baby...stuff

I couldn't find an appropriate title for this post because it's going to be a mish-mash of a lot of thoughts and feelings I've been having lately. It seems like time is flying by and I can't believe that in 12 weeks we will be anxiously awaiting the arrival of a new baby. My dr. officially moved my due date up a week--so now I am due on February 3. Hopefully the powers that be will be kind and he either will come early or on his due date like Brooke did. But just because we are excited for him to come does not mean that we are ready! I have a list a mile long of things that need to be done, it's finding the time to get it done that is the problem. The spare bedroom needs to be cleaned out, painted (sage green with stripes...ambitious for me, I know), and all of the stuff that's currently in the room needs to be moved to our basement bedroom or given away (anyone need an extra computer desk? For some reason, we have two!) Brooke also needs to transition into her toddler bed. I am planning on doing that over Christmas break. I am sad for that happen mainly because that means Brooke will be free to roam when she wakes up--I've quite liked having her contained in her crib in the mornings and after naps.

We are slowly aquiring a stash of boy stuff. No pink ruffles for our little man. I ordered some cute bedding for him in this pattern:

and have gotten some clothing for him as well. I am terrified that he will be this giant baby and all the 0-3 month stuff I've gotten him won't fit! My mom and I also went shopping for some cute flannel material for blankets: blocks, puppies, and dump trucks.hmmm... what else. Oh, yeah a name. Picking a boy name has proven A LOT harder than picking out Brooke's name was. We actually agreed on the name Brooke because we saw it in a baby name book and it reminded Blake of a dear neighbor girl who passed away while he was growing up. While thinking about the name, one Sunday we sang a hymn I had never heard before #305: The Light Divine the first line of this hymn goes, "The light of God rests on the face of brook and flower and tree" Although in the song it means brook as a small stream, I thought that line so sweet and perfect for our daughter. Her name was settled in a matter of weeks.

A boy name, however, is a whole different story. There are so many names I do not like. I admit that I am picky and Blake and I have totally different tastes in names. We've come up with a list of 3 names we can both agree on but still toss names back and forth daily. Nothing is set. Not even a book of 60,000 plus names has been able to help us. We think that we'll just have to see him when he gets here and we'll know. This is really frustrating for me, because as a planner, I like to have the details ironed out well in advance. I'm ready to agree to a name like Jupiter just to have the matter settled.

In other news, this on the not so good side, I went in for my last dr's appointment in October and found out that our 20 week ultrasound showed that our baby only has a 2 vessel umbilical cord when babies are supposed to have 3. Our dr. assured us that in most cases it does not cause a problem, but sometimes it can cause the heart or kidneys not to develop properly. I am going in for another ultra sound when I am 32 weeks so they can check that his heart and kidneys have developed normally. He will also require some extra monitoring after he is born. Blake and I are slightly concerned, but remain optimistic. We have turned this situation over to our Heavenly Father and know that it will work out the way it is supposed to. On a good note, his heart and kidneys looked fine and normal at 20 week,s so we are just praying they keep developing the way they are supposed to.

'Tis The Season

And no, I don't mean the Christmas season. At our house, Halloween is the kickoff of the birthday season. Just in our little family alone, Blake's birthday is November 2, Brooke's December 17, our new little guy will hopefully be born at the end of January/early February, and my birthday finishes us off on February 9...just in time to eat chocolates and heart shaped treats the next week :) Now, add in that both mine and Blake's parents (yep, all 4 of them) have bdays in November/December, we have 3 siblings also in Nov/Dec, and 3 nieces in November. Factor in the holidays like Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and Valentine's day...I'm pretty sure it's pointless for any of us to think we aren't going to gain any weight from November-March. At least we'll have sweaters to hide under!

So Blake started off the season and he had a double party. One with his parents the Sunday before:
And one with just our family on Wednesday. Blake had to work that night, which also meant he'd be coming home at 6am Wednesday morning and sleeping most of the day. That didn't give us very much time to celebrate, and if you know me, you know that I like to make birthday's a big deal. I came up with a plan to surprise Blake when he woke up Wednesday afternoon:

reasons why I love him...one for each year
Blake loves artichokes! So every year he gets some on his birthday. Weird, I know. But he is the only one who likes to eat them and they are expensive, so once a year it is:
I hurried home from school that afternoon so we could be together. We ate a yummy garlic chicken pizza with artichoke hearts of course! Brooke picked out a present for Blake and she was excited to give it to him.It was a chocolate fish...Yeah, we pretty much let Brooke do all the unwrapping...
And the blowing out of the candles...Notice how in this picture, Brooke has changed from her pants to a skirt and her puppy back-back.

Even though Blake had to work that night, we still managed to have a really good afternoon together. Love you, Blake! Happy Birthday!

