So, yes, I realize that it’s the end of November, but I haven’t had a computer in over a month now, which means I haven’t had a chance to post anything that’s happened in the last month, so yes, I’m going to take us back to Halloween season, because it’s my blog and I’ll do what I want to. Do what I want to. Do what I want to. You would blog too if it happened toooooooooo you. I know, I know, keep my day job.

Let’s see, so as I mentioned, my poopy laptop stopped working, and I was terrified for a couple weeks because Richie wasn’t sure that he would be able to recover anything from my hard drive. Thankfully, he was able to salvage all of my pictures. I would have had a meltdown if I had lost all of my pictures. I know what you’re thinking, I need to start backing them up on discs or thumb drives, and I do, normally. We just hadn’t gotten around to it in the past 6 months or so, which means I would have lost a half a year worth of pictures from Kynlee’s life. And then I would have cried. A lot. But, alas, they have been saved! And since I’m tired of waiting on my laptop to get fixed (ahem, not mentioning any names of anyone who says they are going to fix it, Richie), I am just going to post from Richie’s Mac. And I don’t know any of the programs on Mac, so we’ll just hope I can figure my way around on here.

Alrighty then, so back to Halloween season! So a few nights before Halloween, Richie had to work so Aunt Karli came over to carve pumpkins with us. Here are some pics with Richie before he had to head out for the night. I love these shots.

While we waited on Karli to come over, we played outside. Naked. Ok, fine, only Kynlee was naked. She better enjoy it while she can, because she WILL reach an age where it will not be fun to run around bra-less. You hear that Kynlee? You were warned. If you can enjoy childhood for nothing else, please enjoy that one luxury, because once it’s taken from you, you can never retrieve it!

So Karli arrived, and because Mommy procrastinated on buying pumpkins, she had to go to 4 different stores around town trying to find a store that wasn’t sold out! I finally found an Albertson’s waaaaaaaay down the road that had some. Only problem? They were albino pumpkins! Oh well, better white pumpkins than no pumpkins, right?? Anyway, I hope we didn’t confuse Kynlee on what pumpkins were supposed to look like.

 

She was hilarious when we were carving. She wanted to do all the carving and cutting, but she wanted NOTHING to do with pulling the seeds and the guts out. She was disgusted by their innards, and everytime we tried convincing her that it was fun to put our hands in the guts, and it felt cool, she screamed and yelled “No Mommy! Icky!!!” She entertained us for quite some time. She cracks me up, the way she doesn’t mind making messes or throwing food or spilling things, but she cannot stand to have anything “dirty” on her hands or fingers. She’ll make me clean her hands a dozen times a day, if she gets food on it, dirt, a booger, you name it, she does NOT want it there, and she will throw a fit if you’re not ready with soap and water or a wet wipe. Anyway, it was a very fun night, and I’m glad we got to share it with Aunt Karli, since it’s her last year to be around for a while. Sniff, sniff. She’ll be off at college somewhere next year, playing basketball. We’ll miss you, Tarli!!

Here are our finished results. Whatcha think??? Mine’s the ghost, and Karli’s is a….errr….ummm…Karli, what was yours supposed to be again?

And goodnight.

Yes, that’s right. It has been a week of follies here in the world of Brooke. Before I get to embarassing myself, I’ll first catch up on the daily goings around here. We’ve done lots more unpacking, cleaning, decorating, and organizing around here. In fact, I bought a patio set this past weekend from Craigslist, and I’m excited about that. Also, on Friday night, I bought some new fun stuff for the house like a shower curtain and a toy organizer/shelf thingie for Kynlee’s loft. So her loft finally actually looks like a gameroom instead of a dumpster. Progress, people, progress! We have the spare bedroom set up, and my closet is organized, now, too. Weeee! Oooh, and in addition to all of that, my dad found a garage door opener on Craigslist for FREE! So he installed that last week. I know, I know, all of this is so exciting that you might pee yourself.

Wednesday night Kynlee’s Aunt and Uncle Matt and Wendy came to visit, we had dinner and they got to visit with her. She was eating up the attention, as usual. They live in Colorado now, so Kynlee doesn’t get to see them all that often. It was nice visiting with them.

