brooklyn paige

Here she is, all 7 lbs, 10.5 oz of her! She has a TON of black hair and I think she looks nothing like Ryan did.

Here's a comparison:
Ryan on the top and Brooke on the bottom:

it's a girl!!

Brooklyn Paige, born at 4:49 p.m. today. No weight and height info yet, but Kristen says "She's fat, compared to Ryan!!"

Update to follow...

laramie

I am in Laramie, as my sister is being induced this morning. I came over yesterday afternoon and joined my mom, who has been here since Friday. Sometime today, I'll be able to share pictures of my new niece!!

I went to Walmart last night and found some shoes for Brecken. He only owns Crocs right now and those just won't do when it gets colder out. However, the toddler shoes were all too small! The 6's would've fit for now, without socks, and I didn't want that. So we had to go to the BOYS section and bought size 7. I almost cried because now I'm shopping in the boys section for shoes and not the toddler section anymore. Here's my son- he can fit in size 3-6 month shorts, but has to go to the boys section for shoes. Oy.

"panes"

Yesterday Josh and I took B and my nephew Ryan to Cheyenne to see the Thunderbird air show. It was a great time! B LOVED it. He's very much into planes these days and every time one went by, he'd go, "WHOA!!!!!!!!!!" It was a great day.

you

Brecken likes to look at all our pictures, and can name some people in them. He of course always knows Mommy and Daddy and will point them out to us. So after he gets done naming them, we ask point to him in the picture and ask who that is. He always answers with "Baby". To which we reply, "No, that's YOU!"

Here's how the conversation went yesterday:

Me: B, who is this?
B: Daddy!
Me: And who is with Daddy?
B: Mommy!
Me: And who else is in there?
B: You!

Took me a second to fully comprehend what he was saying- but there it was. He understood what we've been telling him. Just not in the right way! I guess instead of saying "It's YOU!" we'll have to switch to "It's Brecken!"

:)

same ol' same ol'

My sister keeps telling me that I need to update my blog. So here we go. Nothing TOO exciting happening, just the same ol' same ol'. We now have th living room walls and trim painted (goodbye, pink walls!!) and the new curtains hung (goodbye, pink vertical blinds!). Now we need to paint the kitchen and the upstairs will be done being painted! YAY!

We are waiting for our furniture to be delivered for the upstairs living room and our bedroom. Hopefully it's in the next couple days- I'm getting very tired of sleeping on the floor. We have our memory foam topper down on the floor, which is much better than nothing, but both of our backs are feeling the effects of not having a mattress!!

The cable guy was supposed to come back yesterday and get our cable finished. We waited around all day and didn't go anywhere so we would not miss him. Well, he never showed. This morning he called at 8:22 and said he'd be here in 45 minutes. It is now 11:23 and he has not been here yet. I'm getting very tired of waiting for him!

One of the things I enjoy the most about our new house is sitting out on our front deck in the evenings in our adirondack chairs. It's so nice out there. Call us old people, but it's fun anyway. :)

No pictures yet. I just haven't found the time to take them and then load them onto the computer. I will though. I promise.

potential disaster

Josh took B to run some errands this morning and I finished taping the hall bathroom so we could paint it this afternoon. I finished and decided to take that bathroom's shower head and move it into the master bathroom because I liked it better. Well, while trying to get the master's shower head off, I accidentally broke off the pipe that connects the shower head to the wall. It broke off inside the wall- some of the threads broke off and off came the pipe! Josh came home and wasn't very happy because he couldn't get in the hole in the tile far enough to get the rest of the threads out. So off to the hardware store he went to figure something out. I sure felt bad- I was only trying to help!

Josh bought a little tool to put over the remaining pipe and re-thread it, so he was able to get a new pipe over it and attach a new shower head. At least I got a new shower head out of the deal- that's what I originally wanted. :) Too bad Josh saw Dr. Jake and the PE teacher from my school at the hardware store and made sure to tell them the story....

