Thanksgiving

Why hello there!  I hope everyone is doing well this week.  This week I worked a few days before heading back out to Utah to be with family.  Not terribly much happened while I was at home.  I put up some Christmas lights to surprise Monica and a few other random things around the house.  I also tried to finish off calibrating my 3D printer, but it keeps overdrawing power and causing the power supply to shut off.  My guess is because it was colder in the house since we turned down the heat when we left (and I left it down while home).  Fortunately there were various sports and things for me to work on around the house, and of course there were nightly video calls with Brooke!  Speaking of, I think my picture of the week is this one of her after we got off the plane flying back to Denver.  She lost her afternoon nap to air travel, well all but about 10 minutes which she slept on the plane, and as you can see she is quite tired!  Also, airlines still do wings if you were wondering, you just have to request them, and I did!  Look at our little co-captain!

As mentioned we spent the latter half of this week out in Utah, visiting my family this time.  This was our first Thanksgiving with my family since being married as well.  It was a lot of fun, and let me tell you, my Mom makes the BEST turkey!  I don't know all the tricks, but maybe I'll have her write a guest post on how to cook a turkey.  It's much needed information for the future!

Anyway, Brooke enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner!

Though she didn't end up eating a ton.  That seems to just be more of a thing lately.  She doesn't seem to want to eat as much for lunch as she used to.  But she did eat some turkey, mashed potatoes, and managed to mangle a roll somewhere in there.

Being at my parents house was a little overwhelming for Brooke.  Being the only baby around she enjoys playing on her own.  It was hard for her to be around so many other little kids.  All of her cousins wanted to play with her and help her, which was great, but a lot of the time it was overwhelming for Brooke.  We'd have to take her into separate rooms from everyone and once we got there she'd smile and laugh and crawl all around just like she usually does.  We took her on a few walks too, which she loved.  All in all we had a great time!

Friday was Black Friday shopping of course.  Monica went during the day with a small group of my family.  I ended up going out at night, and one of our stops was at Seagull Book and Tape because I wanted to get Brooke a board book for church.  Fortunately they had the one I wanted, and it was the last in stock.  It's a Book of Mormon ABC book and it has a lot of flaps.  One of our friends at church has it and I read it to Brooke before and really liked it.  The art work is a lot of fun, and they tried to be fun and funny with the flaps.  I was glad I was able to pick it up, and on sale!

On the way home we got to the airport around an hour and a half before boarding.  It has taken us longer to get through security with Brooke before, so we like to play it safe.  Well, there was no line.  We just walked right up and through everything.  It was nice to have some extra time, however, because Monica's hand swab set off the detectors.  So out of 6 flights, we have set the detector off twice!  I don't know what Brooke is doing, but it's a good thing we had some extra time.

We still got through with plenty of time to spare, so we walked around the airport.  We eventually ended up at our terminal waiting to board.  While Brooke is in her stroller (or also her high chair) she loves to put her toes up on the the bottom of the tray.  We were feeding her Cheeri-os and playing with her and all along she was keeping her feet up!

As mentioned above she was quite tired on the plane.  I got her to sleep, but not long enough, and when I moved her to unbuckle my seat belt at the end of the flight she woke up.  We made it out to the car without incident and got home as quick as we could.  She aet some dinner and went right off to bed!

Today we started prepping for Christmas decorating, mostly meaning we are getting out our boxes of Christmas stuff.  A new addition this year is a Mongolian Nativity.  My parents bought it when they came out to visit, and they gave it to me!  We set it up on the top of our food pantry.  It's all hand carved, and it's really amazing and detailed!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful week!

Brooke's First Birthday

Hello everyone!  Can you believe that Brooke is already 1 year old!!  How crazy is that?!?!  We had a birthday party for her with our families (we happened to be in Utah on the 17th) which was a lot of fun.  We tried to get Brooke to face plant into a cake, but she actually ate it quite daintily...  She got a little dirty, but all in all not too bad.

Rewinding back a little we come to our House-aversary!  Yeah, this was a packed week.  We moved in 2 years ago!  So on Tuesday we had to celebrate.  The night we moved in we got Japanese take out, so every year we've gotten Asian take out to celebrate.  This year we were back to Japanese (and we'll probably stay there).  This was also the first year we didn't have to drive out in a snow storm to get dinner, but I'm not complaining about that!!  We got some sushi to go with our dinner, and not that the food wasn't good, but the sushi was great!  Turns out I really like Tempura!  That was definitely the best one we got.

On Wednesday we flew out to Utah.  Technically we were flying out for a wedding, but also we were flying out for Brooke's birthday!!  She was so tired when we got on the plane so we hunkered down and took a nap!  She slept for almost the whole flight!  I slept for this whole picture!?

When we landed in Salt Lake I noticed this plane cutout and had to stop and get a picture!  I thought it was great that Brooke and I got to fly a plane together.  Brooke, however, just wanted to be back in her stroller.

