Nikki's Baby Shower

On Saturday November 7th, I helped my best friend's mom throw her a shower. Now I say helped, but I honestly didn't do much..... I told her to put me to work and bring stuff and she asked me to do a veggie tray, help with some decorations, and get their early to help her set up. I showed up and holy cow this woman must have been busy!!! She did SO much more than I thought she was going to and must have been incredibly busy and stressed out with all of the food that she made on her own. It was so yummy and I couldn't stop eating the whole time I was there (sometimes I love the excuse of being pregnant, people don't look at you weird when you eat non-stop)

Before the shower, I ran out and got some Helium balloons for decorations.... Holy Cow, I was not expecting my daughter to go NUTS over them. She walked around the room for probably almost an hour with those things in her hands, not letting any of us grab them from her to tie up. Finally my husband took them from her and of course she threw a tantrum... but we needed them. After the shower, we untied all of them again and let her have them all (except for 1 for Nikki's nephew and 1 for her husband to do Helium Voice :)
And here is the proof that we really are pregnant! I don't know why, but it seems like so many people are just finding out that I am pregnant and I swear I have not been keeping it a secret! How can I, look at the size of that stomach!

I totally have to laugh at this picture because all growing up, Nikki and I have been the same height, same shoe size, same clothes size... but opposite everywhere... Where I was big in one place she would be small and vice versa, my legs were always really long, her torso was really long. So even though we were the same size technically, our bodies were totally different... well looking at these pregnancy pictures, you can see that I am carrying my baby up in my ribs and hers is super low... once again, pretty much the same size but carrying so opposite!
I swear to you I am only a month older than her, but holy cow, in this picture I look like her older sister! Maybe having a child already will do that to you!

Something that I didn't mention, we are due just about a week or two apart (she is more than likely going to deliver early her Dr. says and I will more than likely deliver after my due date once again) I am so excited to be having babies together and we are both having girls! Holy estrogen, our hubby's are going to have to run off together and go snowmobiling or something with all of these girls!

Eye on the Tiger

Yes I know, I am very late on posting this.... but better late than never, right! For Halloween this year, our little Brooklyn was a Tiger! We saw this costume and thought it was so cute and she thought it was snuggly (a giant stuffed animal) and she liked to wear it. We thought why not!... Well apparently girls aren't supposed to be Tigers because everyone thought she was a little boy! We still think she was very cute!

We decided this year that we would go to the South Towne Mall with my sister Celeste, Rob, and the girls. We figured that would be the easiest way to do it for Brooklyn's first trick-or-treating experience.

Here she is avoiding the camera, to occupied by all of the trick-or-treaters.
This is the best picture that I was able to get of her. The little stinker would not look at me with everything that was going on.
And here is the view of the top of her head! Like I said, she would not look at me!
And here are my nieces Maddie (Ariel) and Sophie (princess Musketeer). James and Grandpa Mark took turns toting Brooklyn around and helping her get her candy. After a while of doing it, she threw a tantrum and wanted her costume off..... I think she started getting really hot in the thing. Over all it was a good Halloween.... After trick-or-treating, we went to James' boss house and had fondue with them and some of their other friends. Can I just say that I do not enjoy going to other people's homes with Brooklyn! I feel on edge like she is going to spill or do something that will ruin their stuff.... not very easy. But it was a fun night and the food was good. :)

Dancing Baby

It has seriously been forever since I have posted! I haven't been to good about taking pictures of Brooklyn lately, but on Friday I had to since she was so stinkin cute in this little hat that my sister Celeste got her.

I decided to turn on her favorite movie which is Madagascar 2 and record her dancing to the "I like to move it, move it" song. She absolutely loves this show and song and we love to watch her dance to it.

Consultation Giveaway

Check out my Design Blog and the Online Consultation Giveaway!

http://lindsigabler.blogspot.com/

Spread the Word!

The Slide

It really is amazing how quickly Brooklyn picked up on walking once she figured it out. She is no longer crawling at all. My sister brought this slide over on her birthday and she absolutely loves it. She figured out how to climb up it all by herself and now she tries to climb up the wrong way. She almost made it up to the top on her own and that is when I grabbed the camera so it isn't on here. But it is amazing how big she is getting.

Labor Day Vacuum Fun

This Labor Day weekend we went up to the cabin with my family and went to Swiss Days and boating. I didn't take any pictures really, but I did get this little video of brooklyn riding in the new shop vac vacuum cleaner.

What could it be?????