But if you think that's bad (and it could've been- I'm glad the pipe didn't break and leak water all over the place and flood the bathroom!!!)... you should hear what my sister-in-law did. I won't tattle but you should all ask her.

Annie- Josh wants to know, since I did this, Beth did what she did, what did YOU break today while Joel was away? He thinks we wives are trouble!

(And yes, he got over being mad at me. :) But I decided I better not try to help anymore!!)

finally back

Finally back, but from our new house! Closing went well on Wednesday, after one small last hiccup. About an hour and a half before we were supposed to close, our realtor got a hold of us and said that the title company needed an original signature on our buyer's side, from their lender. In Cheyenne. It hadn't come in the mail that morning so their realtor was going to have to drive to Cheyenne and get it and come back. So closing got pushed back until later that afternoon. But it all ended up OK and we were only homeless for about 25 minutes. :)

Things are a mess around here- the carpet guys were here yesterday getting the new carpet in the upstairs bedrooms. It looks so nice. Got rid of the forest green carpet and got a nice light brown- it looks great in all 3 rooms. And man, it's so soft!! I like to walk on it barefoot because it's so soft! :) The cable guy also came yesterday but wasn't able to do anything because he has to bury all the lines and needed to find out where all the electrical lines were and all that. He said he'd come back today.

We got B's room all painted on Wednesday night before the carpet was changed, so we didn't have to worry about paint on the new carpet. We painted it a creamy beige color that will look nice with his new plane bedding we ordered from the Company Store. Today we got the upstairs bathroom painted and the downstairs bathroom taped and prepped. We also got a lot of the upstairs living room unpacked. The old owners still have stuff in here to move, so it's been hard to really get to unpacking since we don't have all the space we need. They are supposed to come tomorrow and get the rest of the stuff, so keep your fingers crossed.

The dogs seem to really like it here even though there isn't room for them to come inside yet. They like their built-in kennel with an inside-the-garage-kennel attached. The cats seem to be adjusting OK too. Ditka never had a problem- he walked around like he's lived here his whole life. He found a new place to hang out- on the roof!! He gets up there from the tree in the front yard. He's found his favorite nap spots inside, too. Charlie has had a harder time adjusting and has puked a few times, and hid in dark corners until today when she finally started coming out to check things out. This is her 6th move with me, you'd think she'd be used to it, but she is getting older now, so maybe that's affecting her.

Brecken likes it here too- he loves to eat outside on our back patio and hang out in the front yard playing. The head football coach's little girls (2nd and 4th graders) have been up to play with him a couple times, and when they ride their bikes past the house in the evening, he watches and waves. We got his big boy bed all set up in his room last night after carpet was done so now he can stretch out and lay however he wants. (It's a double sized bed.) He's a stretcher and mover when he sleeps and I think when he was in his crib he couldn't move around and that's why he slept so terrible. And when we took the rail off it, he would move so much he would fall out. So now with a double bed and bed rails, maybe he'll be all set!!

I haven't downloaded pictures from the camera for a while, so no pics tonight. I'll try to get some up soon!!

videos

There are some great videos for all you Brecken-fans, on my sister's blog. http://krismisstree.blogspot.com They are all at Disney World. There's quite a few, so scroll down!!

stuff. and a lot of it.

Man, we have a lot of junk. We rented a big alley dumster for the week and have filled it 2 1/2 times and we STILL have a lot of junk.

My husband has a lot of clothes. We moved his clothes in his pickup and my clothes in my van yesterday and STILL took a full load up again, with just his clothes. He better not ever give me a hard time for shopping again. :) Good thing he has his own closet in our new house.

I found my wedding tiara today so I am wearing it. I think it looks smashing with my t-shirt and denim capris. :)

The old people STILL aren't out of our new house. They were both here yesterday, surprisingly, with their horse trailer. They sure didn't fill it very full though. Today, it's just the wife. And they have more junk than we do. She said she's concentrating on getting everything from the house into the garage today. I'll believe it when I see it. AND, she didn't bring the horse trailer today. I know that everything they have left will not fit into a horse trailer in a single trip, and they live in Laramie, so I don't think multiple trips will be made tomorrow. I guess their stuff will be in our garage when we close on Wednesday! Hopefully they'll get it out fast so I can move MY things from the two rooms it's crammed in, into the garage, so I can unpack!!!

