Happy New Year!!

Hello all and happy new year!!  I hope everyone had a great week and set some really good resolutions.  Monica and I went over our resolutions from last year and set new ones for the year ahead.  I'd say things went pretty well in 2017.  I at least partially accomplished my goals for the previous year, but there were also some unexpected curve balls in there such as finishing the basement!  Anyway, I'm healthy again because it was back to work for me this week!  And things were good around here this past week, though the week did go pretty fast.  We are scheduled for a C-section on Thursday (1/11) so the baby will be born sometime this upcoming week!  So look for an extra exciting post next week!  That said, we spent time this past week trying to make sure everything was ready and awaiting Gram's arrival on Saturday!  Phew, she made it before the baby!!

Brooke has been great this past week, and apparently is going through a shoe phase.  One day while we were working on dinner Brooke came walking in wearing Monica's boot!

We got out our car seat for the baby and washed everything.  Jelly was grateful to have a new place to nap!

She really loves to snuggle into places like that!  In fact, today she took a nap in the car seat next to one of Brooke's stuffed animals.

Brooke again returned to her shoe craze and decided it was time to put on daddy's shoes.  I got some new shoes this past week because my old ones were REALLY old, and before I threw away the old ones she put them on. She also usually gets one shoe on the right way and one backwards.

Monica's mom sent us a new noise maker/light for the new baby.  This one is a butterfly.  Brooke has really liked it and always wants to play with "the music".  When she first got it I handed it to her and she pulled out the wing and said "blankie!" and then put her elephant finger puppet on it.  I don't know if she's realized it's the same as her elephant that makes music, but she sure loves to play with it.

Brooke continues to love books, and has started to memorize many of them!  She loves to "read" them to us, and in fact, is currently reading Papillon to Monica and Gram as I'm writing this.  She loves to say all the words on the page, though Monica and I were talking about it, and I don't think she knows it's all words.  I think she is actually memorizing the sounds instead of a bunch of words, at least for some books/pages.  We think this because she doesn't pronounce the words in the book as well as she normally does.  Either way it's pretty incredible all of the things she's memorized!  She knows a whole slew of books, the ABCs, can count to 13 plus 18 and 19, and loves to look at scripture story pictures.

As mentioned before, Gram came out Saturday to take over parental duties for Brooke whenever the baby comes.  Brooke loves to read all of her books with Gram and show her all her favorite games.  It's been a lot of fun!

Today at church in Elder's quorum we had our first council.  We talked about Priesthood blessings.  I'll admit that when I first heard the topic I wasn't really sure how we were going to have a council about it, but it worked out awesome!  We talked about the specifics of how to give a blessing, and then we talked and shared stories about times we'd given blessings and how we felt and how we can be ready and prepare.  I think one of the best parts was that while we talked I reflected on past times when I had given or been part of blessings and there's a great spirit that comes with that.  It was wonderful to feel the Spirit confirming those past spiritual experiences.  The Priesthood is a wonderful blessing for us all!  I am so grateful for it and the opportunity to hold it and always be available to bless my family in times of need!  I am grateful for the gospel and the strength and comfort it provides!  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Merry Christmas!

What a week.  I had the week off, so I've been home with Monica and Brooke all week!  Also, I woke up sick on Christmas morning again.  New Christmas tradition!!  I've been working through it all week.  It started as a sore throat, worked into chest congestion, and is now slowly dropping into nothing.  Today is the first day this whole week I haven't taken medicine.  In other news, Brooke and I also spent a good deal of time at the park this past week on the warmer days.  We even took snacks and had a picnic at the table!

Last week we were getting our house ready for Santa to come, so of course we made cookies!  We even snuck a few to make sure they were good (they were!!).  Brooke had fun and was super excited for Santa to stop by.

On Christmas morning Brooke was very excited to come down the stairs.  Just look at the curiosity on her face!

