Christmas at the Warehouse

Here are some Christmas highlights from the Colorado Wares.
The child was nestled all snug in her bed, while visions of sugar plums danced in her head.

Making Christmas sugar cookies to deliver to friends and neighbors.

Dressing up warm to deliver aforementioned cookies to said neighbors.

Christmas Eve crab bake with the Davis family.

Christmas morning. It took her a little while to figure out that there was a reason to rip off the paper, but she sure enjoyed her presents.

She enjoyed all of her gifts, and played with all of them for the rest of the morning.

A special thanks to all the gifts we received, we are very grateful to have such loving and caring families to share (albeit long distance) Christmas with.

Naughty or Nice?

Santa's coming to town on Thursday night, but only if Brooke is being good. Here's the list that Santa is making to see if she is naughty or nice.

Getting into the bathroom drawers while Mom gets ready for church, naughty or nice?

Discovering how to get Mom's Ipod on and open, naughty or nice?

Ignoring mom, naughty or nice?

Putting on her hat and mittens and hoping to go out and play in the snow, naughty or nice?

We've now completed all of our Christmas checklist items, the gifts are bought and wrapped, we've taken part in the ward Christmas program, and we've consumed numerous offerings from friends and neighbors. We are looking forward to a week of anticipation and peace leading up to Friday.

One note on the Christmas Program, the final number was O Holy Night, and it was amazing. Tracie was playing the piano and we had the organ going as well. All that sound was a great cover for the choir, so we felt that we could sing loud. It was a great ending and left a great spirit with everyone for the rest of the day.

I'm In!!!

Call me crazy but I've already made a New Year's Resolution for next year. I'm running a half marathon. Yikes!!!! I was inspired from watching Biggest Loser and seeing the contestants that used to be 250+ pounds run a full marathon. I thought that if they can run a full the least I can do is run half. Also, about 5 1/2 years ago I was supposed to run the Moab Half Marathon but got sick during the winter and couldn't train so my gracious roommate, Erin took my spot. I don't think, wait, I'm absolutely positive that I won't be able to beat "my" previous time but my goal is to do it under 2 1/2 hrs. That's feasible, right?! Anywho, thought I'd let you in on one of my resolutions. Let the training begin!!!!

Brrr

It is currently a whopping 3 degrees outside and I think we've already reached the high for today. The low for tonight is -5. Can't wait.

Onto more exciting news, we finally got our Christmas tree and decorations up. I had been busy with my Relief Society Christmas dinner that I had not been able to get into the Christmas spirit. No worries now. The Christmas music has been flowing everyday since last Thursday and I'm actually, kind of enjoying the white pre-Christmas we're having. Brooke loves looking at the tree and every morning when she sees it she always has to say, "wow" or "whoa".

Within the last couple weeks Brooke has learned how to open screw tops, ziploc bags, pen caps, etc. That has made things really interesting. I usually shut the door while I'm in the shower and let Brooke have free reign around the bedroom. On Friday, while I was squeeging the shower door I noticed that it was a little too quiet. I called out to Brooke but heard no answer. Quickly toweled off and opened the bathroom door to find Brooke with a blue highlighter in hand. I didn't get a picture of her in the act but here is the evidence that she left behind. Somehow she managed to miss the walls (thankfully) and her face. What a silly kid.

Brooke has also taken interest to the goings on in the kitchen. She "helped" me bake some cookies yesterday and enjoyed the fruits of her labor...some chocolate chips.

Gobble, Gobble

We spent Thanksgiving with our friends Justin and Kristin. Tracie was in charge of making the apple pie, and she did a fabulous job. She hires out by the pie, and I hire out for my hair-tying-back skills!
We made good use of the apple peeler/corer, and it turned out delicious.



So did the rest of the food, and it was nice to not have to be concerned about weather and travel on this Thanksgiving. It was a relaxing holiday weekend, and we even had time to sneak in a little Black Friday shopping.

Brooke did great during the meal, despite being the only kid there. She ate olives and played with Remi, who has gotten more used to Brooke since the first time they met (and vice versa).

On Friday, Brooke put on her hat and mittens to protect against the chill while we put the lights up outside. We made quick work, though it wore Brooke out since she was falling asleep in her high chair during lunch.

Saturday we had Jen, Gavin, and Declan over for chili and the BYU-Utah game. You may recall (not likely) that they were last down for the BYU-Oklahoma game. The outcome and the food were just as good this time around, and Brooke enjoyed having a playmate during the game. Turns out we are quite the potent combination for a BYU victory!

