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!

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!