A little bit of ordinary

Last night Blake and I went on one of our favorite dates. We went to the grocery store and stocked up on all of our favorite treats: candy bars, ice cream, soda etc.. then rented a movie from RedBox (Night at the Museum II) and gorged ourselves on junk food. We used to do that a lot as poor college students and now that we have Brooke, this tradition has come back into effect.

I have also been on the search for a good book to read. I was talking to a friend recently and we both said we had been reading a lot of Young Adult Lit and were YAL-ed out. As much as I enjoy it, I am a little tired of the "coming of age" story lines. My sis-in-law recommended this book called "The Kabul Beauty School" It's a non-fiction story about a woman from Michigan who goes to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in 2001 to try and help the women over there. Being a hair-dresser all her life, she wonders what she could possibly offer these women. I haven't started it yet, just got it from the library today. But I am looking forward to reading something new. I am also reading the book "The Four Arguments" that was recommended to me by my brother-in-law. It's more of a self-help book but pretty interesting so far. If you are like me and need something new to read (that is not in the YAL category) I would recommend these books to anyone: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, These Is My Words, or A Thousand Splendid Suns. All are amazing stories.

And speaking of YAL, Blake and I were discussing my birthday that is coming up in a few weeks and he asked me what I wanted. I have a big trip coming up at the end of March, so I told him, of course, I wanted what any wife and mother would want:
Although it doesn't officially come out until March 20, knowing that it's been pre-ordered and it's on its way is good enough for me!

Brooke and Blake playing before bed:

Brooke is trying to get Blake to put his sweatshirt string in his mouth

"Here Dad, I'll show you how to do it":
This picture caught Blake a little off guard, but it was so cute of Brooke snuggling with him!

The Long and Short of it

My sister requested that I post a better picture of my new haircut. I was waiting until we got our family pictures back, but who knows when that will be so...

I just got home from work so it definitely doesn't look as good as it did before I dealt with 60 kids all day long, but you get the idea. It's longer in the front and stacked shorter in the back. Pretty much it's just barely long enough for me pull back into a ponytail. Who cares? You may wonder. I have had long hair forever (even though you wouldn't know it since I usually wore it up almost everyday) and my sister knows that chopping my hair off is a huge deal for me. And since we no longer live 20 minutes apart (more like 3000 miles) and I cannot show it off in person... I must blog about it. That's what blogs are for, right? For a good before and after shot, refer to the picture of Brooke and I on my sidebar. I am loving the shorter hair.

Brooke got a new hairdo as well. I went to pick her up from the sitters the other day and her teenage daughter decided to see if Brooke's hair was long enough for a little pony tale, turns out it was!

Can you spot her little ponytail?And if you use a magnifying glass, you can spot Brooke's little tooth poking through. This is the only picture I've been able to get of it.

Here's to new hairdos!

Okay, enough of the hair. If for some reason the hair post didn't scare any male readers away, this sure will (TMI alert!!) So I was at Wal-Mart today after work buying some "womanly supplies" and that was the only thing on my list to get. But I had to get a full size shopping cart because Brooke was with me. So I'm heading over to the aisle and I am thinking "Oh please don't let any of my students see me!" The bright blue packaging is going to make for an awkward moment. I mean, teachers are supposed to be robots and live at the school, not be shopping at Wal-Mart and especially not for anything that has to do with bodily functions. So I head over to that section and there is a woman there with her husband and the woman is explaining to her husband all about the different kind of flows women get and why there are different types of tampons. The man says, "I still think a popsicle stick some toilet paper will work just fine." I'm sure he was joking but I couldn't help thinking to myself "You might be a redneck if..." Anyway, so the weirdo couple finally leaves and all of a sudden I hear: "Hi Mrs. M!" I turn around and low and behold 2 of my students are right there. Luckily both of them girls, but trust me there was no small talk or fawning over Brooke. I said my hello and got the heck out of there, making a beeline for the register and passing a fellow male teacher on my to the cashier!