Trick or Treat

Yesterday afternoon I had to stopy by my dr's office to do my glucose screening test. I got a call from Blake around 4:30 saying "Where are you?! We're waiting on you!" So as I drove home, I fully expected to see hordes of trick or treaters beating down our door with Brooke itching to go out herself. Nope. Empty, quiet streets. Blake and Brooke were so excited to go out, I had to keep telling them over and over that it was still too early. We needed to have dinner first. Apparently we were supposed to have clam chowder for dinner on Halloween (that is a tradition in Blake's family growing up) so thankfully I had some of the canned kind in our pantry. Next year I may attempt to make it from scratch.

Finally it was time to go out!

Brooke did awesome! Blake said she really got the hang of it and was loving it. There were a few times she was scared of spooky looking houses and had to hold Blake's hand as they walked to the front door. But they were gone from about 5:30 until 7:00. That is a lot of trick or treating for a 2 and 1/2 year old! Likewise, I bought a bag of 300 suckers to hand out and ran out of candy! I had to go through Brooke's stash and get out some of the candy she can't have like gum and gobstoppers and we regifted those.

When Brooke came home she was bouncing off the walls, she was so excited (and on a sugar high, I'm sure) from her night. She became my helper, handing out candy to the trick or treaters who came to our house. She also made sure to tell everyone who came "Don't step on my pumpkin!"

Blake and I decided that Halloween is exhausting for moms and dads!

Pre Halloween Fun

On October 22 Brooke's sitter H. had her annual Halloween party for all of her kids. H. always does a really good job with it. Unfortunately it was right during Brooke's nap time so Brooke was pretty grumpy after about an hour. It also meant that during the kids singing time (they had learned 3 Halloween songs) Brooke DID NOT want to sing and she DID NOT want me to leave her onstage by herself. Blake got some great video of me trying to coax Brooke to sing and Brooke being a grumpy gus. Oh the memories!

At least Brooke looked cute in her cupcake costume. I had the idea of B. being a cupcake for Halloween when I saw one in the Pottery Barn fall catalogue. Sorry PB but I was not going to pay $65 for a costume. I was thinking it would be easy to make one (and by me, I mean my MIL and her sewing skills, not mine) then I found this costume on a super sale at Old Navy and my problem was solved.

Any who--back to the party--H. had some fun games for the kids, like donut on a string...And a fishing pond where Brooke got a prize..As you can see the weather two weeks ago was quite warm. I'm sure all the kids were sweating to death inside their fleece costumes.Skip ahead to this past Saturday (October 29) and Brooke and I went to the Pumpkin Festival. Brooke made a pumpkin lantern at H.'s house and it was set up on display at the festival. There was also a kid's hay maze. Brooke loved it. I attempted to do the pumpkin festival by myself which pretty much gave me an anxiety attack. There were TONS of people and Brooke did not want to stay in her stroller and I was paranoid about her getting lost/kidnapped. We zipped through the pumpkin exhibits, hit the hay maze and went home!

On the other hand, we are super excited for trick-or-treating tonight! Brooke is going to have the time of her life!

Part Two of the Pumpkin Party

One of the things I have been wanting to do with Brooke for a while was go to the aquarium. We finally set some time aside to drive out there last Thursday over my Fall Break from school. We had such a great time! The aquarium was the perfect size, I thought, for little kids and had everything we'd want to see. I definitely plan on going back again. Brooke's favorite part was definitely seeing the jellyfish (she kept trying to escape from me to go back and look at them--she probably would have stood there all day watching them if I'd let her) and also watching the stingrays. At the gift shop, I got Brooke these sunglasses because she is always complaining how the sun is in her face. Plus, she is always trying to steal my sunglasses.

After the aquarium, we went to the park and had a picnic. Later, we headed down to my mom's house to spend the night. My mom watched Brooke for me and I was able to go out to eat with one of my good friends. No kids. No husbands. Just a lot of girl talk and catching up. It was so nice!

The rest of fall break was spent having a real pumpkin party:
We made sugar cookies. Which was actually really fun. Brooke knew just what to do! She was very independent about it and didn't want my help.We also painted some pumpkins. We'll carve the big one this weekend, but Brooke was super excited to use her paints and glitter.

Pumkin Party Part 1

When I got our Halloween decorations out at the beginning of the month, there was also Brooke's plastic pumpkin she uses to go trick or treating. I was explaing to her about Halloween and that later we would go to a pumpkin patch to get a pumpkin. I think that was too much for her little brain to handle. Brooke coverted "pumpkin patch" to "pumpkin party" and she started carrying around her plastic pumpkin and calling that her pumpkin party. So a pumpkin party is not an event, it's a thing. When we go somewhere she says, "oh, I need to get my pumpkin party" and she'll run to get her plastic pumpkin which she has stuffed full of random objects like a dirty shirt, her sippy, some toys, scraps of paper etc...I"ll have you know those pumpkins on the left are some that I made in young women's when I was 12! Yep, pretty proud of my craftiness.

