No place like home for the Holidays

My brother Brandon and I



My hubster

Family gathered around watching Uncle Spence's second M.M.A. fight. I could always find my husband in another room or outside wrestling one of our nephews.

Mercedes very proud of her new hot pink shuffle. Very great playlist. Her Logan and I were rocking out. I love that my nieces and nephews know good old bands before there parents were even born. I have a very eclectic music taste but I am always a sucker for good ol rock n'roll like Zeppelin, Hendrix, AC/DC, Styx, Rush, etc. You get the picture. My niece Mercedes said the cutest thing, "Aunt Brooke I can't believe it we like the same music and have the same toes." Her parents have told her she has had my barney rubble toes since she could remember probably. Anyhow it just cracked me up, but very true indeed.

The twinner toes, although hers are much cuter than mine.

Don't worry this will be the last post/picture of my feet...ever...I promise.

My nephew Beau is a future little heartbreaker, dont you love those dimples? So adorable.

And look at this cutie Jaden, we got some good lookin kiddos in this family.

Do any of you remember when I nannied for the Ericksen's? This is Matt and Jon all grown up. They saw my brothers work truck and stopped in to say hello. My brother Brandon nannied for them before his mission and I nannied for them before my mission. The last time I saw them they were 13 and 15. Jon is the younger one on the left and now is 20 and attends SDSU, Matt is 23 and graduated from Purdue and is now in Law School in San Francisco. I think they turned out so nice, and they were fun teens too. It's crazy how time flies.

My sis in law Tiff and I. Thanks for perfect pillow placement over my leftover baby belly.


My daddio and I

My bro Jason giving Stone a nice smacker, and I think Stone turned his head to see his daddy in the background.

Stone and Aunt Stacey

My brother in law Paul and my neice Breanna

Stone was absolutely spoiled by his family on both sides. He made out like a champ. Way to much loot for an almost nine month old baby. This pic is in his room on December 31st. I liked how my parents always took a pic of us by our Santa gifts and stocking. I just couldn't get him to sit still.

Stone man and I early Christmas morning. Sorry babe I erased the rest of the non showered makeup Christmas morning pics.

Good ol lights at S.L.C.'s temple square. My friend Lindsey came with us and we had a fun time, unfortunately my camera and her camera stopped working after these two pics, bummer. We walked around as fast as possible because it was so freezing, Stone did not enjoy it very much...I don't blame him. The lights here are the best though. We also took Stone to see Zoo lights, over a million lights at the Hogle Zoo, it was so cool, but again it was freezing and we couldn't get Stone to even give us a half smile the whole hour we were there.

One of my many goals

One goal for the new year is to post in a timely manner. I have a tendency to find older photos and decide I want to post them months later. I guess I have two excuses for putting up these pics late was that 1) our old camera worked only when it wanted to, and 2) we moved and had our camera in storage for almost a month. No more excuses my family and friends because my wonderful husband bought me my very own digital camera. (I think he realized I used his more than he did). I'm very excited because it's waterproof (I can take it underwater up to 13 ft), and dust and "drop" resistant. The drop resistant is a very important feature if you know my husband and I very well. I tease my husband because I tell him how rough he is on things and he doesn't even mean too; like the time he sat on my Amish rocking chair and broke one side of it, just by sitting; or like last Christmas how he did some MMA kick and when his foot came crashing down my cute ceramic Santa came sailing down off our hutch from across the room...All I had to do was laugh about that one. So things falling and breaking seem to be a common occurence in this house. Last month I was screwing in a simple lightbulb and the thing just shattered. Could it be my "Mom Strength", that I have seen and heard people talk about but never really experienced firsthand. Not more than two weeks earlier I sat on my glasses and broke them right down the middle. Spence has to fix his glasses about three times a week (Stone loves to grab off dad's face, and pull glasses apart). Thank goodness for Krazy Glue, that's all I have to say. Stone seems to be a "breaker" also, in a matter of two days he broke two glasses and a gerber baby jar. I am part to blame for keeping the cups and jar within his reach (rookie mom move) ...that kid does not even flinch for breaking glass. I am just glad that he never hurt himself or that a shard of glass did not graze his eyeball (Mom's crazy fears). Anyhow now that I have this wonderful new camera I have no excuse but to post in an orderly fashion. So feast your eyes on my cornacopia of photos from the past two months. No need for captions, just a few fun ones like: Stone falling over on a chair, Stone's sleepy eyes, Stone crawling over and sucking on dad's big toe (they were clean don't worry) and a few firsts like first horse ride, first snow, first cracker, and a smattering of just some cute photos of my boy because he is just growing up too fast.