She was very excited for her presents, and loves that double stroller.  If she had it her way that would be the stroller we took everywhere....soon enough!  I have taken her on a few walks around the block with it and a stuffed animal in the seat next to her.  She really likes that.

As Brooke unpacked her stocking she made sure she lined up everything one at a time.  Don't want anything to get lost!

Jelly got some new fish toys, and also loved the stroller.  She spent much of the morning laying in the basket under it, and a little time in the seats.

I was lucky enough to get this awesome sweater from Brooke.  She picked it out herself!  If you can't tell, yes that is cats pulling Santa's sleigh.  She was so excited for me to open it, and I wore it all day.  It was funny when I opened it, but to be honest, the more I see it the more I like it.

As mentioned above, Brooke loves to be in the stroller with her animals!  If this had been all we had done this past week it probably would have been the perfect week for her.

I also got a really good video of Brooke opening presents.  When she got really excited she'd yell out "Oh Honey!!"  It was really cute and it was a lot of fun to watch her open her presents!  She has just been the cutest little girl lately!

After we opened presents at home on Christmas morning we headed over to Tyson and Tina's house for the rest of the day.  It was so much fun to be with family and celebrate Christmas together.  We had a lot of fun catching up, and playing games.  It's great to have family close by!

In our many park visits this past week Brooke made a come back to the swing.  She hasn't really gone on normal swings before, but we gave them a try this week and she loves them!  She's very good about holding on to the chains tight and has started to let me push her higher and higher.  She also kicks her legs to help her keeps swinging!  She also loves when I swing next to her, which is great because the swings are probably my favorite thing to do at the park.

Brooke also decided to start experimenting and climbed up the front of these bouncy things.  She also went down the small slides at the park and came off the end right onto her feet!  She's finally starting to grow into the park!

Yesterday morning (Saturday) we asked her what she wanted to do and she said she wanted to go to the zoo!  We checked the weather, and while it was about 20 degrees at the time the high was 59, so we thought it was a great plan!  When we got there the parking lot was empty!  And so was the zoo!  It was pretty nice to not have any crowds anywhere.  I guess we got a bad weather report though, because it was COLD!!  When we got home and I looked at the weather again the high for the day had dropped to 40!  It's a good thing we packed the warm clothing we did because it was just enough for us to hop between indoor exhibits.  The zoo had just enough for use to work our way all the way around, and by the time we got to the end it was getting warmer too.

Brooke loves to push her own shopping cart now when we go to the store.  We always have to get her a little card and she chases Monica everywhere!  She also backs up against the shelves from time to time to let people by and sometimes grabs things from the shelves.  She a lot of times grabs things from the shelves when those things are macaroni and cheese, her current favorite food!

We also bought some shoe laces for Jelly to play with this past week.  She always loves to play with mine when I untie my shoes, so I figured we should get her some as we don't have many things we can use to play with her.  She loves them, and so does Brooke!

Today I taught the lesson in gospel principles and while I was bearing testimony about the Atonement of Christ I received a witness of the truth of the the things I was teaching.  I am so grateful for the Atonement, and that Christ suffered not only for our sins, but all of our pains, sickness, discomforts and trials.  He always understands how we are feeling, and always wants to help us when we are struggling.  I know this is true and I know Christ loves us all.  I love Him too.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Christmas Eve!

Hello everyone!  Sorry I missed last week.  I had some meetings and stuff at the church, and then I don't think Brooke took a nap that day and there goes all my free time!  It's been a good two weeks, and definitely packed with Christmas!  Last week my work had a children's Christmas party with Santa, and Brooke got an Elmo!  She loves it.

She even did well with Santa!  We explained that he would bring her presents and he was very nice and she was pretty excited to sit on his lap.  To quote her, "Santa never hurt you!"

Elmo quickly became a member of the family, and Brooke has done a great job taking care of him.

We got some paper towels at Costco, and Brooke took half of them out when we got home.  This left some space for Jelly to climb in and have some fun...  I kept a close eye on her to make sure she was safe and put it away after, but not before she climbed in and tried to get a good look around.

