Visiting Family & Craig's Interviews

She always loves to look at the safety instructions

On Saturday January 24th we flew out of Memphis and headed back to Boise.  Craig had set up some interviews with a few different doctors in the Boise area and for once we were able to get a decent price on tickets so Brooklyn and I decided to go with him.  Craig only took one week off of work, which is really only 3 1/2 days (this rotation is awesome), but Brooklyn and I decided to stay an extra week.  Brooklyn did great on the flights, like usual.  Luckily our flights were pretty empty and we always had an extra seat next to us, so she was able to have more room to play. It was fun to go home this time and have Brooklyn actually remember people, although for some reason she was a little freaked out by my brother Tucker, but she luckily warmed up to Uncle DoDo soon enough.  Monday through Thursday of the first week Craig stayed busy talking with 5 different Optometry offices.  Most of them could only offer him a few days a week, but there was one that has the potential to be full time, but sadly we won't know anything about that one for another few months.  We are keeping our fingers crossed to be able to get back to the Boise area, but are willing to look elsewhere if needs be.  Thursday afternoon we headed up to McCall with Craig's parents and his brother Mark's family.  Brooklyn loved seeing all the snow and having the fireplace always going.  Friday morning we headed to our favorite spot for breakfast, The Pancake House and then let Brooklyn run aroun in the snow.

It happened to be the Winter Carnival while we were there so we had a lot of fun going to some of those activities.  Friday evening we went into town to watch the fireworks. Getting Brooklyn dressed in her snow clothes was a chore.  She hates wearing coats and gloves and all of that type of stuff.  Luckily Audrey put on her snow stuff, so then Brooklyn wanted to put on hers. Brooklyn thought they were so pretty, but she kept saying "loud, loud" so we had to cover her ears.  We were a little close then we normally are when we watch fireworks.  Pops bought Brooklyn and her cousin Audrey glow sticks and we all shared yummy hot chocolate.

getting all bundled up to go watch the fire works

On Saturday we headed into town late morning and let the kids go sledding and then watched the parade.  Brooklyn was a little hesitant to go sledding first but Craig convinced her and then she didn't want to stop. Brooklyn loved watching all of the trucks and floats go by in the parade.  She also liked that they threw out candy and bead necklaces, well she wasn't such a fan when one hit her on the face when she was sitting on Pop's shoulders, but she quickly got over that and was back on Craig's shoulders soon.  That afternoon and evening we just hung out at the cabin and had a great dinner.  Sunday morning we cleaned up and drove back down to Boise.  Craig packed up all of his stuff and then we dropped him off at the airport and Brooklyn and I headed over to my parents house to stay there the next week.

The next week was pretty chill at my parent's house.  Brooklyn slept really well the whole time we were in Boise.  Most days she would let me get my workout in before she even woke up and if she didn't then Grandma would watch her so I could go to the gym.  I was able to get my hair cut and go to the dentist while I was in town (love free babysitting).  Brooklyn had a lot of fun playing with Grandma's little rocking chair and also the kangaroo, which she kept tackling.  She also loved grandma's big daddy tub that she took bubble bathes in.  She also took advantage of the trampoline in the backyard.  She even got both feet off of the tramp at the same time a few times. We were able to see my sisters and their families and spend time with my little brother who Brooklyn and her cousin call DoDo.  She also calls her aunt Missy, MiMi.  By the end of the trip she was starting to get Grama down, we are still working on that one a little bit.  We were able to go watch one of Tucker's varsity basketball games. I was also able to go to the temple when my cousin received her endowments, luckily I had my recommend with me and I could borrow my mom's temple clothes.  My mom had the whole family over for dinner a few times, which made it really easy to get to see everyone.

Brooklyn's favorite toy at Nana and Pop's, even after he bucked her off.  Everytime she would get on him after that she would pet him and say" nice horse, no buck"

LJ and brooklyn watching DoDo pay basketball

Brooklyn and I then flew out of Boise early the morning of Saturday February 7th.  Luckily she was tired enough that she slept for about 50 minutes on the first flight.  We still had the extra seat next to us on both flights, which was good because she just wanted to keep doing the buckle (she is really good at it),  In Minneapolis during our layover she just wanted to keep doing the moving walk ways, but she didn't want me to go with her. So I had to walk along the side of it, one guy got kind of freaked out when he walked past her and thought she was all by herself.  She went up and back the same walkway at least 5 times.  She fell getting on every time but the last, but she refused to let me help her. We also played in the play area for a while to burn off some energy.  She did well on the last leg of the flight except for when she fell of the seat because she was playing peek-a-boo with the people behind us.  She fell into the aisle and bumped her lip on the arm rest across the aisle.  she only cried for a few minutes, but her lip bled and swelled up pretty good.  She was so excited to Craig.  She yelled DADDY so loud when she saw him pulling up in the car. We were able to get her home in time to take a nap, which is good because I had to wake her up at 4:45 that morning. We were both ready to be home, but we had a really great trip.  Now just playing the waiting game with Craig's job situation.

