Christmas in a Nutshell

Our Christmas vacation started as expected...weather caused delays delaying our flight that was supposed to leave at 6 pm, then 7:40, then 10, 11:15, 12:30, then finally at 1:30 am. Luckily Brooke did really well. She is now at a point where she won't fall asleep in our arms and she loves to see what's going on so during the 9 hours we were at the airport she took 2 naps about 20-30 min. long each. By the time we made it out of the airport in Salt Lake she was completely zonked out. Saturday was a very chill day. We relaxed and slepted in then headed over to Grandma and Grandpa Burt's to watch the Las Vegas Bowl. Monday was the Ware Family Christmas party. It was fun seeing all of Troy's relatives that we hadn't seen since 2005. There were a ton of little kiddies running around. Tuesday we met up with some old friends for dinner. (Thanks Ashley, Steve, and Kalli!!!!) Wednesday was Christmas Eve and we opened presents from the Troy's family. We were even able to include Jer and Kenz via the webcam. That was pretty cool. Christmas day we another lazy and relaxing day. We opened presents from Santa then spent the rest of the day playing games or duets on the piano. Friday was the Burt Family Christmas party. And Saturday we met up with my family. Thankfully our flight back Sunday went smoothly and we came home to Lexie ready for some lovin'. We didn't take as many pictures as we wanted but here are some of the highlights.

We had Christmas at home the Friday before we left. Brooke liked her bow the most.

Troy did a photo shoot of Brooke with her new beanie Uncle Brett made. I think we have a future model on our hands.Ware family tradition - making sugar cookies and frosting them for Santa on Christmas Eve.


Brooke hit her 5 month mark Christmas Eve to and got to celebrate by eating peaches and green beans for the first time.Kristin and I learning how to dance to Wake Me Up by Wham. We were a sight to see. Luckily only Will and Troy were there.

Some Funny Things

Brooke has started to really enjoy her jumper. She can actually get pretty good air. It also helps that we have something underneath her feet. She's still about 1/2 in. shy of touching the floor. She has been somewhat lazy in there too. I found her all scrunched up resting her head in the seat and her legs curled up underneath her.

The other night I was feeding her rice cereal in her bouncer. She was super tired by the time she was done.

Lastly, I gave her the green pacifier that everyone gets from the hospital. I guess there's another meaning to having a green thumb!!!!

Ummm, it's really cold outside

So, all that warm weather we had in November was not excess warmth for the year, turns out we were just borrowing warmth from December. We are looking at overnight lows tonight of -14, but don't worry, we should warm up to 7 for a high tomorrow!

We got Brooke all warm to head to choir practice. Notice how cool she is with her collar popped! Props to Shane for getting the hat back to us in time for the cold weather.

We've had our tree up, and for the most part, Lexie has been content knocking an ornament or two off of low hanging branches (The proverbial low-hanging fruit). Well, now that there are presents under the tree, it opens up a whole new world of possibilities. This is how we found her this afternoon.

On the cuteness front, Brooke has discovered her feet and toes. She grabs them at any opportunity. She had tights on at church today, and proceeded to soak her left foot as she sucked her toes wet.

We must be getting close to Christmas, because it seems like we have some planned activity every night. And on nights were we don't have anything planned, like Thursday when Tracie brought cookies to the office and we went to Spaghetti Factory for dinner, the nights still seem to fly by (maybe because we spent forever getting home, I mean how much traffic can there be on a Thursday night at 7, when the weather isn't bad?). We are looking forward to the vacation starting on Friday, and hopefully Brooke will be ok on the flights and sleep well while we are there. At least we know that she will be a help around my parent's house while we are there!

Christmas Time is Here

Last week went by quickly. Monday we bought our Christmas tree. We decided to go with an artificial one since we would be gone for so long during Christmas. We got a great deal and I think it looks pretty real to me. We finally hung the ornaments on Saturday. Troy gave Lexie 2 days before she knocked some off. I gave her less than 1. Troy won. This morning I found a few strewn on the ground.

The week of Thanksgiving, Brooke started rice cereal. It's been going so so. She's really good at pushing the food out so I don't know how much she is swallowing. Here's a before and after shot. She has been doing a bit more tummy time. We haven't been really good about doing it and we want her to learn how to roll over completely. She's not a huge fan of it but hopefully she'll learn quickly.

