How We're Fairing

I thought that it was time I did a quick rundown of what we have all been up to.

Blake: busy, busy with work and we are trying to squeeze the most out of our time together. He's been busy with projects in the yard too and cutting firewood for this winter. Blake made me laugh this morning when I gave Brooke an M&M for going potty. He said, "Hey, I like chocolate and I go potty lots." So I let him have a handful from Brooke treat jar.

He introduced Brooke to corn on the cob:

Courtney: After Vegas, I had another training the next week here in town. It was 4 days, all day so now that that's over, I am ready for summer and to do something fun other than sit in a classroom all day! I also recently discovered the magic of the dollar store. I have not really been a frequent dollar store shopper, but when I had something specific in mind for part of my Father's Day gift and went to 3 stores and couldn't find it (including Wal-Mart) I decided to check the dollar store and they had it! And it was only a dollar! How cool is that?

I also decided to try my hand some girly hair-do's. I tried these corn rolls to keep Brooke's hair out of her face. This might be as crazy as I get though, most hair-dos are too complicated for me!

I have been trying to be better about doing crafts with Brooke. Recently we made a flower and Brooke colored it. Then this week, Brooke just wanted some construction paper and some scissors to cut with. I just let her go to town cutting the paper up and it kept her happy and busy for almost 45 minutes. Craft time comes in all shapes and sizes at our house ;)

Brooke: I just wish I had a video camera to follow her around all day. She makes up songs and sings them and dances all around the yard while I am outside pulling weeds. Today we bought more grape plants and on the ride home I said, "Why don't you sing about the grape leaves?" So she did! She is so friendly and social. She will go up to random kids she sees and say "Hi Boy (or girl)" and then wait for them to respond. She says "bye-bye--see you alligator!" to everything: the car, the rain, birds...She will come up to me and say "momma, rock-a-bye" which means she wants to sit on my lap have me rock her. She will says "momma, movie me?" which means she wants me to watch a movie with her. She will say "Momma, can I sit-a by you?" when I am sitting on the couch reading.

Last wednesday was supposed to be my Zumba night but Blake mistakenly brought up the subject of possibly going swimming. Brooke's eyes got all big and round and she got this super excited look on her face and yells "We go swimmy! YAY!" So of course, it was no zumba but a family swim night instead (which was really fine with me)

Brooke is getting to be such a big girl. She went down the slides a few times with Blake and then she was okay the rest of the time to do it all by herself!

The best part was when Brooke and this other little girl decided to take a "shower" in the fountains. Can you tell they have been probably been watching their mommy's do this?And last but not least, we are still potty training. Brooke earned her other big prize which was a princess camp chair--she loves it and wants to take it with us everywhere. That is not say we are completely done potty training, though. She still has an occassional accident, especially if we are not on top of reminding her. But each day gets better and better.

Viva Las Vegas!

Last week I went with some other teachers to a conference in Las Vegas. We met at the school on Monday and drove to the airport. The one hour flight was SO MUCH better than the nine hour drive! We arrived and found out our secretary hadn't arranged a way for us to get from the airport to our hotel. Because there were 8 of us, we figured it was cheaper for all of us to rent a stretch limo together than to pay for taxis. We rode to the hotel in style! Sunday night was pretty low key. Checking into our hotel, walking around and eating at a yummy buffet with all you can eat prime rib and crab legs. YUM! While were were standing in the lobby, a couple came up to me and asked if they could take my picture. They said I was a twin to their cousin in Kansas. I said sure, but it was pretty awkward!

Caesar's Palace. Even though parts of Vegas are pretty gross and I don't gamble or enjoy looking at posters of half naked people, there is still something about it that I enjoy.

View from our hotel room looking down on the strip

Monday was the start of our conference. Everything was held at Ceasar's Palace. They fed us breakfast but lunch was on our own. We went down to the food court and with 1400 other teachers plus the regular tourists, it was quite the line for food! Even with an hour and 15 minutes for lunch, by the time we got our food we only had 20 minutes to eat! On Tuesday we were smarter and brought our lunches instead.

We got out of the conference at 3pm. Went to our rooms to drop our stuff off and then went to explore the strip. We rode the monorail down to MGM and saw the lions and walked through New York, New York:

Statue of Liberty made out of Jelly Bellies

We decided to get tickets to the "Tournament of Kings" show at the ExcaliburAngie, me, Tammy, Susan, Alicia, Florence (We were a diverse group of ladies, but had a blast together!)They don't give you any silverware, so we had to eat our dinner entirely with our hands!

The arena. Each section is given a name of a country. We were France.

The Show:

There was jousting, sword fighting, singing and dancing, lots of pyrotechnics, and even an evil Dragon Prince that had to be defeated. Our king of France won!

All of us with the King of France. He is actually from Kaysville, Utah!

After the show, we decided to explore the strip some more. We took in the water show at the Bellagio (one of my favorites)And then went across the street to Paris. This is probably my favorite hotel. I just love how the inside is set up like a street in France and the ceiling is painted blue. It's so bright and airy compared to the dark, dingy casinos in most of the other hotels.While at Paris, we wanted to watch a dueling piano show. Two pianists will take ANY request from the last 50 years of music and can play it. It's pretty amazing. The show was in a lounge and poor Alicia got asked to leave because she looks way younger than 21 and she forgot her ID!

