Lately...

...Brooks has found a love for cars. He loves sitting in my lap in the driveway and playing with the steering wheel and changing the stations. We went grocery shopping today and he sat in those big cars attached to the front of the cart - he LOVED it. And not to long ago, we found this awesome jeep at Toys'R'Us. He was very happy sitting in the driver's seat. Notice that he's also reaching to change the station:


...We have been exploring our new town. There is a great Hill Country Galleria down the road with lots to do, including these fun fountains. Brooks was the only one playing that day, but he had a blast crawling back-n-forth under the sprays of water:



...We've had some good family time. We try to explore Austin or do something fun as a family on the weekends. It's a new thing for us, since Chad's last job had more freedom and a more flexible schedule. Now we have to wait until the weekend for all of us to get together. Here we are at The Iguana Grill in Lakeway. It proved to be near impossible to capture a good family photo:




...Brooks discovered that he has a new talent. It's even funnier when he does it to himself:


...Aunt Cari and Parker came to visit. Brooks loves Parker. He would play and then stop to look at Parker and check him out. They watched Baby Einstein together, and even laid down next to each other for a bit. There was a time when Cari ran out to the store while I stayed home with the boys. Parker was laying on the couch and Brooks was literally climbing on Kansas to try and reach Parker. He also happened to notice Parker's paci (which is the same one that B has). I took it away and told him no. I'm pretty sure you can guess the picture that goes with what happened next:




...We've been having lots of fun Mommy and Brooks time, but that is about to change. I got a job teaching 1st grade in Round Rock. I am very excited but also very nervous. It's going to be a hard transition for me, but I'm guessing Brooks will adjust just fine. Those first few days at school are going to be long. But I am so thankful that God opened this opportunity for us. There are no pictures of B and I playing together, but one of our new favorite things to do is go for long walks to the park. I got a jogger for my birthday, and Brooks and I have gone out a ton. I've been trying to jog a bit, but this Texas heat is killer! Brooks seems to enjoy the new jogger, and of course he likes our stop at the playground:

"That's one small step for man..."

"...one giant leap for mankind."  Okay, well, I guess mankind isn't really benefiting from this, but Brooks did take his first steps the other day.  I missed the first steps, but I did manage the capture the second try.  Notice that I am totally bribing him by using my cellphone (pathetic, I know).  He's not walking, but definitely standing a lot more and taking a couple of steps when he feels like it.  

Here are a couple of pictures of his recent attempts to stand and possibly go somewhere:

13 Months Old

I have been so sad to not be able and blog lately.  We are currently without internet, so I am forced to relax at Panera so I can surf the web.  Anyways, Brooks turned 13 months the other day.  I don't know if you're supposed to celebrate months after 12, but since we still communicate how old they are by using months, I thought I might as well take this time to celebrate and share some pictures.

Accomplishments by July 23, 2009:

* Brooks took his first steps today

* "Dada", "Mama", "Dog", and "Uh-oh" pretty much sum up his vocabulary, along with lots of babble

* He is understanding more everyday, especially, "NO TOUCH!"

* Can lunge his body into the water off the side of the pool, it's his attempt to jump in

Prayer Please

For those of you who don't know, I've been looking for a part-time job teaching somewhere in the Lakeway area.  Yesterday I had two interviews!  One isn't even worth mentioning because it was yucky and nothing that I really wanted to be a part of.  But the other one was near perfect (I say near perfect because is anything ever really perfect?).  The job is for a 4-5 year old classroom for Canyon Creek Church Preschool.  It is Tuesday - Friday, 9:00-1:00.  It pays surprising well, and I would get Thanksgiving Break, Christmas Break, and Spring Break paid time off plus 4 additional days of sick leave.  It doesn't run but just a few weeks in the summer, so I'd probably have to find some work during the summer months to make up the difference.  Brooks could be in a toddler room for next to nothing money wise.  So, the director called today and offered me the job...BUT - they don't have a spot open for Brooks.  So I have to either find alternate care for him (which kind of defeats the purpose) or pray that someone else in the toddler room drops out.  So, I would ask that you pray for the latter.  I really liked being at that school yesterday and just felt happy there.  Please pray that God would be in control and that I will be able to hand it over to Him.  If this doesn't work then there must be something more perfect out there for me.  

"Little One"

"Little One"

Little One

Precious son

God must love you so...

Against all odds

A gift from God

For purposes He knows.