On to a not-so-fun note, Kynlee got sick. AGAIN. I swear, she has been sick 80% of the time that she’s been in daycare. In 3 weeks time, she had double ear infection, swine flu, and then on Saturday morning, after a week of being NOT sick, she wakes up with fever. And vomiting. Awesome. My poor baby. We were supposed to go to my school’s carnival that day, but obviously that didn’t happen since the wee one was not feeling well. She thankfully woke up Sunday morning fever-free, and has been fine since then…knock on wood….hopefully it was just a 24 hour bug.

Ok, so now my silly stories of the week. We’ll go in chronological order.

Wednesday: I was running late to work, and so by the time I had gotten to school, there were no parking spots left. We have a VERY small parking lot at work, so sometimes I park in the grass or the parking lot next door. This particular morning, I decided to park in the grass right next to the door where I go in the building. Fast forward to 4:00. I walk out to my car. It’s pouring rain. My car is sitting in a puddle. A very big puddle. I can hardly see my front tires anymore. Deep breath. Walk through the puddle to my car door, while trying to get footing wherever I can. Swing open car door, throw bags in car. Jump in car, attemping to not get wet. Unsuccessful. Start car. Put car in reverse. Step on gas. Sink further into mud. Put car in drive. Step on gas. Sink even further into mud. Repeat each step 3-4 times. Give up. Call into the school, secretary answers. Ask her to please not laugh at me. She promises. Tell her I’m stuck in the mud. Ask if anyone in there has any ideas of what I should do. Five minutes later both of our school secretaries are outside helping me, one of them knee deep in mud, all of our shoes are off by this point because of the life-sucking mud. Tammie, one secretary, attempts wedging huge flat rocks underneath my tires to give it some leverage and create some friction. Attempt one: fail. Attempt two: fail. Attempt three: ok, you get the picture. We then decide it’s time to push the car in addition to the rock under the tires and me accelerating. Rocks wedged under tire: check. Secretaries pushing car: check. Brooke putting the pedal to the metal: check. Car getting out of the mud: fail. Soooo, FINALLY, after we were ready to give up and me have to call a tow truck, a few cars drove by and some angels dressed as men got out of their car, and basically without a word, walked to the front of my car and pushed it out. Like it was the easiest thing in the world. Thank goodness for good samaritans! Anyway, long story short…I will not be parking in the grass anytime soon. Yeah. Shut up.

**Disclaimer** the next 2 stories might contain TMI. this is your warning. if you don’t want to get gross pictures in your head, stop now.

Follie #2: Monday (yesterday). It’s Red Ribbon week at school, so the theme for yesterday was camouflage. So, I put on my camo shirt and some khaki pants (because i didn’t have any camo pants and I didn’t realize we could wear jeans during red ribbon week). Anyway, I go through my day like any other day. Teach, plan, teach, eat, teach, etc. You get the picture. Well, 3:00 rolls around and I sit down on the stool next to my projector to write down that evening’s homework. As I sit, I notice something funny in my….er….lap? Well, upon closer inspection, it wasn’t something in my lap…it was my underwear. My black underwear. How am I seeing my black underwear, you ask? Oh, well, please let me explain. You see, my underwear were visible because there WAS A BASEBALL SIZED HOLE IN THE CROTCH OF MY PANTS! Yep. I rock at life. Thank god my teammate Helena was kind enough to dismiss my class as I attempted to staple my pants back together and then run from the school in quiet shame.

