lake house livin'

We just returned home from a wonderful vacation on the Colorado River.  We rented a lake house with Jerry and Beverly on an arm of the river by Lake LBJ.  Never having stayed in a lake house before, I was somewhat skeptical of the accommodations.  Although they looked nice online, you can never really tell. But, I was pleasantly surprised. The home was very well maintained and the location was absolutely perfect.

We headed out bright and somewhat early on Sunday, March 31st.  Jerry and Bev had stayed the night before so that we could all just wake up and go.  The drive should have been about 3.5 hours, but of course we stopped for lunch, and to stock up on groceries before we arrived at the house.

Thankfully, Brooke loves to ride on "Papa's boat", and we were able to make a lot of fun memories :) She also really loves her life jacket, which is another relief.  Having to fight a toddler about wearing a life jacket at all times is not very high on my list of fun activities.

The next four days were spent going on boat rides, watching Daddy ride the wakeboard, splashing on the back swim step, having picnics, grilling yummy food, and relaxing.  Brooke was golden the first two days of the trip, but by day 3 she was a bit whiny and moody.  She was sleeping so well at night, but her naps were not consistent and I think she was maybe just burnt out?  It was wearing on me, and she was constantly asking for her pacifier, which she normally only uses when she goes to sleep.  I finally relented, because it gave her comfort and allowed her to relax a little.

I love this picture of Brooke watching her Daddy :)  She would wave to him forever, and say things like "go daddy", or "good job daddy".

Our last afternoon was probably my favorite.  We made a special effort to be back at the house so Brooke could nap, but then she only slept for like an hour.  Kevin and Jerry were outside smoking a chicken, so we filled Brooke's wading pool. and enjoyed the afternoon in the shade.  The house really was so perfect in that the whole back side was fully shaded in the afternoon.  The guys manned the grill, Kevin hung up his hammock that he was super excited about, and Brooke and I played in her pool, picked flowers, and looked for lizards. She ended up pooping that afternoon (which took a while and was super painful for her), which might have explained her orneriness the day before!

We had a lot of great family time, and I loved seeing Kevin with his little girl. I love watching them drive the boat together.  On one occasion, Brooke wanted to sit in the seat all by herself.  Kevin sat behind her and was helping her steer, when all of a sudden Brooke reached over for the throttle, and pushed it forward which caused us to accelerate quickly.  It took us all by surprise, haha.  I am not sure if she really knew what she was doing, but I think she did because she had spent a lot of time sitting there with Kevin.

We also spent a lot of time talking to Brooke about her upcoming birthday, and how she was going to be two years old.  She was having a hard time holding up only two fingers on one hand, so I showed her that she could just hold up one finger on each hand.  When she was feeling compliant, and you asked how old she was, she would put those little fingers in the air and say "two", with a big smile :)

My first experience with a lake house was definitely a positive one and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

"brookie trailor"

Kevin has been interested in getting a bike trailer for a few months now.  We really wanted to rent one on our decent trip to Denver, but it didn't work out.  We had been perusing Craigslist for a great deal, but were not having a ton of success.  One weekend, we decided to just go for it, and buy one from Walmart.  Kevin put it together with Brooke when I was at the temple (one of my old YW was receiving her endowments before leaving on a mission), and boy, was she excited. Kevin texted me some pictures of her sitting in the trailer while he was hooking it up to his bike.  They were also waiting on me to bring home a new bike pump for Kevin's tires.  Once the tires were pumped and ready to go, we went outside to go for a quick spin.  It was getting dark, and then it started raining.  But it didn't keep us from having a great (quick) little ride.

For days, all Brooke could talk about was her trailer.  We went on another family bike ride on Sunday afternoon, which was perfect.  We checked out some of the newer homes in our development (we are scoping out a house for my parents in hopes that they will move here soon!), and enjoyed the fresh air.  And of course the duck pond :)

On the ride home, Brooke stretched out her legs and they were sticking out of her trailer!  As long as they don't touch the tire, we should be okay :)  I love going on bike rides, and I look forward to exploring the parks around here and finding new places to ride.  I guess it may get a little trickier once my pregnant belly gets bigger...but for now, it seems like a fun family activity.

cousin play date

Melanie and I decided that we would have a weekly pool date with the girls, but due to rain, we had a park play date instead. 

