Brooklyn as of late.

One of Maha's spelling words was "claws".  Coincidentally, Brooklyn had just scratched her. This was what she chose to wrote for her sentence:

Brooklyn has claws.

We are practicing using headphones for the airplane ride coming up this next week.  So far she does well with keeping them on her head.

First attempt at headphones.

When did my baby grow up!!? She looks so grown up in this picture.

I've been trying to plan one out of the ordinary activity for Brooklyn each day.  This day we went outside and played in a bucket of water with her duckies.

Loving the warm weather.

Splashing is fun!

The rubber duckies.

Another day I boiled spaghetti noodles and put them in a bowl for her to explore.  She was funny cause she would take each individual noodle and toss it out of the bowl one at a time.

Good morning world!

She is loving looking out windows lately.  I always change her clothes in the morning on the twin bed in her room and she immediately wants to crawl over to the window and look out it.

Idaho Potato 5K

 Our Saturday started at 3:30am when Little Missy wanted to be up and play with mom and dad in their bed.  Thomas and I were talking about it later and we both secretly kind of liked it cause she was super cuddly and being so funny by stroking our faces and trying to give us her binky.
We all officially were up at 8am to get ready for the Idaho Potato 5K.  I was hoping to beat my last time and get a post baby PR.

Team Beef Family

We were towards the front because from experience with our last race if we aren't near the front it really slows us down trying to dodge people who are walking when we are pushing a stroller.  Right before the race started one of the race official asked us to move to the very back of the 1,000 people because we had a stroller!! This ticked me off.  Just because we have a jogging stroller doesn't mean we are slow or walkers! He said it was a safety hazard.  I later wrote an e-mail to the race director suggesting that having someone pushing a jogging stroller who is running at an 8:00 minute mile pace behind people walking an 18:00 minute mile pace is what's a safety hazard.  If we were able to start with people running our same pace there would be no safety issue at all. We actually didn't go all the way to the back we just hid from the person in the middle of the pack and still ended up dodging hundreds of slower people.  I took off from the start cause I wanted to beat my time and Thomas was in charge of Brooklyn this race.
The first mile was super congested until we split from the 10K'ers at mile one.  I think the adrenaline from being mad at the person telling us to go to the back fueled my run and I felt awesome. The weather was perfect and I was just reelin' people in throughout the race.  Thomas and Brooklyn caught up to me the last 1/2 mile and we ran into the finish chute together with a final sprint.  Our stats:

Lindsey = 25:51
Overall 36th out of 561
Female 10th of  377
25-29 age division 2nd of 41

Love them.  They had baby food samples there and Brooklyn enjoyed them as you can see by her messy face.

Thomas=
Overall 39th of 561
Male 27th of 184
25-29 age division 2nd of 19

We were both completely surprised to each get 2nd in our age divisions! Thomas was a total trooper to push the stroller the whole way and let me try to do my best.

2nd place for us both.

Oh ya and as soon as we put Brooklyn in her stroller at the start of the race she screamed bloody murder (nap time).  I think everyone's eyes were on us.  We laughed when as soon as the national anthem started she stopped, the girl already knows to show respect for her country :). She was fine as soon as we started moving but man that girl is high maintenance sometimes (okay a lot of times).

Happy

to Sad in a split second.

On that same subject, I took her to a free stroller strides class last week and she screamed pretty much the entire time.  Out of like 50 kids there she was the only one crying and I was the Mama holding my baby in my arms as I'm doing squats to try and settle her down.  Again it was nap time but all the other tired babies just passed out in their strollers.  I love her and wouldn't trade her for anything though ;)

My First Mother's Day

This month of May I have been reflecting so much on last year at this time.  I've been reminiscing about being extremely pregnant with Brooklyn and the anticipation and then her birth (which we will be celebrating in just a week and a half!).
I kind of loved that besides my husband cooking meals and buying me presents, to Brooklyn it was just an ordinary day of me being her mom.  She ripped my brand new necklace off my neck within the first few minutes of church and broke one of the links (it was fixable), she had a huge blowout at church that took about 15 minutes to clean up, and she still needed to be fed and played with and loved and put to bed.  And you know what? I loved it. I love being needed by her for her everyday needs.  It makes me laugh that she is so young and already loves bling so much that she yanked my necklace off.  And another blowout is just another blowout and no big deal. 
Being a mom is a job and like any job there are good days and bad days.  But the good days are way better than any good days at any other job.  When my little early bird wakes me up at 6:30am happy and ready for the day, even though I am tired, I think in my head how waking up to her is way better than any alarm waking me up to go to work outside the home. 
The first thing in my prayers I mention everyday is how grateful I am for my little girl and ask Heavenly Father to continue to bless her in her health and development and I pray for guidance that I can be aware of what she needs from me as her mother. 

Love at first sight!

Love being this little one's mom!

Puppet show

This past Saturday we went to the library where they have the  Babywearers meetings.  We have been checking out different baby carriers before we decide to buy one.  We have tried the Moby wrap, liked it alright when she was a newborn but it took time to get all wrapped up and it was super hot.  Then we have a Snugli which worked great when she was not as heavy but it puts quite a bit of stress on your bag once they get biggger.  So we went to return one carrier and check out another.

 This library has an AWESOME kids room right in the middle of the whole library with windows all around so parents can always see their kids.  It has baby board books at a perfect level for babies to get at, puppets, computers, and lots of toys.

