Brooke Turns 7

Well hello!  Brooke turned 7 this past week!  That also means I've been writing this blog for 7 years! Whoa!  Anyway, back to Brooke, she had a great day, and we topped off the day the same as her party, with mint brownies!  I've got some pictures later, so we'll get into the details there.

Our first real snow happened this past week.  I'm not sure whether or not it snowed small amounts already this year, but this is the first time we've really had snow on the ground in the morning.  The kids were VERY excited and had to get out.  Unfortunately, Brooke was at school, so it was just Grayson, Winry and I.  Monica got them all ready and then I popped up and went out to play with them for 20 minutes or so before lunch and heading back to work.

Jelly came out to see the snow too.  It took her a while to finally get out into the snow, but she didn't really seem to mind the cold.  Good thing she was shaved a while ago so her fur has had time to grow back in.  Anyway, you can kind of see his legs come flying in, but Grayson went down the little playground slide and flew into the water table, etc. and scared Jelly right back into the house!  Hopefully she'll give the snow another try.

Grayson wanted to join the snow angel crew, and did his very best, meaning he laid down!

And of course we had to have a snowball fight.  I got ganged up on, AND I had to make all of the snowballs.  Not the most fair snowball fight I've ever been in.

Artemis I finally launched this past week!  This is the one that I worked on when I first started as SEAKR.  I did all of the FPGA design in the VPU (Vision Processing Unit) for the crew module, so all of the camera feeds should be going through that to be processed and stored.  It's also set up as a back up flight computer, and who knows what else they might use it for.  Anyway, the great news is it didn't explode!  

Grayson has been helping Monica get in and out of the car and walk over to drop Winry off at preschool.  Someone's gotta hold her hand and get her places while she recovers.  He never did the seesaw when I was there, but Monica said he would have stayed there forever if she let him.

We had our house-iversay this past week as well.  We always get Japanese food, as that's what we did our first night in our house.  The weather even cooperated and I had to drive out in the snow, though it wasn't as bad as our first day here.

Here's Grayson and I... doing something... while Brooke opened her presents on her birthday.  We had a good time.  Also, Grayson is sick.  He's been sick since at least Thursday.  That's the first day I remember giving him medicine before his nap.  He's still been crazy full of energy until maybe today.  We went on a walk this morning and he seemed really tired, but insisted he walk the whole way.  He probably walked about a half a mile, and then I had to carry him back.  Oh, and I helped him have some vitamins this morning, he likes those.

Brooke woke up a little early so she'd have time to open her presents in the morning before school.  She was very excited for them all.  She got a bunch of books, and Winry gave her some cross stitches, and I'm sure there was some other stuff too.

As an added birthday greatness, Brooke and Winry got to go to the book fair.  They were very excited about it, and got some great books.  Oh, in addition to all of this, Michael was also out here staying with us.  He headed to Colorado Springs during the day to take care of things at his dad's house, and the girls loved to play with him in the evenings.  Anyway, here's our family together at the close of Brooke's birthday.

The next evening we found out Brooke's primary teachers sent her a card, so I wrapped Winry in a blanket and carried her to the mailbox to get it with me.  It was like 8 degrees outside.  Good news, we retrieved the card.

And that's about everything for this week.  Hopefully Grayson doesn't get the rest of us sick, or else I might have a rather subdued Thanksgiving post next week...
 

Brooke's Birthday Party

Brooke's just about 7!  I think I usually say it's crazy when my kids hit their next birthday, but lately I've been thinking about it and I feel like Brooke acts very 7 already.  That said, I don't know that 6 and 7 are that different in my mind.  It's like when Grayson turned two, he was definitely much more of a 2 year old at that point than a one year old in my mind.  Winry feels very five as well.  Anyway, Brooke's birthday party was on Saturday and she had a spa party!  We had a good turnout and everyone had a lot of fun.

Some nights Winry can make things a little difficult for Brooke to go to bed, so sometimes she sleeps in our room.  But usually she doesn't sleep like this!