 They had lots of fun sliding together, but Brooke was being non-compliant for the cousin photo op :/

When the girls were done with the park, we headed back to the house for a little water table fun.  It's so fun to see the girls play together, and although we have to step in to remind them to share, etc, they get along really well.  Before too long, Miss Aubrey will be walking and then I can only imagine the mischief these three will get into.

Here's to hoping that we keep up with our weekly cousin play dates!

may iphone gems

I love the convenience of taking pictures on my phone!  

It helps me remember what we did every day when I am trying to update Brooke's line-a-day journal. May was a super rainy month, but we made sure to get out every chance we could.

I love me some Sunday pictures, especially when Brooke is in her cute twirl dress.

My little photographer :)  Whenever she sees me with my camera, she will say "Brookie hold camera", or "Brookie take a picture".  I am actually surprised that she knows to hold it up to your eye because for the most part, I use the screen display and rarely look through the eye piece.

Having a bedtime snack with Daddy.  She loves her little tea set, and she knows that Daddy will always ask for a bite of dessert.

She is in a phase where she loves flowers, and after picking flowers during the bluebonnet photo shoot, she has become quite keen on wanting to pick flowers.  Trouble is, she wants to pick the ones growing in front of our house, haha.  So, if our plants are missing half of their blooms, you will know who the culprit is :)

Something about this picture makes me wish I could make time stand still.  I love the twinkle in her eyes, but does she have to look so grown up!  Goodness.

Brooke's version of planking!  She discovered that she could hold her body up like that, and has been doing it ever since.

Like I said, it rained A LOT in May, so we spent plenty of time in the garage watching the rain fall, and listening to the "Boom Boom Lightning".  I have tried to tell her that the booms are from the thunder, and the flashes of light are the lightning...but alas, she always goes with "Boom Boom Lightning".  When she would hear the storm outside, she would stop what she was doing and say, "Mama, Listen".  I absolutely love storms (as long as I am not out driving), so I am glad that she can appreciate them too.

This girl cracks me up. I was trying to take a picture of Brooke playing with this quilt her great-grandma made her, and this was the pose she gave me :)

I pulled out the fishing game from her closet (from my Speech days), and she quickly fell in love.  The fishing poles didn't work well (after being man-handled by far too many students), so we opted for our fingers instead.  Much more fun if you ask me.

We have frequent play dates at Chick-fil-a, and this particular day we met up with Danielle, Brandt, Tracy, Cooper, Britton, and baby Nora.  Cooper and Britt were so sweet with Brooke and made sure to look after her on the playground.  Miss Tracy was kind enough to buy Brooke an ice cream cone, which she thoroughly enjoyed.  It was so fun to catch up with these great friends.

Broke continues to love prunes, which used to really help with her constipation issues.  Lately, not much seems to help, and I cannot continue to see Brooke struggle when she has to go. She has her two year check-up this week and I will most definitely be discussing this with her pediatrician.

One Saturday, Kevin was mowing the lawn, I was cutting shrubs and trimming trees, and Brooke was "helping" with the dirt and mulch.  We uncovered a giant colony of rollie-pollies around the base of one of our trees.  Brooke loved to watch them, and finally mustered up enough courage to hold one.  For about 5 seconds, and then she was done, haha.

The pool opened mid-May, and we were excited to see how Brooke liked the pool now that she was a little bigger.  She basically wanted to run back and forth between the toddler pool (a foot and a half deep), and the splash area with 6 inches of water.  Oh, and then she wanted to lounge on the chairs and play peek-a-boo.  It was fun to have Daddy there with us, and Brooke wanted to wear his goggles.

With all of the rain, the water levels were insanely high.  We went to feed her beloved ducks, and the moss was out of control.  That didn't stop this ducky-loving girl from throwing bread till we had depleted our resources.

I can't remember the occasion for milkshakes, but hey, I guess you don't always need an occasion.  Brooke calls them "froobies" (aka smoothies), and I think this picture perfectly captured her happiness :)

After watching another little girl play soccer with her dad, we NEEDED to go get Brooke's soccer ball from the garage.  She was wearing all those rings (cupcake toppers for her upcoming party), and her sunglasses the whole time we played.  I kind of love that she likes girly stuff, but also loves to play outside for hours.

