so soon.  I plopped Brooke's car seat out and it was back to the coloring book.  It's a pretty neat one.  It has activities on each page.  As an example, there was a page full of fairies, and you'd find all the fairies with X and color them a color.  Or you'd color all the squirrels orange.  Stuff like that.  Brooke loved it.

Eventually my dad picked us up, but since we were there a day early we needed somewhere to hide, so he dropped us off at Westminster with Niki.  We were planning to spend the night at her house.  Thanks to the early flight, we managed to get there before her lacrosse team's film session ended, so we got to take part.

Meanwhile, back in Denver, Monica and Winry were at IKEA.  Look how happy Winry is to be up on that couch!  They met the some friends there and had a great time together.

After film sessions ended, we headed to Hire's Big H because Brooke is a super hamburger lover right now!

Hires is in part known for their root beer, so you know I couldn't pass that up!  Don't worry, I shared some of it with Brooke!

Brooke was so excited when her burger arrived!  She pounded through a whole two bites of it before declaring, "I'm full!"  Oh yeah, forgot to mention, Niki gave her a full size Snickers right before we left Westminster (she only had half) ...  She also ate a few fries too.  Anyway, she said the burger was great and loved "Big Pink H."

At lunch we also met up with Gram and Michelle and her boys.  As much as I try to remember to get pictures for the blog, I am terrible at remembering to get pictures with the people we visit places...  Sigh.  So I don't have a picture of Gram, but I do have a picture of Brooke playing "shoot the cars" with the boys.  Michelle was in the background too, so... half success?

After lunch we ran what ended up being a full day's worth of errands.  We went to a party store to look for things like balloons for the breakfast.  Brooke found a 4 pinata, and she'd love one for her next birthday (but it should be a 5).

We also found some great monster hats!  To be honest, there was a bunch of stuff here that we found and enjoyed... and then put back!  We're great window shoppers.

Several errands later, including a stop at D.I. where we looked through the board games (and bought 2!) we were at Niki's house.  Niki showed us the room she prepared for us, and brought in a cot for Brooke to try out to see if she'd rather sleep on it or an air mattress.  Brooke LOVED the cot!  She also found a pink unicorn waiting for her down in the room too!  Thanks Niki!  Brooke was exhausted from the day, so we had to speed up the sleepover festivities.  While Niki worked on dinner, we played one of the new board games we bought and made cookie dough.  We ate dinner, rolled out and cut cookies, put them in the oven, put on pajamas and read stories, pulled the cookies out of the oven and ate one, brushed teeth and then went to bed.  We just kept bouncing back and forth.  In the end Brooke was in bed by 7:30, which is maybe just a little later than she typically stays up.

At home, Monica and Winry were also having a sleepover.  They ate "cereals" for dinner per Winry's request, and then watched a movie, which was technically two episodes of TOTS.  Winry also requested that they wear matching pajamas! Look how much fun Winry was having!

The next morning Brooke got up at 5:30... a little on the early side.  I think she was still just too excited.  We were the first one's up by 2 hours, so we spent a lot of time sneaking around the house and being very quiet so we didn't wake everyone else up.  We ate breakfast, I showered, and we played Brooke's new board games down in our room.  When Spencer woke up he was very complimentary of Brooke and told her she was the best whisperer for her age he'd ever met.  She really did do a great job of keeping quiet while everyone was asleep.

A little before 9 we headed to The Dodo for breakfast and to surprise my mom.  A little after we got to the restaurant, all of Brooke's tiredness hit and she got really sad.  She just couldn't help herself.  I felt really bad for her, and we all tried our best to cheer her up.  She cheered up to various amounts throughout the breakfast.  In the picture below you can kind of see that she's snuggled into my arm pit.  That's how I spent most of breakfast.  Anyway, I was a little distracted and didn't get any pictures of my own.

After breakfast, we headed to my parents house and Brooke laid down for what would be a three hour nap.  While she was asleep I went through my parents' piano music, and hung out with my family.  When Brooke woke up she was a little sad for a minute or two while she was waking up, and then she was happy and back to her usual self.  When she came downstairs she was playing with everyone and having a great time!  It was nice to have happy Brooke back!

A little after Brooke woke up, it was time to head back to the airport and back home.  Brooke was very excited to see Winry again.  All the travel went well again, though Brooke's car seat took a REALLY long time to come out.  We went out to wait for Monica to get there, or, more accurately, to finish her 5th loop around the airport.  When she pulled up Brooke sprung up to give Winry a bear from Niki!  Winry didn't get quite as excited as I had expected, however she was also very tired at this point.  She loves that bear though!

