Brooke & Avelyn

Oklahoma

2011-08-03T10:45:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from the trip Avie and I took to Oklahoma a couple of weeks ago. We went to try and help Tiff out with the new baby (Capri), and Ashton, since Aaron is gone in Afghanistan. My mom wasn't able to make it out with us at last minute, so we weren't able to provide as much help as originally planned, but we still had a good time. Ashton had a ton of cool toys including his own jumper which Avie loved. Capri was the sweetest little baby ever. I wanted to steal her. I miss her! : ( I wish we had someone there to get a picture of all us together, but sadly we didn't get any with Tiff.

Other news, Avie will have a new half brother or sister. Her dad and his new wife are expecting so yay for that I guess. Avie also started first grade today. I'll be posting pics of that sometime hopefully. Ta Ta for now.

A new post? Yup!

2011-05-27T12:31:00.000-07:00

I'll be amazed if anyone even looks for a new post by me considering I'm going on a year now almost before updating this thing. Aaron and Tiff don't even have a blog anymore. Kind of sad how no one cares about these blogs much. Oh well..

Let's see what's new and important with Avie and I? We moved to Redlands last summer. I moved to Redlands to get Avie in a good school district, only for my mom to talk me into letting her be Avie's kindergarten teacher. It's been fun for them both. Hopefully it's not too hard of an adjustment for Avie when she starts first grade. My lease is up soon, and I may move up the street. : ) I like Redlands a lot. I've been considering moving to Riverside to get closer to the OC, but we'll see if I ever do that. I want to try to get out of the IE one day. It's just hard with my job. I've been there for 5 years now.. crazy.

Last month I took a cool trip to the Dominican Republic (Punta Cana to be exact). A much needed vacation after 3 years since my last. It was actually really inexpensive. I loved it there so much. I was there for a week. The beach was so nice.. it didn't rain once, the weather was perfect (not over 80 the whole time), and the water was warm. We took some go karts into town and went shopping and got to explore the City some, then went to a public beach. We also got to go swim in some caves (see pics). It was really cool. I went with a good friend of mine from Vegas and met up with another friend as his sister as well who served his mission there in the DR. It was fun. I hope to go back and explore more of the country that I wasn't able to another time.

New Pictures

2010-09-13T10:10:00.000-07:00

These are crappy scanned copies, I should have mailed all of you family members good copies in the mail.

Ballerinas?

2010-05-03T19:46:00.000-07:00

We put Avie and Lexi in a combo dance class. I only got individual pics of Avie because I didn't have Lexi before the class started, but I got some of them both during the class. They have a recitle in mid June. I will for sure be posting more pics. They absolutely LOVE dance. It's the cutest thing to watch their faces light up when doing it.

I I I I

2009-09-01T08:46:00.001-07:00

Avie turned 4 on Sunday. I threw a party for her last year, but because of all the dramatic events that have taken place this year I just couldn't find the time or energy to throw another party. Instead I told Jesse to feel free to do something with Avie if he wanted. He ended up taking her to Disneyland and then on Sunday we had a small group of people at my mom's for cake and presents. Jesse was there and Brian came and brought his daughter Lexi too. Lexi is Avie's new sidekick now.. they're funny.

Avie got so much stuff... I always have to clean out her closet to make room for new toys everytime Christmas and her birthday come. Looks like I have something to look forward to this week! haha... thanks everyone for the cute gifts!

Baby Parker!!

2009-08-21T20:11:00.001-07:00

We went to Arizona last weekend because Elisha's sister (one of the many), was getting married so she flew out with the kids to attend. Since Shaun and Elisha now live so far away we had to take the opportunity to see new little baby Parker while they were in Arizona. Here are some pictures of the cute kiddos! Hopefully we can make it out to Florida in the near future. Isn't Parker the cutest little thing? I wanted to baby-nap him...