Earlier this month, Blake shot his first bull elk. We was pretty excitied. It's not much for horns, but it's meat in the freezer.Do you think Brooke has any idea that she is sitting next to a dead animal? She's not her father's daughter for nothing!On October 15 it was the annual Oktoberfest. Steph and her family came out to visit, plus Blake's cousin & family, and the neighbors came out to celebrate with us. Jane, Brooke, Amelia, Josh, Kennedy, Kassidy, Kaitlyn (triplets!!), Alexia and Ben in front

We took a hayride to chocolate rock. The kids had fun stopping along the way to get clues for for the treasure hunt.After the kids found the treasure, I was the mean mom who had to inspect Brooke's treat to make sure it was okay. I love how brooke is looking up so expectantly at me.The kids found a lizard and Brooke was beyond excited to touch it. (Please ignore her chocolate mouth)And this is the "Hey Courtney! Let's get a profile shot!" And these pictures of B. kill me! We went on a trip over the fall break this past week (that will be the pumpkin party part 2 post) and I got some snowboots for Brooke (you know, for like the 5 times she'll go outside this winter). Brooke LOVES them. She wanted to wear them right away...and her snow hat...and bring her halloween bucket...and keep wearing her puppy back-pack (or pack-pack is how B. says it) She was very proud of herself. We had to get her picture taken next to our small fruit tree. Hopefully someday it will be huge and we'll say "Do you remember when our trees were that small?!"

More Nerd Stuff

Since I still need to get pictures from my MIL's camera to document our October-Fest we had last weekend, I will do a book report of sorts. I thought I would do a follow up on this list I blogged about last May.

I am happy to report I read all of the books (and then some) on my YA "To Read" list. I guess that is what happens when you are feeling nausous all summer :) So here are my thoughts

Books I LOVED:
Immortal Instruments Series: The best way to explain these books is it's a cross between the magic and battle between good and evil of Harry Potter and the romance of Twilight. FYI for younger readers: There are some pretty intense make-out sessions.

The Clockwork Angel: This is a prequel to the series above. I actually ended up liking this book more than the other series. Only because I LOVED the setting (turn of the century England) and thought the romance part was more sweet and slow to come.

The Study Series: There are three of these books--Poison Study, Magic Study, Fire Study I loved that the main character is strong-willed and not some damsal in distress. I loved that there is romance, but it doesn't overpower the book--the protagonist still has her own story beyond her boyfriend.

Juliet: It's been a while since I've read this, but I know I really liked it. It's a cross between a National Treasure and The DaVinci Code type story. Plus it had a main character who was over 20 and the story wasn't obscene in any way. Shocker!

Books that were OKAY:
The Beautiful Creatures series. Right now there are two books and the third one was just released. I can't really pinpoint what I don't like about them. They were good, but I found myself getting bored and skimming some parts. Plus the character of Lena drives me crazy. And you can tell the main character, Ethan, is a boy written by female authors. He is way too sensitive and intense for a high school boy. I still plan on reading the third one.

Incarceron: I just finished this one yesterday. It was good, but weird. It might have been a little too "out there" in the fantasy genre for my taste. I also think the author had a lot going on in the story so it made it a little confusing. Of course this book is just book number one in a series, so I will probably read the rest.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth series. Good, but the first two books were bascially the same story. The last book was by far the best. And even though they aren't obscene, I hesitate putting them in my classroom because the romance is kind of intense for a middle school audience, I think.

The Wolves of Mercy Fall series (Shiver, Linger, Forever). This was a story based on mostly emotions and thoughts of characters. There was very little actual action in these books. Also, by book #3 I was way more interested in the side characters stories because I was so bored with the two main characters.

The Maze Runner Series. The third book was just released and yes I will read it. I wasn't totally into the first two, but they were good. I a good boy book, I think. Lots of action and very little romance. Maybe that is why it's only "okay" for me. HAHA!

Books that were 'MEH:
The Beyonders. Sorry Brandon Mull but I could not get into this book. It was good but mostly I am bugged that this is going to be a trilogy! This story totally could have been told in one book. Plus the ending was terrible. The whole story builds up to this one moment and it's a huge letdown. But this story is really popular with a lot of my students.

Why are almost all YA books part of some kind of series? Now my "to read" is 10 times longer than it was in May. Also, I have done very little reading in the "adult" book category. Any suggestions? I get tired of YA storylines after a while :)