Monica and I turned in our ballots on Tuesday.  Monica thought to take a picture, I did not.  Also, Monica has her selfie camera set to mirror, so it's not my fault the text is backwards.

I don't even know what Grayson was doing, but he was having a great time with his blanket.  We do enjoy being wild together.  Speaking of Grayson being wild, he was also dancing or rolling around or I don't even know what earlier on that day.

Well, I guess I knew this day would come eventually.  But after struggling through building a 3d printer 8 years ago I'm finally back to 3d printing.  It only took about an hour or so to build it, and 30 minutes to get the details tuned.  That's a bit different than the day I spent building mine last time, and the month I spent trying to get everything tuned just right.  I'd say things have come quite a long way.

Grayson is getting back into peppers.  We had some and I figured why not give it a try for dinner.  It's been a long time, but he enjoyed playing with it and eating it, and ate about half.  That's a big victory for a vegetable these days.

On Friday, Igor, the guy I've been working on golf stuff with, was in town and came to say "hi."  We ended up going over to Top Golf and we set everything up and played around.  We showed it off to the people in the bay next to us, and had a great time.  It was my first time meeting him in person, and it was nice to finally get to meet him.  My program was running on the laptop.  The phone recorded the shot and calculated ball flight metrics.  They get loaded to a server, and then my app gets the shot data and controls a game on the computer (in this case PGA 2k23) to take that same shot.  We loaded up Top Golf in the game too.  If that catches your attention, and you wanna give it a try and have an iPhone, the app is called GolfTrak (it's in beta and the integration to PGA2k23 isn't released yet).

You may be wondering, why go to TopGolf?  If I'm working on the program, surely I can hit balls in my house?  Well, you're not wrong, but Jelly was being territorial...

Saturday morning we headed over to the girls dance studio as they were doing a service day.  There were a bunch of things to do, like decorate Christmas tree ornaments, a bake sale, and putting together kits for the homeless like Grayson is doing!  He even put everything in that bag all on his own!

Saturday afternoon was Brooke's birthday party.  It was spa themed.  They played spa bingo to kick things off.  After that they all got manicures.  Monica had nail polish and nail stickers.

During nail time there were also several hair-do chains.  People also were heading in and out of the backyard to play.  We had a yogurt bar with lots of toppings and other snacks out as well.

Here are most of the girls together to show off their nails.

After nails they all did face masks together.  A bunch of the girls also wanted to get some cucumbers for their eyes.  We also did presents and sang happy birthday and had brownies.  The brownie picture was at the top.  Everyone had a great time, and it was great to have so many friends over.  I knew many of them as they were from church, but Brooke also had friends from school over, and Aurelia, who used to live next door, was even able to make it down for the party!

That night Winry really wanted to paint my nails.  They got some kid nail polish that peels off at the party, so I let her use that to paint my nails.  She painted my nails twice last night, and she painted Michael's as well!

Oh wait, you didn't know Michael was here?  He got in a little after the birthday party.  All of the kids were VERY excited to see him and they've been having a great time together.  He's out here to go take care of his dad's estate, but the kids are going to take every second they can!

For dinner we had a whole chicken.  It was a pretty good thanksgiving prep meal, and we just had mashed potatoes and some vegetables to go with it, so much simpler.  It was REALLY good though.  It stuck with me enough that I'm writing about it here.  We just don't eat whole birds all that often.

Anyway, this morning Grayson came to say "hi" while I was finishing getting ready for church.  He was riding a flamingo!  He didn't keep it on for very long, but he was so happy while he was in it.

Today was the primary program.  The girls both had a part and did a great job, and they sang well too.  Winry was up in the front, and we were sitting in the front as well.  I may have distracted Winry a few times, but I got some really cute finger hearts from her.  In the picture below they're doing sign language with their song.  Brooke is way in the back.  We could see her, but it's too bad she didn't get to be on the front wall with Winry!