After that, we came home and put the kids to bed.  Everyone slept well last night and Brooke slept in pretty late this morning, which is very good.  Both girls are even taking a nap right now too!  Everyone needs the rest.  Also, I got a trip recap slideshow thing from Google photos to enjoy.  My brother took more pictures of my Mom's breakfast and is gong to post them up sometime, so expect to see more of those next week (unless I edit this post and stick them in, which I might...).

Monica and I stayed up last night and watched BYU take down the Zags!  My whole family went to the game!  I booked my plane tickets to leave too soon or I could have been there too!  It's probably best I didn't try to go with how tired Brooke was getting.  It was still great to get to watch.  GO COUGARS!!

That's all I've got for this week!  It was great to get to see so much family in our short time out in Utah.  If you went out of your way to say hi we appreciate it!  We love you all and were so glad we got to spend some time with you!

Happy Valentines Day

Hello, and happy Valentine's day!  I hope you enjoyed the holiday as best you could!  We had a wonderful time here.  We even had a special breakfast of heart shaped waffles (Thanks the Smiths for letting us borrow your waffle iron!)!  Monica put various things in them, like chocolate chips, cinnamon chips, etc.  You know, all the good stuff.  The girls loved it.

Rolling back from Friday to Monday we've got this picture from dropping Brooke off at preschool.  Winry was really into her hippo at the start of the week, and was taking it everywhere!  She since got a bear from her secret valentine (to be revealed later).  We started secret valentines last Sunday I believe, and all drew a name for someone we were going to do special things for each day, just to give a little context to that.

That night Winry found a heart of M&Ms on her chair, also from her mystery secret valentine!

On Tuesday night I went to the temple, and Monica put both girls to bed.  This meant there had to be some snuggling for the girls!  It also meant that Winry had to sing Brooke her bedtime songs!  If you pay attention you'll hear Brooke help Winry with the words, too!

The snow storms of last week have been melting, but the weather hasn't been that warm, and so we're getting some pretty serious icicles!  One of them even connects between our roofs!

Monica washed all our Norwex towels this week, and included all of our pet to dry kids towels.  Once the girls saw those animal faces, they just had to take care of them!  This involved singing songs and rocking them to sleep, and of course "snugga bugga"-ing them.  Also, those blankets they're using are our other towels that were in the laundry.

Well that brings us to Valentine's day itself.  Winry got a little messy eating her chocolate waffle that morning.  Oops.  Also, she just had to have her new PEZ dispenser with her, again, thanks Smiths!!

Since we went on our Valentine's date last weekend, we just stayed home that night. Monica made delicious Chicken Parmesan for dinner. We all revealed who our secret Valentine's were after dinner, the girls had so much fun with that! After, they got in their jammies and we watched Frozen 2. They were so excited for that surprise! About an hour in, Winry said she wanted to go take a nap, so we took her up to bed, but Brooke lasted for the whole movie. All in all, it was a great Valentine's!

Okay, okay, big reveal time,  I was Winry's secret valentine this year.  On Friday I gave her a book that I made for her!  You can see all the pages below!  I glued pages down inside a board book that we had two of, and wa-la, new board book.  Winry has really loved it, and I've read it to her multiple times every day so far.

On Saturday Brooke got a little sad about the state of our snowman.  I thought it was pretty funny.  I don't know if the head fell off the ledge, or melted away, but at least something it still there.

On Saturday night, Monica went out with her friends, and after dinner I needed a little break before getting everyone ready for bed, so I turned on TOTS.  While I was turning it on Brooke was saying "Wait... Dad... are we watching something?  Are we watching a show?  Are we going to watch TOTS?  Are we actually watching this?  Are you just checking something?"  She was pretty excited when she found out I was leaving it on.  The girls proceeded to immediately tune out everything else.  They enjoyed the show, and I got my break!  Also, there's Winry's new bear, too.

This morning before church we were playing nap...  What do you mean that doesn't sound like a real game?  Well in our house it is, or at least it was this morning.  Winry went lap hopping, but unlike Goldilocks she did not find a lap that was "just right" and ended up not taking an impromptu nap.  In fact, she didn't take a nap at all today.

After church, the girls really wanted to go outside and play.  At first Brooke blew some bubbles while Winry ran in circles around her yelling "chase me, chase me."  And so I ran in circles around Brooke as well.  After a while Brooke wanted to switch to something else, and settled on chalk!  The girls both had a wonderful time drawing.

It started getting cold while we were out there, so eventually we took a break to all get coats on.  And a while later Winry was done drawing and went to hang out with Monica inside while she made dinner.  Brooke proceeded to draw a flotilla of things she loves around a picture of herself.  These things include: a flamingo, mac and cheese, mario kart, slides, puzzles, the trampoline, presents, Frozen 2, and Dobby our robot vacuum, and the pickle from Winry's cheeseburger.