We're concentrating today on getting all the beds and dressers and such out. Then tomorrow we can finish the kitchen and bathrooms and all the little things all over the floor, and then clean. At this point in the process, I would rather clean than move. And that's saying a lot, if you know me.

panes

Brecken is completely excited about "panes" lately. If he hears one on TV, he runs to the window shouting, "PANE!" He gets super excited when we see one in the car. He gets excited about anything to do with panes. So the other night when the sprayer came past our house, he was in seventh heaven watching it go back and forth.

moving

Peg said she hopes we are getting rest after traveling... HA. Peg, I laughed out loud. :) We are MOVING! It's been quite the circus. Since we are closing on this house and the new one on the same day (next Wednesday), the people we are buying from are letting us move all our stuff into their house this week. Sounds nice, but they aren't moved out yet! They have a LOT of stuff in the house still. There are two empty rooms, that is it. So for now, every single thing we own is going into two rooms! Today Josh's friend Jared came over and they got the table, the buffet, the entertainment center, the sectional, the chair, and the chair and ottoman out. We'll be sitting on camp chairs for a few days. :) Most of the kitchen is moved, as is the outside patio furniture and all of the garage. And a few extra boxes from places, like the fireman bathroom accessories and the bookshelf from the guest room.

I hate moving.

adventures in babysitting part.... i've lost count

We had a visit from our wonderful daycare lady, Deb, last night. She was very sad because she was accepted into the nursing Master's program, but in order for work to pay for it, she had to work more than one day a week. So, she's not able to babysit Brecken this coming school year. How sad!! So, we were once again looking for daycare. Josh's co-basketball coach was hoping to get a daycare running this fall, so Josh called her this morning. She said it's not going to be up and running, but that she'd sure take Brecken just at her house. PHEW! What a relief. She has a little guy a little bit older than Brecken, and a baby that was born during last basketball season. She's awesome- I love her. So Brecken will now be going to Amy's house during the day when we are back at work.

july 5, 2008

On July 5, we officially welcomed Beth into the family. I can't tell you how excited I am that she's my sister-in-law now. Jeff, you picked a great one!!

Here is just a sample of what was taken this weekend:

animal kingdom

If you've never been to Animal Kingdom, I highly recommend that you put it on your list of places to visit. It is probably my favorite of the 4 parks at Disney. It's a beautiful place. And it's where we spent our last day in Disney World.

lazy day

Here we go- another Disney post.

Wednesday July 2 was a lazy day. My mom unfortunately was sick the whole night before with food poisoning that she got somewhere. We had a character breakfast planned at our resort, but she was still sick in bed and my dad stayed with her, so just the kids and their parents went. B was once again afraid of the characters but Ryan had a ball!!

After breakfast, Josh, David and my dad took off for 18 holes at the Palms golf course. Josh had been looking forward to that since last time we went to Disney World! Kristen and I decided to be brave and take the little boys to the Magic Kingdom by ourselves. We wanted to visit Mickey's house in Toontown there. That was a disaster of a trip! A 9 month pregnant lady with a double stroller and a two year old, along with me, my tired toddler and our stroller, wasn't a good combination. It was very hard to get on all the transportation since you have to fold up the strollers and take everything out of the bottom of them. We didn't spend too long there since both boys were tired and cranky. We did manage to get some shopping in though, and B came away with some super cool sunglasses. :)

The rest of the afternoon was spent NAPPING. It was needed for all of us!!

magic kingdom and hollywood studios

I'm back and exhausted but I'm going to try to catch up with our Disney trip tonight!! OK, maybe not ALL of them tonight, but I'll try. :)

Tuesday, July 1 was spent at the Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. We had a fun day. We rode Dumbo, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Peter Pan, etc. Some of us rode Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

In the afternoon, we moved over to Hollywood Studios. We watched a great parade and Brecken loved it. The little green soldiers from Toy Story were in it and had microphones on. I had Brecken saluting to them. One of them told him, on the mic, "Looking good, recruit!" That was pretty fun. :)

Happy 4th of July!

