lil' pumpkin

We had to take a roadtrip to Laramie today; Brecken outgrew his shoes and it's way too cold to be just hanging out in socks when he goes outside. We couldn't even shove his shoes on. So we needed to go to Laramie to buy some more for him today. While there, we stopped to see my sister and Ryan and take a few pictures of him in his halloween costume.

I of course had to take a few of Brecken, too!

semi-finals, baby!

Oh my gosh, what an exciting game we just witnessed! Saratoga WON, 26-20, against Tongue River! Tongue River was "picked" to win by the Casper Star-Tribune. Josh loves when they pick against Saratoga because Saratoga usually wins that week. It was a heart stopper, that's for sure- the last 2 minutes were especially intense. And the last 8 seconds- oh my gosh! Tongue River had the ball and threw a long pass and ALMOST got a touchdown to tie it up, then who knows what would've happened with the point after. What a heartbreaker it would've been to lose 27-26. LUCKILY, that didn't happen and we won!!! WAHOO!

The next game is in Big Horn. It will be Saturday, Nov. 3, at 1:00 p.m.

a world away from the world series

Josh and I, along with a gazillion other people, tried really hard to get World Series tickets. We were both online yesterday morning trying our darndest before we found out the whole server crashed! We tried again today with no avail. My dad was also trying- we figured if we all ended up getting lucky somehow, it would be OK to have 12 tickets because we surely would know people that would want to buy our extras! However, we don't have to worry about it, because like the other gazillion people, we couldn't get through the countdown page.

So sorry, we won't be asking any of you to join us at a World Series game. :) But how cool that our team made it- who knows how many more times in our lifetime the World Series will be just hours from us! GO ROCKIES!

home field advantage

Well the past 24 hours have been full of anticipation. We've been awaiting scores from around the state from football games last night and then the brackets to come out this morning. Saratoga tied for the conference championship, but it was a 3-way tie. We won against Pine Bluffs on Thursday so we were hoping for a Sundance loss to guarantee a home game in the first round of playoffs next week. Didn't happen that way- despite the 50 mph winds in Burns Friday afternoon, Sundance won. Hence the 3-way tie. We were all thinking we'd have to go to Riverside (Basin) next week, but then this morning we learned that we might be wrong about how the tie-breaker works. We thought the criteria might apply to all three teams, but then heard that they might just use the tie-breaker to figure out who would be seeded #1 in the conference, and then the tie-breaker would start over for the other two teams: Sundance and Saratoga. That would give us a home game. This is what we read on Sports Goulash:

Lusk, Sundance and Saratoga are all tied for first, and we know that Lusk wins that tiebreaker on the third criteria — strength of schedule. From there, we’re not exactly sure if the criteria starts over between Sundance and Saratoga or not. If so, Saratoga wins the tie with Sundance because of the head-to-head win. If not, Sundance wins the tie by having a higher strength of schedule than Saratoga.Our first projection had Sundance as the (3) and Saratoga as the (5). We’ve since changed that to reflect Saratoga as (3) and Sundance as (5). Sorry about the confusion.

So we waited all day for the news, and finally the brackets were posted. We get a home game! WHOO-HOO!!!!!!!! Josh spent the next hour on the phone. :) We are hosting Tongue River Friday afternoon. Wear your purple that day!!

Here are the 2A brackets for anyone interested... http://www.whsaa.org/stateevents/football/2a/bracket.asp

tired

Man, am I tired this morning. I drove to Pine Bluffs last night to watch Josh's football game with Peggy, the head coach's wife, and her 8 year old daughter and the 8 year old son of another coach. Brecken got pretty bored on the way over but slept the whole way home. I sure am glad Peggy was with me- she kept me awake on the way home! We didn't get back until 1:15 this morning. Yuck! 4 1/2 hours of sleep before coming to work isn't doing much for me today. Lucky Josh, with his 4-day schedule, got to sleep in with Brecken this morning. I had to wake them up to say goodbye when I left for work- I sure was jealous!

Josh's team won, 21-8! It was FREEZING cold though. The wind was howling hard. Luckily, there is a street that passed the football field that people can park on and watch from their cars. So that's what we did!