Tuesday after the conference we went back to the MGM to eat at their buffet. Then we did an activity called CSI:The Experience. It's just like the TV show where you are taken to a crime scene, given clues, a medical report, phone records and other things have to solve the crime. It was really fun. Then we were asked to be critics for an upcoming TV show that has yet to be aired on TV. The TV show was awful (not funny at all!) but I thought it was fun to be able to give my opinion.

Wednesday the conference got out at noon. We found a place to eat lunch and then headed to the airport. Because of different flight times, there ended up 5 us flying back together so we all squeezed into a taxi. The taxi driver asked me if Alicia and I were mother and daughter. WHAT?!

On our way out of town, I wanted to have my picture taken with these guys. MJ asked me where I was from and I said UT. He asked if I was LDS and I said yes. Then he said that he had a surprise for me (oh...kay...) and then he held up his finger that had a CTR ring on it. We gave each other a big high 5.

The conference was great; I learned a lot and it got me fired up for the upcoming school year. I was able to bond with my fellow teachers. A trip by myself with the girls was just what I needed. However, when I got home at 11pm Wednesday night, I was so happy to be home and to see Blake and Brooke. And Blake was happy to see me too! He said it was hard to juggle both work and Brooke (I know!).

Love to Help

As Brooke gets older, she is more and more my little helper. Whether it is sweeping, wiping down the counters, or watering the garden she is always ready and willing to be right by my side helping out (no matter if I want the help or not!) Even though Brooke sometimes creates more work for me by "helping" it's fun to be together and to see her want to do the things I am doing. And speaking of "do as I'm doing", I took Brooke to my Zumba class with me on Wednesday night because Blake wasn't home to watch her. I was really nervous about it. There is a little room with toys and and a movie player where kids can play, but I wasn't so sure Brooke would stay in there. Nope! She wanted to be right by my side dancing with us! She was good not to get in people's way and everyone was laughing and loving how cute she looked trying to do some of the moves. I wish I had a camera to video it! She is quite the little performer!

Earlier this week, Brooke got to be Honey's helper helped her plant some flowers:
Then for some reason, Brooke was inspired by these rocks and wanted to do a little posing!

The "P" Word

There are a lot of "P" words going on at our house right now. A few of them are: potty, pee, poop and the dreaded panties. I absolutely despise that word, but since "underwear" is a bit of a mouthful for my almost 2 and a half year old, panties it is--even though I shudder every time I say it. We are day 5 into potty training and so far I think we've been pretty successful. I started on Saturday by telling Brooke that she was a big girl and it was time to wear panties (shudder). She had a few accidents on Saturday and Sunday, but on Monday she went the entire day without any accidents! She even went #2 in the potty and when we flushed she said "bye-bye poop, see you later!" That earned Brooke her first potty prize.

This is the the cutest board book ever:it has lots of lift the flaps, which Brooke loves (and secretly, so do I!)

I've been movivating Brooke with a couple big prizes (like the book, and I have another prize for her if she goes a few days in a row without any accidents) and on a daily basis with lots of praise, m&ms (which incidentally is also helping Brooke learn her colors she now knows green, orange, yellow, and blue 95% of the time) and with stickers. This is Brooke's potty princess chart:
she gets one sticker everytime she goes potty. I took this pic on Monday and now almost all her stickers are gone!

It hasn't all been successes though. Brooke is good to go potty if I am the one doing the reminding. Last night we were eating outside on our deck and Brooke had an accident...I had forgetten to remind her. Luckily it was outside and an easy cleanup. Then also yesterday I could tell that Brooke needed to poop but everytime I put her on the potty she wouldn't go. Finally, before bed (her tummy was starting to hurt her) I put her in the bathroom on her potty and said, "You are not coming out until you poop" I know that idea could have totally backfired on me, but I closed the door and sat outside and waited. She cried for a few minutes and then was quiet and then I heard "all done!"

With summer here, Brooke and I are having fun spending time together. Brooke loves to dance and we got this fun toy from one of her cousins..it's a dancing barbie ballerina mat. You plug it into your TV and dance on the mat as Barbie dances on the TV screen. The funny thing is, Brooke doesn't even care if it's plugged in. She pulls it around the house and likes to dance on the mat whenever she can. (I have to note that in this picture she is wearing a dress up skirt and a shirt that says "Birthday Girl" she found in a box. She is very independent when it comes to dressing herself. In fact with her new panties, Brooke wants to wear them all. So every few hours she wants to wear a different pair.)

Also, Brooke's sitter, H. was always so good to do crafts with her. I don't want that to stop just because she is home with me now and I am very uncreative. I want to do some weekly crafts with Brooke and I got this idea from here. It was super easy and Brooke LOVES it.

Here are two videos illustrating just how much Brooke loves her wand. She goes around the house waving it and making up songs.