And she is forward facing!  Kevin has been ready to turn her car seat around for a few months now because he was having a hard time getting her in her seat.  I wasn't having any issues, and wanted to wait as long as possible for safety reasons.  I kept telling her that pretty soon, she would get to face forward and watch Mommy drive the car.  The afternoon of the big switch, Brooke was busy playing in the garage. When I showed her the car seat, she climbed in by herself, and said "Mommy drive car", so we went for a spin around the block.  She thought it was the greatest thing ever, as you can see by her expression.

We are going to have a summer full of pool days, and we are excited.  It is super convenient living across the street from the community pool!

celebrating moms

I love this little girl.  Because of her, I have the title of "Mother".  She really makes me so happy and although some days can be challenging, I can honestly say that I wouldn't trade my role as "Stay at Home Mom" for anything.  Brooke's speech has exploded, and I am constantly amazed at the phrases she will say.  One of her favorite songs is "I Love To See The Temple", from the children's songbook.  She will say "families are forever", but then it transitioned to her talking about "hold mommy forever", or "mommy daddy brooke forever".  These are the precious moments I never want to forget.  Especially when she hugs Kevin and I around the neck and says those cute little words. 

I know that motherhood is a divine calling, and I am trying my best to fulfill that role.  There are MANY areas that I fall short, but I thankfully have amazing role models in my life that give me something to aspire to.  These include my own mother, my mother-in-law, my grandma, aunts, and friends.

Mother's Day was also Jerry and Bev's 40th wedding anniversary, and they requested that we come to church with them.  Jerry was speaking, which I knew was either going to be so fun for Brooke to see Papa on the stage, or a total disaster.  Let's just say that the first 15 minutes of sacrament meeting were spent saying "More Papa", "See Papa", and trying to go up on the stand. Not our most reverent sacrament meeting ever.  Things were better once her cousins came in and sat by us :)

 

Since they love family pictures, and there is not space in the house for any more family pictures, we opted to create a family wall of memories in the boat garage.  We ordered 8 of these canvases, and they seemed to like them.

Kinley brought her bike to Grandma and Papa's so Brooke could try it out. Brooke was a HUGE fan.  Kinely was so sweet to let her ride the bike, but Brooke really wanted Kinley to take a ride too.  Kinley finally relented, but Brooke didn't want to take turns with the helmet, haha.  Toddler drama :)

We enjoyed a lovely meal together, and the girls had lots of fun playing and laughing.  Oh, and Kevin finally wrote Brooke's birth story.  I have been nagging him about it since she was born (almost 2 years ago), and he finally typed it up and gave it to me for Mother's Day.  I totally cried as I read that sweet story, as told by Brooke's daddy.  He also let me order a new backpack/organization system for when I become a mommy of two :)  It should be arriving any day and I am super excited to use it!

camp fundraiser

At the end of April, we had our girl's camp fundraiser.  Originally, it was going to be Asian cuisine and karaoke.  As the date approached, the leader in charge of all the food found out that she was going to be out of town.  Since I am not known for my Filipino noodles, I opted to change it to a Fiesta of sorts :)  We needed something cheap since we weren't charging for tickets!  We had a nacho bar, which was actually so delicious.

The young women all showed up 2 hours before the event, and were super helpful in getting everything set up and prepared.  We were actually done in about an hour, which totally surprised me. A lot of the decorations were borrowed from a ward member who recently had a "fiesta" party for their child.  I ordered the rest from Amazon.

Each young woman was asked to contribute something for the "Silent Auction", and contributions included babysitting, tutoring, caricature drawing, guitar lessons, and Kevin's favorite: a personalized song written about you.  He REALLY wanted to win that one because he wanted the young woman to write a song about Brooke.  Well, we won, but we are still waiting to hear the song :)

The girls also brought desserts (or deserts, hahaha) to be auctioned at the end of the night.  This is where we make our money!  Some of the desserts went for $100 or more.  It was nuts, but the ward members were super generous and we made almost $3000 with both the silent and dessert auctions.  We raised enough money to cover the camp fees for all 16 of our girls attending.  Woot-woot :)

We ended the night with two pinatas...one for the kids, one for adults.  We sold tickets throughout the night for $1, and it was fun watching everyone enjoy taking a swing.  I unfortunately didn't take pictures because I was in charge of the blindfold and the bat.

It really was a great night, and I was very proud of the girls and how much they contributed as far as set-up, service items, serving the food, bringing desserts, and cleaning up.  And I was really happy that we were done fundraising, haha, since there was talk of having to do ANOTHER fundraiser if we didn't earn enough.