Brooke & Her Mom

I'm beginning to think Brooke is a bit of a klutz.

A couple of days ago she stepped on a piece of wood at her friend's house (she is forever walking around barefoot, like her mother). The father of her friend cleaned Brooke's foot and told us that it bled a lot and was going to be fine. Grandma Lopez put some Neosporin on the cut and covered the area with a band-aid. In the middle of the night, Brooke woke up crying and her foot was a little swollen and tender. Jeff left work early and took her to the doctor. After examination, she was told to keep it wrapped, was given local antibiotics, and told that the wood that was left in her foot would work itself out eventually or it could be dug out (since Brooke is a daddy's girl, Jeff was fine with this and did not want Brooke to have any more pain than necessary... If I was there, the doctor would have dug the wood out right then and there - mean Mommy). She's been so funny with her foot all wrapped up for two days hopping around.

This morning Brooke had Kindergarten testing. Somehow in the ten minutes she was out of our sight, she managed to cut the ankle on her other foot and was bleeding before we got her back to Grandma's. Her nose has also has a raw spot on it (where that came from is any one's guess). She looks a little messy most of the time. Poor kid - takes after her mom too much.

On a brighter note, this weekend finals are due for Jeff and me after which I will start my last two classes before finishing. Jeff will be done in early Spring next year.

Did I mention Jeff is excited for football to start? He's watching it intently as I type. Fall could not get here soon enough for him. The Angels were a good filler from basketball ended until football started, but I know what he cares about most. I'm sure he'll still have fun at the Angels' game tomorrow night. Kara & Brooke have already put in their orders for food at the game - a hot dog at every stadium we go to - ask them which stadium has the best hot dogs, they know.

Pictures from Vacation

I've uploaded a few of our pictures from vacation on here. We all had a great time. After Jeff spent years telling me how a cruise would be a waste of vacation, guess who wishes he could go on another one soon? The girls both slept better than they ever have (I guess a pitch black room with no clock and the ship rocking us to sleep helps with that).

Hot Summer Nights

Now that summer is coming to an end soon (Kara & Brooke don't start school until the Wednesday after Labor Day giving us just under two weeks of Summer left), I really wonder where the time went the past few months.

I am grateful that my sister's wedding went off without a hitch and that it's behind us (I am glad it worked out as well as it did, but I am happy to be rid of the nightmares of the wedding coming with no dresses, stains on the fabric, dresses without armholes, and in one dream I made the dresses in the original darker blue fabric then forgot to even bring them to the wedding).

Our cruise went off without a hitch too. I had nightmares over Jeff & the girls getting to board the ship without me (since California is dumb and requires a notary sign an affidavit that I am allowed to request a copy of my birth certificate). We gave ourselves enough time to apply for passports and receive them before the trip, but the date on us actually receiving the passports came and went with nothing arriving. I frantically had to reorder all of our birth certificates and our marriage certificate (our original copies were sent in with our passport applications). Three weeks after coming home from Mexico, our passports arrived. The girls look so cute in their pictures! We'll have to plan another trip out of the country so we'll actually get to use them.

Jeff is practically counting down the minutes until football season starts. We are excited to be going to see BYU play in Los Angeles at UCLA, then in Las Vegas on October 13th, then at San Diego State, & finally we hope to see BYU play in Provo vs Utah Thanksgiving weekend. Kara wants to go to a game and get a hot dog after which she will be ready to go home (this all happens at least 20 minutes before kickoff). Brooke wants to be anywhere she can snuggle daddy.

The girls have both advanced in gymnastics this summer -- Kara is now in level 2 and is learning round-offs, cartwheels on the balance beam, and other gymnastics moves that are more complicated than I've heard of. Her coach wants her splits perfect before Christmas. She seems to be the most flexible in her class. Brooke is now in level 1 (she moved up from her preschool class into a class for 5-7 year olds a couple of months ago). It's nice that Brooke now has class at the same time as Kara, only one trip to the gym and only an hour and a half to kill each week. I'm glad Brooke has almost caught up to Kara in size too. They share leotards, shirts, socks, and shorts (some pants too, but Kara's legs are still a little longer than Brooke's).

School shopping will be interesting this year with both of them in school. Brooke is already hard enough to buy shoes that she will wear and she doesn't complain about. This task will be much harder shopping for school shoes that she can wear (no more sandals and the addition of socks into her wardrobe might kill both Jeff and me). They both have no interest in wearing clothes that match each other's at the same time, however if one picks out a shirt or a dress or a pair of pants, the other wants the same thing. Then they cry when they both want to wear their pink shirts that say "princess" on them on the same day.

I've been upstairs doing "homework" for the past 30 minutes. I probably should actually do some before someone finds out that I'm procrastinating by creating this blog.... Hopefully I will remember to do this more often. I like to think I can stay in touch and feel good about journal writing (kind of) at the same time.