Of Course Mickey had to be buckled in

23 months old

1/22/2015
23 lbs
Size 4 diapers
size 18 month clothing

Brooklyn is such a doll and so much fun to have around.  Her vocabulary has really taken off this month.  She has started to pick up words left and right.  Most days she will spit out 3 or 4 new words and she will just repeat them all day long.  One of her favorites is animal, the day she learned that word she said it as she fell asleep and then was saying it when she woke up.  She is starting to connect more words together.  She will get 2 words together fairly often and 3 every once in a while. She loves her letters and can recognize every letter and can say them all except W.  She can recognize her numbers 1 through 5 but onlys says 2, probably because Craig was telling her she was going to turn 2 soon. She has learned a lot more colors as well.  We are still working on red, which you would think would be one of the easier ones, but I'm sure it will come soon.

She has shown a lot of interest in the potty recently so we picked her up a potty at Walmart and will hopefully begin potty training her when we get back from our trip to Boise.  When she has to go poop she will run up to me and say stinky and say bye and then run off to the kitchen to do her business.  If she doesn't have somewhere private to run to she will go to a corner and cover her eyes, thinking we can't see her.  She has started to do this lean thing whenever we take her picture.  She says cheese and then leans to one side, typically her left side.  She still loves to go to the gym and she will even go to nursery now without her burp clothe.  She loves to play with other kids now instead of just by herself.  She doesn't like to sit in her high chair anymore, she like to sit in her booster chair up to the table with everyone else.  I can't believe my baby is almost 2.  She cracks me up all the time and even on her "grumpy" days she is still such a sweet girl. Love her to pieces!!

We went for a walk around the neighborhood on New Year's Day and this is the outfit we came up with.  I was just happy she would wear her hat and mittens (she is anti anything warm)

Killing some time at the mall on a cold day

she loves to watch T.V. in her bee

Trying out the new potty

Fun at the Zoo with her buddy Peyton.  I love that we went to the Zoo in the middle of January

She found the diaper boxes we have been saving to pack with.

Christmas Time

for some reason she really wanted to hold our hands in the pictures

Christmas was a lot of fun this year.  We stayed in Memphis and it was just the 3 of us, but Craig had 2 weeks off from his externs and Brooklyn understood a little bit more about the whole thing this year.  She was so excited to help me decorate the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving.  I think she liked that the tree was just her size.  She did pretty good about not touching the tree, well at least with her hands.  She liked to test us, she would stick her hands behind her back and touch it with her tummy or she would walk really close to it and let her elbow brush it or she would hold one of her stuffed animals and let them touch it.  She though she was pretty sneaky, but she did get a few timeouts because she just had to touch the tree.  We didn't put any presents under the tree though until she had gone to bed on Christmas eve.

Since Craig had time off we decided to go see the march of the ducks at the Peabody Hotel again.  Brooklyn loves ducks and is a pro at quacking so we figured she would enjoy it.  We got there early and looked at all of the beautiful Christmas decorations.  Brooklyn loved the huge tree with the huge ornaments.  She really liked to see the ducks walk by and watch them swim in the fountain.

We didn't go see Santa this year.  We were pretty positive that she wouldn't take a picture with Him so we didn't want to waste our time.  At our gym there was a mechanical life size Santa that would dance and sing if you pressed a button and it totally freaked her out, but because of Him she thinks that all Santa's dance.  Anytime she sees one she starts to dance.  On Christmas Eve we went to Texas de Brazil for dinner...so good.  Brooklyn did great.  She loved to people watch and she liked all of the meat.  She really liked the coke bottle that the brought to Craig for his Cherry Coke, it was just her size.  After dinner we came home and lit the fire and read the story of Christ's birth from the bible and drank "fancy juice" (sparkling cider), which Brooklyn thought was awesome.  She loved the fire and pulled her little chair up in front of it and just watched it.  we then got her ready for bed and she watched a little bit of The Grinch with us and then she was off to bed.  Craig and I finished the movie and brought out her presents.

Christmas morning was a blast.  When she woke up that morning we brought her down and we were hoping to get her to eat a little breakfast before she opened presents but as soon as she spotted the presents there was nope hope for breakfast.  I told her she could open some after I changed her diaper, well that wasn't soon enough for her so she took off toward the tree and grabbed 2 presents and ran out of the living room.  So we let her open one small gift and then we changed her diaper and she ate a banana and then we let her open the rest of her presents.  After each gift she was content to just play with that gift.  It took us a little while to convince her that there were more toys for her.  She loved all of her toys,but I think her favorite is her Mickey Mouse stuffed animal.  she is obsessed. After gifts we then ate breakfast of monkey bread and an egg casserole.  A little later we went to the park and went for a walk and then that evening we had a nice Christmas dinner.  It was a great day that we were able to spend together as a little family.  Later that day I told Brooklyn that her birthday would be soon and that she would get to open more presents and she asked if they would be under the tree, what a sweet girl.  So grateful for this wonderful holiday and the chance we get to celebrate our Savior.