Preschool

2009-07-31T20:57:00.000-07:00

Well, Avelyn had her first day of preschool today. She was so excited to go to school, it was really cute. That's all she has been talking about for a while now, and how she's "bigger now". ha

I should be pretty happy about how excited she is about school considering that I refused to go to preschool because all of the schools my mom and I looked at they required you to take a nap. I was too cool for that.. so I didn't go to preschool. Anyways, I can't believe I not only have a child, but I have one that is already in school. I do not feel old enough for this at all. I don't know if I should be happy and cry, or be terrified and cry for what the future may hold as it seems to be coming awefully fast.

So, what does Avelyn say about school? She told me she drew a triangle and a square. She also said there was a prince there (in her class), and he was handsome and had a beautiful voice. Arghhh those freakin Disney movies.. they leave her in a fairytale mind-set and I dont see it going away anytime soon.

Shaun's Med School Graduation

2009-06-16T12:01:00.000-07:00

Here are some pics from Shaun's graduation in Arizona. For any of you that want copies, you can copy them onto your computers.

CRASH!

2009-05-04T20:28:00.001-07:00

Here are some intense pictures of the car accident I was involved in on Friday. (For those of you that haven't yet seen them). Luckily I got the least of the damage...

First beach trip of '09

2009-05-04T20:13:00.000-07:00

Here are some pics of Avie and her friend Ryon at the beach. Dana Point and Laguna are by far my favorite beaches in So Cal. The water there is far more beautiful than any other beach. My friend Jessica and I took the girls down to Doheny State Beach. It's a great beach for small kids.. there are hardly any waves at all. It was great!

Disneyland and Easter

2009-04-16T17:23:00.000-07:00

So this year for Easter Aaron, Tiff, Ashton, Jen and Kris all came down to my mom's. It was nice having more family here this time. Avelyn was so excited to see baby Ashton.

Saturday we went to Disneyland together, and on Sunday we went to church with my mom, and to her house afterwards for a nice Easter lunch, and Easter egg hunting for Avie. It will be nice when Ashton can join in.. or Janalee!!

Ok so unfortunately I dont have any family pics... Aaron and Tiff and or Kris will have to send me any they have. But, these are the ones I do have.

Avelyn loves when when people come down to visit so she can jump on the air mattress. It never fails.... thank heavens she doens't know I have one in my closet. I dont think I'd hear the end of it.

New Apartment..

2009-03-08T10:32:00.001-07:00

Ok, so it's taken me a couple of months to get around to taking pictures, but here are some of my new apartment. It's small, so I wasn't able to capture a lot of the rooms in their entirety obviously, without taking a billion pictures. This apartment is a 2 bedroom, 1 and 1/4 bath. My bedroom has a vanity in it which counts as the 1/4. I have my own deck, storage, and gardening area, but havent done anything to it yet so I didn't take any pics. I still have a lot more decorating that I plan to do, hopefully one of these days those of you who haven't been able yet will be able to see it yourselves. But, for now, here are some pics...

These are the couches I got off of craigs list for $250. Not bad..

Silly Avelyn..

2009-01-30T11:54:00.000-08:00

Here's a funny pic of Avelyn. She cracks me up. For Christmas she told me Santa was going to bring her a ballet dress and ballet shoes. So, I had to make sure she got them. She LOVES dancing around the house in the costume. Well, I had a set of tools out, and this is what I found. It's not often you see a ballerina working with tools. She's even so "independent" with wanting to dress herself, that she managed to put the leotard on inside-out with the tag hanging out. Gotta love it!

Moving

2009-01-18T17:19:00.001-08:00

Ok, so it's been a long long time since I posted anything on here. It kind of stinks that I didn't get any Christmas pictures put on here. I guess it was a little different not having Avelyn and some of the other family there, but still good. Work is getting super crazy now too, I'm going on 3 years with my company and I'm pretty content there as of now. It works. I'm still trying to push through school though I go back and forth with my desires of where I want to take it career wise. My mom is always nice enough to help me with Avelyn whenever I need her to, so it's great.