Follie #3: After running from work in complete and utter embarassment, I get into my car and start driving to pick up Kynlee from daycare. Of course, first I have to wrap a jacket around my waist as not to flash  my undies to everyone at her daycare. After getting her back into the car, I was driving home to shower and change before Keno night. Some women at school invited me to be part of their Keno night once a month, so I was really looking forward to hanging out with them. I had already bought the gift for it, too (a cute pumpkin candle holder, and a battery-operated “autumn spice” scented candle to go inside the pumpkin). So, about 2 minutes into the drive home, I become overwhelmed with a wave of nausea. I’m driving right past my parents house as this happens, so I pull over to their house just in time to run inside and barely made it to barf  in the toilet. Apparently I caught whatever bug Kynlee had. Great. So now I have to cancel Keno, and somehow make it home. My mom said to leave Kynlee over there, and Richie could just pick her up when he got out of class. So I drove home and spent the majority of the evening in the bathroom. Richie comes home with Kynlee at about 7:00 and gets her ready for bed. He gives me gatorade, some crackers, and even washes my hair for me. Yeah, he’s a keeper. But it doesn’t end there. After the bath, I’m laying in bed and the tummy starts gurgling again (sorry, but you were warned about the TMI). I rush to the bathroom, sit on the toilet…and then puke all over the bathroom floor. A LOT. Apparently my tummy didn’t agree with the red gatorade. So as I’m crying and apologizing and throwing up, he comes in the bathroom without batting an eye and just starts cleaning everything up. Takes all the rugs and towels down to the wash and comes back upstairs to take care of me. So…my night in a nutshell was a true testament to our love…he has now witnessed almost every bodily function I can produce, and he STILL wants to be with me.

The bright side to each of the stories are the wonderful people who helped me out! My coworkers who helped get me out of the mud, the men who pushed the car, my teammate who covered for my class, and my boyfriend who didn’t run from my spewing bodily functions. Ahhhh, there’s always silver lining, isn’t there?

Last year we took Kynlee to the Flower Mound Pumpkin Patch, and even though she was too young to truly enjoy most of the activities there, she sure did have fun. We were joined by my sister Kayla and of course, Grandma. Flashback to Kynlee’s first Halloween/first trip to pumpkin patch:

I cannot believe how much she has grown since then. And how much her hair has not grown since then. Hehe. We have reason to believe, though, that it is actually starting to show signs of new hair and new growth, so maybe in the next few months, she won’t be an almost-baldy. Today we decided to continue the pumpkin patch tradition, and instead of Aunt Kayla, it was my other sister Aunt Karli who joined us, again with Grandma. Or Mama, in Kynlee’s words.

We love Minnie!!

Top of the haystack1

Kisses from Mommy

Kisses for Aunt Karli

And of course, kisses for Grandma!

I spent most of the day here, in the bounce house. I plum wore myself out today, guys! Went to bed at 7pm.

Check out my muscles! I rolled this pumpkin all by myself

A wagon ride with a mini-pumpkin and a mini-person

Someone stole mommy’s hat!

This is Mommy’s favorite picture

Oooh, I feel Mommy’s glasses. One more thing for me to steal!

And of course, I had to grab her hat again. As you can see, we had us some fun today. Join us next year for our new tradition of pumpkin patchin’ fun. Can’t beat free, right?!

Kynlee has been fever free for an entire day now, yay!!! Now we just have to hope it lasts and that her stinkin’ cough will go away soon. We’re halfway through the Tamiflu, and tomorrow is her last day on the antibiotic for her ear infections. She isn’t coughing during her sleep, so I hope that’s a good sign?

Anyway, we’re wanting to do a happy dance, but I really hope the fever-free kynlee sticks around! Keep sending healthy thoughts her way, please

Love you all!

I’m scared. I know hope I’m overreacting, but I still can’t help it. Kynlee woke up this morning and her fever was back with a vengeance. I took her to her doc, and she tested positive for H1N1. I’m trying to be strong and not freak out, because I know that will not help anything. He gave her a prescription for Tamiflu, so we’ll be doing that for the next 5 days. I had to miss work Friday, Monday, and today, but Richie is taking over the rest of the week. I don’t know how I’ll be able to function at work while knowing my baby is home sick, but I know that I need to get back to school and I know Richie will do everything just as well as I would do. I mean, really, with the flu, there is not a whole lot we can do, except make sure she rests and drinks and eats and basically just keep a very close watch to make sure she doesn’t develop any new, or more severe symptoms like respiratory distress. I’m so proud of her, she has been such an amazing trooper. This little girl has been fighting a double ear infection, a fever above 103, runny nose, a cough that won’t go away, and today she developed diarrhea, and soon thereafter, a diaper rash. But despite all of that, she is still running around like the normal silly, energetic girl we all know and love. I’ve been still alternating her tylenol/ibuprofen every 3 hours to keep that fever at bay, so as long as she’s not a ball of fire, she’s up and about. Her appetite is still around, she’s eating and drinking fine. She’s sleeping through the night fine, too. The only way you can really tell she’s sick is when her fever is spiked, her eyes are at half mast and her cheeks are rosy-red.

