Poor Sick Brookesby

 Hello all!  It's been another grand week here except for Brooke getting sick.  But at least she hasn't been sick all week, and even when sick she's been happy a lot of the time.  Just look at that post run smile!
 

 One day after work I met Monica and Brooke over at the park.  Brooke loves going on the swings and can stay there for hours.  She's also learning how to pull her legs out of things. This time it was a swing, but Monica told me they went for a walk one day and Brooke pulled both of her legs out of the stroller and reclined back with them up on the tray in front of her!

 We watched one of the neighbors kids one night and while they were here I got out Hungry Hungry Hippos (Turns out that's probably our only game for young children... We'll have to work on that) and we had a blast.  Brooke saw us playing and crawled over to join in!

 Brooke has also started to sleep with her bum in the air. It's so cute!

And lastly she got sick.  I believe Monica first noticed her fever on Friday.  We called the doctors office on Saturday and as we talked with them they asked if we came in for our follow up appointment with Brooke's ear infection.  I guess you're supposed to go back once the baby is done taking the medicine so they can check that the infection is really gone.  No one told use that, so we had not, so they told us we should come in.  We went in and fortunately Brooke's ears are good!  So she caught something else unrelated.  Between her being sick and a middle of the day football game not much else happened this weekend.

This week I also started going back to basketball.  My toe nail is starting to grow back, but not all the way in, and my jammed thumb doesn't hurt any more.  It was a lot of fun to be back!

On Friday we went to the dollar store to look for Halloween decorations.  We found some good stuff, but we haven't gotten it all out and up yet, but once we do I'm sure I'll have some great pictures!!

I think that's about it for this week.  Hope everyone is doing superb!

Super Random Hodge-Podge of Stuff

This week a Gander Mountain opened up by our house, so we went over for the grand opening weekend.  For those not familiar (I wasn't) it's a camping/hunting/general outdoors type store.  They had free antler and fish hats at the door.  We thought Brooke would prefer the antlers, and she did!

 This week we also headed to Target for a board game sale (they didn't have anything good in the store...) and our Target has some of the large red balls painted as pokeballs.  If you're confused just look at the picture.  I'd heard about this, but I didn't realize our Target had done it.  I'm not really sure why... but there it is!

 Also, here's a sunrise while we were heading out to run one morning.  We're getting to the time of year where we leave for running at sunrise, which is great!  But sadly it means that soon we'll leave for running in the dark.  I'm not exactly sure what our game plan is.  Maybe we'll have to get some headlights for the jogging stroller...

 We got all ready for game day... but we don't really need to talk about THAT!  I heard rumor that Mangum would be starting in the next game... I hope that's more than rumor.  I have been very underwhelmed with Hill this year, so that would be a welcome change.

 For Sunday brunch we made hot chocolate pancakes.  Spoiler, they were very chocolatey pancakes, and they were good, but they were not HOT chocolatey.  I'm not really sure you can make a solid taste/seem like liquid hot chocolate, which seems obvious, but it was still a little sad.  Great breakfast none the less, though I think we'd throw chocolate chips in the batter next time.

 Monica bought a basil plant the other day at the store cause it was cheap, and theoretically provides unlimited basil!  Well we brought it home and it immediately died.  We're trying to give it more TLC and get it in the sun and water it.  Monica set it on the floor to catch the last rays of sun tonight, just to look over a minute later and see it was in the stripe of shadow from the middle of the doors!

Hopefully the plant will make a come back. I did suggest planting it in our garden which has re-weeded quite nicely since I cleaned it out.  Things that shouldn't exist seem to grow plenty well out there!

Brooke loves scooting around the house, and she's starting to target farther away things to crawl to.  As such, she must fling everything between her and her destination out of the way!  This can be seen here.  It is really funny to watch her as she moves around because you never know if something is the target, or the next item to fling!

I think that's all for this week.  I hope everyone out there is doing well!  Have a great week.

Never go for two!!