That's all I've got for this week.  It was pretty good.  Things are getting much more back to normal.  It's been SOOO nice having Monica be allowed to help with more of the cleaning, and especially that she can watch Grayson.  She's been doing physical therapy, and it seems like it's been going really well.  If she wants to give any updates on how things are going, I'll leave a prompt for it here: I don't think I have much to add, but what Alex is said is true! My back is feeling really good, and hardly hurting! For the most part life is back to normal and I think PT is really helping. 

Wow, great stuff Monica!  Glad to hear it's going so well, and that's crazy that <really cool reference here> happened like that!  (I'm pre-writing this before Monica hopefully fills in her part).  

I guess in health news, I'll mention that I've got something weird going on lately.  My eyes are losing focus.  Things have always been fine every morning, but sometime during the day things start looking off.  One of my eyes is looking slightly above the other, so when I look at a face I'll see 4 eyes, 2 sets stacked on each other.  I'm not sure what's going on, but I'm going to the eye doctor tomorrow, and hopefully they'll have great and helpful things to say.  And now, that's really all I've got.

Happy Halloween!

It feels a little weird to be titling this happy Halloween, as Halloween feels like it was quite a while ago. We had a lot of Halloween stuff happen over the weekend, but it leaked into Monday as well!  The Cammacks invited us over for some chili and then to trick or treat in their neighborhood.  There ended up being a whole group of us, and this was Grayson's first time really getting to go!  He had a lot of fun.  Definitely loves when people give him candy.  So far his favorites are everything we've let him try!  He gets that from me.  When we got back I put Grayson to bed, and then Brooke and I headed for a loop around our neighborhood.

Monica has been feeling pretty good, so I gave work a go this past week.  It actually went really well.  I came up to change diapers and put Grayson down for his naps, but other then that I just worked and Monica watched the kids, got them food, etc.  So it seems like we'll be pretty much back to normal in the future.  Monica had her 6 week follow up on Friday, and they told her she could start progressing, but listen to how she's feeling.  It'll take 6 months to be fully healed, but she can start increasing how much she does so long as she feels okay doing it.  So no dead lifts with Grayson or anything, but if he'll climb a chair, etc. then she can pick him up, and she can get him in and out of the car/crib now.  All of that said, I've had the occasional buddy at work.  I heard the piano music and came out to see Grayson rocking on the horse while listening.  What a game!  Oh, and in the dark.

I wasn't around for this next one, but both girls are in there so this would be school pick up.  Looks like they had some fun in the leaves before coming home.  Looks like a good time!  I finally raked up all our leaves and almost burst a 55 gallon bag cramming them all in.  It was my last bag, so I had to make it fit...

I decided to play the piano on Saturday, and the main take away for me was that I need to play the piano more.  I very much enjoyed it.  Anyway, Jelly ever the lap hunter, noticed I wasn't moving and will always take a still lap when she finds one.  I'd say it made things a bit more difficult. 

Saturday afternoon I took Grayson on a walk, and Brooke wanted to come too.  Grayson loves wandering the paths, and we headed over to see the creek.  We didn't have a lot of time before dinner, so we went to the creek and turned right around.

The girls wanted to play hair stylist while calming for bed, and I was their subject.  It was a lot of fun.  I don't mind the bows, etc. and I thought it felt nice getting my hair brushed.  We had a great time, and then they headed to bed.

Grayson and Brooke both wanted to go on a walk again, so we headed out this morning.  With daylight savings it's unlikely that Grayson will get up with much light left today, so it was the morning or never.  We went to the same place as yesterday, and then kept walking down the creek and exploring the trails.

We found a little overlook like place down to the creek that was very pretty.  It's also kind of funny to see how green everything still is right next to the water.

Grayson's been picking up songs from nursery.  He can sing Popcorn Popping now, and I don't ever remember singing that one with him.  I'm glad he listens sometimes.  This week when I went to get him he was sitting in the hall on a rocking dog thing.  The nursery leaders said they had to take them out during singing time because the kids wouldn't do anything other then rock on them with them in the room.  So at least sometimes he listens!

And that's a wrap for this week!  Hope you're having a great life!