The Saturday Evening Post

It seems Saturday is my night for posting our weekly update. I can't say this has been a very exciting week for us. But it has been a week full decisions, or at least decisions not being made...yet. Do I go back to work next year? Do we buy a house while prices are low? Wait and keep saving? But what if home prices go back up? Should we invest in some rental property? When are we going to have more children? Do we even want to stay in this town? ahhhhhhhhhhh... I am grateful for my free agency, but sometimes I wish I had a road map and knew exactly what we are supposed to do. Aside from that, here are a few snippets of what we've been up to:

Blake: Has been having problems with his shoulder since this summer when he had a bad wreck while wakeboarding. He is scheduled to have an MRI done on it Monday and hopefully we'll know what the problem is and if he needs surgery. The other night we were getting ready for bed and Blake said that he would put the dogs away and be right in. So I get in bed and wait...and wait. Putting the dogs away should take like 2 minutes. I waited for 30 minutes and convinced myself that he had fallen on the icy driveway and was lying unconscious, freezing to death. Turns out he was down stairs working on that dang puzzle!!

Courtney: I got my 6th grade Language Arts class of 31 kids this week. Boy have I been spoiled only have 6 kids in my classes up to this point. Luckily, I have some awesome kids and am optimistic they will stay a good group for me.

Brooke: Started saying "uh-oh" and "baby". Will walk if we hold her hands or holding onto furniture, but still won't stand or walk independently. Someone pointed out to me that once they can walk on their own, she won't need her hands to balance on furniture so she'll be able to use them to get into more trouble. AH! I never thought of that and Brooke is definitely a little trouble maker. Last night Blake was having a snack in the family room and set his plate and spoon on the coffee table. Of course Brooke went straight for it. She had a hold of the spoon and as soon as I got up to get it from her, Brooke immediately drops it and crawls away as fast as she can and hides behind the couch giggling. I don't even want to imagine the kind of trouble she'll get into once she is able to stand on her own and have her hands free.

I came home the other day from work and found Blake in the office working on a puzzle. I said, "Have you turned into an 80 year old lady?" We both started laughing and then he said, "I just need something to do while I'm home all day to keep from losing my sanity!" Ahhhh...validation. Now he knows how I felt when I was home all day. Needless to say, the puzzle has both got us addicted. We stayed up until almost 11 (on a school night) working on it.

Brooke is so close to walking! She is just a scardy-cat and needs Blake or I for support. Brooke and Blake walk the length of the sun room over and over.

Brooke also loves her pink princess pony (how's that for alliteration!) from Aunt Steph. Not only is it pink and princess, but it plays music too! It's Brooke's favorite thing to dance to.

I was trying to take some pictures of Brooke's tooth and of her playing, but all she wanted to do was come get the camera. She would be playing happily and then hear the camera go off and she'd race over with her tongue hanging out, climb up on me and try to touch the lense. She also discovered that a left over pine needle from the Christmas tree didn't taste very good.

Since I gave a few people a hard time about neglecting their blogs, I figured it time for me to update mine as well. January, so far, has been pretty normal in our house. Just getting over the holiday craziness, me back at work, and getting back into our routines. Here's the gist of what's been going on at our house:

*I thought going back to work would help me not have so many "DUH!" moments, but no such luck. On Friday at lunch I was talking to another teacher and walked over to a table, opened a diet coke that was just sitting there, and started drinking out of it. The other teacher gave me such a surprised look. I always buy a diet coke with my lunch and couldn't figure out what the big deal was. Then I realized I hadn't bought mine yet! I had opened and was drinking the other teacher's drink!
*At Smith's yesterday I paid for my grocery's and was organizing my cart when some change came out of the automatic coin counter. I scooped it up and the cashier said to me "Um ma'am, you paid with a debit card, that change is for this customer behind you!" I felt so dumb!!

*If you know me, you know that I hate change. I am a very structured person and when change is inevitable, I plan carefully for it. It has taken me months to get up the courage to cut my hair. Finally I did it and am so happy with the results. It's an A-line cut with lots of short, choppy layers.
*For our Relief Society Christmas Party, instead of white elephant gifts, we did a service exchange. The service I got was a free family portrait from a photographer in our ward. We took our pictures on Wednesday and I just ordered the prints so I'll post them soon. I am so happy to have an updated family picture. Usually it's just Brooke with one parent (usually me).
*I finally got my act together and put all of Brooke's videos of her first year on one DVD. I have also switched to digital scrapbooking so my goal is to do one page a month and then print it out in a book at the end of each year. Blogging definitely helps with this.
*Brooke will be 13 months on the 17th! I can no longer say to people, "oh she just turned one" when they ask how old she is. Brooke is heading full speed ahead towards toddlerhood.
*She still only has one tooth and still fits in 6-12 mo clothes. She is so long and thin that 12-18 mo clothes are too loose on her, but 6-12 pants are floods. Poor girl.
*Will walk if Blake or I holds her hands, but no sign of independent standing or walking yet
* Is signing!! I started doing signs with Brooke a few months ago, but was really bad at being consistent with them. So they kind of went away. Then someone mentioned to me that maybe Brooke would be less screamy if she could communicate. We've only been doing signs a week and already she's picked it up. In the video she starts out by signing "more", and then signs "milk"

*Brooke loves games. Before, games were one sided, but now she has been interacting with us playing "peek a boo" and chasing each other.