Well hello! And welcome back!  Things were a little more eventful this past week what with Monday being a holiday and the football season starting up in full force.  Of course no matter where we go Brooke is always there too!  And chewing on a lamb ear at times even!

 This week we went into the seldom used bathroom (Brooke's bathroom) and I was washing my hands and noticed a plant growing out of the drain.  Now I'm not going to name names, but I suspect that someone (Lani) has some seeds on their hands when they washed them!  I left it for now because I'm interested to see how much it will grow.  I haven't checked it in a few days, but hopefully it's going strong.  We're so green in our house!

 On Monday we went for a walk over to the new park.  On the way we saw the materials for another house delivered.  I took a picture because I think it's quite interesting and I've never shown it before.  They pre-build all the walls somewhere, and then they write on them where they go and deliver them in a big pile.  I suppose it's a lot faster to build the same house in a single location and then ship the walls out all over the country.  No wonder why these houses are going from foundation to built in almost a week!

 We got to the park and I took Brooke on the swings.  She absolutely loves swings!  She does like the baby swings that she can sit in on her own the most though. Monica says that when she takes her to the park Brooke will frequently sit in the swing for an hour.

 One morning when we got to the park for our morning run there was fog all over.  The park is a little dipped down from the neighborhood, and the fog was filling up the park to the brim!

The big BYU v. Utah rivalry was this Saturday.  It was a game that came right down to the wire with BYU scoring with just a few seconds left.  We had the option to tie the game, or go for two and win it.  Let me say that in all of BYU's games I can remember I recall exactly 0 games in which we were down by 1 and went for a 2 point conversion and won the game.  I can, however, remember at least 2 games in which we were down one, and lost because we went for the two point conversion... Sigh.  The worst part was that a guy in our ward said he'd bring me a box of Horizon Organic Cheese Cow Head crackers if BYU won!  I don't think Sitake realized the stakes when he made that call!

 But on the bright side, this week Monica finished up our new pantry! And here it is!

 Here's the view with some of the doors open.  There's a divider in the top so it's 2 separate compartments.

 And here's a close up of the back of the doors.  The top two have mesh in them because we're going to keep potatoes and onions in them, and those need to be open to the air.  The bottom ones we put in custom cut glass.  And if you've never cut glass before, let me tell ya!  They're definitely not specific enough, and the direction you pull the blade matters. I cut the first piece the wrong way and shattered it.  Then I cut the second one just right, and when I picked it up to put it in the door I picked it up by the corner and the corner snapped out...  So it only took 4 planes of glass to make our 2 doors.  But we did them!

We also put a wall strap on the back and connected it to the wall so Brooke can't tip it over!  We brought it in today (we were waiting for the paint to dry a full 24 hours) and Monica started to fill it up!  See ya Walmart book shelf (it's now Monica's shoe shelf). (I-Monica, just want to give a quick shout out to Alex for making this amazing pantry cupboard because I was so specific of exactly how I wanted it and he made it PERFECTLY!!)

 Also of special note, Brooke loves hangers.  Like, sit on the bed and gnaw on them love.  That's how she occupied her morning while mom and dad got ready for church!

That's all for this week!  Hope everyone is doing great!

P.S. Brooke Crawling

The Littlest Cougar

Well, to start off, on Monday blah blah, zippity zap, etc.  There's not really much to say about this week, so let's jump into the weekend!  Yesterday started BYU's football season, so of course we all dressed accordingly!  Good thing I got Brooke BYU clothes when I went out for the career fair nearly a year ago!  It was a great game, and thank goodness we won!  Also, Monica fell asleep, just so you know. (But I woke up in time for the end!!)

 Also, Brooke's new favorite toy is her snot sucker thing.  We've never actually used it for snot sucking, the hospital gave it to us when she was born.  Monica said she's more in a phase of anything she's not typically allowed to have is the greatest toy ever.  So since it's not a baby toy she loves it!  I think it's also a good combo of soft but firm for chewing on.

