Merry Christmas!

I have been so busy lately...I need to take a minute and wish everyone a Merry Christmas! I did get some Christmas cards out this year, so if you didn't get one I probably don't have your address! So please send it......:) This is going to be an especially fun year since it is Brooke's FIRST CHRISTMAS! I am trying to copy all my pictures to CDs so I have space on my camera for the big day (of course with me it has been an all day event!). We are so excited. She is just getting to be more and more fun, and more and more into everything. She has only pulled a couple ornaments off the tree which I kept off so now she just plays with those. Here is my somewhat sad looking tree. For some reason the left side is not as full as the right. No matter what I do it still looks that way. Oh well! I have since sprayed that fake snow onto the star to make it look more winter-ish...although I'm not sure it does!

Two days ago Brooke signed 'please' for the first real time. Up until then she was combining 'more' with 'please' in some kind of gesture that I'm sure no one else recognized as being that. Now she does 'please' (rubbing her chest in a circle) by itself. Her newest thing is to make a face where she crinkles up her nose, smiles to show her teeth, and sucks air in through her mouth. It's quite funny.

This Christmas is a special one for the Workman family. Last Christmas we would have never guessed we would be celebrating this year with not one, but THREE babies. I wondered how long it would be before Brooke had a cousin on this side of the family. She sure didn't have to wait long! This is a reminiscence of this time last year when I could barely get my arms around Santa (aka Tyler who dressed up to deliver some presents to kids) :)

We took the three grandkids to get their pictures taken for Christmas. Brooke looks ginormous next to Kayden (left, 5 weeks) and Landon (right, 3.5 months)! You can view all the pics that were taken that day by going to http://www.smilesbywire.com/ and put in Camilla Workman as the customer and this access code: LTPP0356100558JCPSHR. They are each so cute!!

Here's some more of Brooke....
I will have to post some of her recent pictures when I get some more time.

Tyler finished his classes for this semester tonight. We'll be glad to have a two week break before he starts up again! Merry Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I feel like the biggest blogging slacker! So much has happened the past couple of weeks that I've wanted to journal but haven't had the time. I just got my house back into some semblance of order, so I'll take a minute to catch up.

Two weeks ago we flew up to Idaho for my brother Kyle's wedding. It was really kind of weird to think that my brother is a married man! He married the cutest girl Emily (aka Emmy, as Kyle calls her since our sister's name is Emily) and she fits right in with our family. I'm looking forward to getting to know her better! They had a wonderful ceremony and had a very good turn out. A lot of hard work was put into everything and it looked beautiful!

The happy couple.....

Family picture at the Idaho Falls Temple (you may see this one in a Christmas card....that is if I get them out this year!)

It was very convenient that Kyle and Emmy chose to get married the weekend before Thanksgiving, so we were able to spend that time in Idaho with my family. It is always so fun to see everyone, play a game or two of Settlers (especially when I win for the first time EVER), have Tyler go pheasant hunting for the first time, see snow, and remind myself how cold it really gets there. Everyone was so excited to see Brooke and just amazed with how much she has grown. She got to play with Kyden and they had a good ol' time. Brooke seems to be the bully of the duo since she is kind of the aggressor and Kyden is more passive. We had some cute pictures of them together and I'm not sure what happened to them on my camera, so those will have to come later. This was one of Brooke's favorite activities. Can't go around the Exersaucer...have to go through it!

We flew back on Black Friday so unfortunately yet fortunately missed this famous shopping day. I told my family I was making a sacrifice to be in Idaho because all the stores here were tripling coupons and it would be over by the time I got back. I don't think they completely understood what a sacrifice that was, but that's okay. I'll get over it...they'll have triple coupons again in a couple weeks :)

Brooke had a good time but was happy to get home and sleep in her own bed. Before we left she was diagnosed with the stomach flu and was just getting over that and starting to eat again. Well, the problem with starting to eat solid foods again was that she got "plugged up", as Tyler would call it. This led to sleepless nights and lots of prunes and apple juice. She then started to act like she was teething and just not acting like her happy self. She has since returned back to normal and we are sure grateful to have our happy, giggling baby back!

This is Brooke's serious face. She really did enjoy playing with her doll in the box. :)

Brooke in her "big girl" outfit. I just think she looks so much older in it. Here she is showing that she is "so big"!

After flying home, we spent the next few days hanging out with Tyler's Grandma, Aunt Linda and Cousin Mike before they flew home to Canada. It's always fun to have them here. That following Sunday I was in charge of Sharing Time then was in charge of the Activity Day yesterday. Needless to say, between unpacking, preparing for those, and trying to get my Christmas decorations set up, I have been busy. I did finally get the Christmas Tree all set up and decorated yesterday, which I was proud of. Pictures of that to come....

It has been so fun to watch Brooke grow and learn lately. Everywhere we take her she just sits there and waves to people, not even cracking a smile, just waving that pageant wave of hers. She is getting very good at pulling herself up onto things, and can stand on her own for what seems like a long time to us (only a couple of seconds though) before she tips over. She is understanding things more and more. The other day she was at Grandma Gayle's when she was cutting hair. She was scooting over to where the hair was on the floor when Grandma told her to stay over there. So she turned around and went back to her toys.

Last night I was teaching her to sign 'please'. She caught on that something needed to be done before I would give her another bite of her newest favorite food, chicken noodle soup, and would rub her hands together.

Brooke is really starting to thin out and is losing her chubby cheeks and thunder thighs. We will miss them as they are very cute, but we also think she is so cute the way she is growing. Tyler took her to the mall yesterday (I think the first time they've gone out together just the two of them. Tyler called it their first date) and she had such a good time sitting in the stroller looking all around.