School's Out for the Summer!!!

I took my exam on Friday, and hopefully there will only be one more! Results in about two months. So between me studying all week, and Tracie feeling under the weather most of the week, there wasn't much excitement this week. Good thing we have Brooke to liven the place up! She is eating more 'real' food, and loves to suggest that you share with her.

She's crawling all over the place, and will scoot around chasing balls (and Lexie) around the kitchen and living room.
She got her first tooth. Can you see it? I promise you it is there, but not suprisingly it is still small and Brooke is less than willing to allow the papparrazi in for a close-up.

She's learned from Lexie how to harrass Mom while she reads the Sunday paper. The most interesting section is always the one that you are currently reading.
Lastly, she's discovered her nose, and laughs hysterically when she shoves her finger in up to the first knuckle.

Almost There

Can you believe that in 3 more months little Brooke will be a year?! She went in for her 9 month well baby check and here are the results:

Head: 18 in. (90-95%)

Height: 27 3/4 in. (50%)

Weight: 17 lbs. 1.5 oz. (10-25%)

I'm not too surprised that her noggin is in the 90-95th percentile. I bought her a little sunhat that's for 12-24 months and I'll be lucky if she makes it through the summer with that hat. Some of the things that she's been up to are:

Crawling all over the place. She's so quick that her pants fall off!

Likes to eat but loves to make a mess out of her food

Likes to play with her toys but also likes Lexie's too. Good thing Lexie is so willing to share.

Loves bath time.

Loves to babble all the time.

Majority of the time her tongue is sticking out.

Loves to blow raspberries.

Likes to make fishy faces.
Is super flexible.

Can wave hi and bye.

In other news, I caught a cold bug and for some reason I've broken out in hives. It's been a lot of fun. When I went in for Brooke's doctor's appointment, I asked him about it and he said that what I had was probably viral seeing as I had a bit of a cold and it could last a few days up to a few weeks. Let's hope it's the former.

Also, my good friend Megan has come to visit for the weekend. Hopefully we can convince her that Colorado is a great place to live.

We should have plenty of May flowers

Well, we got some snow this week. It started Thursday night, after being overcast and drizzly all day. It finally ended on Saturday evening at some point. I'm not sure what the official count total was, but it was up close to my knee stepping out in the back yard. I'll let the pictures do most of the taking.
Here is the deck on Friday at about 3 in the afternoon.

Same spot, at 8 in the morning on Saturday. The snow would come heavy for an hour or two, then trickle off, then pick back up. By Saturday it had turned to rain in most other parts of the state.

We ventured out Saturday morning while Brooke was napping to play in the snow. Tracie had me "throw" her out into the snow to make a snow angel. She even had time to catch snow flakes!

This is our neighbor's water feature. It was running at an all time high today (It was 60 and sunny).

The sledding from the top tier was much more successful this time around. I had started a track on Friday when I went out to shake off the trees. And by Saturday, it was a smooth as a bobsled run(?)

Tracie went over and over again. She realized just how fun it can be! We just need about 20 inches of snow to make it work!

We even made a snowman, which was pretty difficult with the really wet snow.

Sadly, Mr. Snowman didn't make it through the night.

He looks better from afar.

Here is an action shot of the sledding run. We're working with the Olympic committee to use it for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Denver.

Happy Easter!!!!!

This week went by incredibly fast. Maybe too fast. Last Wednesday both my parents and my brother and his family flew out here to spend Easter with us. It was a pretty low key weekend but it was definitely nice and relaxing to have grandparents, cousins, and an aunt and uncle to keep Brooke entertained. Thursday we stayed home and played the Wii. We bought Will and Kristin Ravin' Rabbids for Christmas and it was a lot of fun to play.

Friday, Kristin and I decided to make these delicious Dulce de Leche cupcakes. They were a bit time consuming but it was all worth it in the end. If you want the recipe let me know and I'll email to you. We also did a little bit of shopping at the Outlets.

Saturday, the Meadows (the subdivision we live in) was hosting an Eggstravaganza so we thought we'd check it out. Parking was a little ridiculous so we opted to walk from our house which proved to be the right decision. It was crazy windy but I think the kids walked away with a good amount of eggs. That night after the kids went to bed we hid eggs downstairs for them to find in the morning. We also played more of the Wii and my parents even got into it.

Easter morning, Jason and Sierra had a blast searching for the eggs and even more fun when they realized that there was good candy inside.Brooke even got into the action but no pics of here. That afternoon, after church, we even had a grown-up easter egg hunt. Troy hid 40 eggs in the basement and got to watch us search for them. Checking out our loot afterwards. I think we ended up throwing away all the candy that was inside them. They were gross.I think if we have family here during easter we'll have to make it a tradition. All in all the weekend flew by and it was a ton of fun being with family. Brooke even started to cry as I was pulling away from the airport after dropping them off.

In other news, I think Brooke has gotten the scoot down and she's pretty quick at doing it...as long as there's food in front of her.

Good morning Sunshine

This is how Brooke greets you after a nap or in the morning. All you have to do is sneak in on your hands and knees, and she can here you coming.


Any guesses as to what Brooke's next milestone will be?

Signs of Spring?

While the snow continues to fall and make us wonder if spring will ever really come, we have been able to keep ourselves entertained here in the last week of March and first week of April. On Thursday night, we had our friend Polly over and her kids, since her huband was out of town. Her twins are now almost 2 months old, but they are still very tiny. They ended up just sleeping in their car seats the whole night, but we enjoyed their company.

On Friday night, we had my Presidency and their wives over for dinner. Tracie was a wonderful hostess and made lasagna, garlic bread, and a home made apple pie. They were all very delicious, and it was fun to get to know everyone better.

The big sign of spring is that of new life, and we have been able to enjoy meeting little Tayor Powell. Tracie and Brooke went over on Thursday afternoon to keep Robyn company before the birth. I'm sure that Robyn was glad that they don't come out as big as Brooke!!

Then Friday, Tracie and Brooke went back to meet Taylor for the first time. Brooke wasn't sure what to think about holding her, but she got happy when she saw Taylor. I'm sure this is just the beginning of their time playing together. Today we went back to the hospital and spent some more time with the Powell family. We are so happy for them, and can't wait to watch little Taylor grow up!