It's a GIRL!!!!! We are totally surprised! This pregnancy has been so different than my last one that we were convinced that it was a boy. I am very excited to have another girl! We have everything for a girl, so all we need to get is a double stroller, Brooklyn a new carseat, and this new baby a crib set!

Our little baby was cute, when we went to go do the ultrasound, her legs were completely crossed and we couldn't see anything. The ultrasound technician came back a little bit later to see if she had moved, and her hand was down there (At that point we thought FOR SURE it had to be a boy ;). She had to sit and poke at her for a bit to get her to stop hiding from us. When she was able to see, she didn't even tell us it was girl, she just typed "Uh, Oh!!! Girl!!!" We told her that we thought it was a boy, so she thought it would be funny to do that. I think James was in some serious shock at the fact that he was going to be the only boy in a household of 3 girls! He loves his little Brooklyn so much that I don't think he will mind having another little Daddy's girl! He is so great with little girls that I am not one bit concerned. My only concern is that he is going to want to leave me more often on the weekends to do boy things with friends!

Brooklyn is 1!

My sweet baby turned 1 on August 23rd! I can't believe it has been a year already! I cried the night before as I was writing her a note on a picture and I realized that time went by so fast and I will never have her as a tiny newborn again! She has been so fun to have in our family and is constantly putting smiles on our faces. She has been such a sweetheart these past few weeks and we have loved the little things that she has started doing.

She is......

*Walking! She doesn't walk real far but she is doing really good at standing up on her own and then walking maybe 8-10 feet before she falls.

*Waving... She loves to wave Hi to everyone! She doesn't understand goodbye, so you have to say Hi to her when you are leaving to get her to wave.

*Giving kisses and giant hugs! The funny thing, only daddy gets the kisses and only mommy gets the giant hugs. We don't understand it, but she won't kiss me when I try to give her kisses and she won't hug daddy around the neck like she does mommy. We will both take what we can get from her though and we love getting the kisses or hugs.

*She has her favorite spot. It is so funny, she loves to sit on the bottom step. Sometimes she will have crawled away and I will find her at the bottom of the stairs just sitting and kicking her feet. If we can't get her to sit in her high chair to eat, we just put her on the bottom step and she will eat it all up. I think she likes it because it is just her size to sit on.

*Weaned! This is both good and sad for me. I decided on her birthday that we were done nursing. I nursed her the next morning and that was the last. She has done pretty darn well with it but she has REALLY taken to her pacifier the past few days as a comforter. I miss the snuggle time we would have together, but I know with being pregnant that it is time to give my body to this other baby and let it grow without someone else taking nutrients it needs.

She has other small things that she does that is so cute but I will leave it at that. Here are some pictures and a video of us as a family just hanging out in the office on her birthday.

Brooklyn is 1! Opening Presents

Here is Brooklyn opening all of her presents. She got this purple dog from my mom and mark.

Here she is getting into the blocks that grandma and grandpa Gabler got her.
James and I wanted to get her something special so we got a picture of a little girl with Christ and framed it. We wrote a special note on the back for her that hopefully she will refer back to often when she is older. This is hanging on her wall right now and adds a special touch to her room.

I'm sure that you have noticed all of the toys all over in the pictures, aunt Celeste brought all of Maddie and Sophie's toys from when they were little and we were shocked when we saw them all. She had a blast playing with them with Maddie and Sophie. She also got all of their clothes, so she got hooked up this present.

Brooklyn is 1! Cupcake Eating

Here is Brooklyn eating her cupcake! She had so much fun just digging and destroying that thing! Or should I say things.... James decided that one wasn't enough and he gave her a second one, she was on such a sugar high all night!

Design on a Budget

If anyone is interested in designing their home on a budget, check out my personal blog http://lindsigabler.blogspot.com and see what I have decided to do.

James is 30!!!!

His birthday started at 6:00 in the morning where Brooklyn gave him her gift. We didn't have any wrapping paper so we wrapped it in diapers!!! Brooklyn's choice of course. What is it?.......

GUMBALLS!!! Something that reminds me that my husband is still young at heart is when we pass by a gumball machine and he asks me for a quarter. It is a funny little thing that he does that makes me laugh, so we had to buy him a giant tub of it. Here is Brooklyn wanting some of daddy's gum.
Afterwards I made him a big breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast and orange juice. He thought that all that was planned for the day was a BBQ with my family.... little did he know that we had lots of other things and the BBQ was actually not on the agenda.

Jump On It with friends.