Now we need Sundance to lose to Burns this afternoon and we'll have a home play-off game next week.

adventures in babysitting

Brecken got to spend the day with his Aunt Annie and cousins Trevor and Karlee today. Loree's son was still sick so she wasn't taking kids today. Luckily Annie was here and she wanted to have Brecken over to her cousin Maria's house, where they are staying, for a play date. So today was the day. He had a great day playing with Karlee and Trevor and Maria's daughter Madison who is 2 months older than Brecken, and also Maria's preschool aged son, Geoffrey. Annie said he only cried when she turned on the vacuum cleaner. :)

Brecken gets to hang out with Aunt Annie tomorrow, too. Loree called Josh this evening and said Carter is still sick. I'm not excited about that- it's looking like we paid Loree $100 to watch Brecken for one whole day this week. A lady Josh works with sends her son to Loree also, and she told Josh today that she had a chat with Loree and said she's not paying her for any more days off. Loree's contract says she gets 4 paid days off, and she used her 4th one today, just since we've started there! So next week I think our check will be lower- docking tomorrow's pay and Friday's pay if she can't babysit on Friday too. Thank the Lord that Annie is here and is saving us!! The poor other teachers- they are paying double this week because they have to pay someone else to watch their kids! The science teacher Josh works with is new to town and today she didn't even know the lady that watched her baby- it's one of Loree's friends. How nerve wracking to have someone you don't even know, watch your baby!!

Anyway, when you read this, Annie, we REALLY appreciate you keeping Brecken for us!! How lucky we are that you are here in our week of need!

Brecken got his first haircut last night. Josh made me do it. Annie trimmed the back of his hair so he looks like a little boy now! I scooped up all that pretty curls and put it in a baggie so I can save it in his baby book. I was putting off getting it cut because once I did, he wouldn't be my baby anymore! He sure hated the clippers. Cried like they were slicing his head open the whole time. I think the vibrations on his head freaked him out. Poor kid. Afterwards, I was holding him and Annie picked up the clippers to put them away and he started crying again at the sight of them!

yay!

I took B to get weighed today after I got him this afternoon. I was hoping really hard that he gained more than 2 oz... and he did! He kept trying to wiggle off the scale and laughing really hard about it, but it finally centered on 18 pounds. Yay! A 14 ounce increase in a month. I was really happy. So was the nurse.

Josh got to stay home with Brecken today. Our babysitter called late last night and said that her son had a fever, but she'd call us in the morning. We didn't have a backup babysitter today- Deb works in Rawlins on Tuesdays and Jake had to go in to the Clinic today too. Loree never called, so I finally called her at 6:50 this morning. She said she was OK to take kids. Then she called 5 minutes later and said that Carter still felt warm so she was going to see what he felt like when he woke up. We didn't have that long to wait- Josh needed to get a sub ASAP. So he told Loree to forget about us today and he called in to work. I'll have to ask him when he gets home from football what the other two teachers that take their kids to Loree did today.

walk to d'feet

We participated in the Walk to D'Feet ALS walk in Fort Collins yesterday. My great-aunt Dorothy has ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) and her granddaughter puts together a team last year and this year to raise money and walk for this great cause. It was POURING rain yesterday, so it wasn't as much fun as it could've been. My sister went last year and it was perfect weather. Brecken didn't seem to mind the weather yesterday, he had on his winter coat and hat and mittens and was nice and cozy.

This picture is my uncle Earl, my aunt Dorothy in the middle, and her daughter Becky. It was on the CSU campus. I don't normally like CSU, but it was really pretty yesterday. Their leaves are just beginning to change colors. The loop we were walking in had green leaves, red leaves, yellow leaves, and peachy-pink leaves. How pretty!

another win!

Saratoga knocked off Burns this afternoon! Hip, hip, hooray!! We were the underdogs but we didn't even struggle, led the whole game. The score was 27-6. What a great homecoming for the kids, and an even better for those Seniors since it was their last regular-season home game. I think the win today made it official that we'll go to the play-offs. If it will be at home or away will depend on next week's score against Pine Bluffs.

men.

I think the most hilarious thing that has ever happened in one of my classes happened today. I was doing an activity with my 4th graders and our principal's son goes, "Mrs. Sandlian. You aren't supposed to make us guys' armpits wet!" Somehow, the discussion between the boys then turned to how boys don't sweat, men do. And at that moment, a normally very quiet, serious boy goes, "You guys, she's making men out of us."

I almost died from having to keep the laughter in!!

what a boy.