*She is always doing funny things to make Blake and I laugh. It's given us a new perspective on the world to see how Brooke discovers new things (like licking the windows)

*Brooke may not be walking, but she knows how to get to something she wants!I definitely wouldn't trade my blah, unexciting January for anything!

I Scream, You Scream

If you hadn't heard the good news yet: Brooke has a tooth! That is a pretty big accomplishment in our house since Blake and I were sure we were going to have to invest in very tiny dentures. I'm also pretty sure Brooke is going to be one of those babies who gets each tooth separately--there is no sign of tooth #2 emerging anytime soon. I'm hopeful she'll have at least 4 by the time she's 2!

Also, Brooke has decided that she likes to scream. Scream when she's excited, scream when she's frustrated, scream just to make noise. And I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with the tooth thing because Brooke has been very good natured about that. I didn't even know she had one until I saw something shiny poking through her gum (I've thought that before, but this time it wasn't just a piece of food!) The screaming is more like: "Oh, you say I can't play with your cell phone? You will pay for that!" But not crying-screaming. No tears. Just ear piercing screams.

The other day we were in the grocery store and Brooke was letting out these screams at the top of her lungs and holding it for as long as she could. Then pant, pant pant and then off into another scream over and over again. No crying, no sign that she was upset, just screaming to make noise. When I got to the cash register the cashier said to me, "By the sounds of those screams, I was expecting a much bigger child, not a baby." I've tried saying "No Brooke" but that just brings on more screams. How do I make her stop screaming? Is it like training a dog? Do I need to reward good behavior with a treat?

In all seriousness, it's hard not to laugh when Brooke tries her screams on us because she has the most focused expression on her face. As if she is trying to tell us something oh- so-important with those screams. But, it is getting annoying and I'd prefer not to get dirty looks from the people in the grocery store. As if I were the one encouraging her to scream.

Also, Brooke has shown Blake and I what we are in for:
Climbing out the window of her playhouse is just practice for her teen years.

Brooke had her one year appointment on Wednesday. She now weighs a wopping 18lbs 5oz (10 percentile), and is 29.5 inches long (50 percentile).

My Christmas break is quickly coming to a close and I'll be back to work on Monday. It's been so nice to just lounge around the house, watching all the seasons of the Gilmore Girls and eating Cafe Rio. Did I mention my new year's resolution is to get back in shape?

Happy New Year Everyone! I would do a 2009 recap, but it would invlolve Brooke, Brooke, and more Brooke. Nothing new that you don't alreay know. But I have to say that even though you may get sick of hearing about Brooke, blogging has been such a fun way to document our lives and keep up on journaling. I have never recorded so many events before. I can't wait to see what YOU have been up to! You know who you are people who have been neglecting your blogs!

Christmas, Family & Fun

Ever since we've been married, Blake and I have spent Christmas morning alone opening presents. I've always had this thing about opening presents Blake bought for me in front of my family & vice versa. What if he bought me some lingerie or something?! (Not that he ever has or would for Christmas...). Anyway this has allowed us to set in place our own Christmas traditions and make Christmas morning really special for us.

Getting ready to open my first present (a willow tree figurine of a mom holding a baby)

Brooke happily accepting any wrapping paper scraps we would give herBrooke opening her Baby Stella dollTrying out her new "Brooke" sippy cup (I am a nerd and thought that was coolest present she got!)But to Brooke, nothing beat the piles of wrapping paperMy family does a big Christmas Eve get together every year, and since we live 3 hours away we decided not to torture Brooke with a 6 hour car ride in one day. I was sad to miss all the fun, but my family joined us at our house Christmas Day.

Steve, my mom, me and Jared

My brother Jared showing off his Snuggie
Christmas came early for Blake. On the 23rd he and his buddy both shot an elk.

My brother, Stephen and his girlfriend Bridgette came in from Tennesee. I hadn't seen Steve since last Thanksgiving, and he had never even met Brooke. I was so happy to get to spend some time with him.

Brooke was very interested in all his piercings

Steve wearing his "Christmas Sweater" t-shirt

Merry Christmas everyone!