On the football theme, I took Tracie on a long deserved date last weekend. We had dinner at the Old Stone Church here in town, after ironically fighting traffic due to the starlighting festival. Then we headed to the local movie theater to watch the Blindside. It was very good, with a very good story, and a must see for everyone, in my opinion.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!

GOBBLE, GOBBLE!!!!

Who Loves a Ham?!

We do!!!! Since Brooke hit her 15 month mark I figured I'd update y'all on what she's been up to.

She is a walking machine. Once she realized that she could walk she never turned back. She is all over the place. Her favorite places to be are the laundry room playing in Lexie's water bowl or in our bathroom turning the water on and getting her arms soaking wet. Hmm. I'm thinking I'm seeing a little trend here.

(Most current of her playing in the water. It's 5 months old. Sad, I know)

She's talking more...kind of. She can say thank you, bye bye, mama, dada, hi, no (her favorite word), and she can count one, two, three.

She's quite the dancer too. Although only one part of her body really moves when she hears music.

Brooke is very sociable and has not met a person that she does not like. She'll wave hello to a passerby in the parking lot. She'll walk in front of the room during Sunday School and proceed to walk down the aisle saying hello to people. She'll even want to be held by strangers if I let her.

(Not a stranger...she's my cousin, Susan, and her and Brooke hung out all evening when we were out in CA.)

She's very independent and will let it be known when she wants to do something by herself.

She loves goofing around with Troy and it seems that Troy can always get the good hearty laughs out of her.

She loves to draw with a pen and color with markers. Good thing Kristin introduced us to Crayola Wonder marks. (lifesaver)

Just in the past 3 months, Brooke has totally changed from a baby to a little toddler. I can't believe how fast it's gone and how quickly she has grown.

Brand spankin' new6 months oldHappy 1 year 15 months

Home at last

We love to visit friends and family, see new places, and have people come to Colorado, and it seems like in the past few months, we've done a lot of it. Despite the enjoyment of travel, sometimes it is nice to just be at home and relax, which we get to do until the end of the year. To reinforce this point, we were blessed with 8-10 inches of snow last night and this morning, which makes staying home and cuddling up as a family even better.

I spent this past week in Chicago and Columbia, South Carolina traveling for work, and then came home on Thursday to an empty house, since Tracie spent the week in Utah. I'm grateful that we have great parents, and siblings who are willing to open their homes to Tracie and Brooke, especially when I am traveling. It means a lot to them, and a lot more to me.

Before Tracie left, Brooke had her 15 month appointment on Tuesday. Here are the stats (percentiles): Head: 18 3/4" (90-95%), Height: 31 1/4" (75%), Weight: 21 lbs 5.5 oz. (25-50%)

Here are some pictures from the trip. Brooke playing with playdough at Will and Kristin's. Getting a piano lesson from Grandma. And a picture with Grandma, Grandpa, Jason and Sierra.

On Saturday's, Brooke and I spend some quality time together that usually involves BYU football. She doesn't always have the attention span for the whole game, but she enjoys wearing the attire!

Ooh...This Is Halloween

It feels like the end of October quickly crept up on us. As you can tell from our previous post, Denver got dumped on for a good 3 days. I think by the end of the storm we got close to 2 ft. of snow. All bundled up but can't play in the snow since we don't have snow boots yet. I'm sure there will be many more opportunities to come in the near future.But never you worry, Saturday and Sunday were in the upper 50s so there was also a lot of melting. The forecast for the end of the week even has us in the upper 60s so I would venture to say that the snow will be gone by week's end.
Troy's family came this past weekend to celebrate Troy's b-day and Halloween. The came in Thursday night and luckily the roads were pretty decent for them. Friday morning, the boys played out in the snow for a good couple of hours. The gals much preferred to stay warm so we stayed inside. Although I'm sure Brooke would have had a lot of fun sledding in our backyard. That night, Troy's parents and us went to see Wicked and it was wickedly entertaining. We had dinner beforehand at the Rialto Cafe then enjoyed the musical from our balcony seats. It was fantastic and I would definitely go see it again.
Saturday was a very busy day. We did a bit of shopping in the morning and Troy's little bros lucked out by getting new phones and being added onto our plans. (And they said that they had done all there was to do in CO). That afternoon we finally got around to carving our pumpkin. We originally had 2 but one of them was a little squishy from the crazy weather that we decided to leave it on the porch. I think our pumpkin turned out pretty good but unfortunately no pics were taken of it. :( Boo. The night before, our friends, the Steeles, took Brooke to our ward's trunk-or-treat and it was a great warm-up for Halloween night. Brooke was all set to go and knew what to expect. She didn't even let go of her bucket at all while we were out. Here she is checking out her loot. I would say we definitely fared well in the candy department. All in all, it was a fun and sugar filled weekend.