I know, I didn't update from Disney as much as I would have liked. I was so exhausted by the end of the day that I just couldn't do it. And same tonight- we are coming up on 24 hours of being awake because our plane left so dang early this morning so we could get back for Jeffrey's wedding rehearsal tonight. But I wanted to with everyone a happy 4th of July and I'll update with Disney stuff soon! For now, here's a picture of Brecken with his first ever sparkler, enjoying it with Aunt Annie.

hollywood studios and epcot

We went to Disney's Hollywood Studios this morning. It is a short boat ride past the next resort over and bam! there you are. My dad, David, Josh, and I went to ride Rockin' Roller Coaster and the Tower of Terror while the lines were short and my mom and Kristen took the little boys to ride the new ride, Toy Story Mania, and get fastpasses for the whole group to ride it again later. Then we met up with them to watch the stage show Playhouse Disney Live on Stage. B and Ryan LOVED it- there were bubbles!!! And we got to sing the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse song and all the other ones we know. THEN, we got to eat lunch with JoJo, Goliath, and two of the Einsteins from the show "Little Einsteins". Once again, B was afraid of them but Ryan had a wonderful time. :)

This afternoon we headed back to the hotel and went swimming for a bit. Then we headed over to Epcot and did some rides there. We rode a Nemo ride and saw a show with Crush from the Nemo movie. B had a fabulous time at both of those- he loves fish! Here is a picture of him looking at the fish before we went into the show:

We stayed until closing (at 9:00) to watch the fireworks show. It's one of my favorite shows at Disney. B is one tired dude after today.

riding trains and chef mickey's

Yesterday morning was spent again at Downtown Disney. My mom, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew flew in late Saturday night and hadn't been there yet so we went again. The kids are so excited by choo-choo trains lately so we let them ride the one at Downtown.

Yesterday evening we had dinner at Chef Mickey's in the Contemporary Resort. Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, and Pluto came around to our tables while we ate. Brecken was so brave at the water park on Saturday when he saw Goofy- he gave him a big hug. While standing in line to get our table last night, he was holding his arms out saying "hug" when he saw the characters at other tables, but when it came down to our time, he chickened out and didn't want anything to do with them. :) We had a birthday celebration for the two boys while there, and Mickey helped them blow out the candles on their cupcakes. That was pretty neat. :) Unfortunately, my camera battery died after a few pictures and so I will have to steal some from my mom. Here are a couple that I did get though.

After that, my mom, Josh, and I took B to the Magic Kingdom for a few rides. He was so tired but had fun. We got to ride Dumbo under the fireworks- what a special ride that was! However, my mom's batteries died, too, so we didn't get pictures. :( We were out until 11:30 p.m. but B did great and did a great job today, too.

blizzard beach

We had a fabulous day at Blizzard Beach yesterday. Blizzard Beach is a fun waterpark and B had a BLAST. He was there and having fun for almost 5 hours! They have a little kids' area, called Tykes Peak. There, you will find waterslides for babies and shallow pools and kids over a certain height are not allowed in. B played and played and played. The only time he wasn't having fun is when I was trying to tell him that no, he cannot bring the chips into the water with him!!
Here is a video and a couple pictures.



This next one was taken at Downtown Disney, while we were waiting for dinner. The ducks were very friendly and B wanted to pet them.

a sigh of relief

So we had an offer on our house last Saturday. It was a lady who had seen the house on Tuesday and then brought her husband back on Saturday and we knew they were bringing an offer with them. It was the same offer we accepted last time, but this time we waited until we had the confirmation that they could get a loan before we signed anything. After what happened last time, we weren't going to take chances! And so this afternoon we got word directly from their bank that a loan would happen. So we went down and signed the papers. YAY! And the bank said they could most likely be ready to close on our deadline, July 16, depending on if the appraiser can get there fast enough. So that was also good news. Our seller said we could start moving things into their garage the week before, so that was good news too! Lots of good news this week, for once.