There's ball to play

Trucks to race

Motorcycles, too...

But most of all

Fulfill your call

God has chosen you.

This poem came from the book by Beth Moore, "Further Still: A collection of poetry and vignettes". I read it this morning and couldn't help but think of Brooks. This poem totally sums up my son. If you know anything about my attempt to get pregnant and my pregnancy, then you know he was against all odds. And I've always known from the beginning that God has a big plans for Brooks' life. I can't wait to watch him grow so I can see God's plan unravel.

Dear Brooks,
I picture your life being one filled with fun times and adventure, but please never forget your Creator, and the plans that He has for you on this Earth.
All my love,
Mommy

Happy Anniversary!

Genesis 2:24 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh."

It has been 7 years since Chad and I stood in front of our family and friends to say "I DO!". Sometimes it seems like it was just yesterday, and sometimes it seems like a long time ago. I thought I could think of 7 of our most wonderful memories from the past 7 years (in chronological order):

1. The Wedding Day. 7.13.2002 - A perfectly rainy summer day. I remember standing behind the doors and hearing my music playing to cue me to walk down the aisle, and being completely overwhelmed with every kind of emotion. And standing up with Chad to confess our love and just being totally giddy. And the honeymoon (really none of your business).
(I wish I could post some pictures of this day, but this was before photographers did on-line pictures and I can't even scan any pictures because all of our albums are packed away...sorry)

2. New Zealand. October 2003 - It was probably the most fun we've had in our marriage. 6 months of vacation in the most beautiful place on earth (I haven't been everywhere, but I can't imagine any place more beautiful). We have so many wonderful memories there. One of our favorite things that we did was go to Marlborough Sound. We drove in at night, slept in the car, and woke up to this beautiful scenery:

It was a great day out on the boat looking at waterfalls, dolphins, and seals...out in the wonderful New Zealand sun.
I have 20,000 other memories from NZ, but we'll stop there.

3. Colorado. June 2004 - Our move to Colorado was a hard transition in our married life...we moved to a new town with no jobs and no friends. It didn't take long before we had both of those...and we got our dog, Kansas. I think this was our first attempt at taking a picture for our first Christmas card after living in Colorado. I like this picture because it shows how much fun we have together, and it's obviously NOT the picture we used for the actual Christmas card:

Here's another picture of our times living in Colorado. It's a beautiful place to live.


4. Chad's 26th Birthday. 4.10.2004 - It was a Sunday, so we were anticipating church, but we weren't anticipating 16 inches of snow. Church was cancelled, and the day was ours to play in the snow like little kids:



*Side Note* This is actually turning out to be a harder task then I thought, only because I think my real favorite memories are all the little ones. You know, sitting around the house watching movies on a rainy day or being silly in the car or playing on photo booth for hours...

This was a night where we seriously laughed harder than we've ever laughed before.

5. Going on Mission Trips together. Chad and I have been on 2 mission trips to Mexico since we've been married. The first one was good, but the second one was even better. There is something so wonderful about serving God in a foreign country together. I loved watching Chad interact with the locals, and all his attempts to speak Spanish. It's also a great time for each of us to grow in our walks with God, as we are stretched and challenged. This also happens to be the trip where I got really sick. I was suffering from heat exhaustion or something. It was coming out both ends, and it was not pretty. In Mexico, they just listen to your symptoms and give you something to help you feel better. So, they handed me a prescription for a shot and Chad had to give it to me. That's right - Chad pulled down my pants, counted to 3 and stuck me in the butt with a needle. That is a very found memory. But really, serving God was the highlight of the trip, getting the shot just got the most laughs. These are pictures from our Mission Trip to Piedras Negras, Mexico:
Having some fun on the plane ride.

One of the little girls that came to VBS everyday at the park.


6. South Dakota. December 2007 - "Why South Dakota?" you may ask..why not? It was a close enough drive and we thought we should go while we had the chance. We explored Mount Rushmore and some parks and some wild animals. I threw up some more (I was about 10 weeks prego at the time). We saw some more parks and more wild animals. My favorite memory from this trip was the donkeys. I seriously thought I was going to pee my pants. The donkeys were practically attacking our car. We were completely surrounded. It was a fun trip before baby - just driving in the car and spending time together:



7. Brooks Bryan Hoffman. 6.23.2008 - Nothing better than seeing Chad become a father. That day was a glorious day in our marriage where all of a sudden, it wasn't about us anymore:
This is me, I swear - I just got a little puffy during pregnancy. And if you look closely, you can see that tiny baby in my arms.