I went and picked James up from work and took him to Jump On It to "Play" with his friends (and friends kids). It was a great way to help him forget that he is now an old man at 30! :)

Here is his best friend of forever Dan.

Here is Marilyn out showing everyone up with doing a straddle jump, You go girl!
Susie and Olivia rolling around on the tramp.
Brookie's jumping with her daddy.
Brooklyn going down the slide. They have a lot of blow up slides and play areas so Brooklyn had fun in there. I have a really cute video of her going down it but it literally takes all day for my videos to upload and I'm not that patient to wait.
James had a blast at Jump on It with his older and friends and younger friends. Little did he know that that was just the smaller surprise, the big surprise was still to come.

Surprise! Your family is here!

For the past 6 months, I have been planning a surprise weekend with James' family. I asked them if they would be willing to come out for his birthday and make a big weekend of it. They all agreed and we decided to make it our big summer get together. I was completely successful at not letting James know that anything was going on until the night before.... I was so mad at this. The night before, the bishopric called us and asked us to speak in church on Sunday. Here it is Wednesday night and they are just calling us to speak. I looked at James and he said "I'll have to call you back", I just started balling! I wasn't feeling well at that moment so I was stressed with everything that I needed to do, and then to have them call and ask that! I told James that we couldn't speak, he said "Why", I said "Because", he hates that answer and says "that's not an answer", I finally had to tell him that I had something planned for his birthday this weekend and that we weren't going to be there! He had to call them back and tell them that we weren't going to be there and he didn't know why we weren't. I don't want to be mad at the bishopric, I have to say that I was SO not happy with them that night. All of the times they could ask us to speak and they choose the one weekend I am trying to keep secret!

It all worked out just fine, his family got up there, hid there cars, decorated with streamers and he was able to be surprised when he walked in.

The 3 babies at coldstone. I love the way that Logan is looking at Brooklyn.
On Friday, we went into Park City and the siblings got to go on the Alpine Slide and the coaster. They had a blast but it was so ridiculously hot that day.
Grandma with her 3 grandbabies.
We had to attempt giving all 3 of them a bath together. This was Lily and Logan's first big bath and I think that Lily was having a blast. Logan looks a little occupied to notice he is in there. :)

Surprise! Your family is here! Continued....

On Saturday we took a ride up through Sundance and went to Cascade Springs. While on the drive up, Greg (James' dad) got really sick, we thought it was something that he ate but it turns out that it was the same bug that James and I had 5 days earlier. He was a trooper and went on our little walk around Cascade Springs anyway.

Here are the 3 babies all strapped in and ready to hike.

The whole family together.
Our little family.
After the hike, everyone took naps but of course us moms who had to stay awake with the babies who were wide awake. Surprise Surprise!
Daddy took Brooklyn on her first four wheeler ride. We weren't surprised one bit when she loved it and daddy started taking her a bit faster than mommy would have liked. She is her daddy's daughter, loves adventure.
The whole family ended up leaving early Sunday morning. It was a fun weekend that James really enjoyed. He was very pleasantly surprised that his whole family was there. We really appreciate all of them coming out (especially Aaron and Julie with bringing the twins) and making this weekend happen and making it a success.

My Family B-day BBQ

As if we already hadn't done enough for his birthday, we had a BBQ with my family at my parent's house.

Here is James grilling his own birthday dinner while everyone else stands around :) !!! He is always the griller so we had to stick him on it even if it was his birthday celebration.

This is a ritual that Brooklyn and I have when we go to Grandma's house. We always take her out to the stream and wade her feet. She sees grandma and is reaching for her, she is becoming a grandma's girl (grandma lets her do stuff that mommy wouldn't let her normally)

For anyone who has never been to my parent's house and seen their backyard, I had to take some pictures. This is the most amazing backyard I have ever seen. I wish someone would get married and have it back there, I have always wanted to plan a wedding back there.

He got spoiled this year but I think he had a great time with everything. I think all of the activity kept his mind occupied from realizing that he really is 30 now!

Check out the teeth

I am finally getting some pictures of Brooklyn on here. Since we have moved, it has been really hard to think about taking pictures and getting them posted. I did get a few so here they are.

Brooklyn in her new bathtub! The problem with this tub is that she can almost climb out of it.

Here she is wanting my camera while in the tub. Check out those cute teeth, I love the gap, it is so funny.

Eating her necterines.

She just woke up from her nap and here is her cat and dog I mentioned earlier. She loves these stuffed animals and sleeps with them every night and every nap.