Baby Blessing and Shelf Building

Sorry for the missed post last week, but last weekend was pretty crazy around here as most all our family was out for Brooke's baby blessing, so I decided not to ignore everyone and do a blog post last week.

As for last week... well I don't remember much about what happened during the week.  Way too long ago for that.  Friday, however, family started coming into town (at least to our part of town) and we took advantage of baby sitters!  We went to Melting Pot for an early Valentines dinner.  It happened to be in downtown some-town, and the main street was all decorated!

It was a lot of fun and Monica and I had never been before.  It took a lot longer than we though it would, about 2 and a half to three hours, so if you decide to go just be prepared for that.  It was a lot of fun!

For our dessert we got the flaming turtle solely because they light it on fire.

But it also turned out that the chocolate fondue was super delicious!

We parked on the street, and on our walk to/from the car we passed this classy establishment.  I don't know what it used to be, but by the looks of it I missed the 5 day sale.

Then over the weekend we had family and friends over to visit.  I believe everyone had a good time, and I believe nothing was broken.  It's amazing how big a house feels once 24 people becomes 3 again.  Also, thanks to everyone who came, and for the help you provided while you were here.

This past week has been an interesting one.  There were a few germs floating around while people were out here and Monica got sick on Tuesday.  Then I got sick on Thursday.  That made for quite the hectic week, and Brooke was not amused (fortunately Brooke has not gotten sick).

Without any real story here are some pictures of Brooke:

Our La-Z-Boy that we ordered finally came in and I went and picked it up on Friday.  It's just Brooke's size too!

Saturday was a pretty warm day, and for some reason that caused our tree to weep.  It was hard to get a picture of, but if you look toward the bottom of this picture you can see a drop that fell off the tree.  Sap was just running out of the tree like crazy!

Saturday I also took our super spacious construction Corolla out to home depot to get some supplies.  For any of you wondering, you can fit at least 17 eight foot 2x4's in a Corolla.

The day had finally come to shelf up the garage.  I was more conscious with this project about taking more pictures and not just suddenly having a final product image.  Here is our before.

In total we ended up with 17 2x4's and 2 sheets of plywood.  Here's everything ready to go.

I even remembered to have Monica take a picture of me working!

And here are the finished shelves.  It ended up being a lot more project than I thought it would be.  From leaving the house to buy wood until the shelves were up was about 9 hours, but that also includes an hour or two to recharge batteries for the drill and eating lunch.  I probably used about 200 screws and had to charge the battery 3 times.  Turns out 2 1/2" screws take a lot of power to drive in.  I think this is the first time my forearm has been sore the next day from using a powered screw driver.  On the plus side we not have a bunch of storage space and we can move most of the stuff from the basement out into the garage!

It's nice to finally have that project done.  We have wanted to put those shelves in for a long time, but kept delaying, mostly due to not having a car large enough to haul the wood in.  Good thing our new car is HUGE!

And with that I think we're all caught up.  Brooke turned 3 months old last Wednesday, but we haven't gotten to the 3 month photo shoot yet.  Maybe in time for next weeks post...

Snow Day

This week we had quite a snow flurry dump.  It snowed for like three days straight!  It wasn't really crazy snow ever, but three days of snow adds up eventually.  We took Brooke out to play in the snow for the first time.  We set her down and she made a snow angel!

The craziest part is she did it all on her own!!

OK, so maybe that's not 100% true, but still...  We had fun and her bear suit kept her warm.  When we picked her up tons of snow was stuck in it though.

Since it was snowing Monica decided she needed the ice scraper (we hadn't bought one for the new car yet) so I came out of work to this view...  Good visibility for the drive home. (side note from Monica-Alex was the one who took the ice scraper out of his car....not even my fault!)

Saturday we watched both the basketball and volleyball games, so we had to be in all our cougar gear!  I think this is the first time Brooke wore her BYU clothes, and if not then this is the first time they fit!

Brooke also decided to be grown up and hold her own bottle, sorta.

Other highlights of this week would include everything except work getting cancelled due to the snow storm, so we mostly just chilled at home and tried to get Brooke to play with toys.

I hope everyone is having a great week and GO BRONCOS!!

p.s. this was all typed one handed because I'm currently holding Brooke, sorry for any crazy mis-typing that I didn't catch as I went along.

The last 2(ish) Months

Why hello everyone!  It's been a short while!  I've been meaning to get back to my weekly posting for some time, but it's like some song said "a baby changes everything!"  Currently Brooke is sitting next to me on the couch grunting, and as long as the grunts stay peaceable I should be able to get this out today.

Let's rewind back to 2 months ago.  Luckily I took a decent number of pictures so I shouldn't forget anything big that happened.  Lets start with Brooke's first bath.  Here she is after, all toweled up.  She was not a big fan of her first bath because she got very cold.  The water wasn't warm enough... oops.

For the most part she has been very good and she lays down and sleeps.  Or at least when she was young she did, and now that she's older she prefers being held when she's awake. In this picture below her pacifier slid up so she looked like a unicorn!