Anyway, I know that most everyone is bouncing back from this flu just like any other seasonal flu, but it just scares me to death in this instance because she’s so young. She’s not even 2 yet. I just feel so….helpless. I wish I could protect her from all things bad happening to her. I know that’s a universal mom feeling, but man, it really hits home when something like a damn pig virus comes along and there’s NOTHING I can do to really fix it. Just wait. And hope.

If you’re reading this, please send well wishes and happy thoughts to my booger bug.

My cutie patootie’s first school picture!! Sorry about the glare, I took a pic of a pic. Because that’s how I roll.

Comes with a one-of-a-kind impressionist work of art by none other than the next toddler prodigy, Kynlee Van Gogh.

Who can beat free art? This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, folks. Act quickly.

Well, as I already mentioned, Kynlee is under the weather. It started Thursday night when my friend Kelsie was over here, and we were about to watch The Office. I was putting Kynlee to sleep and noticed she felt hot. So I took her temp, and sure enough, she was running a fever. She coughed throughout the night, and c0me Friday morning, she is still running a very high fever. So I call into work and stay home with her for the day. When I called Kynlee’s pediatrician, Dr. Terk. I guess they have been so inundated with the swine flu that they are diagnosing everyone without even a consult. Basically, the nurse asked me what her symptoms were. I said a cough and fever. She said “it’s probably the flu, so just keep her home and make sure she gets plenty of fluids and liquids.” I was like, “Really? You are diagnosing the flu just based on those 2 symptoms? Disregard the fact that she’s eating fine, sleeping fine, drinking fine, her temperment was fine, etc.” Anyway, I wasn’t satisfied with that diagnosis, so on Saturday I ended up taking her to Care Now, where they did discover that she has a double ear infection. Poor stinker. Anyway, I’m still not sure whether she has anything in addition to that, like a cold or the flu, but she’s on an antibiotic for the ears, and hopefully this dang fever and cough will start to go away soon. Anyway, as much as I hate seeing her not feel well, it was also nice to spend a weekend cuddling with my Kynbug. We watched a lot of movies, had some visitors, and made lots of yummy stuff like Halloween sugar cookies and hot chocolate and chips and queso and homemade pizza and all sorts of things very terrible in nutrition but amazing for the spirit :p

Do you like my new look?

The day we closed, we got to attend my dad’s annual company picnic at BNSF (Burlington Northern Santa Fe) Railroad. We look forward to it each year, it’s something that me and my siblings went to each year all the way back when we lived in Minnesota. In fact, one year, my dad and I won the egg toss. It used to be a huge deal back in the day…they had dunk tanks, egg tossing contests, 3-legged races, and even served beer, lol. Nowadays, it’s still fun, but the company has gotten so enormously huge that it almost lost the same feel that it used to have. However, we still have lots of fun each year. Last year was Kynlee’s first year to attend, and my friends Erin and Adryan joined us for the fun…Here’s a fun flashback to a year ago. Kynlee was 10 months old, and had just recently taken her first steps on her own. She was a hoot. As you can see, she wasn’t having any fun at all at the picnic :p

Fast forward to this year…Richie got to join us this time, as well as my brother Brent and his friend Charity. Again, no fun was to be had. Poor girl :p

The one thing we actually did miss this year that she loved last year was the petting zoo. Have I mentioned she loves animals? Well, most of the time she loves animals. Sometimes she pulls their ears and hits them with things like her brush. We don’t condone this behavior though. I promise.