We went to the library last week, and to my surprise they have cow seats.  Brooke loves them.  It looked like they were supposed to be put away, but one was out and just up high, so I pulled it down for her.  She had a lot of fun riding her cow!

We also headed back to down town Parker to check out the lights.  We planned to go back sometime since everything was just so crowded during the tree lighting.  We had a lot of fun and even got some frozen yogurt!

They decorate all along main street, and they even decorate the statues.

They also have a bunch of inflatable Christmas things, such as a dinosaur with elves sliding down it's back.

And there's also a permanent fork with mac and cheese!  Our town does a really good job getting kids into fine art.

Jelly continues to drink in the sink like there's no tomorrow.  Sometimes when we're just by a bathroom she'll jump in and lay down in the sink.  I guess it works because when I see her in the sink I turn on the water for her.

We made Christmas cookies to take to people.  Brooke picked which cookie cutters to use, and then she decorated a whole bunch of them.

In preparation for some snow storms that were coming this weekend we got out Brooke's snow clothes, and promptly dressed up bear in them.  Brooke really loves her boots and mittens, and don't call them anything else, because they are boots and mittens (not shoes and gloves).

Our next door neighbor got a puppy for Christmas, and yesterday when we were coming home from the store they were outside trying to teach it to go to the bathroom.  Brooke was so excited and the puppy even ran over to her!  I think Brooke will really like having a dog next door, and hopefully she'll be able to play with it from time to time.

Jelly sure loves to drink water!  Watching her you'd think she didn't have a water dish.  Maybe she just really loves fresh water.  Every time I fill the tree stand she jumps in there to get a drink!  She even comes into the shower with me in the morning so she can drink water when I'm done!

Brooke and I went out to play in the backyard last night and it was pretty cold. Brooke kept saying her mouth was cold so when we finished we all came in to have hot chocolate!  Brooke's favorite part was probably the marshmallows.

Today when we got to church the choir was up singing.  We sat in our seats and they started a song and Brooke said "No that song, sing 'Trim up the Tree'!"  That's the song the whos sing in How the Grinch stole Christmas while they decorate, and yes, we did watch that movie with her this past week!

When we got home from church we grabbed a quick picture together while we were all in our nice Christmas clothes.

Then we went outside to make a snow man!  I believe this is Brooke's first.  The snow was packing together pretty well, up to she size of about a standard snow ball.  Anything larger and it would just explode into pieces, so it took a while to build the snow man, and then to rebuild it after we stuck in arms and a nose!

Brooke loved it, but the sun was in her eyes... so it was hard to get a great picture.

After the snowman, we went sledding in the front yard, which consisted of me pulling Brooke around on her sled.  We did a whole bunch of circles in the front yard.

And with that, I should probably go help Monica in the kitchen!  Christmas food isn't going to make itself!

In this Christmas season I want to share my testimony with everyone that I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior.  I know he loves all of us, and I am grateful for this time of year where we can focus on His birth.  I am so grateful for the Atonement, and that through repentance I can return to live with Him and God again!  I know He lives.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Finished Framing the Basement!

Hello everyone!  I hope you are all doing well!  Things are good out here, and we're definitely getting into the Christmas spirit!  This past week Brooke's dreams finally came true and we made our ginger bread house kit (or as she says, ginger bread man house!).  It had been sitting on the fridge for a while, and she's been begging to do it for about a week, and we kept forgetting, but we finally got it out last Sunday.  We got one of the kits with 4 mini houses and we let her do her own, with a little help to make sure the walls were standing :).

Brooke continues to love to raise her stuffed animals.  Here she is feeding Foxy.  Foxy is of course dressed in his pajamas, and sitting in his chair ready to eat some cereal.  Brooke is even kind enough to help with the eating so Foxy didn't spill on himself!

