Walk as I'm walking...

Brooklyn is walking! I never thought this day would come... It's the cutest thing. She's still wobbly, but her confidence grows every day. She loves to walk around the house holding my hand, or by herself pushing a giant box or her walking toy. She usually can take about 4-5 steps before either stopping or falling down. She looks so big! I have yet to get a picture or video of it. She is quite mischievous. The other day I was doing the dishes and when I looked around, she was nowhere! I checked her room, my room - all her normal spots. When I got back to the kitchen, there she was. Eating dog food. Yep. It's her favorite. If I ever forget to put it up when she's awake, she beelines for it every time! And she is fast! Of course, as soon as I say her name she goes even faster, trying to get there before I get her. She does that with most things she knows she isn't supposed to do. Clever girl.

I always find her in the most random places. When I can't find her, I just call her name, and eventually I see some sign of where she is hiding. She likes to play behind the couch.

Here's her most common face. She does it all day.

Halloween was so fun! We had a ward party that we went to, with Craig as a farmer, me as his cow, and Brooklyn as his pumpkin! She was so fun, although she wouldn't take candy from anyone. She's only shy when either Craig or I am holding her. Otherwise she is the most talkative, fun-loving kid around. She seems to love everyone.

We also had a murder mystery party we went to, and that was really fun! Props to our friend Melissa who throws a killer party! She is super creative and had the most fun food and decorations. It was awesome!

Then we had Trick or Treating at Craig's work, and Brooklyn had a great time. She just sat there and played with this twizzler the whole time. Craig ended up taking all the candy back to work anyway since Brooklyn doesn't eat candy and I didn't want it at the house tempting me!

Here is her box. She loves to push it all around the house.

She loves to play piano with me. :)

This is her 11 month picture. She has been so sick, with a fever and cold (notice the drool on her chin), but she's 11 months nonetheless!

This is her tongue-twisty trick. She does it when she's concentrating.

Everything is going great! We are enjoying the cool weather, and looking forward to her birthday next month and Christmas! Happy Thanksgiving!

10 months just flew by...

And my baby is 10 months already! She is growing so fast! We've been having lots of fun watching her learn new things and see how much she is changing. My heart just melts when I walk in and see her squeal and smile till her eyes disappear (much like mine) and hold out her arms to me. My little sweetie! We are getting all ready for Halloween, and excited to get dressed up and paint the town! Ok not really, but we're excited to dress Brooklyn up. :)

She's all ready for Halloween!

She can stand up all by herself now. She does it best when she doesn't realize she's doing it at all!

Aaaaand there's the Craig face. If you look at Craig's baby pictures, he makes this funny face all the time. This is the closest picture I have to it. Someday I'll get a picture right at the perfect moment and document how much they are alike! haha although this one is when she's crying, which is rarely the case.

I got her hair in pigtails! Not an easy task - Moms everywhere, I applaud you for having the patience and catlike reflexes that accompany the ability to do a baby girl's hair.

She has 6 teeth! The four top ones and two bottom ones. No more little vampire!

We are halfway through the fall semester of school, and that means Craig only has 2 1/2 more semesters until he is Master Craig!! I'm so excited for him, and see what life is like when he isn't in school. I can't quite comprehend it, but I bet it will be wonderful! And I'm thinking about changing my career path and becoming a sign interpreter. Like sign language. Not like, "I think that sign means stop!" :) I guess we'll see!

7 Months

My little one is already 7 months! Time flies when you have a birthday every month. haha. She is sitting up now all by herself for as long as she pleases. It's so fun to see her from across the room, just sitting there, playing with whatever she has in her hands. She also has started attempting to get up on her hands and knees. She can almost do it, but usually gets frustrated and stops. She'll be crawling before we know it! She is such a big girl. She makes the funniest faces and always makes us laugh. And her hair! She certainly is turning into a little puff head. Her hair sprouts out like a chia pet.

We went for a visit down in Orem, to see Great-Grandma and Grandpa Seastrand! Brooklyn was a doll and let them hold her, and smiled like crazy looking up at them from the floor. She behaved so well! She also met my cousin, Bella, and the two were inseparable. Brooklyn loved her. It was cute.

And hanging out with Great-Aunt Nancy!

Still no teeth!

Let Us Walk

What a great weekend! Craiggy surprised me on Friday with a little picnic in the park. It was perfect weather (in the shade) and it was so nice to relax and hang out, just the three of us. We had Pizza Hut dippin pizza... Yum!

Possibly her first time standing on grass. She was so intrigued!

Don't tell me my baby's not a redhead...

On Saturday, we were able to participate in a CureSearch Walk to support funding for childhood cancer research! There were close to 1500 people there, and this event alone raised over $70,000! Wowza! It was so fun to be there and see all these people united in a cause.