Yesterday was a busy day out in the garage.  We're finally getting close on our pantry cabinet thing!  We picked up a router while we were at Home Depot so we could cut out a notch to put glass in behind the door.  I also have a another project I'm hoping to start on once this is done that will need a router all over the place.

 Once all the doors were made and the glass slots cut it was time to put it all together!  Finished!

 And then immediately after finishing I took all the doors back off and all the hardware off of them so we could paint it.  But that's Monica's job.  We primed the whole thing last night, and we're hoping to finish the painting by the end of the day tomorrow so Luna (The Silver Corolla) can come back in the garage, and so we can use it!

Well, I think that's all of the news from out here.  Hope everyone else is doing great!  Have a wonderful week!

Monica's Birthday

Howdy all!  Monica's birthday was this past week, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!  Her parents were still in town (they came out for the temple open house I talked about last week) so they watched Brooke while we had a night on the town!  Or should I say, a night on the driving range?  We went to a place called Top Golf, and it was a lot of fun, but more on that later.

This week we've had some chilly mornings, so we've tried to extra bundle up Brooke for our runs!  Usually she ends up pulling down her blanket some so her arms are free, but it turns out if you use the blanket to hold toys right up to her mouth she'll happily sit there.

 We also had Brooke's 9 month checkup this week (on Monica's birthday).  She got shots and had to get some blood drawn.  The appointment unfortunately started right at nap time so she was crying approximately the whole time.  And the shots at the end definitely didn't help the mood.  At least she got a really cool band-aid, which the doctor told us to take of before we left so she didn't pull it off in the car and eat it.

 I also got new business cards at work because they changed the engineering job titles.  It was a good thing too because I had used a lot of my old ones.  Here is what I had left from the first box I got when I started.

 Yup, I only had an over flowing box left.

So for Monica's birthday we went to Top Golf. It's like a driving range with colored targets to shoot for.  Each golf ball has a chip in it, so when you take a shot it knows if you get the ball in one of the targets.  There's a computer screen that you select games on, and then in the game it will tell you to try to get the ball in a certain color, and you get points for getting it in that color and lose points for hitting it in a different one.

It was a lot of fun and we definitely want to go back.  It's much more "golf for everyone" than a traditional driving range.

Here's a picture of Monica rocking it.  You can see her ball up in the air even!

 And here's me, probably hitting it into the wrong hole.

 On Saturday I started working on our food pantry again.  First thing first was to put the backing on it.

 Then it was time to make the doors.  I started with the little doors at the top.  First I assembled them.

 And then it was time to install them.  I think they look quite good for my first time!

 Then it was on to making the big doors.  I'm not really sure how this happened, but we bought one too few 1x3's, so I could only make one of the big doors.  I couldn't hang the door either because I need them both to make sure they're evenly spaced.

While I was out working on the pantry Monica was inside cleaning up the kitchen.  This, in part, meant going through old food and throwing stuff away.  She decided we had some sun flower seeds we didn't need anymore and deftly threw them on top of the trash can... (in my defense- the motion sensor on the trash can isn't working right, so it should have opened and didn't!)

 This morning we went out for our traditional Sunday morning walk, and there was a spectacular sunrise!

 And Brooke sure looked cute too!  Even though I couldn't get her to smile.

And that's the week! Hope everyone is doing well!

3rd Anniversary

 Well, to start out, here's Brooke wrestling a lion!

 For our anniversary this year Brooke decided to she would take a single 20 minute nap...  This resulted in screaming and crying all day long.  I rushed home from work to try to help out, but our plans for the night were shot!  Brooke was in no mood to go do anything... sigh.  In the end I ran out and picked up some Greek food for dinner, and stopped at the grocery store to get some ice cream, and surprise flowers!  It ended up not being a total loss of a night, but not what we had planned.  The sad part was that we didn't think to take any pictures...

