The last time I added a post, Brooklyn was 8 months old. Now
she’s 14 months. Let me try to catch you up. (btw, you may want to take notes for the
comments section, there’s a LOT to talk about!)
Brooklyn is still our little sweetheart. She’s gone from
fast crawling at 8 months, to standing with furniture, to walking. She was
really good at walking even two months ago, but would still collapse
because she liked to be carried. Staci got her some squeaker shoes that helped
her out a lot, and she loves the noise! As of about two weeks ago, she realized we're not going to carry her nearly as much as she'd like, so she started to stand up and walk by herself. She's also started to laugh a lot when we play with her, and lately her "stink face" stare makes us all laugh a lot too.
She only had two teeth by her first birthday, but she's got a mouthful now! (she's had as many as 4 teeth break through in as little as one week. THAT was fun, let me tell you!)
We had her first birthday in November, with lots of pictures. She didn't quite know what to do with the cake Staci made for her. For the longest time she sat there like "this is... for me?" and then dove right in. It was really special for me too because I found an old VHS tape of Staci's first birthday, that I edited to play during Brooklyn's party. It was really cool to see all the similarities between mother and daughter.
We also got her a forward facing car seat, which at first she didn't like so much (although we thought she'd love it), but now after a few weeks she seems to appreciate the change.
Staci had a sometimes rough last 6 months due to some issues at work, one of which included a last minute office change in August. The old office wasn't big enough for their busy practice so we were packing up the truck. Turns out the new place wasn't confirmed so they had to move elsewhere into a (slightly smaller) location around the corner, which although it was to be a temporary workspace, they're still there today. I worry about her often, as working conditions are not ideal, but they will likely be moving again soon, this time to a hopefully bigger place.
Staci stays positive though and is a ton of fun. Her latest idea was to have a "mustache themed" birthday party, which was a blast. Some mustaches were more out-of-place than others, but everyone had a great time. She also made a special trip out to Phoenix to visit her sisters for a weekend but I was unable to go. (our first full night apart since before we got married!). Yeah that weekend sucked for me.
We did have a scare two weeks later, Staci used a very sharp knife making dinner to cut a deep wound on her left pointer finger, luckily hitting the nail instead of chopping the tip clean off. A few stitches later and she was all set. She took it like a champ though, I think I was freaking out more than her. Maybe I was just freaking out on the inside :)
As for me I've had some ups and downs myself these past 6 months. I tried to take a summer school Calculus class (my first of three). It was only a 10 week course instead of the normal 16, but the pace was too much for me and I failed it. I did take it again in the fall, and the second time around I passed it with 2 points (out of 100) to spare!
The fall semester was pretty rough on me as a stay at home dad, then a full time college student. At least I'm not working right now, that would be impossible! Now here in the spring semester I'm taking my second Calculus class, in addition to University Physics & Lab, plus a computer science class.
As a family we're doing well, getting a quick break every now and then. We normally have a little Thanksgiving party at Staci's parents house, but they decided to go to New Orleans to have Thanksgiving with Staci's grandparents, so we tagged along. a few weeks later was Staci's mustached birthday, right around the time we bought a 9mm handgun, and got some time in for a nice low-key fourth anniversary to The Melting Pot :)
Christmas was a fun time for us as well, Brooklyn seemed to enjoy tearing open presents although we had to open several for her. Some toys she liked, some toys she liked the box :/
Our most recent adventure started the first week of January (Happy new year, btw). -- Our Apartment lease was set to expire Jan. 7th, and we'd been looking for a place to rent that was cheaper for several months. we decided to rent a house and placed an application for one day after Christmas, but due to the holidays several things weren't processed as fast as they normally would have. Every day got more stressful until just after New Years, nothing had been confirmed and when we checked with the apartment complex about a month-to-month plan they wanted to raise rent an ADDITIONAL four hundred a month. absurd. We were moving out because of the high expense, now it was completely nuts.
So we got a U-haul, and packed up the truck... with no place to unload (notice the theme?) We had given all possible notices, faxes, phone calls, and still no answer whether or not we got the house. Our stuff stayed in the truck for three days while we slept at Staci's parents, then on Monday the 7th, I turned in our keys to the front office pretty devastated. Half an hour later, we got a call saying we were approved for our rent house, and would get keys the next morning. whew. We made jokes about our 'homeless half-hour'. Our ward was taken by complete surprise (considering we didn't want to announce we were leaving until we knew ourselves) so the following Sunday we attended our old ward to say goodbye.
Our new housing situation is going to be much better for us. It's a nice size home in Little Elm, TX about 3 miles away from Staci's parents. Since her mom Cindy watches Brooklyn while I'm in class it puts the drop off on the way instead of way past where I'm going. The home is big enough we decided to split the rent with Staci's cousin Logan and his wife Sadie. They're a few years younger than us with no kids, and since they work and go to school similar to Staci and I, we looked at this as an opportunity to get us all in a better place financially since neither family could get ahead paying so much for two apartments. Now we have a yard, garage, and a few other nice additions. Staci and I have lived here for a month now and like it very much. Logan & Sadie will move in at the end of February when their current lease ends. It was probably good for us to stagger the move in dates as well, this way we're out of the way when they bring their stuff in.One nice thing (depending how you look at it) is that the previous tenants of this house weren't so great to the property so the owner has had to make some improvements before we got here like new carpet and paint. There were a few holdover things that are being fixed ongoing like a new fence going up this week. The cost of all those repairs makes me glad not to be a homeowner at this time, but after I get out of school and back into the workforce we'll re-position ourselves and possibly buy later.
These past two weeks Staci and I have had an ongoing cough/cold going back and forth, but nothing compared to the flu that seems to have knocked the nation on it's back. Thankfully Brooklyn hasn't been sick with any of that at all, just her teething fevers and tantrums to deal with :)
As I write I realize just how crazy the last 6 months have been. We were pretty disappointed in the election results, although we did take the opportunity to vote. I feel as though I haven't been in touch with hardly anyone outside of my textbooks. It looks like we're not the only ones with crazy schedules as I'm not the only one to postpone blog posts for months at a time. take some time to let us know how you're doing, we likely won't know any other way.
See ya later, next time with pictures!