Daddy getting a closer look at his son.


After 7 years of marriage, I can truly say that I love my husband more today than ever before. Ask me again tomorrow, and I'll tell you the same.

My Sweet Boy Has Returned!!

I have never had such a trying week as a mom. I swear that someone switched out my happy Brooks with a rather grumpy, unpredictable Brooks. I have to be honest...there were points in my week when I didn't like my son. I always love him, but sometimes I didn't like him. I am saying this because I am assuming that most of you have had similar moments...please tell me it's true. It was very hard to be sympathetic and loving with a baby who screams all day. It definitely tried my patience a bit. But, as the week went one, things got better. I think it just took some time to catch up on some much needed sleep (thanks Lindsey for reassuring me that it takes a while to recovery after a crazy weekend):

And I went ahead and scratched the whole "one nap thing". It was too crazy to try something new this week. I'll try later when I know he is well rested and ready to give it a try. And that whole "no paci thing"...totally bogus! It must have been a fluke. He still enjoys the paci when he sleeps. I'll break that one another week that is more stable. He has a paci in his bath toys (don't ask me why) and he found it last night and put it in his mouth. The funny thing is that he has never been one for nuk paci's, he's always been stuck on the ones that they give out in the hospital. I tried this same paci over and over in the past and he didn't know what to do with it. Last night he put it in his mouth - and although he usually only takes a paci when sleeping, I couldn't help but be proud:

And just to celebrate that my happy boy is back, here are some more pictures from last night. Brooks ate spaghetti for the first time. He loved it! It wasn't too messy because I don't like a lot of sauce on my spaghetti. And there would've been a lot more noodles stuck to his tummy if Chad wasn't so neat to pick them off of him every 2 minutes. But, they are still cute pics:

Things aren't all that bad...

This week has been a really trying week as a mom, but then there are moments like now...when Brooks is reading quietly by himself on the floor while I am on the computer. Or that this afternoon we playing with his arctic table outside and went for a nice walk. Or yesterday afternoon when we went for a swim in the lake as a family. I feel like all I've done lately is complain about how grumpy Brooks has been, but he has his wonderful moments as well. And then I realized that maybe so many people got caught up on my LONG blog about my grumpy kid, that they were too tired to see all the wonderful pictures from this weekend (make sure you scroll down to take a look). We really did have a great time.
And now I'm hoping that Brooks is either catching up on sleep or teething or just going through a stage. Whatever it is - we will get through it and look back and realize that things really weren't all that bad.

Big Boy = Big Changes

Where do I start...I'll start at the birthday party, no, make that Friday:
Brooks didn't really sleep well with all the people and excitement of the weekend. It actually started on Friday when he didn't really nap in the morning and didn't really nap in the afternoon. Poor guy was running on little sleep and 48 hours with no poop. He almost feel asleep during his last swim lesson on Friday night. He went to bed a tad late that night, but he feel right to sleep, only to wake up around 9:30 with a poopy diaper. So I had to get him up to change him, and then convince him to go back to sleep. No good naps on Saturday during the party, either. He was a tad grumpy, but we did our best to keep him happy. One of the things that he loved was eating the cake. We ended up taking it away after he gobbled half of it up. I was worried about him getting a tummy ache. I had every right to be worried. Come bedtime, he was wired and ready to go. He was actually cracking me up! He just laughed and laughed for no reason why I was trying to put him to bed. It was so cute. I went ahead and laid him down and knew that he would fall asleep eventually. He ended up falling asleep about an hour later (8:45pm). About 10:00pm I heard him cry out and then fall back asleep, and again about 11:00pm, and again around 11:30pm. I ended up going in at around 11:30pm to soothe him a bit. (Can you tell this is going to get worse?) And then he cried out again at around midnight. I tried rocking him, nursing him (which he wanted no part in), giving him his paci, giving him milk, taking his temp...NOTHING WAS WORKING!!! I was desperate, so I even tried laying down with him in bed. I have never done this at night, but like I said, I was desperate. Once he feel asleep in bed with me for a while, and then he woke up when I tried to lay him in his crib. Then I thought I was doing too much, so I put him down and let him cry it out for a bit. It was 1:10am, so I thought that surely he was so exhausted that he would cry himself to sleep. 1:35am rolled around and he was still crying. I went in there to find my baby sitting there with puffy red eyes and a tear soaked face. You'd think that that would make me feel sad for him, but I was way beyond that point. Remember that it had now been 2 straight hours of Brooks SCREAMING. Chad tried walking around with him outside to calm him down, and as soon as he came in he screamed. Finally I rocked him a bit and tried putting him down around 2:23am. I listened to him cry for 3 minutes, and then came silence. I thought I had gone deaf! I laid in the chair in the living room for a minute and covered myself with a towel (it's all there was) and slept for about 30 minutes. I thought it might be safe to go bed. My parents were staying with us, so I was sleeping in the bed in Brooks' room. I was absolutely terrified to go in there. I tiptoed in and lay in bed and didn't move until Brooks woke up screaming around 6:45am. NOT a fun night. I got up with him and went to nurse him, and he turned his head. He wanted nothing to do with my boob. So, I guess we are done with that. My mom was nice enough to take him so Chad and I could go back to bed. She said that he was real fussy during breakfast (surprise, surprise), but then he had a huge poop, which seemed to help. Brooks took a nice 2 1/2 hour nap, and probably could've slept all day, only I was worried that if I let him sleep all day then he wouldn't sleep at night again. It was a rough night, followed by a rough day. Here are some pictures of a baby with no sleep trying to make it through the day:



