Of Milestones

Brooklin decided to knock out another milestone yesterday. See for yourself...

Of doctor visits

I took the girls to the doctor yesterday for checkups. Natalie was 31# and 40" tall, which is less than 3% for wt. and 7% for height. Brooklin is 15#9.2oz. (5%) and 26" tall (7%). I swear I feed them!

I almost forgot the biggest news!  Brooklin took her first steps on Monday night.  She doesn't know she's too little for that!

Because Brooklin is only 9 months old for 31 days

Here’s a cute picture of Brooklin flying. By the way, she got her second ear infection of the month. This time, she didn’t even have a runny nose. I took her in because she wasn’t sleeping well and seemed grumpy (Brooklin is never grumpy unless there’s a treatable cause…hungry, dirty diaper, ear infection). I just want to get tubes in her ears, but the pediatrician isn’t ready to go there yet. Ugh!


In addition to flying, Brooklin’s talents at 9 months old include climbing all the way up the stairs unassisted (if you don’t count me hovering over her in case she decides to try her luck at going back down), standing without holding onto anything, walking with help, and eating everything small enough to fit in her mouth. She even ate Vietnamese cuisine with me. My favorite thing she does right now is she cocks her head to the side when she giggles. If you’re holding her, she lays her head on your shoulder. It’s the closest thing to a cuddle we get, and it doesn’t hurt that it’s adorable.

The one where we take a "Girls' Trip"

Natalie felt bad that she wasn’t invited on the “Girl Trip” to see Wicked in September. So I planned a girl trip of our own as one of her presents from us for her birthday. We drove down to Tri-Cities on Friday morning and shopped till we about dropped. I miss stores!! We had lunch with Dyana and her girls and then shopped some more. That evening, Natalie got to wear her Sleeping Beauty dress for Jeremy and Dyana’s ward trunk-or-treat. Arri and Paige were Little Bo Peep and a Lamb (so cute!!). Natalie said the best part was the costume parade. See the previous post for a picture of Natalie and Arri.

The next morning, after I had officially spent our life savings, I took Natalie to see Disney on Ice: Worlds of Fantasy. She absolutely loved it. Her exact words when we got in the car afterwards were, “Mom, Disney on Ice was just a dream come true!!” I wish I had a picture of Natalie’s face when Tinker Bell came flying out onto the ice (isn’t it cool to be 5 years old and not notice that she’s strung up by wires?). I was really impressed by the production. The skaters were actually very talented, the costumes were well done, and it was all-around enjoyable for me as well.


We got some great pictures of the girls playing in the leaves at Dyana’s house while we packed up all our stuff.

Because Halloween is fun, darn it!

Scott and Andrea came down for a mid-week visit on the 21st. We spent the day carving pumpkins and finishing the counter for my desk upstairs. The pumpkins turned out fantastic. We got lots of compliments on them from our trick-or-treaters.




We quickly cleaned up Natalie's birthday party on the 24th and went over to the Gimmeson’s annual “Power-tools only Pumpkin Carving Contest.” In addition to lots of great food, we really enjoyed seeing all the pumpkin creations. Joe even took 3rd place with his African tribal pumpkin. The last minute “Joe Rules” pumpkin, for some reason, didn’t place. We thought my swirly pumpkin could have taken the trophy, but I didn’t have time to finish.





Here are our Halloween pictures: Natalie as Sleeping Beauty and Arri as Little Bo Peep, the pumpkins in their glory, the trick-or-treaters, Liz in her Pocahontas get-up, Joe as Travis Pastrana, and Brooklin the ladybug. AJ was a clone trooper (Star Wars, of course), but I somehow missed getting a good picture of him. Joe actually drove the ’50 around the neighborhood while the kids trick-or-treated. It was fantastic way to let the bigger kids keep going while he ferried the younger ones home when they got cold.

When Natalie turned 5 and was undoubtably a princess

We celebrated Natalie’s 5th birthday on the 19th. Natalie got all kinds of great presents and cards. I got her tickets to Disney on Ice, which I'll blog about later. The birthday boy/girl in our family gets to choose all the day’s meals, so we had waffles, Pasta-Roni, and clam chowder with homemade bread bowls. Grandma and Grandpa joined us for dinner and dessert. Of course, Natalie wanted both cupcakes and cake for her birthday.





We’ve been slacking off the last few years and haven’t given Natalie a proper birthday party, so we repented and gave her a Princess party this year on Saturday, the 24th. Her friends, Lanie, Taylor, Vivian, Kamrie, and Monet got to dress up as princesses and color princess pictures and make princess crowns and play Pin Cinderella on the Castle. Then, we had cake and ice cream and opened presents. Natalie is one spoiled little girl. She got princess Barbies, a ballerina Barbie, a princess puzzle, watercolors and princess pictures to color, and a butterfly necklace and rings. And that’s not including all the presents from family!




We had a birthday dinner with the family on the Nov. 1st for Liz and Natalie. It was a ditto of Joe and John’s birthday dinner with homemade pizzas and chicken wings. Yummy as always!

Where the sand dunes meet CR50 racing

Joe took the ’50 and the kids out to the sand dunes one Saturday with Aaron Gimmeson and his kids. They had a great time. Mostly, Joe and Aaron let the kids run wild while they raced each other. And Natalie only almost hit the truck! AJ is starting to get over the incident last year at Grandma’s house (He fell over…it was a wimpy wreck at best).


This is Joe riding with the guys from Business Networks, who came down to critique JRCC.