Enthralled

Funny puppets.

We took Brooklyn in there and an older little girl was playing with the puppets putting on a show for some of the younger ones.  It was adorable and Brooklyn was enthralled.  She laughed and wanted to get up close and personal the whole time.  

Clapping for the puppet show.

11 months

Had to have her spoon for the picture.

Someone likes the camera.

Sweetheart.

This little girl has more and more of a big personality each day.  She is a little joker and will do things to get a laugh out of us like crawl as fast as she can down the hall to her room and hide so we will come after her, she gets a big kick out of that.  She will cover her eyes with her hands or a piece of clothing near by to play peek-a-boo.  I'm always surprised at how long she will wait to take the hand or clothing away.
At 11 months:
- Brooklyn can say "moo"
- Signs the words: book, all done, more, eat, milk
- Sleeps from 8pm-7:30am
- Wears size 2 diapers
- 9-12 month pants and 6-12 month onesies
- Uses her toy walker and takes big giant steps with it and has started to slowly move along furniture while standing.

Thanks Great-Grandma Golladay for the new toy.

Cruisin' along the couch.

- Her favorite activity seems to be emptying things.  Tissue boxes, baskets of books, toy box, laundry that has just been folded, cupboards, you name it she will empty it. You can imagine how out apartment looks during the day. It's pretty darn adorable how she flings things out of their container.
-  Likes sticking her tongue out and seeing us stick our tongues out.

What is that thing inside there?

- Cries when somebody tickles her Mama cause she thinks I'm being hurt.
- Dances when she hears any music by shaking her had back and forth and moving her arms.
- Claps when she hears the song "If You're Happy and You Know It".
- Really likes going to Baby Signing Time and Story Time.
- Loves to play with rubber ducks.  We were waiting in line at Old Navy the other day and she was trying to wiggle out of my arms.  I finally let her down to see what she wanted and she crawled over to these rubber duckies they had and started to play with them.  I had to buy them for her it was just too cute.

Rubber ducky and water fun in the kitchen.

Can you tell she just loves Maha?

- Has started to blow kisses.  If you blow her a kiss she puts a finger in her mouth and then blows.  Close enough right?
- We discovered she is allergic to soy among a million other things.  So it's quite the adventure trying to find things for her to eat without milk, soy, eggs, bananas, and avocados.
- Has a third tooth that popped up on the bottom.
- Likes to play with pens.  At the grocery story she is the keeper of my pen and grocery list.

Let's go someplace mom!

- She also loves keys. She'll sometimes get my keys from my bag and crawl over to the door and reach for the knob. Miss Smarty Pants!

Salt Lake Getaway

The Fam

We had a nice little getaway this past weekend to Salt Lake and mixed business with pleasure.  Thomas had a meeting at University of Utah to learn more about the PA program and we decided to just make a long weekend out of it.
We arrived on Thursday and Brooklyn and I hung out at my grandma's while Thomas had his meeting.  My grandma is so fun to chat with.
We stayed at the Hyatt Place in downtown Salt Lake and it was just a couple of blocks from my grandma's apartment and temple square.  We loved that it had a little divided between the bedroom and the living room area so that we didn't disturb Brooklyn when she was sleeping.
Brooklyn was a champ both on the 5 hour drive there and back.  No tears at all from the little princess. She didn't nap much because we were out and about all day but did manage one 45 minute nap each day and she slept fine at night.  Traveling with a baby always makes me anxious but I am usually pleasantly surprised.
Friday we toured temple square.  I think I have always visited temple square either during conference or Christmas time when it is super busy so it was nice to be there with no crowds.  We went through the art museum, visitor centers, assembly hall, and then stopped to pick Grandma up for a late lunch/early dinner.  We headed over to City Creek Mall and ate at the Blue Lemon.  I've been craving it since we last went in October! The restaurant is all about fresh, healthy food and it is so so yummy.  Fast friendly service and delicious food.  Afterwards Grandma treated us to chocolate treats from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.

Thomas and Brooky Bear outside the Assembly Hall

Inside the assembly hall.  The pews are super close together, people must have been short back when they built it cause I couldn't even cross my legs.

Love the blossoms on the trees surrounding the temple.

Families Can Be Together Forever

As soon as Brooklyn caught sight of the Christ statue she just stared.

Grandma headed back to the Family History Library and we went to our hotel to get in the hot tub and relax.
Saturday we had a fun day checking out and getting some goodies from Trader Joe's (Boise is getting one next year!) and browsing Ikea.  We met one of my college friends Carrie for lunch at a cute little Mexican restaurant.  That evening Grandma treated us to dinner at Olive Garden.

Getting loves from her great grandma.

Before heading back on Sunday we went to church with Grandma.   We loved spending time together as a family and being able to get away for a bit. 

She's a big girl now

Look who is all adventurous and pulling herself up like crazy now! And if you zoomed in on this picture you would see her two bottom teeth.  I haven't gotten a good picture of them but I love seeing them when she smiles.  And she smiles a lot when her friend Maha comes over. 

Little monkey butt

When I tutor Maha we do 15 minutes of writing/spelling a day. Today I had her use Brooklyn's new fridge magnets to spell out words. Brooklyn wanted to help of course and would grab the magnets and put them on the floor and laugh. I love that Maha came over in her footie pajamas (some days I'm still in my pajamas too when she comes over and it's not morning time either).