Well, I got a new apartment last Thursday. This weekend has been crazy with having to move all of my belongings. Luckily Jesse has Avelyn this weekend so I've been able to get quite a bit done. I can't leave out the fact that I've had amazing friends that were nice enough to help me with a lot of the moving as well. It's pretty exciting to have my own apartment that is just mine. Not use to that. Anytime I've lived anywhere other than my mother's it was with someone else.

I have no couches of yet, but plan to get some soon, and I'll be posting pics shortly thereafter as well. This apartment isn't as nice as my last.. no wood flooring, two-toned paint, or pretty white cabinets. But, I'm saving a significant amount of money, and it works for now. Hope everyone is doing well!

Snow..

2008-12-18T16:46:00.000-08:00

Well it snowed up by my apartment. It snowed last year as well, but not this much. This is a day later, some has melted now that the sun is out again, but there's still a lot left. Here are some crappy pics from my cell phone.

It's Christmas time again..

2008-11-16T19:47:00.001-08:00

So, this weekend has been pretty fun. Avelyn and I went with my mom to go see Madagascar 2. Avelyn loved it, and it was a good movie. She keeps walking around singing "I like to move it, move it.. MOVE IT!" haha. We also went to Wal-Mart and got a Christmas tree. I had to do some kind of decorating here to make it exciting for Avelyn since I most likely won't be having her for Christmas this year. The tree is only like 3 feet tall though. I was planning to stick it on our bar-stool style counter top, but it looked huge up there so I just put it on the floor, and now it looks tiny. Oh well. I took some pictures of it and of some cute window decals we put up. Avelyn loved helping and she's really excited for Christmas and Santa. : )

I'm actually looking forward to the Holidays this year. Not sure why.. it's usually just one of those things you go through by habit each year, but this year is different.. it's exciting. Maybe I'm looking forward to the New Year and making it a good one.

Birthday

2008-11-13T12:05:00.000-08:00

I went with my best friend Kerri to see The Classic Crime play in Hollywood for my birthday lastnight. It was so much fun! There were only like 35 people in the whole place and we got to hang out and take pictures with the band after. I even got a birthday kiss (just on the cheek),from the drummer, but he smelled like beef and cheese so it wasn't that cool. We got lost a few times after the show because the freeways were being worked on and we couldn't find a way to get on. I didn't get home until really late, got only a few hours of sleep and had to come to work the next day, but it was still great!

Halloween..

2008-11-01T06:57:00.000-07:00

So Avelyn was a witch for Halloween this year. She was so excited to get to wear her costume. She had been asking me every day for the last 2 weeks if she could wear it. She even practiced an evil little witch laugh that she was very thrilled about. We went trick-or-treating and after walking about 2 blocks she wanted to go home. haha.

Road trip to Arizona

2008-10-06T12:34:00.000-07:00

Avelyn and I drove with my mom out to Arizona on Friday. We went to celebrate my niece (Janalee's) 1st birthday, and to say bye to my brother Shaun and his wife Elisha who are moving to Michigan next week. Aaron and Tiffany made the drive from Vegas to be there as well, (with my favorite nephew Ashton). : ) He's such a cute little butterball.

Due to the 5 1/2 hour drive, we didn't get to spend much time with them Friday night. We got there pretty late and ended up getting only 5 hours of sleep (including Avelyn), but we all went out to breakfast together on Saturday morning and then had the birthday party later that day. Avelyn had so much fun playing with Janalee and all of the other kids there. It is unbelievable how much energy Janalee has. She reminds me of the energizer bunny, you get tired just watching her.

Avelyn tends to test my authority when we are away from home, and did throw a few tantrums, but for the most part she was very well behaved. She did not complain on the drive there or back. We were very pleased at how much of a trooper she is when traveling. We had a portable DVD player CJ got for us to use for Avelyn when traveling, but it broke, so poor Avelyn didn't have much to keep her entertained. She sang random silly songs that she thought were hilarious and cracked herself up. She's so funny.

