Six Weeks

Baby Shower

Boonie

On Sunday morning, we got word that Lucy's beloved cousin, Boone, had passed on the evening before. He lived a long and great life filled with countless hunting trips, smiling and dancing for cookies, chasing squirrels, long runs with his humans, stealing pizzas and steaks off counters, and being an overall awesome companion. Lucy will miss taunting him and seeing if he can catch her. We will miss his gentle nature and amazing ability to smile. His humans will miss him most of all and we mourn for them.

Fun Pics

Courtney (sister-in-law), me, Miss Piggy, Tracy (sister-in-law), Lucy

This is Lucy's favorite past-time. Her ball is not supposed to be in the house, so she rolls it through the dog door and across the floor and then awaits patiently for us to come and throw it for her. She's quite the smarty-pants.

Lucy basking in the morning sun with Super Chicken at her feet.

We've now been in our new house a little over 2 months. Time has flown by and we only have 9 weeks until my due date. Yikes. We're getting excited, but are also a bit overwhelmed with the impending timeline. I'm getting more and more uncomfortable- especially when it comes to sleeping, dressing (especially keeping balanced and putting on my socks), and sitting for long periods of time. Miss Piggy (baby's current name) loves to stick her feet up in my ribs and she is sitting really high, which has caused a good amount of heartburn. Neither of these is very enjoyable. I do continue to get massages every other week (a god send) and I'm trying to do as much yoga as possible. I tend to come up with good excuses why I can't go, so I haven't been as much as I should. We also hired a great doula last weekend, which I'm very excited about. The nursery is almost all put together and we're still trying to get all of our boxes unpacked. I'm amazed at how much we packed into our small little Shoreline house!

Life is good. We feel blessed and we hope to give this little girl the life every child should have. We're going to try and keep the blog up in order to chronicle life- more for us than anything.

Baby Names

While we won't be revealing the name of Baby Girl Brooks until we actually figure it out, here is an extensive list put together by our three nieces. While we were moving all our stuff into the house on New Year's weekend, they kept themselves very busy coming up with over 355 potential candidates for our little girl. Take a peek and let us know which ones you vote for. The one with the most votes, gets an extra 5 points on our grading system!

Our first child

This blog has historically had a lot of info on Lucy. So keeping with that, here's her lounging around the holidays.


She also had a hellava good time playing fetch with Pops inside the moving truck. Good times.

2010 - What a year it will be

Suprise! We're back to blogging. It's been a while, so here are the highlights:This pic was taken right after we found out... We're having a girl. Jenny is due May 11th and we couldn't be more excited and a little freaked out. Should be a fun adventure.

Here's Jenny in December with the belly coming right along. Hutch Gala for those wondering why I'm in a monkey suit. Doesn't happen often that's for sure.

Next adventure: Housing.

We sold our little house in September a lot faster than we anticipated. We looked and looked and looked for a new home and just couldn't find anything that fit our fancy. Luckily we had space in our rental and hunkered down there for several months living out of boxes until we had the great fortune of finding our new home, not too far from Greenlake. Dream come true.
Home sweet home. We've been working a ton on the yard and inside. As all houses are, a work in progress.

Life is good and we are lucky for sure. More to come... maybe soon.

Dog Days of Summer

The heat is getting to us here... Kidding, we're in Seattle! We packed up our stuff and headed east to find the real heat in eastern Washington!


We spent a long weekend at Newman Lake and I got up on a single ski, that's big time for me. No wakeboard, so we had to make do.

Sean got up easily for his first time ever trying...


Then he was down...

On Saturday we were pretty slow moving. The temperature was 105 and luckily the water was always nearby.
Our gracious hosts relaxing for a few moments.
It wasn't like us on this trip: we took very few pics of Lucy in the water. But have no worries, she spent 90% of her waking hours in that lake chasing that ball. The heat didn't bother her much at all. She went 100% anytime the ball was within sight.

But once we got home, and Emily was gone and all the people and fun were put away,

It was time to pass out.

Automatic Ball-Throwing Machine

Lucy: Hmmm...I wonder how I can get my mom to throw my ball (favorite thing in the world other than food) for me... She is trying to take a nap in the grass, but I'm sure she'd rather throw the ball for me.

Hey Mom! Here's my ball... it's on the right side of your hand. It's pretty close...throw it... Okay, you don't like the right side. How about the left side of your hand. I bet that will make it easier for you.

Okay, I bet if I lay down, you will want to throw it for me. Okay, ready!

Ooohhh....almighty orange rubber chuck-it ball! It looks like she might throw it for me today!

I'm ready! Set...Go?


HAPPY DOG!

Avery and Lindsey De Marr (Phoenix Floozies)

Avery (Steve's freshman-year roommate at Seatte U) and his wonderful wife, Lindsey flew up last weekend to attend a friend's wedding in Sumas, WA. They came in on Thursday and we were lucky enough to host them at our house. (Sorry we only have a couch...we're working on a second bedroom). They were great sports about it and Lucy was very excited to have some additional people to love and pet her. We had a great dinner at Joey's on Thursday night and then hiked Little Mt. Si on Friday morning. As you can see from the pictures, Lucy found a mud pit and we were a bit horrified. Steve and Avery were able to wash her off in a stream before she jumped in the back of their rental car. Sorry Avis! Steve and I then had a great dinner at the home of Sean Kliger's mom before Avery and Lindsey returned from Sumas. On Sunday night, we hosted some people for a BBQ and then Lindsey whooped up on everyone in a game of Shang-hi. I think they were a bit sleep-deprived after the weekend. Sorry!

Steve and Avery playing Guitar Hero on Avery's phone. Crazy boys.

Schmemily (AKA BFF)

Makayla and Sean Kliger brought home a yellow lab puppy in December. Many of you know Emily as Lucy's side kick. We have nicknamed Emily "Schmemily" because it's way more fun to say. We also use the term "BFF" (Lucy's Best Friend Forever- stemming from our junior high days). Up until recently, Lucy has been the larger of the two pups, especially since she is 6 months older than Emily. At the request of Emily's breeder, Sean and Makayla have started feeding Emily more and she quickly passed up Lucy. It seems as though Lucy will remain the smaller BFF. Even though Sean doesn't like it, we call her "Chubby McChubberson" on the sly...

Emily has just taken to the water (to the joy of her parents) and does a great job fetching when Lucy is not around. Lucy is still the dominant fetcher/runner and I'm not sure that will ever change in the near future. Emily and Lucy love to be together and we love it too because it means two very tired dogs. Tired dogs do not get into nearly as much trouble as fully-awake dogs. We're glad that Lucy has another dog her own "size" to play with. We also really enjoy hanging out with Emily's parents and we all look forward to our "real" children in the future.

Chelan

Bon Voyage!

Graduation Celebration

Steve threw me a great graduation party on June 14th to celebrate being done with school. I was so excited to have both sets of parents there as well as most of Steve's family and many of our friends. I still can't believe I don't have class on Monday! Here are some pictures of the festivities...