Back to the ginger bread houses, here's Brooke's final product.  I took a lot of pictures of her next to it, and she is not looking at the camera and smiling in any of them!  But this one was still pretty cute.  She did a good job and she picked the candy and where she wanted to put it.  We helped put down the frosting for her.

Brooke made hers just before bed, and then after she went to sleep we made the rest of the houses.  Here is our finalized village!  Monica made the one next to Brooke's house in the front.  We both did the teepee looking one, and mine is in the back.

Monica also made a wreath for our front door from the branches we had to cut from our Christmas tree.  She likes to do this each year, and I love it because we get a free wreath.  And they always look really good!  We might invest in a little light strand for it one of these years, I think that could be fun to have, but I'm not the wreath engineer...

For those of you who didn't know, the 7th was dress like your phone day, and Monica celebrated in full force!  When I came home from work and saw her sweater I immediately thought of her phone and had to take this picture!  It may have been coincidence, but it's still awesome!

Friday night we made reindeer ornaments for our tree with Brooke.  I didn't take pictures of the process, or anyone else's final results... but here's my reindeer!  We got everything to make them last year and just somehow never got to it.  Sadly, the pine cones didn't still smell like cinnamon this year!

As mentioned in the title, I finished framing the basement this past week.  My dad is coming out today and I took Monday off work so we could work on the basement, and I wanted to be able to work on things like wiring and plumbing, so I spent a good chunk of time making sure I had all the framing done.  In fact, for date night on Friday, Monica and I went down and I drew out the whole plan on the floor of the basement and measured how long all the walls were, etc.  It was definitely a good plan because there are a lot of 45 degree angles in these walls, and I don't think I would have done it right if I went wall by wall!

Here is a picture of the framed out bedroom.

And here's a shot of the closet for the bedroom.

Here's the laundry area now that the framing is finished.

And here's a picture of all the fun framing around the vents I had to do.  We have the privilege of having a lot of low ceilings!  Yay!  Fortunately it's the worst in the hallway, and other than that it's next to the walls of rooms.

Here's a picture of the hallway leading into the open room that's been in pictures before.  The hallway will have a closet in it on the left side.  That's where we're planning to move our board games, as well as having other toys on the lower shelves.  We anticipate this room being a play area for the kids, and we'll probably spend a lot of time down there once the basement is finished.

And here's a panorama of the basement from inside the hall closet.  Why from inside the closet?  Because that's the location I took all the other panoramas from!  I don't think these panoramas will be as exciting once drywall is up... but at least everyone will be intimately familiar with our closet!! :)

Saturday night was Christmas party night.  It was our ward Christmas party and my work Christmas party!  We wanted to go to my work party because we don't get many chances to do fancy things.  Fortunately some friends in the ward were willing to take Brooke with them to the Ward Christmas party and them come put her to bed until we got home.  Brooke had a lot of fun dancing and even sat on Santa's lap and got a candy cane!  The Bentley's said she was great the whole night, and went right to bed.  I think we might need to start getting a baby sitter every night!

We also had a good time at my work party.  My name got drawn and I got to go unwrap a present.  I got a Southwest gift card!  So that was awesome!  Good thing we went.  The dinner was great, and we sat next to a guy that I'd worked with a little this past year and got to talk with him and his wife.  We had a lot of fun talking together!  The dinner was great, and so were the desserts, and shortly after dessert we headed back for home!

All in all it was a great week!

Today in Gospel Principles the lesson was about the final judgement.  The teacher shared a part of a talk from Brad Wilcox talking about the atonement.  Bro. Wilcox talked about how grace completely fills the gap between us and God and that our works in no part save us.  Instead, our works are meant to show our gratitude to Christ for his atonement, as well as to help us learn how to live a Celestial life.  I am so grateful for the atonement, and that Christ has paid for our sins.  I am grateful that we can return to live with God and Christ again.  I am so grateful for the gospel, and for all of the benefits it has provided me through my life.  I share these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.