She also has found her feet and loves playing with them. She even likes to suck on her feet!!!!

We bought her a beanie since the weather is getting pretty chilly here. We're looking forward to the ones that Grandma Ware and Brett are making her.

Last but not least, I had finished feeding Brooke and she had fallen asleep. Lexie didn't want to be left out so she decided to join us. Brooke wasn't a fan.

Saturday, Troy surprised me with a Day in Paris. I woke up to breakfast croissants and mmmm they were delicious. We put up the rest of the lights and ornaments on the tree then played a little Wii Fit. Apparently, Troy and I are not well balanced and the game asked us if we trip a lot. We had French Bread pizza but as a amuse bouche. They were also yummy. We headed to the mall to do a little Christmas shopping and people watching. Afterwards, Troy made me a delicious dinner of Cordon Bleu, vegetables du jour (as he liked to call it. It was zucchini), roasted potatoes, and for dessert...pumpkin souffle. We then went to a friends house to "play games." The guys watched the Missouri/Oklahoma game and the girls chatted. It was a ton of fun. Even Brooke decided that she would stay up way past her bedtime to socialize too. It was a great week and we're looking forward to spending more time with family next week!!!

Here for your viewing pleasure is Brooke finally getting the hang of her jumper thing.

Thanksgiving Week

We enjoyed the Thanksgiving holiday in Utah with family. We flew out on Tuesday night and flew back on Saturday. The airport traffic was light both days, so we would definitely recommend that schedule to anyone for Thanksgiving travel. We got picked up at the airport by my Dad and enjoyed dinner with my parent's on Tuesday night. I think my Mom got enough of a Brooke fix to last her until Christmas. Wednesday was a relaxing day at the Wu townhouse. Brooke started getting spoiled, and Jason and I put together a couple of glider chairs for Joanna.

Thanksgiving day Will and I went with Dan to play football with his family. It was fun to run around and trash talk like we were related! Dinner was at 5:30 and was really good. I always enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with Tracie's family, since the cuisine always has a few non-traditional dishes that keep it interesting. Friday Tracie and I ventured out mid-morning to do a little shopping. Lines were long at Kohl's, but we were able to get a lot of shopping done which will lighten the load we have to bring in December.

That night we joined Aunt Christina and Uncle Ho for a seafood banquet at the SLC Chinese restaurant. It was quite delicious. Saturday morning we had breakfast with Shane and Heather and then hung out with them and the kids afterwards. We had hot pot for lunch and then saw Grandpa and Grandma Burt before heading to the airport. Brooke was pretty good on the trip, considering her entire schedule was thrown off.

Here's Brooke and Sierra. That's not just the angle, Brooke has a bigger head.

Here is Brooke, with Ryleigh (middle, daughter of Dan and Rachel) and Millicent (left, daugther of Tami and John, from Thanksgiving evening.

We got home to a small dusting of snow on the ground, and then were treated to an additional 6-7 inches this morning/afternoon. I guess we are ready for Winter to start!

Gobble, Gobble, Gobble

Last week seemed like a somewhat busy week. I had Activity Day with the 10-11 year old girls. It was a lot of fun. I helped them make Thanksgiving Turkeys. It took forever to get all of the supplies and assemble the bodies but I think the girls really enjoyed it. Saturday, we ran some errands in the afternoon, watched the BYU vs. Utah game (Boo), Starlighting festival, saw Santa, and went to the and went to a friend's 30th birthday party. Are we really getting that old? I guess Troy's 2 years shy of turning the big 3-0. :) Brooke did great with Santa. I figured that this would be the only time in the next few years that we'll be able to get a picture of her with Santa without her crying.

She's really not crying in that picture. It just took forever to try to get her to smile so I just took the picture.

Brooke had her 4 month check up today. I can't believe she's already 4 months. In the last month, she has started babbling more and more especially in the mornings I can hear her talking in her crib. She also loves to sing along with you. She still loves her crab and also loves to yank out her pacifier even when she doesn't want to. She still won't roll over completely but she can rotate in a circle on her back. It's kind of funny. The other night I found her in her crib perpendicular to how she started. Silly girl. She loves loves her fingers and she has just found her thumb. Uh oh. Not sure what to do there since I can't always take it out. Hopefully it's just a phase. :) Here are her stats:

Weight: 12 lbs. 13 1/2 oz. (25-50%)

Head: 16 1/4 in. (50%)

Height: 25 in. (75-90%)

I'm not sure where her height came from but I'm not going to complain. The doctor gave her the go ahead on rice cereal so we'll be giving it a try tonight. I'm excited to see how she'll do.