I finally have a few minutes to catch up on here. It’s been a whirlwind couple of weeks. And the only reason I have time to catch up now is because I’m at home, again, with a sick baby. My poor girl has a double ear infection, a fever, and a terrible cough. It’s  been going on for about 5 days now, so we spent the weekend trying to nurse her back to health. I had to miss inservice on Friday, and left early from inservice today, and now she is taking her nap so I’m going to try to catch up on here a bit.

Let’s rewind to just over 2 weeks ago, September 25. I closed on the house, woot woot!!! It was such a weird/scary/exciting experience. Here’s a small glimpse of me signing my life away! So, yep, it’s final. My next 30 years belongs to a mortgage payment. We ended up locking in at a 4.5% interest rate, so I hope we’ll be able to stay here for a long, long time since I know they’ll never offer these rates again.

As you probably can tell from Richard’s last post, we’ve had lots and lots of unpacking and setting up to do. We’ve got almost all of it unpacked so far, but none of the painting/decorating is done yet. My dad, however, did finish the dog run in the backyard, so that’s really exciting. Didn’t he do a great job? He’s such a good daddy Speaking of dog run, we were helping him carry cinder blocks over to the dog run yesterday to make their little “porch” area, and when I went to pick up one block, I felt my finger touch something icky…so when I checked it out, it was none other than a lovely black widow. In my backyard. That touched my hand. We decided to keep it in a cup for now…I didn’t feel right about killing it, but I also don’t want to just let it go since my puppies and baby play out there! I’ve never seen one up close and personal until now. Here it is in all it’s glory….Scared the poop out of me!  And speaking of poop, (you like that seque?), we need to get a pooper scooper to pick up the dogs’ poop, cuz this picking-it-up-with-a-plastic-Walmart-bag-over-the-hand thing is not fun. Every day, it seems that the wish list for the house keeps growing bigger and bigger. I suppose that’s normal, but man, the list seems endless right now! I try to remind myself that we don’t have to buy everything right now, but it’s hard. Some big list items we need right now are: a grill, patio furniture, lawnmower, shutters for the windows, new furniture/decor for Kynlee’s “big girl” transition, furniture for the loft/game room, roll top desk, bookshelf, bathroom decor for downstairs bathroom, and the list goes on and on.

I did get a chance to go spend a little bit of money buying a few new items of decor for the living room/kitchen. My old kitchen was a bit reminiscent of a Mexican restaurant (unintentionally), the colors were red, orange, and yellow…(have I ever mentioned that I’m a terrible interior decorator? If not, I am. I lack that knack completely).  Anyway, we decided to retire those colors and try out some browns, teals, blues, and greens. I got throw pillows, rugs, dishes, and a couple random decorative items for the living room. So far, I’m loving it. I just need to pull the rooms together with some fun paint and we’ll see how it goes from there. Here is one of the new dishes I picked out (Ross is my new best friend, by the way!) What do you think? I love

Sooooo, I’ll leave the house updates at that for now.

Ciao!

Hello, Richard here. Sorry I haven’t posted, but I work a retail job and go to school (not that its an excuse!) so my time is nuts and off-track with the rest of the universe.

That aside, I have juicy new pics of the house, fresh from today:

Living room from the front door

Our Fireplace, complete with mirror and DVD collection

From the other side of the living room

Um… ignore the fact that it’s blurry. I don’t know what happened there.

Our new kitchen. The plates and pillows are on sale.

Tyson and Ambi in their new dog run, thanks to Brooke's Dad!

Side of the backyard

The depth of the backyard

Our Utility Room/Pantry, utility side.

The pantry side.

The garage. Thankfully, that mound of boxes is empty!

The stairway to... upstairs.

The Loft, a.k.a. Kynlee's Playland

Kynlee's room. We're omitting the box of clothes in the corner, lol.

My studio, or, in its current state, instrument graveyard.

Guest bedroom, things have actually been done in there, I swear!

Master Bedroom

Master Bathroom

And last but not least, Kynlee's Bathroom!

That’s about the long and short of it. We’ve decided on some colors for the living room/kitchen, as well as the master bedroom. Now it’s just a matter of getting a little extra money to get it all together!