ode to dad

okay. so i had to do another post, dedicated to dad. as i was looking through my pictures, i realized i had a lot of really great shots of dad!

fun in california

It was great to visit the family and California, even if it was way too short! I'm going through a little post-vacation depression right now. Anyway, here are some pictures from home of the tree, the kids, and the iguana hunt...

Check out my new wheels! It's a 2004 Toyota Sienna! I LOVE it!!!!!

More Christmas pics...

Here's a few more Christmas pictures. It was cold and wet and rainy today so I'll take a picture of my new wheels tomorrow when the rain lets up!!

The girls loved these umbrellas, mom! We went to the park today (in the rain) and they wanted to bring them. I had a hard time explaining why that wouldn't work...

Rod's mom made this purse for Caitlin. Lately she's been really big into bringing her own church bag to church, and she's excited this one will be able to fit so much stuff!

The girls got out their nail polish from Aunt Emily unauthorized!! Fortunately, I could smell what they were up to before any disasters occurred and got them to the table to finish. Their nails (really, their whole last knuckle on) look interesting to say the least!

Lizzie opening presents...

Merry Christmas!

I'm sure you all had a great Christmas, as did we! We had a lot of fun with our quiet little Christmas, here's a rundown of the events:

Christmas eve, the highlights being the traditional clam chowder (Caitlin cleaned her bowl and asked for more!!) and a little presentation of the nativity. They took turns being Mary (so we had to do it twice, of course!) and Rod was the (half-asleep) donkey. They liked leading him to the stable...

Christmas morning the girls woke up around 8, and Rod started things off with a wonderful French Toast breakfast for us all!

Then came the present-opening! We all took turns opening presents, and it was fun to see the girls get excited about what everyone was getting, not just them. They liked watching daddy open the 8-pack of Dr. Pepper cans they decorated for him!

I decided our kids are going to make gifts for each other each Christmas. This year I helped them make tie-fleece pillows for each other. This project was totally at Caitlin's level, she loved tying them all, but I'll admit Lizzie basically just wrapped Caitlin's when I finished....

Winter Wonderland?

Here's a little video of our first big snow. I don't mean to show you up Carrie, although I can't believe they canceled school in Vegas! Crazy. Here has been my experience with the snow so far:

1) It is so cold that our water pipes have frozen several times. There's nothing more irritating than having no water. Of course it happens on the day the Alex throws up 3 times. How do you clean up barf with no water? I can't do laundry, flush toilets, shower....nothing! So I used those days an an excuse to do just that-nothing.

2) It takes twice as long to take kids to the bus stop. I have to unbury the car first. The other day I was taking them to school and Cameron was crying that his hands hurt they were so cold. It was -18 that day.

3) Bundling kids up and helping them put snow boots on. That is going to be the death of me.

4) Clumps of snow around the house that have been tracked in that become small invisible puddles of water, which I step in with my socks.

5) This morning I had to go to the post office to mail some packages. It took me 1/2 hr just to get out of my driveway. I got stuck and had to use the floor mats to inch my way closer to the road. I finally got unstuck but was covered with mud and wet from digging in the snow (by the way, a CD case make a pretty good shovel).

6) It is very pretty. I'll just stare at it out my window though.

Hell DOES freeze over!!

(just kidding- it's really not hell here!) Dad, all those years of asking "how's the weather" would have paid off awesomely Wednesday. You would have gotten the most exciting, non-boring answer! It snowed here! It snowed around town earlier in the week, with some places getting 5-ish inches and it sticking. We're one of the lowest parts of town, so we didn't see snow then- but yesterday we did! It snowed for awhile and flurries stuck for a little bit, until it rained that night. I bundled up the girls and sent them out as fast as I could! They loved it for about about 15 minutes, then they were freezing. Little desert weenies.

Anyway, the funny part is that today was a snow day for the schools! And it was blue skies and sunny- no snow on our part of town whatsoever, though in other places there were a few inches of snow. But really, a snow day for a few inches??

Demonstrating the true craziness of the weather, Monday the girls picked the corn they planted a few months ago (and they got to eat it for dinner!). It was just little 4" or so corn, but it was fun watching them husk it and be so excited about cooking and eating it. So Monday was harvest, Wednesday was snow. Seriously, how often can you take a picture of freshly harvested corn in front of a Christmas tree?