What I love most about traveling, is Vanilla Coke!!! Here in so Cal I have not been able to find places that sell it anymore. Whenever I go to Utah or drive out to Vegas, I can find it in gas stations, and I was able to find it in Arizona too. What's wrong with California?? seriously. I had to buy a few extra to bring home. hehe.

Now on a more serious note, on the drive to Arizona, I got a text from CJ saying that his dad had passed away earlier that day. Anyone who would be so kind as to say a prayer for him and his family, I'm sure they could use it. My heart goes out to them during this hard time. It's a very strange situation to be involved in considering what has been going on with CJ and I. I do wish there were more I could do.

Now that we are back home I'm just getting caught up with laundry and other house tasks I wasn't able to get done over the weekend. Fun times. 'Til next time.. keep smiling everyone! : )

It's been a while..

2008-09-26T21:55:00.001-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted anything. Things have been rather busy. I've been taking some classes two nights a week, so when you add being a single mom and working full time into that it ends up being pretty demanding. However, things have been pretty good. Avelyn keeps getting smarter and smarter and just amazing me every day. It's really neat watching her learn and grow up. Last weekend we went to the Route 66 car show that is held here in San Bernardino annually. I didn't take any pictures of the cars, but they have some cool kid rides that Avelyn got to enjoy. She wasn't too thrilled with the cars as you can imagine. Aside from that we haven't been up to much. We usually go swimming on Saturdays and just hang out. We're looking forward to going to Arizona next weekend to say bye to Shaun Elisha and Janalee before they move to Michigan. We'll also be celebrating Janalee's 1st b-day! Times with family are always great. So until then I probably won't be posting again..

Avelyn

2008-09-09T14:31:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pics from the session I took Avelyn to for her 3 yr. pictures.

Baby Ashton!!

2008-09-09T08:16:00.000-07:00

So this past weekend Avelyn and I drove to Las Vegas with my mom to go see Aaron and Tiff, along with the latest addition to the family, Ashton! He is so cute! I'm so glad Aaron and Tiff finally got to have a baby. Tiff seems so happy and you can tell she really loves being a mom. Avelyn just loved Ashton, she was so excited to get to go seem him, and once we got home she was already saying she wanted to see him again. She loves babies and is so good with them. It kind of makes me wish I could have another sometimes.

We were able to go out to dinner and do some star gazing with Aaron's new telescope on Saturday night. I didn't get any pictures though since it was so dark. On Sunday we got to go to Ashton's baby blessing, and Avelyn got to play on Aaron's computer. No wonder she thinks he's so cool. Haha. It was a pretty short trip... hopefully we'll be able to go back before too long.

Avelyn's Birthday!!

2008-09-02T20:32:00.000-07:00

Well, Avelyn turned the big number 3 on Saturday. What happened to my little baby? I actually can't even remember her as a baby. And though I do miss the sweet cuddly stage, I must say the whole not having to change diapers part is great. She's actually learning to dress herself now too. I'm so lucky to have such a special little girl.. she's so sweet and funny and is always there to make me smile, laugh, and be proud when I need it. She's more than I could have ever asked for. I can't wait to keep growing closer together as she gets older as well. Awwww how sappy. : )

So, back to the party. I was going to get Avelyn one of those cool jumpers, but to have it at the park like I wanted, I was going to have to get $2 million dollars in insurance, and all of this other nonsense. So, I ended up just deciding at the last minute to throw a swim party for her at my mom's house with a few friends. It turned out really well. She got TONS of gifts, and had a blast along with all of the other kids. My bestest girlfriend Kerri (Aunt Kerri), was able to come to Avelyn's party too since she just moved back from Texas. It was a great day.

Utah trip

2008-09-02T20:19:00.000-07:00

Here are some pics of Avie when we went up to Utah last month. I never got around to posting them since I took our old blog down. When we were up there we took Avelyn to a little gym type play place that has a ton of jumpers for kids. She had a blast! We also got to see Kris' new place and play some rockband with him. It was Avelyn's first plane ride too. She fell asleep and managed to remain asleep all the way through the landing some how.