When we got to Monica's parents house Brooke quickly took the the piano.

Then on Thursday it was Brooke's birthday.  Of course Brooke got snow on her birthday, just like she called in a blizzard for her birth!  We got a snow suit from Monica's sister the night before in anticipation of letting Brooke play in the snow, and good thing we did cause she loved it!  Also, it's a good thing we went out when we did because the snow melted by the end of the day!

While running around getting things for the party we happened to run into the WeinerMobile!  What a lucky birthday Brooke was having!  She didn't get to eat there though cause it was cold out and Monica immediately ran off into the store after I took the picture.

We got Brooke a balloon for her birthday which she enjoyed playing with.  It came with a clip on it so I just clipped it onto the back of her coat.  It was handy because you could see where she was even behind a couch!!

That night we had a party for her with many guests.  Brooke also got to eat cake!  She'd reach down for the cake and spread out her hand like she was going to take a HUGE handful of it, and then just rake over the icing and lick off her fingers...  She did end up eating some cake, but probably not that much when you consider the amount of frosting she had.

Then on Friday was Melanie's wedding (Monica's sister).  That was the real reason we were out, but it's nice everything else lined up too.  Melanie married Sarva, who if from India.  His parents made Indian clothes for everyone in the family for the reception, and they're pretty awesome.  Brooke looked SOOOO cute in her little dress!  Here we all are together.

And here's Brooke and I dancing at the reception.  Looks like Brooke is a dancer!  And she stayed up WAY past her bed time.  She usually goes to bed around 6-6:30, but she was at the reception until 7:30!!  We had to play with her to keep her happy, but I think everyone had a great time!  And congratulations and good luck to Melanie and Sarva!!

Saturday I flew back to Denver so I could go back to work.  I was on a very new or newly updated plane.  I've had many flights where the amenities of the plane claim that each seat has a USB port and an outlet, but this is the first time I've actually been on a plane like that.  I took a picture to show Monica how high tech it all looked, and figured I'd include it here.

And with that I think we're all caught up.  I hope everyone has a fantastic week and a great Thanksgiving!

p.s. Monica isn't here to proof read this... so sorry for any oddities.

Princess Party

Hello everyone!  I hope you all are doing grand!  Things are going well out here, at least during the day!  Brooke has really started loving her blankey lately!  She pulls it in close and sucks her thumb every night at bed time.  Sometimes we bring it down for her to play with during the day, and she'll just randomly flop down on it in the middle of the floor and suck her thumb for a while.

Last Sunday morning we went on a walk, but it was quite cold, so we had to bundle up together to go on the swings!

Brooke has started to pull out the DVDs... which is not the greatest because then we end up with this every day...

On Saturday we were out and about all over.  We went over to the mall to pick up some stuff Monica ordered online from Carter's, because shipping to store is free, but to home is not!  While we were there we were fortunate enough to find earmuffs!

Then we went to Brooke's first Birthday party!  Monica babysits for a girl named Eve a couple times a week, and Eve wanted to invite her best friend, Baby Brooke, to her party!  Eve told Monica once that Anna and Elsa were coming to her birthday.  Monica thought it was childhood dreaming, but shortly after we got there so did Anna and Elsa!  It was pretty cool, they did face painting for all the kids and even had some stamps for Brooke.  They played games and taught all the girls how to dance at a ball.  They did a really great job with the party and it was fun to watch all the girls learn to be princesses!

Also, if you didn't know, tomorrow (11/14) is the Super Moon!  It's a full moon and also happens to be at the moon's closest position in orbit.  So if you've been thinking the moon looks extra bright recently, you're right!  Last night you could see light spots on the floor where the moon was shining through windows in our house.  I tried to take a picture of the floor, but alas, eyes work better than phone cameras, and it was too late to get our nicer camera.  But here's a picture of the moon through the window!

Brooke has also become slightly cuddly, but only with dad.  When she's tired and I hold her she'll lean up on my shoulder!  Progress!

And with that we're all caught up!  Hope everyone is doing super!

Halloween, Part 2(nd place)!

Good day everyone!  I hope everyone is doing just swell!  Brooke has been a bit of a bad sleeper for the last little while (and by a bit of a bad sleeper, I mean a super bad sleeper!), but she slept much better last night!  So hopefully we're moving in the right direction now.  Due to her less than perfect sleep there were very many cranky times.  One day I asked Monica how things were going at home and I got the picture on the right with a note saying "This sums it up perfectly!"  But by lunch (and after a good nap) Brooke had turned it around!

To celebrate on Monday we busted out the Boo Berry!  I'm not sure I've ever had it before.  It was a fine cereal, but definitely not my favorite.  Guess we'll have to try a different "spooky" cereal next year.

For FHE we carved our pumpkins.  We've started trying to carve them very close to/on Halloween since 2 years ago we had initiative and we carved them early so we could put them out for decoration and they were collapsed and gross well before Halloween.  Here's Monica cleaning her pumpkin out.