Brand spankin' new 1 month
2 months
3 months
4 months - You can check out pics of her and Santa. :)

Anywho, I know both Troy and I are excited to see family this week. But I have a feeling the the grandparents are more excited to see us. Oh wait, I mean Brooke. :) Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Gobble, Gobble!!!!!!

Flakes, Falcons, Fighter Jets and Football

On Thursday I left for South Carolina for a business trip, leaving Brooke and Tracie to enjoy the first snow of the season. Tracie reports that we received 2-3 inches down here, and she even made sure it stuck around so I could see it when I got back on Friday night.
The big event of the weekend was the BYU - Air Force football game on Saturday. We ended up with a group of 11 that went down with us. We dropped Brooke off at Jenni's house, our next door neighboor, so that she could get her "baby fix". We headed down early to take part in the BYU Alumni Tailgate party. The food was good, and despite the fact it snowed the day before, it was pretty nice in the sun.


Our seats were a few rows from the top on the southwest side of the stadium. It was cool to see the parachuters land before the game, and the flyover was awesome. Had we given it some forethought, we would have video taped it. I guess you'll just have to make jet sounds when you look at the picture. :)

As you can tell, we fell into the shadow of the stadium by about halftime. With out the sun, it was a wee bit cooler. Luckily all the rising and shouting in the second half, and some well-worth-it hot chocolate got us through to the end of the game. The Cougars pulled out the victory and are now poised to ruin the Utes undefeated record!

Today, Brooke looked cute at church. According to Tracie, she is quite popular, and gets lots of looks for her smiles, or even an occasional loud belch! After choir practice this afternoon (Tracie is the accompanist) she got passed around to all the ladies. She usually rewards them for their attention with alert eyes and a bright smile.

This one's for you, Matt.

As of this time next year, Troy hopes to be done with all of his exams. As of this time next year, I hope Troy is done with all of his exams but still gets to keep his study days. Troy took his 3rd to last exam this last Wednesday and we went out to celebrate to Red Robin. We also celebrated the fact that election season is over and no more political ads. Hip, hip, hooray. Besides that not much happened this week. Yesterday we ran some errands and decided to buy Brooke a jumperoo. She's a little on the short side but as you can tell, she really liked it.

We had Stake Conference today. We walked to and from and it was a really nice day. Brooke really enjoyed being out. It's true what they say, once you have a kid, you can't really pay attention to the speakers. I really have no idea what any of the speakers spoke about. The same with General Conference which is why I'm grateful that this month's Ensign has all the talks. Here is a pic of Brooke before church.
Here is one afterwards:

Weekend Update

You've already got an idea of what we did this week from pictures Tracie posted, so here are some of the stories you may not have heard of. Most importantly, Tracie and I both finished our mail-in ballots and dropped them off on Friday (Brooke even has the sticker on her car seat to prove it). If only we could now notify the TV stations so we don't have to watch any more political ads! Halloween night we met up with Robyn, Aaron and Sherri for a lovely dinner at Cinzetti's. Much more satisfying than handing out candy.

Tracie made me a pumpkin pie for my birthday. It was delicious, nutritious, and gone today. The flames from the candles were much more tame this time around! Tracie also got my a tie, some lounge pants, a new wallet, and a Mario/Sonic Olympics Wii game. I'm excited to fence Tracie.

We made cupcakes for my birthday to take to work. Also delicious, not quite as nutritious! Brooke is also a big fan of her fingers. Here is her caught red handed.

Lastly, here is Auntie Sherri with Brooke. I think it was a good preview for when her two new grandkids arrive next Spring.

Ok, really lastly, Tracie and I were able to go to the temple on Saturday to watch one of the couples in our ward go through for the first time. We had to leave before the sealing to come home and get Brooke, but it was really cool to be a part of.

Happy, Happy Halloween (mwaha)hahaha