He was not a happy camper. That next night (Sunday night) he slept better; Woke up a couple of times, but went right back to sleep. And he ended up sleeping in until 8:00am. Still wouldn't nurse, so like I said, I guess we are done with that. Now, my sister-in-law, Jill, suggested that maybe one reason he isn't napping so well is because he is ready for one nap. "What the heck", I thought. Everything else is changing so I might as well change his nap schedule, too. My mom and I kept him up all day on Monday and then put him down around 1:00ish. He did pretty well, and he slept about 3 hours. I went to get Chad from work around 4:45 and asked him to take me to have sushi for my birthday dinner. What was I thinking?! Apparently, Brooks didn't know it was my birthday. Now, let me backtrack a minute. Brooks is always really well-behaved when we go out to eat. We feed him lots and lots of food, and he does pretty well 95% of the time. This happened to be the only time he has ever been so fussy that we ended up getting our food to go. It was awful! I was so embarrassed! As soon as we got home he was fine, of course, and he went to bed just fine. Here's the strange part about him going to bed...no paci. I put the paci in his mouth and he took it out and threw it on the ground. Instead, he put his silk blanket in his mouth and closed his eyes. I was nervous so I put the paci in his crib just in case. Now, this morning I was hopeful that this new one nap schedule would mean that B would sleep in a bit and then we'd have a marvelous day at the park and swimming in the lake. I didn't know that the work men were coming at 6:45am to start working on the lower level of the house we are renting. Are you kiddin' me? So, guess who was screaming at 6:45am? Not necessarily what I needed today. So, back to two naps today. We had to get out of the house for Brooks to nap this morning because it was so loud downstairs. It was an awful morning up until that point because he was so tired. I don't think he has caught up on sleep from the weekend, and the forces seem to be working against catching up on any sleep. He did sleep for about an hour as I sweat my tail off walking around the neighborhood. And now, Brooks is sleeping soundly in his crib...1 1/2 hours and counting. The work men left right as I put him down, so there is finally some peace and quiet around here.
To recap, Big Boy = Big Changes:
1. Louder screaming
2. Anything that hasn't happened before is totally possible with a one-year-old
3. No more breastfeeding
4. No more paci
5. One nap (maybe)

4th of July/Brooks' Birthday Bash/Homecoming

We had a little party this weekend, and went ahead and combined some celebrations. But of course, Brooks was the main event. We had lots of family and friends out to the house. It was a hot, HOT day, but we survived. There were lots of babies for Brooks to play with and lots of people to gush all over him - talk about being spoiled! Brooks got lots of great gifts and ate some yummy cake.





That is not dirt, it is cake. After he actually ate half the cake, we took it away and then he just started playing with the icing that was left on his hands. He loved it!

Summer Fun

Watermelon, swim lessons, arctic table, and just being silly around the house. We have been so busy having fun in Lakeway...the summer is flying by!







This is his new thing. I'll say, "Brooks, can you be silly?" and then he'll use his hand on his mouth to make silly sounds. And sometimes he'll just do it all day just for fun. It keeps me smiling.