I picked B up from daycare today and Loree had quite the story to tell me! Apparently during his nap, Brecken managed to squirm out of his pants (not surprising since his pants are too big) AND his diaper! That has never happened before. She thinks she didn't put it on tight enough. Anyway, instead of waking up and leaving the diaper in the crib, he tossed it over the edge. That sounds like him- he tosses things he doesn't want anymore. I laughed though- what a boy thing to do! I told her I hoped it was an accident that he got out of his diaper instead of him figuring out how to do it on his own- that's a can of worms I'm not ready to open yet! :) He didn't mess with it at all tonight though, so I think it was an accident.

Josh wasn't on call tonight and Brecken was in a good mood so we tried to go out to dinner after Josh got home from practice. We tried our Mexican place and it was closed! So we went to the Saratoga Inn, and THAT was closed too! Wonder what the deal was. We ended up having to come back home and cooking a late dinner.

Josh has had a lot of heart calls lately. He had 3 on Saturday alone. The first one, the guy didn't want to go to the hospital, so they had him sign the forms to refuse transfer. As they were finishing, they got another call for a heart attack in Encampment. The people met the ambulance on the highway and the family was doing CPR in the car on the guy. They got him into the ambulance and continued CPR. The doctor in charge of emergency medicine was in Saratoga giving a class, so they called him to meet them in Saratoga. Josh pushed heart drugs for the first time ever, but it didn't matter. They lost the patient. :( I personally think the guy was gone long before the ambulance got there, but Josh sure feels bad about it. That was the first patient that he has lost. I felt bad that he was so sad. :( Then, late that evening, they had ANOTHER heart attack call. Good grief. This guy didn't want to go to the hospital either- they talked to his heart doctor in Casper and made a plan and didn't take him to Rawlins. Josh came home saying, "If that pager goes off again, PLEASE make it be for a broken arm!" :)

Busy week this week- it's Homecoming for Josh's team. Lots of practices and film watching and so on and so forth. This is the last home game of the regular season- here's hoping for a play-off game!

itsy bitsy spider

So here he is, the goofy itsy bitsy spider. I sure wish he would leave hats on, it completes the costume! (Not that you can see much of it as he is falling down the slide!)

win!

Josh called a little after 4:00- they won BIG against Pinedale! 39-0!! I knew they were going to because a guy at the game called the school this afternoon and that's what the score was when he called in the 4th quarter. :) Their quarterback had a record game for him with 6 touchdown passes. Now if Burns will beat Lusk and we beat Burns, we can be #1 in our conference!

So yesterday was so nice outside that I got home and put B in his Halloween costume to see if I could get pictures of him out in the leaves. He was not interested. He only wanted to play on his slide. It was HYSTERICAL. He'd crawl up, quite the feat in his fat round spider costume! Then he'd stand up and either go down the slide on his belly head first or belly feet first, and he'd go zooming down the slide. He was laughing so hard at times that he would fall down the slide. But in his rolly poly costume, it didn't matter because he'd be padded and he'd bounce a little bit, which would make him laugh even harder! I was out of breath from laughing so hard at him. What a goof.

a sleeping partner

Brecken has been an awesome sleeper for the past week or so. Hasn't woken up in the night. I put him to bed about 8:30 last night and shut his door all the way so the cats couldn't get in there. Josh and I went to bed about 10:00 and had just fallen asleep and Brecken cried. He fell back asleep but then about 5 minutes later cried again, harder. I went into the hallway and noticed his door had opened somehow- I must not have latched it all the way. Charlie was in his room on the glider, and I looked in the pack and play (where he sleeps now- he hates his crib for some reason) and curled up right next to Brecken was Ditka! It was so cute. Brecken didn't think so though- he wasn't awake, but he was crying and holding his arm up like he was saying, "HEY! There's something here that's not supposed to be and it's yucky!!" So I got Ditka out of there, put both cats in the hallway, and Brecken fell right back asleep (even though he really wasn't awake to begin with.) Poor Ditka- he loves Brecken and Brecken usually loves Ditka right back, but I guess he doesn't love his kitty when he's trying to sleep!!!

new picture spot

I was driving home from picking Brecken up yesterday after school, and as I drove down the hill, I noticed this beautiful old barn/garage that looks like it's about to fall down. The colors are really pretty though- the front is really weathered, more brown, but has a bit of green in it. The sides are more green. It was behind the house of a teacher I work with, so I asked her today if I could use it for pictures. It was probably the strangest question she's ever been asked at school, but she was really excited about it. I had to take Brecken down there this afternoon and take some pictures. When I picked him up from Loree's, he was in the greatest mood, laughing and playing peek-a-boo, but by the time we got down the hill, he didn't want much to do with the camera. I only got one semi-good one.

