Our ward had a Halloween Carnival and of course we had to dress Brooke up for it. We bought this outfit on Disneyshopping.com and thought it was quite appropriate for her since we used to call her Piglet when she was younger and would squeal when we took the bottle away from her. We thought she looked so cute! 
She had such a good time hanging out with Landon in his horse costume 
and Grandma, Grandpa, Elyse, Deena, Aaron, and of course daddy while mom was in charge of one of the booths for the carnival.
This is Brooke with her friend Aaron. 
Brooke's friend Jack was a very good, very cool and very big lion (don't tell him he's cute, he'll say he's cool and big)
I posted this then realized that I left out so many of the events that happened this last weekend. I had to write everything on my calendar, something I don't normally do, just so I could remember everything! The ward Halloween carnival was Friday. The Primary was doing a cupcake walk so I made 2 batches of cupcakes for that, plus Terra and I signed up to do a booth. We did a little penny toss into various containers that I have been collecting for some reason. We covered them in construction paper and cut out little jack-o-lantern faces for them. When we got done there, I had to make a trip to Target to get the diapers that were a great deal (you know me, if it's a good deal I'm there!) Immediately after that I went to the church to help set up for the carnival. I was there for a few hours then came home and put Brooke down for a nap, she was such a trooper! I finished getting everything together, Tyler got home from work, we got Brooke in her costume and went to the carnival and had tons of fun.
Saturday: Since I am in charge of the program, I had a lot of preparation and responsibility for our Saturday program practice. The kids must think I am the meanest...I threatened them that if I saw any candy then I was going to eat it. Surprisingly we didn't have a problem. We were able to go through the program twice then had pizza, juice boxes, and fruit snacks outside. From there we went to Bryson Bradshaw's 1 year birthday party. Brooke had a fun time playing with all his toys. Tyler and I then went to Target to get Brooke a new car seat since we are both tired of carrying her in the infant carrier. That night we dressed Brooke up in her Piglet outfit again and went to the Stradlings for the family party and to celebrate Grandpa's 76th birthday. It is kind of ironic that I was assigned jello salad for the party. I have never made Jello salad, I don't even like Jello. So this was a new experience in itself. I decided to just make a plain pan of Jello and was going to put strawberries in it until Camilla told me it would not set up with fruit in it. So, I made the plain strawberry Jello, let it sit overnight, then made a topping of cream cheese, Cool Whip, and strawberries. The Jello was all set up, but the topping must have been too warm or something because when I put in on top the whole thing went runny. I felt like a failure! What Mormon mom can't make Jello salad! Luckily it just needed some love and a night in the fridge. It tasted pretty good the next day and we took it to Grandma's to get rid of it (remember...I don't like Jello).
Sunday: The culmination of MONTHS of work finally came to an end when we had our Primary Program on Sunday. I am the 2nd Counselor in our Primary and so I was in charge of the program. Boy was I in for a surprise at how much work actually goes into that 40 minute time block. I can honestly say that I think I rearranged the seating chart 6-8 times and went through a whole black ink cartridge in less than 1 week. It was a lot of work but I was able to spread it out over a period of time and had some GREAT help. Of course, everything went well and I was so pleased with the kids. We had more of an eventful Sunday than we were anticipating though. This is borrowed from Karen (thanks for writing it first so I didn't have to :) about what happened that day. I especially like the part that talks about how I was so calm and mellow....good thing she didn't see me at home as I was frantically trying to get things done during Brooke's naps and make sure I had everything! :)
Church is at 2, so we got there a little bit early to get the microphones set up where they needed to be, all the extra chairs set up on the stand, and any other last minute stuff. We all sat down in the congregation until after the sacrament...at this point...I breathed a sigh of relief. I thought...there's nothing else we can do now...it's going to be great.Then the Bishop got up to conduct...They turned on the mic for him, and we all heard, "You are listening to the broadcast from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints". This was where I knew it was going to get interesting.Everyone had a good chuckle, and we went on.There had been baptism the day before, so they had to do the confirmation during 'ward business'. They went and grabbed one of the mics we had all set up, turned it on, and...nothing...they turned it off and on again, and...nothing...they checked the cord, unplugged, re-plugged and...nothing...Meanwhile, I'm trying to catch the eye of the Bishop to suggest that maybe they had turned off the main power switch, but he never looked at me. So they grab the other mic we had set up, and went thru the same process. It was awful...the presidency just kept looking from one of us to the other with these faces like, what are we going to do? why is this happening? And of course there was the well meaning Sister behind me who leaned forward and said something like, "oh no...what are you going to do" (like I wasn't already stressed enough). Oh yeah, and my mom was next to me saying the same kind of stuff (but she was just feeling my pain).They got thru the business, and then were on to the sacrament. When they turned their mic on, you could kind of hear it pop on, and then you couldn't hear the sound at all. This time when they tried to turn it off and back on, we heard the same, "You are listening to the broadcast from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (along with some Mo-Tab), and when they tried again, it said the same thing...only this time it was in SPANISH! Oh mercy...I was having all kinds of thoughts run thru my brain. I was a little worried that we would have a little background Mo-Tab music for our songs.As I walked up to say my part, the presidency sort of just met up on the stand. We decided there was nothing we could do about it now. We just decided to have the kids use the main mic (which happily was still working). I knew everything was going to be okay when, as I was saying my part in the beginning, I could feel the Spirit so strongly I could hardly speak.After all the chaos, the program was so nice. The kids were all reverent, almost all 60ish of them had their parts memorized (as well as most of the teachers---you ROCK!!!), they sang all the songs and I was amazed that they really did know them. We always have a little insert to put into the ward bulletin where we ask for feedback or comments. We probably had 20-30 people comment on how strongly they felt the Spirit, too. The kids did such an amazing job. I guess it just goes to show...we (and by we I mean I) worry too much about the little things. It's the simple testimonies of the children that invite the Spirit...not whether or not they're standing still, or singing into microphones...etc.The counselor over the program was so awesome...throughout this whole thing, she's been so calm and mellow. I've decided she's such a good balancer for me...the yin to my yang, if you will (I don't really know if I used that in the correct context, but it sounded good).I wish I had a picture of the kids...but I understand we're not allowed to take pics in sacrament meeting (glad I didn't have to find that out 1st hand - you know who you are).It was a busy, overwhelming weekend - as evidenced by this eternally long post.As a follow-up...I found out today, that the Bishop later told Jenny (miss yin) that in the ward previous to ours, they were having some problems with the sound system and when they flipped one of the switches, they heard a pop and had smoke come from the main console...I guess things could have been a lot worse. At least we didn't have a fire!
The only thing it doesn't mention is that all but a handful of kids had their parts memorized. I was amazed! They did such a great job!
This past month she started sitting up in her crib, so we lowered it. 
Here we took a 4 generation picture.
He was smaller than most of us were anticipating at 6 lb 14 oz (I had the closest guess unless you ask Tyler...he thinks it's like the Price is Right where if you over bid then you're automatically disqualified. Not the case hon!)
