Happy New Year!

Toothless McGee...

So I go to pick Blake up at school this morning, and he has a hole where his front tooth used to be! He lost his tooth! He is so pleased! (Side note: Yes, it is a bit early to be losing teeth, but this one has been hit so many times, it was literally a snaggle tooth! Not gonna miss it sticking straight out! LOL)

We went to Target for groceries, and he had to show EVERYONE! He carried the tooth around in a plastic baggie. Gross? Yes. Did he love it? Absolutely!

Cousins! All boys!

For my dad's birthday, we (my sister and I) got our kids together for a picture. This was the best one we got. The others included a crying Connor, a moving Henry, and a cheesy Blake. Phew, that was a work out!

Apparently we can only have boys in this family.

the Connor chronicles

Because the last little bit I have been focusing on Blake, I thought it may be nice to see Connor.

He is now 18 months old! I can't believe it! Sometimes I feel like I just had Blake, let alone Connor! Connor is a sweetie. He is way more cuddly and clingy than Blake ever was, but he also prefers Matt to me. Kinda funny.

He loves to laugh, and is super silly. (pardon the messy house! LOL)

Connor LOVES shoes! He takes my shoes out of the closet and just leaves them all over the house. Call me crazy, but nothing is cuter than a baby in nothing but a diaper and adult shoes.

By now, Blake was talking, but Connor says only about 5 words in connor-ese... I am guessing it is because Blake talks enough for the two of them combined!

He chases Blake up and down our hall, and no one can get him to laugh like Blake. I love having two boys!

The soccer mom...

It's official. I am now a van driving, soccer mom.

Blake's first soccer game was last night. I thought it was so funny! No referees, just the coaches out on the field basically telling the kids what to do. Bunch Ball at it's finest (and cutest!) Blake had such a huge cheering section (me, Matt, Connor, Aunt Paige, Henry, Gma Christy, Gpa Drew, Gma Annette, Gpa Gary, Uncle Mike, Aunt Alyssa, Uncle Scott), that he spent the entire time running after the ball while waving. So so cute. Can't wait for more!

4 of the 6 members of his team. Blake is #4. Yup, the one with the baggy shorts. Next year: Order an Xsmall, not a Small.

Hamming it up for the camera.

"Mommy, the sun is in my eyes."

Oh, hi mommy.

Lesson # eleventy-seven... leaving a 4-year-old alone in the bathroom is a dangerous (though hilarious) idea OR if you give a 4-year-old a lip gloss.

Blake has been a little obsessed with things I am doing. Make-up, nail polish stuff like that. He still doesn't quite get that not everyone uses that stuff! The other day I told him that girls wore eye shadow and he said, "That's ok. Someday when I marry Lexi (his grandma's cousin's daughter--adopted, calm down) I will buy her lots of eyeshadow." I told him she would probably like that.

What a funny kid!

It's a MI-RA-CLE!

Holy cow! Brooke is gonna start blogging again?!?

Okay, okay, I have been a slacker. BUT, I am gonna get going with the blog again! Stay tuned!

I love my boys!

I love that Matt will just sit down on the couch and laugh and giggle with the boys. I know that I joke about actually having 3 kids (Well, I do in lots of ways! Sometimes Matt acts like a 5 year old!) but it is times like this that I am glad!

What a great dad! I love you honey!

My first.... Chocolate Chip Cookie

Words can't express the mess, or how much fun he had! He is his mother's son! We are choc-aholics!

Happy Halloween from the Nelson's

Yes, I realize I don't have a pic of Connor on here. I have to grab my mom's photo card! I will add it as soon as possible.

Ahhh, the joys of a boy...

So today I was taking a nap after Matt got home (thanks Matt!) and when I woke up, this is the story I was told... I don't know if this would have happened if I had had girls...



So, Blake had left a rake out in our backyard by the tree. He decided to go and grab it and put it in the garage. Matt figured we don't have a gate leading out of our backyard (we can thank the previous owners of this house for that), and he can't reach the button for the garage door, so he was safe enough.

After 5-6 minutes, he realized that Blake wasn't back inside yet, so he went out back, and saw Blake trying to shove the rake up and over the fence into our neighbors yard.

"Blake!"

"ooohhh---yes?"

"Stop doing that. Put the rake away, and come inside."

"okay daddy"

5-6 more minutes pass and he still isn't inside. So Matt opens up the back door and scans the back yard from right to left. He doesn't see anything until he gets at to 9:00 from where he was standing. He sees a little bum, and that is it.

"Blake!"

"oooohh--yes daddy?"

"What are you doing?"

"going potty"

"we don't go potty outside! It isn't a bathroom."

"sure it is!"

"no, it isn't. come inside."

"I'm not done yet"

He proceeded to finish his bidness.... just a little stream. Pulled up his pants, and came inside.