SO, now keep your fingers crossed that this will all work smoothly from here on out!

We have spent the day doing laundry and packing for our Disney World trip. We are leaving tomorrow and going through Laramie. Our dog kennel here is closing for a couple weeks because of a dog virus going around, so we had to scramble and find another kennel. We're taking the dogs to Laramie to a kennel there. So we'll stop and drop off the dogs, then stop and see my sister and try some maternity pictures with her. Then we'll head on to Cheyenne, where we will stay the night with Brady and Stacey. Friday we'll head to the airport to begin our vacation!! We will have internet access while we are there, so I'll post pictures and videos of our trip as I can.

Hooray for good news!!

a shower and a shower

I got to go to Lyman this weekend to Beth's bridal shower. What a fun weekend it was! Her shower was great and she got lots of fabulous gifts from her friends. Here are a few snapshots:

And now for a shower of a different kind: Jeff and Beth's bathroom is almost finished!! They just have a door on the linen closet to put on with a tiny bit of tile finish work around it. It looks incredible. Jeff did a fabulous job. (And so did Beth, with the little part she helped with. :) ) Beth wanted me to post pictures since she doesn't know when the next time she'll have internet access will be:

sand and water

I got Brecken a sand and water table this weekend. We put it together this morning and headed out to the lake to get a bunch of nice soft sand. B had a blast playing with it before lunch today. We both got nice and wet!!

One of his favorite words right now is Eww. It's the cutest little eww ever. Lots of things are eww- food, dirt, the cat's bum... apparently so is the sand being thrown in the water. Even before the deed is done!

spoke too soon

After a great day with B feeling really good (though he hardly ate a single bite all day long), he went to bed and then threw up all over his pillow. I sure wish I knew what was making my boy sick!!

feeling better

B is feeling much better today. He hasn't puked since about 2:30 yesterday afternoon. Hooray! He's more like himself, playing and being funny. He's been tickling me and talking and running around, so that's a relief.

We get showing reports from the realtor's office each time they show our house. The one in the mail today said the people who saw the house on Tuesday really liked the house and it's their first choice right now, but need to sell their houses first. (It's a mid-aged couple that are moving in together.) So that's good news that they like it so well, but bummer news that they have to sell their houses first. We don't have time for that!!!

puke puke

The realtor's office called about noon to see if they could show our house to a lady this afternoon, she was only in town for the day. They wanted to show it about 2:00. Perfect, since we had to take B to the doctor at 1:45. So the dogs were put in their kennels in the back of the pickup and came to the doctor with us. The realtor called us again this afternoon after we got back and said the lady is bringing her husband back on Saturday to look at it again, so that's good!! Don't know if the husband is coming back to see just ours, or some others too, but at least it's getting a second look.


B does not have a fever, but he's still puking. I wondered if he did have a fever, because his skin is HOT and clammy. He hasn't worn clothes in 2 days- just his diaper. He's got a little pentagon-shaped mark on his arm, I thought it was just a scrape but it's 5 tiny little bite looking things. Jake said he's never seen anything like that. B's ears are red but Jake said that's probably from the puking, putting pressure on his ears. He said try to push the liquids still and keep an eye on him for the next day or two. As soon as we got back, B puked all over the kitchen and Josh. Gross. He's asleep now, has been for almost 2 hours. Hopefully the sleep is healing whatever is wrong with him.


He gained a whole 9 oz in the past 3 months. He's "up to" 20 lbs, 7 oz. At least he's over 20 lbs now. :) With him going around with no clothes on, you really notice how scrawny the kid is!!

sad

Today is sad on a couple levels:
1) We were up all night with Brecken while he threw up. It was a very long night and we are all very tired today. And now my stomach is feeling terrible.

2) Today was the day we were supposed to move into our new house. Instead, we're sitting in the old one waiting for action. Which isn't happening.