Trunk or Treat

Why hello, distinguished colleagues.  We had a fun week getting through final preparations for Halloween, though it did a get a bit crazy and messy in the house as we blitzed at the end.  Everything went well though.  Last night was our ward Halloween party!  We do a chili cookoff and trunk or treating. We had a good time, and were all in our Grinch costumes!  Well... except Grayson, but once he was in the Pikachu costume there was no being anything else.

We got our first snow of the year this past week.  It wasn't much, and didn't stick for very long.  Anyway, that meant we needed to do our final harvest, where we pick every tomato so they can ripen in the house.  Grayson is an expert tomato finder and was still picking some after the rest of us thought we got them all!

Brooke got this cheetah chair... for her birthday last year maybe?  I don't remember.  Anyway, when I put Grayson down for his nap it was sitting on the floor next to his crib.  It was in with him when I got him up.  He reached through the bars and pulled it up into his crib!  Gotta be careful with this kid.  Fortunately, he still hasn't tried to climb out of his crib.

The girls dance studio moved to a new location over fall break, and they were both very excited to go to the new studio.  Here's Brooke and Eleanor when they got to their dance class.  I don't remember seeing this decoration up when I took Winry the next day... but anyway, it's a nice new space.

Back to the garden, we also harvested the front yard.  There were a few carrots and a beet out there.  The girls each got to pick a few.  I think that's the first time we've grown carrots, and it was pretty cool to pull them.

Grayson loves to go down the stairs "lightning speed."  That's what he says when he does it.  He basically just slides down the stairs really quickly, and I always worry his stomach is going to get a rug burn, but so far he's been okay.  He's done this for a long time, I just never thought to capture it until now.

We finally went through the stuff Oriah sent our way, and there was a Buc-ee jump suit in it!  We put Grayson in it, and he had fun crawling around and stuff for a little, but eventually wanted out.

He next got into the pikachu costume, and there was no getting him back after that.  He loved it, so that kinda killed the plans of him being Max (the Grinch's dog) with our family.  If I find it I'll clip a pokeball to my Santa belt when we go trick or treating tomorrow night.  Anyway, here he is at the girls school trunk or treat.

We didn't take many pictures there it turns out.  We got slide passes for both of the girls, and while they were waiting in line it deflated... Winry was very upset about it, but the good news is it wasn't a hole, someone just unplugged the fan.  So they blew it back up and were back for business.

When we got home the girls looked through their goodie bags and Winry found out that she got a pair of disguise glasses!  She loves them, and she looks really silly wearing them too.

On Saturday the girls had Cassie's Birthday party.  They live one house over across the street from us.  They did a painting there of a mermaid, and there was an extra spot so Grayson painted a picture too.  They all had a lot of fun, and I'm really glad they invited us to come.

They also had a mermaid picture station, and I didn't notice Brooke's shoes poking under the bottom until I was putting the picture in here... oops.

And then last night we went to the ward trunk or treat.  It was a pretty crazy day because the young women were in charge of decorations and Monica basically volunteered to come up with the plan for all of it. So she had to go over and help and take a lot of the things.  They did a superb job with the decorations.  My favorite was the ofrenda.  The decorations were Day of the Dead themed, and we had a ward family history challenge leading up to the party, so we invited everyone to bring a picture of an ancestor they did work for to put on our ward ofrenda!

Meanwhile, at the photo station, I had to be a Grinch and try to scare Cindy Lou and snatch the Christmas tree!  Also, look at Winry's eyes, she's standing in front of me, but somehow, a good Christmas tree always knows.

This morning while we were getting ready for church Grayson was doing his block truck.  It has different shaped blocks and different holes to put them in, and apparently this was the easiest way to interact with the far side of the truck.  Oh to be young again!

I think that's everything I've got for now.  Tomorrow's Halloween, and the kids are really excited.  Grayson has been loving playing with his candy (you can see that in the above picture too.  He was putting his Kitkats on his car track and driving them down), and the girls play trick or treat with each other.  We should all have a good time, and I'll fill you in on it next week.