1st Fire

We had our first fire in our first house!  Our house feels a bit more like home with a roaring fire.

Isn't she beautiful!

Teaching the Value of Work . . .

We refinished our master bathroom cabinets during November.  It's a lot of work because of all the sanding and the number of coats it requires, but we both like how they turned out.  Brook was a big help as you can see . . .

Working very hard!

Finished product

                                  

Dirt

A few days ago I came home from work and noticed a bunch of dirt on the sidewalk in front of our house.  I thought hmmm, must have been the community gardeners that didn't clean up after they were done.  Then I started looking at the camera today and found out what was really happening while I was at work . . .

 

"hmmmm, should I eat it?"

"Dad, this stuff tastes great"

Running with Brooke

As most people know I (Daniel, not Leslie) am an avid runner.  I've been taking Brooke with me on my runs ever since Brooke was old enough to ride in the jogging stroller.  It gets warm during the day here but it's quite cool in the early morning (particularly with the wind chill factor) so this is what Brooke looks like when we go running at 7 am . . .

Brooke's running uniform: footsie pajamas under a sweater, beanie, gloves and boots.

 

I really hope that she enjoys her runs with me.  Sometimes it's hard to tell, because most days she is super quiet.  She just chills in the stroller and looks at everything as we go by.  Every once in a while she will be a bit more active and will babble while she points at things.  I definitely enjoy my running time with her.

Halloween!

About 4 months ago, Leslie told me that we needed to start working on our Halloween costumes.  Summertime doesn't seem like the right time to me, but she really wanted to be sure that we had good costumes this year; preferably something that went together as a family.  Her first choice was based on the children's book, Ferdinand the Bull (Leslie = Matador, Daniel = Bull, and Brooke = Bee).  Problem was that it was difficult to put together and I'm not sure very many people would have understood what we were dressing as.

Instead we had another really great idea.  Leslie was a robber, Brooke was a bag of money, and I was the FBI/Cop.  I think it turned out pretty good . . .

I caught the robber with bag of money!

So adorable!

FYI, Cornbread is not a good food for babies to eat themselves.  I crumbles right out of their hands.

Leslie made Brooke's costume.  Didn't she do a good job?

 

We were excited to have kids come to our house for the first time for trick or treating, but we were disappointed to only have two kids come to our door.  

We had fun doing pumpkins.  I decided to do something different this year so I mostly painted mine (It's a minion).

Leslie and Brooke's pumpkins

Leslie and Daniel

We don't blog about ourselves much these days because Brooke is so much more fun to blog about.  So here is a short post about us.  Our lives aren't very exciting right now; so there isn't much to say.  It's nice though to not have any drama in our lives.

The happy couple.

Leslie is loving being a mom and spending time at home with Brooke. She has been doing some fun sewing and craft projects (including patching my shirts . . . repeatedly).  Leslie was called to be in the Relief Society presidency of our ward a couple months ago, so that keeps her busy.  It's something very new for her and a big learning experience.  We still don't know a lot of people in our ward here, but our callings are forcing us to meet new people.  Leslie has been making many delicious vegan recipes.  I like to eat healthy as well, so I enjoy the vegan diet that she's imposed on our family.

I am doing well.  I mostly work and then come home and hang out with Leslie and Brooke. My work is going well; I have great co-workers, so it's nice to be somewhere that I feel comfortable.  For those of you that don't know, at work I do taxes, audits, consulting, and bookkeeping. It's nice to have a good variety of things to do at work despite not being able to specialize in anything.  September was a busy work month that included a lot of late nights and working on Saturdays, but now I shouldn't be working overtime until sometime in January when tax season picks up.

We have been doing some 30 day exercise challenges together; its a good way to motivate each other to exercise and it's fun to be doing something together.  So far we have done an ab challenge and an arm challenge. We are almost done with the beach body challenge; it's our least favorite.  Actually the beach body challenge isn't a favorite at all; it's mostly miserable exercises that don't make us feel like we're getting any stronger.  So now we're on the lookout for our next 30 day challenge.

We also have a couple of tv shows that we enjoy watching together, one of which is "Lark Rise to Candleford". I guess we consider those nights that we watch it our date nights, seeing as we don't get out much anymore. We don't have many nights during the week when we are together; I go out with the missionaries every week for my calling, and Leslie has meetings. It's a bit different than we are used to.

We still like each other a lot. :) Life is good. We're happy!

Brooke's Birthday - Part 2

Our last post only had a video (best video ever) of Brooke's birthday so I thought it would be nice to add some pictures.  We had a birthday party at the pool for Brooke, but we told everyone that it was really more for Leslie and I since Brooke wouldn't understand what the excitement was all about.  A lot of friends and family came, and we had a blast!

Presents!!

I don't think this is her birthday, but isn't she super cute?!?

So excited for her Birthday! Can't get enough of that cute face and pig-tails!

Leslie made some super delicious vegan cupcakes.  I think they may be the best cupcakes, I've ever had (particularly the banana ones).  

She did eat some of it.

More presents!

Pool party!!  We had tons of fun.  Aunt Liz sure does look like she's enjoying herself!

And more presents!

Leslie let Brooke get into left over cupcakes (she must love her)

Yummy cupcakes!

Brooke's 1st Birthday

We had a little lunch celebration at our house yesterday for Brooke's 1st Birthday!  Brooke was soooo cute eating her cupcake that had to post of video of it. 

Photoshoot of Brooke . . .

A friend (Emily Timmreck) of ours from Burbank agreed to take some pictures of Brooke.  There are so many good ones, so it's hard to choose which ones to post, but here are a few . . .

Brooke, the Cutest Ever!

We super-love being parents to this little cutie! She's growing up way too fast for my liking, and I tell her everyday to knock it off. But she doesn't listen. She'll be 10 months in a few days. Here are some fun things about her:

• She is a big talker, still. She makes noises a lot, and for extended periods of time. She's especially loud at church, which I think is kind of funny. Especially when Daniel tries giving her a pacifier to shut her up ... and then she just takes it out of her mouth and keeps talking.
• She's getting pretty good at saying "ma" and "da" sounds.
• She likes to shake her head. I think that is her main dance move. :)
• She loves being outside. Anytime she's a little grumpy, we go for a walk, and we both come back feeling a lot better. We've been walking a lot. Not just to cure grumpiness. 
• We go swimming a lot, since we now have a pool at our disposal (woohoo!); it's pretty fun, usually. Every once in a while she's not into it; but mostly we have fun.
• Brooke has these rolley-poley legs that are so squeezable and I love them. Also, she has the cutest chubby cheeks that I pinch daily, at least a few times, usually many times.
• She loves to be chased around. One of us will hold her and the other will chase around. She squeals and loves that.
• Many times when we go in to get her after she's woken up from sleep, she'll kick her legs really hard in her crib. 
• She likes to play with these little rattles made out of pill bottles. We put different things in each one and she'll take one in each hand and shake them vigorously. It's one of her favorite things to play with.
• She still likes sucking on a pacifier, but she likes to suck on them upside down. We'll put them in right side up, and she'll turn it around.
• She loves bananas, apples, refried beans, zucchini, carrots, tofu, spaghetti (this is a new one). I've started making my own baby food, which I really like, actually. And I think she likes certain things way better fresh than canned.

This is probably my favorite picture of Baby and Dadda

Daniel flying Brookie around the house. She squeals with delight

Cheeks!!!

Making a mess with the cheerios.

"It wasn't me."

Such a serious girl. :)

This baby girl tickles my heart and fills my soul with joy! Who knew motherhood could be so fun, so fulfilling, so WONDERFUL?!?