We wore green bandannas, showing that we were walking for a survivor!

Brinley.

There was a moment of silence while those who have lost a child to cancer released balloons into the air. It was a very touching sight.

Brinley receiving her cancer survivor medal at the ceremony. My favorite quote of the day. After learning she was "4 1/2", the announcer asked her when she would be turning 5. Her response? "On my birthday!"

Brooklyn is rapidly approaching 7 months. Ahh! That reminds me, I need to get a picture up of her sitting up all by herself. :) My big girl. She does so many funny, new things it's hard to keep track of them all. She growls a lot. When she's eating, when she's sitting on the floor, in her crib alone... Just all the time. She also was trying to eat her high chair table. That was pretty funny. She has been getting more and more clingy and much less likely to let a stranger (or anyone besides me and Craig!) hold her. She gets nervous. Silly girl. She's just such a joy to have around, though! I can never say enough how dang cute she is, and how smiley she is. Today she was doing the plank - almost like she was about to do a pushup. I said, "Wow, Brooklyn! Mommy can't even do that!" :)

She certainly gets lots of love. Maybe too much.

3 Cheers for Independence!

What a great 4th of July weekend! We had such a fun time. Most of it was probably that Craig got to stay home and we spent a lot of time with my family. I also love to see American flags everywhere and be reminded what a wonderful country we live in! I think sometimes I live in a bubble of ignorance and forget that WE ARE BLESSED TO BE HERE. Not everyone lives in such a secure and free land! I love the feeling that comes when you hear the song “Proud to Be an American”. I sure am!

The other great part of this holiday is family. Boy, do I love my family! We went to a bbq at Kristin’s house, with JD and Stacy’s fam, Erica and Dustin’s fam, and us. Overcast instead of bloody hot = joy. Food = yum. David at the grill = perfection on a plate. Everyone chilling outside = good memories. J The only thing that was tough was Brooklyn. First off, she was tired when we got there. So she didn’t want to have anything to do with anyone but me (We are trying to steer clear of attachment issues to no avail)! I was letting her suck on a watermelon when she bit a huge piece off (which she never does, hence I was letting her do it!) and started choking on it. Luckily Kristin was right there to help me get it out. (Insert more screaming and crying here). Then she refused to take her last nap and was running on fumes for about 5 hours. Yikes! I promise we aren’t bad parents… Craig was downstairs with her for a total of about 2 hours trying to help her fall asleep, but she would gasp every once in a while and wake herself up again. So eventually we gave up and brought her outside for the last hour and a half. So you can imagine she was a force to be reckoned with. The poor girl cried whenever someone looked at her. She seemed intrigued by fireworks but not excited. Hopefully next year when she’s older she’ll have a better experience.

She is experimenting with different facial expressions. First it was sticking out her tongue, then the funny lip-sucking thing from the last post, and now she makes an “ooo” face – constantly. It’s the face I have the most pictures of because she is always doing it! Of course it’s super cute (lol everything she does is super cute!) so I feel the need to be taking a million pictures of it. I need someone to come over and filter through my many, many pictures!

When close to baby, watch your face. She'll get it.

In a nutshell, you don't want her to grab your face. It hurts.

Made this fruit pizza for the bbq! Yum!

Brooklyn watching the fireworks

The "don't look at me or I'll cry" face we saw all night.

Here’s a gross story. Skip this part if you don’t want to hear about blood. Craig went to donate blood on Saturday morning (which he never got to, because the first nurse poked his arm and adjusted wrong, and the next nurse poked his other arm and punctured the vein all the way through… that’s a story for another day) and came home with two gauzed-up arms and a big pack of ice on one of them. For those of you who don’t know me too well, needles terrify me. The worst part of giving birth was getting an IV in my arm. So about 3 hours later, Craig says “I think I’ll take these bandages off now” and starts taking one off. The next thing we know, blood is everywhere. I have yet to find the perfect word to explain it coming out of his arm. Oozing seems to slow, and spurting too fast. So we’ll say flowing quickly. Anyway, blood was flowing quickly from his arm and by the time I looked over to react to his “ahhhh!” it was on the floor and covering his arm. He ran over to the sink and I guess was asking me to get him something to stop the blood, but all I could hear was my head-voice saying “don’t pass out, don’t pass out…” so I sat down instead. Eventually, after about 10 minutes or so I manned up and made a tourniquet out of my swimsuit skirt, and cleaned up all the blood. (If you get stranded on an island, choose me!) Then we wrapped it back up and left them on for another few hours. The next unveiling was much more uneventful.

Now back to cute Brooklyn. She was an angel today and sang with me for most of the day. I didn't quite get the best of it in the video, but a little. She's the best!