On Friday we decided to retry our plans, and this time Brooke was a great baby!  So when I got home from work we went out for Thai food at IndoChine!  Brooke had a great time!

 We let Brooke try our curry too.  Mine was a little spicy, and Brooke had no clue what to do about that.  She stuck her tongue out scrunched up her face and breathed out hard trying to get it off!  She was much more accepting of Monica's curry, which wasn't spicy.  Curry is not a taste she's had, and her first time having it she did not seem to be crazy for it... but we'll bring her around!

 Next door to the Thai restaurant is a cupcake place we wanted to try, so it was time for dessert!

 4 desserts to be more exact!  The cupcakes were very good!  We got the two Monica got (the average reader probably won't see this because Monica will probably delete this out and put in the names, and a Sweet and Salty and a Nutter Butter cupcake.

On Saturday Monica's parents came out for the temple open house in Ft. Collins, and we went through with them.  It was cool to walk through the new temple, and there was a lot of cool wood/glass/stone work in there.  They even had a little spot set up were they took a picture for you.

 After we went to a place called Tom & Chee, which specializes in tomato soup and grilled cheese.  I, obviously, took advantage and ordered two sandwiches.  My lunch sandwich was a macaroni and cheese grilled cheese sandwich with a soup dipper, and for dessert I got a strawberry lemonade doughnut grilled cheese!  I would highly recommend Tom & Chee!  And the doughnut grilled cheese sandwiches are wonderful!

 I spent some more time working on our food pantry/bookshelf yesterday as well.  It's now a little less bookshelfy, and now more bookshelf with a border to attach doors to-y.  Now I just need to make some doors and attach them!

 This morning we went on our weekly walk with Brooke.  We walk over into the new neighborhood that's being built, and go check out the progress at the park.  These aren't new, but I just thought to take a picture today.  They have some of those little things you sit on and they flip back and forth.  While these things can be fun, the ones at this park are probably the ugliest ones I've ever seen!

 More specifically this one!  First off, what he heck is that supposed to be?  And second, do you really think some 2 year old is gonna want to get on that?

And with that image imprinted in your mind, I guess we're done!  Have a great week!

See ya Summer!

Hello hello!  Despite Monica reminding me several times last week I still didn't end up writing a blog post... my bad.  Reviewing pictures from the past two weeks though would indicate that not too much happened.

Two weeks ago we put Brooke in a nice dress for church and 8 month pictures.  This may be the only picture that was taken... :)

Brooke has an elephant that plays music for her while she goes to sleep.  It can also shine stars on the ceiling as a night light.  She loves playing with it.  She's learned the little yellow things are buttons, and she'll lean down and knock on them until she pushes them, either turning on music or shining the light in her eyes.  If it's the light button she's pressing we'll turn it off so she isn't staring into the light, and then she'll immediately lean forward and hit it again.  It's a fun game to play.

Over the past two weeks for the most part we've been watching the Olympics.  I've watched a lot of different things, and I think it's a shame that handball isn't more popular!  I was also fascinated watching the table tennis players!

Yesterday was Parker's So Long to Summer race.  Monica and I ran the 10 K.  Here's a picture of us after the race! We didn't bring Brooke because I wanted to try to get a medal, and Monica hadn't trained pushing the stroller. And it was during her nap time.

When we first talked about running it I went and looked up the results from last year and was pretty excited to run it because I thought I had a chance of placing in my age group.  I did a little better than anticipated and ended up being the first overall male to finish the race! Here's a link to the race results: results

Sadly my medal is "broken"  The front of it is blank.  There's supposed to be a little insert with the race logo on it in there.  Luckily I noticed at the race and went and asked about it.  They said they'd get on it, and if I didn't hear from them just to contact them about getting it fixed.

Michael and Oriah were in town visiting various family and stopped by yesterday.  It was fun to have them over and see how Jonathan and Cameron were doing. Of course we had some victory gelato when they came!

With that I think we're all caught up on recent events!  Hope everyone is doing great!