About a week after she was born Monica's mom and sister came out to visit us and help with the baby.  We also took the opportunity to use a larger car to get our Christmas tree.  It's just not the same not tying the tree to the top of the Corolla...

Brooke has always been a strong supporter of tummy time.

And she quickly overtook my spot in bed...  I wish we would have gotten her a much larger crib.  Hers isn't very comfortable for me.

She worked her way into just about everything we did, including playing games.

We had to find very warm looking winter clothes so that we could take her outside.  She still hasn't ventured out much, and sadly hasn't gotten to play in snow yet.

... I just like this picture.

Brooke quickly became friends with Sir Jeffers.  He's always around to help hold in her pacifier, and is a frequently needed companion.

Um... Brooke must be taking a nap.  I got a game called "Awful Green Things from Outer Space" for Christmas.  It's a lot of fun!

Sometimes we stage pictures so it looks like Brooke does really cute things that don't really happen till a far older age, such as hugging/cuddling a stuffed animal in her sleep.

... #parenting.  The bad news: this happened.  The good news:  Not our clothes, thanks Megan!

Eventually our Christmas tree got all dried up and needed to be taken out.  Our garbage company doesn't do tree pick up, but the city did some kind of tree round up/charity thing.  I wasn't thrilled with the idea of tying a dried up tree to the top of the car (I don't really want to scratch it), so instead I chopped it all up and put it in the garbage can!  The can still smells like pine, so it was very successful.

I guess Monica didn't think adding a baby to the family was enough change, so 2 weeks ago we went and bought a new used car.  Say hello to (unnamed)!

It's a 2009 Corolla, and it's great to have.  It's "Monica's car" which means that I'm only allowed to drive it when I'm taking her places.

So a couple nights ago we awoke to Brooke crying (she'll sleep between 5 to 8 hours the first time she goes to sleep at night, then another 3 hours after that) and we both were quite awake... and hungry.  We'd ordered pizza the night before for dinner, so naturally at 3 am that's what came to mind.

Here's a picture from this morning.  We were using the boppy to prop Brooke up into a sitting position.  She holds her head up some on her own now, but not reliably enough to let her just sit up unsupported.  Also, she's smiling.

Oh, I somehow missed shots.  She got her shots 2 weeks ago, and loved it!

In reality she wasn't that bad.  She cried a little but I picked her up and she stopped within 15 or 20 seconds.  She was a little more tired for the next few days, but returned to normal quickly.

Well, I think those are the highlights of the last 2 months.  Sorry for the lack of depth, but part of the delay in this post is the foreboding element of having to write a huge post, so being quick is what actually got us here.  I'll hopefully get back into the habit of weekly posting now, well, if Brooke will cooperate.

Hope everyone is doing well!  Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions feel free to leave them in the comments.  Also, if you have a story not mentioned feel free to leave those below too!

Baby Brooke

The blog post you've been waiting for is finally here! We are so happy to introduce the newest member of our family, Brooke Elizabeth Harding. She was born on November 17 at 4:09 a.m. She was 7 lbs 2 oz. , 20 inches long. And here's the story of when she came!

Here's me (yes it's Monica writing this post) at 38 weeks and 2 days, the day she decided it was time to come!

A few weeks before, I had found out that she was breach and unless she flipped over I would have to have a c-section. I wasn't thrilled about that, but there was only so much I could do! So I had a c-section scheduled for the 23rd and didn't think she was going to come before that. I was wrong! On the night of the 16th, we were just chillin at home, falling asleep on the couch watching some college basketball when suddenly I had to "pee"....turns out I didn't have to pee, my water broke! So we packed up and headed to the hospital in the blizzard! Good thing we live close!

We got there at about 10 p.m. and I got all checked in. They did an ultrasound to make sure she was still breach, but I knew she hadn't budged. Sure enough, there she was with her stubborn head up! I wasn't having contractions yet, so they told me to just try and sleep (funny joke!) and they'd schedule my c-section for around 6 a.m. the next morning.

Around 1 a.m. I started having contractions, so they called my doctor and she headed on over. It was a good thing they called then because it took her over an hour to get there because of the weather! By the time she got there I was having contractions pretty steadily so we just got everything ready and headed on over to the operating room. Before we knew it, we were looking at our beautiful baby girl! I couldn't believe how perfect she was and that she was really here after so long waiting to meet her! They brought her over to be by me almost immediately after she was born.

She was the sweetest baby I had ever seen! They took her over to get measured and checked while they finished up my surgery and then we met up again in the recovery room where I got to hold her at last.

They gave her her first bath while we were there and it seems like she wasn't too big of a fan.

We spent the next few days cuddling, feeding and trying to sleep whenever we could. It was a little overwhelming the first day, especially because I had gotten zero sleep the night before! But all in all, she was a great baby, very mellow and content and we were so happy to have her here.

She was so tiny!

Alex did such a great job taking care of her, while I couldn't really do much since I'd just had a c-section. He changed all the diapers, held her when she cried, and got everything I needed. He's the best.

After a few days in the hospital, we were so ready to go home. On Friday, we got everything taken care of and we went home. It was so nice to be home again!