But mine was much more goopy and gross than hers was!

And here are our finished pumpkins!  With candles to boot!

I don't know how Halloween was for everyone else, but I feel like it's starting to die down.  We did not get very many kids to come by our house this year.  I guess everyone is transitioning to trunk or treats and the like!

Monica got invited to a big time cookie competition for this weekend, so in preparation she started making different cookie recipes.  She made 5 different kinds of cookies, and I had to judge them and pick the best!

One morning when I got home from my run I was stretching out, and Brooke decided to join me!  Such limber calves!

In the night when Brooke wouldn't sleep I would sometimes go in and hold her for a while.  Then after she fell back asleep I would put her back in her crib.  Sometimes, however, I fell asleep in her chair!

Monica hit up that cookie party I mentioned before this weekend.  There were about 30 people there!  And guess what?!  Her cookies won 2nd place!  I'm so good at picking award winning cookies! And Monica's so good at baking them!  And now, here's a comment from Monica: ........

Well, with that I hope everyone is doing great out there!  Things are going well for us, and I hope you all have a great week!

Happy Halloween!

Hello everyone! I hope everyone is doing great! I think I mentioned that we had family pictures last Saturday.  We got the pictures back, and just look at Brooke!

 And here's a picture of us.  I really just picked a random one, and it looked like a good pick from the thumbnails, but it might not be the very best picture.  Really all of the pictures looked good though.  Thanks Chrysti Burton!

 This week we wandered on down to the city center.  They do a bunch of decoration for Halloween, and even had a little maze made of hay bails!  I was really excited to take Brooke through it, but they had bails over the top that you had to go under, and that just wasn't going to happen while carrying Brooke... maybe next year.  But they did dress up the statues where they could.  I think my favorite was this one of a guy showing a foot to a kid.

One of the restaurants was Harry Potter themed too!  It was a lot of fun to walk through and see all of the decorations.  They did a really good job!

 Saturday was our ward trunk or treat.  Naturally we went as Shawn, Juliet, and a pineapple!  We were the talk of the party and everyone loved our costumes!  We were told by a few people that if there were a best costume award we would get it.  We were also told that if there were a best chili award we would have gotten that too.  Considering I was the first overall male finisher at our 10K a few months back we need to enter more competitions! ;)

Today we wore Halloween colors for church, and just look how cute Brooke looked!  What a great baby! and she was so energetic at church too.  I just had to let her crawl all over the place or she'd go crazy!

 And here we all are together as a family!

As you may have noticed we're gearing up for Halloween full force!  We did some more decorating and we've got pumpkins to carve, so we're almost there!  I hope everyone is having a great week, and is ready to have a super Halloween.  Till next week... BOO!!!

A week without

Howdy powdy!  Hope everyone is doing well.  I can hardly believe it's already been another week!  Last Sunday we were up at my brother's house watching their kids so they could attend the temple dedication.  I don't really remember what time this picture was taken relative to me writing my blog post, so I may have already shared this, but it never hurts to be thorough. Brooke got tired while we were there and needed to take a little rest on the floor with her blanket and thumb.

Monica and Brooke left on Tuesday to go out to Utah to see Michelle, Monica's sister's new baby!  So after Tuesday I was home alone... well maybe minus that home part.  Taking them to the airport left me at work last Tuesday night, and on Wednesday we had mutual and basketball at the church.  On Wednesday I also got a flu shot at work.

 Also on Wednesday when I woke up to go running it was a balmy 28 degrees!!!  I did NOT have my super cold running gear ready, and the result of that run was a change to my Christmas list!

 But after Wednesday things slowed down and I had much more time at home on Thursday and Friday.  Brooke had been missing me a whole bunch so we called each other!  She'd get so excited to see me and yell out "Dada! Dada!"  It was really cute, and she definitely missed me a lot!  Good thing we have technology so I could keep in touch.

I also took advantage of Monica and Brooke being away to work on my 3d printer some.  It's been a long time since I tinkered with it, but it didn't take much work to get it running again. You can see it in action in my blog video album here (sorry for the background chatter, Brooke called).  It was pretty exciting to get it up and running, and I hope to start using it a little more.  The only real problem is that at the current moment I'm not really comfortable just leaving it running, and as you start to print larger objects you start getting into multi-hour print times... so hopefully I get comfortable with it soon.  I also want to try to get finer detail with it, as I wasn't too fond of the rough quality of my print, but maybe I just had too high of expectations...  we'll see.

Monica and Brooke returned on Saturday morning, but I was able to squeeze a run in the morning before they got back.  They were exhausted from the trip, so I put Brooke down for a nap, and then the same for Monica!  I then proceeded to fall asleep watching a BYU Volleyball game on the couch, so I guess I can't really complain about everyone sleeping!

And I think that catches us all up!  I hope everyone is doing swell and has an exciting week!

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.