So I probably shouldn't be posting a picture of a present, but I was really excited with how it turned out so I have to! We're giving this frame to Rod's mom for Christmas. I got the idea from this website: http://moonburst37.blogspot.com/2008/08/diy-friday-photo-letter-frames.html

I thought black and white would be the way to go, but the colored ones actually looked best in this frame. I think I'm going to do one for myself in black and white. My only worry is that the glass will be broken by the time it gets to Virginia. I just wrapped it in lots of bubble tape, then wrapped it with paper and addressed it. I'm thinking I should have put it in a box....

Finally a few pictures

"She has a webbed thumb!"

Feast!

Dance Party

Just another afternoon at home

So for the last 3 hours I've been folding laundry and trying to post pictures. For some reason my NEW computer isn't cooperating. Anger! I will not give up hope though. I have a pretty clear schedule tomorrow, so I will spend all day on it :) Soon I am on my way soon to Burney to pick up perscriptions for Devon and Audrey who have Bronchitis. Our last few nights have been:

Troy: Is that Audrey coughing or Devon?

Brooke: Mumbling...."think Dev"

Troy: I'll go give him some cough medicine

Rolls out of bed to the icy tundra of our bedroom.

2 hrs later-

Brooke: Audrey is coughing

Troy: Mumbles

Brooke: I'll go give her some medicine

Almost suffers hypothermia by the time she's back in bed

45 minutes later:

Brooke: (She hasn't fallen back asleep yet) "Audrey's still coughing. I can't give her more medicine. Damn. (did you know middle-of-the-night swearing is okay? I don't think we're held accountable when we're incohereant, right?)

1 hour later when Brooke has just drifted back to sleep:

Devon: Mom?

Brooke: mumbles

Devon: Um, I can't sleep. My brain is all jumbly and I have mucus in my throat. (direct quote)

Brooke: (Trying to be good mom and acutally respond.) You can sleep on the sofa if you want

Devon: Okay.

1/2 hr later:

Devon: (coughing in my face) I have to use the bathroom

Brooke: I can only mutter "okay", while in my brain I am wanting to shake him and scream, "why did you have to come and wake me up to tell me you have to go to the bathroom?"

AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

So that sums up the last couple of nights. So I am going to get some heavy duty cough medicine with Codine. I'm not sure who should take it, me or the kids?

more pictures!

Thanksgiving break fun!

Thanksgiving break was a lot of fun! I realized i should've taken more pictures, but i did get some cute ones! Audrey and Caitlin driving the fire truck at the park
Brooke-please explain why your son loves doing this?!

This is super cute, zoogie just went and layed down there! Happy A-bomb!
Cute lizzie at the park
The always crazy kids table! Looks like it was caitlin's night to get the rocking chair.. Audrey and me driving the train!

Thanks mom and dad for taking us to dinner and for treating us all over thanksgiving break! I'm excited to come back home in ONE week!! i know you guys feel the same way...right?!

This is pet attempt #2....two baby bunnies! A friend in the ward's 3 bunnies turned into 10....with another litter on the way! My friend THINKS they're both males, hopefully they're both the same, whatever they are! I will take them to a vet and just have them tell me for sure in a few months. I really, really don't want to end up with millions of rabbits! They will just be outside rabbits, in the summer we'll have to rig something up for them to survive. But I'm hoping they'll be low-maintence, fun pets for the kiddos.

A few pics...

Tonight when Rod got home from work we worked on the ol' Christmas Family picture. This one of the girls is cute...

It's definately better than this one...

After we finished the Christmas photo, we went to get a tree. Rod was going to just bring one home on his way home from work, but he had to hurry home before it got dark so we could have our photo shoot. Then we went all together to get the tree. I'm glad we did. The girls had a blast, and the tree place was really fun for them. There were lights all around, a huge fake snowman, and they loved looking at all the trees.

This isn't the tree we got, ours doesn't have dead spots...but this picture had Lizzie in it...

Caitlin hanging on the fence to the tree lot...



Rod & Lizzie.....


Anyway, that's the first week back of Christmas preps! We decorated inside, and it's starting to feel a little more like Christmas. The leaves on our trees are again covering the grass, and I actually had to wear long sleeves today. I even got to wear a scarf tonight at the tree farm!

This is our nativity that I'm so excited about! I've never had a nativity to display before, and the Willow Tree one that's really nice is crazy expensive. I found this one from christianbook.com for $30!! It's resin, so it doesn't break (at least not easily) and it looks awesome. Anyway, I'm really excited about it, so I had to post a picture..

some pictures....more to come