Now, I for one would never have done that when I was young! Is this just a boy thing?

Cisco- better than Bank of America

So I am only three days into my new job and I already feel a huge burden off my shoulders. No cardholders yelling, nobody asking me to do WAY more than I get paid for, and no more agents complaining (non stop) about how much they hate their jobs.

There is still some ambiguity as to what exactly I will be doing at Cisco, but I do know that many of my new employees are Portuguese speakers, and will be helping clients located in Brasil. I am happy to be using my language skills again.

Funniest video ever...

The Landlord from Will Ferrell

I laughed really hard at this...

Swimming Lessons

So I am too cheap to pay someone to teach Blake to swim, so for the last few weeks I have been taking him to the Bubble (now the South Davis Recreation Center) and have been trying to get him to get over his fear of water. He and I took lessons together when he was about a year and a half old, and he loved it. But now, it is a pain to get him to go beyond where he can touch the bottom.
Each time we go, he gets a bit more courageous. Maybe by the time he is in college he will be willing to go int the deep end. The major downside of public pools is two-fold: 1) They put SO much chlorine in the pool that I smelled like chemicals for days. 2) Creepy, naked old men in the locker room. If you know what I mean, you know what I mean. If you do not, then you are a very lucky human,

Donny Osmond and Me

So do you want to learn what Donny Osmond taught me in my dream last night? Of coarse you do. Well just after bringing him a Coke rather than the Sprite he had ordered (sorry about that Donny, I still feel bad about that), he taught me how to pop the top off a Coke bottle without a bottle opener by just using my wedding ring.

1- Give the cap a twist (to loosen it. Donny did it better than I ever could)
2- Put the bottle cap's edge just under your wedding ring
3- Bend your fingers down like your are holding the top of the bottle
4- With your right hand, grab the bottom of the bottle and move it away and up while holding the top of the bottle in place with your left hand (with your grip keeping the edge of the cap in place under you ring)

I have not tried it yet, but for you boozers out there, let me know if it works (remember: this all came to me in a glorious vision with Donny on a yacht. I know, weird)

And if you are reading this thinking that Brooke wrote it, you are wrong. As ashamed as I am, this is a Matt dream. :(

Confessions of a Desperate Mother

Every mother at some point has one of those desperate moments in which you do crazy "look-at-that-poor-mother" things!

Like the time I ran out of wet wipes and Blake had a massive explodo poop in the car. I didn't have wet wipes, but I did have armor all wipes for the interior of my car! Yes, I armor-alled Blake's patootie! Wha-What? His back side sparkled! But I did take him home and give him a bath.

Desperate mothers do desperate things! Like today. I know that I don't need to explain this, but I basically put my son in a rolling cage to go to sleep! What? Let me show you.

First this happened.... (Yes, he can sit in a cart now! I do not miss being tethered to that car seat!)


So I picked him up. That looked extremely uncomfortable! But, then he got really heavy! 18 pounds of baby can really weigh you down! So I did this...


Yes, he is in the front of the cart under the little seat.... i just set him down. He is sleeping on Blake's sweater, so he has a little pillow. That counts for something right?

Up up and away! or CHARGE!

Depending on how you view a cape, the title will make sense!

For Blake's Halloween costume, we decided that he would be a knight (which means that Mommy found a really cheap knight costume at Dollar Tree!! Helmet, breast plate, and shield--$3! YES!) . So I decided I would make my first ever Halloween costume... well part of it. I found a great tutorial HERE... and this is how it turned out....

Notice the incredibly attractive "too small but he won't let me throw them away" jammies.

(Yes I forced him to stand here for this pic... awful mommy!)

Remember When?

Matt and Blake went to the movie store tonight and came back with "The Last Unicorn!" Doy ou remember that movie from way way way back when? Matt and I watched it when we were really little, but we remember some parts of it... so we got to take a trip down memory lane, and laugh at the early animation, and the "great" music...

enjoy!

1 + 1 = Ew Gross

This...

plus this...

equals....

EW GROSS! (And this is a clean feeding!)

Ahhh the joys of solid food. (those are sweet potatoes)

Emergancy Prep Kinda Sucks

So, the ward seems to think that the end is near. Every first Sunday (starting with August) for the rest of the year we will have (and have had) Emergency/ Disaster Preparation. The first set of items that we were asked to get ready were water and personal documentation. I had no idea how much water I need, lame. The human body needs at least 1 gallon per day. Not to mention all the water you need to clean.
So after class today, I went and picked-up four 7-gallon containers, one for each of us. So based on the aforementioned calculations, I hope the next disaster lasts for less than 3-4 days. Oh yeah, and it cost $75. That's the sucky part. I'm all for post-apocalyptic survival strategy, but does it have to put me out by so much hard earned.

Now, for the next few days, I will be scanning in drivers licenses, SSN cards, life insurance policies and the like. Lucky me.