After she finished, we played a little t-ball on the driveway before heading inside for dinner.  We made a paper chain for the girls to shake off for the FHE lesson tonight, and the girls had a great time shaking them off.  I'm pretty surprised that the chain never broke to be honest.  Important note, always save your object lesson that you know will be very fun for dead last, because once they started shaking, there was no settling back down!

And with that, have a wonderful week ahead!

Sledding Extravaganza!!

Hello hello!  We finally had some more winter this past week!  It snowed two different times, allowing for some good opportunities to go play in the snow.  It even snowed 9+ inches on Friday, followed by 50 degrees on Saturday, which made for a really great sledding trip as a whole family!  Everyone went at least once, meaning everyone went a bunch of times, and we coerced Winry to go once.  Winry even had a great time when she went, but just wouldn't go again.

At the onset of the week Brooke spent a few days selling Norwex EnviroScrubs to anyone who would listen!  I think Winry bought most of them...

On Tuesday I raised the basketball hoop, and the girls played basketball together.  Brooke tried to teach Winry how to shoot the ball.  I'd say Winry still needs a bit more practice, but we also lowered the hoop for her so she could dunk again.

Brooke is getting really excited for Valentine's day and already got valentines for her preschool class and friends.  She got them all ready by herself too, which involved putting in a tattoo, folding them in half, putting a sticker on them to hold them closed, and writing "Brooke" in the From: space.  She is really excited to give them out!

On Tuesday we got a bit of snow and so after work I headed in the backyard with the girls.  At the front end of this week it got really cold, and so we weren't outside for very long.  Last Sunday it was ~70 degrees, and then on Monday the high fell 45 degrees down to 27ish.  Tuesday morning when it snowed it was a balmy 2 outside, and it was cold enough that our furnace didn't keep up overnight and our house was only 65 in the morning.  We did close all of the vents down stairs to increase air flow into the kids rooms, so that's the main reason why, but still, it got COLD!!  So yeah, we went out into the snow that afternoon, but not for super long.

On Thursday we went to Indochine for dinner.  The last time we went was in December, and they gave us an envelope that you had to have the staff open, and Thursday was the last day to take it in.  We got $15 off our order!  Pretty sweet!  We also learned last time that the kids LOVE massaman curry, and so we just got two orders of that for dinner!

While we were there, another family with a baby came and sat at the table across from us.  They got a high chair for their baby, and when the high chair came Winry hopped down out of her chair and started walking over to their table to sit in her seat!  What a silly girl!

Saturday was the Love 'em or Leave 'em 10k.  I had a good run and finished in 45:19.  I was 5th overall, and I believe that's about 2 minutes faster than I've ran a 10k at any of the other races, so that was fantastic.  Here I am crossing the finish line.

I ended up second in my age group, so I got a medal!  Also, it snowed all day Friday, so it was ideal running conditions!  I wore my Yaktracks, but honestly, they plow the trail and they put down ice melt before the race, and I would have been fine without them.  I'd guess I spent at least half the run on a path without snow.  The family met me at the finish line, and we of course enjoyed some delicious pancakes like usual!  Winry wanted big pieces to hold, so Brooke got to use both forks and Monica and Brooke traded to more efficiently poke bites while eating.

By the time we got home it was "lunch" time, and Winry was ready for a nap.  We laid her down, and I showered and foam rolled and stretched and fell asleep on the floor...  When Winry woke up it was time to go sledding!  We headed over to the park by our house and it has a pretty perfect size hill for our kids!  Brooke tried the green saucer sled for the first time, and she loved it!  It's so confusing sometimes.  Brooke won't go on slides because she thinks they're too big, etc, but loved zooming down a hill while spinning and going backward.  You know what, she loves sledding, so I'll take it!

Monica also enjoyed hitting the slopes, and after a while Brooke got tired of carrying her sled so we would take it back to the top for her.  I went down head first once and the girls loved it and laughed really hard while they watched.

After a while, Brooke was too tired to keep walking up the hill, so we headed back to the car.  On the way back we took a snow angel stop, and also threw a few snow balls!  We showed the girls how to use sleds as shields and they enjoyed us throwing snowballs at their shields.  I even snuck a shot at Monica which evoked a scream, but she stopped the video before you hear it.

Saturday night we got a babysitter and Monica and I headed out for an early Valentine's day date.  We really like going early (like the week before) to escape the crowds, etc.  We headed to Maggiano's which is a really great Italian restaurant.  After, we wandered around Target for a while, which is apparently our jam!  We had some other ideas, but thought they'd probably take too long given it was a Saturday night (and all the ice rinks had hockey games...).

One of our Target treasures was this little basket, which Jelly now calls home!  It's not a very big basket, and Jelly looks HUGE when she's in it!

Well, real Valentine's day is right around the corner, so don't forget to get your romance on!  We started doing secret valentines today, so I'm sure there will be some great stories by next week!