The sun was a little bright, causing bad shadows, and the other side of the garage was ALL shadow, so I'll have to find another time of day to use this garage. I'd love to get the green side of it!

aspen alley

This morning we got up and drove to Aspen Alley, on the highway past Encampment. We were a weekend too late, I think. There was several inches of snow up there and the aspen trees in Aspen Alley were dead and didn't have any leaves left. :( It was pretty with the snow and fog, but would've been breathtaking with the yellow leaves! Next year we will have to go a weekend or two earlier.

Some more pictures from our drive:

Here is the fog moving in. I'm glad I got pictures of this when I did, because on our way back you couldn't even see the lakes anymore!

football weekend

This weekend was busy with football. Friday afternoon Brecken and I packed up and went to Lingle, where Josh's team was playing. Saratoga won, 34-22. I really enjoyed sitting in their visitor stands- it was right there on the grass, in front of the track, so Brecken could get down and crawl and I didn't have to watch him like a hawk to make sure he didn't eat rocks! After the game Lennie served the boys dinner in the school gym. We didn't get back to Lennie's house until late- Brecken was soooo tired. It was 11:00 before we got there. Then we got up early on Saturday morning so we could go to Laramie for Josh's JV game there. It was cold and windy so I didn't stay for the whole game. My sister and Ryan were there too, so we left early and took the boys to lunch. We got home yesterday afternoon, and despite sleeping the whole trip yesterday, Brecken was TIRED. He fought hard to stay awake but finally gave in at 6:45 last night. He has never gone to bed that early! And he slept straight until 5:45 this morning. 11 hours is unheard of for him. He came to cuddle with Josh and I after he woke up this morning and then slept some more, until 8:30. He was one tired boy!

going home

So at this time on Sept. 26, 2006, I was at Kristen's apartment waiting for Josh to come get Brecken and I. I got to the hospital that morning, bright and early, just in case I happened to miss the pediatrician when he came for rounds before he went to his clinic. I didn't even bother to bring Brecken to his hospital room, I just hung out in the nursery with him, waiting, waiting, waiting. FINALLY Dr. Klep came and checked B out, and gave us the go-ahead to get out of there! I thought my face was going to burst with the big smile that was on there. I got Brecken dressed in his going-home outfit and took his "First Photo" picture that all newborn babies get when they go home. He was 2 weeks old by then, but we didn't get to get it taken when we were in Laramie originally because he was flown out of there.



Then the nurse got all our papers for me and helped me to David's car- he was on a business trip that week so I was lucky enough to have use of his car. (Even though technically I wasn't supposed to be driving for 4 more weeks due to my c-section- but what's a lady to do when she's by herself?!) It felt weird to be leaving the hospital with B in his car seat and me WALKING him out- most new mothers get to ride in the wheelchair. :)



It was cold that day, I remember that. We had to go to Wal-mart to get some things I needed for Brecken at home that we didn't have time to get before he was born, and then he and I hung out at Kristen's for the rest of the day. Josh had to work AND go to practice, because his boss wasn't being very understanding about the whole thing, so he didn't get to Laramie until late that evening. I was never so glad to see him though- I was beyond excited to be going home with our little guy! We stopped a couple times on the trip to make sure B was OK- he was, just sleeping and at one point was holding on to the blanket on his lap- we thought that was the cutest thing. :) The house was pretty quiet when we got home because the dogs were still at Craig and Lennie's house. I remember putting Brecken in his crib when we got home and he was SO TINY in that big huge crib.

Boy, how things have changed.

one year ago

One year ago, I was getting ready to feed Brecken my last feeding of the night before I gave him back to the nurses to keep in the nursery in Laramie for the night. I would head back to Kristen's apartment for the night, but I don't remember sleeping that much, because I knew the next morning we would be released from the hospital FINALLY! What an exciting night that was- knowing it was time to pack up our hospital room for the final time, get his going home clothes ready, and get ready for Josh to come get us and TAKE US HOME!!

drive

Josh went out on two ambulance calls today and had a coach's meeting this evening to watch film. I got bored at home so I loaded Brecken up and we went for a drive up the mountain a little way while the sun set. The colors are getting beautiful up there!