BRRR... I'M COLD!!!

Okay, so I know everyone is probably so sick of me complaining about living in Alaska, but with that said let me complain some more. :) I'm FREEZING!!! (...already) As I let the dog out this morning I shivered as the cold breeze came through the house. I glanced at the thermometer and saw that it was a "cozy" 19 degrees. And as I sit here and write, wrapped up in a big hoodie, it hasn't even got above freezing yet and it's 2:00 in the afternoon. All I have to say is BRRR!!! I'm so not ready for winter. Not to even mention the fact that it'll get 60-70 degrees colder before it gets any warmer. YUCK!!! Why oh why do these crazy people live here??? The sad part is I really like winter, I do - just not 9 months of winter. Oh well, I guess I'll have to deal with it cause I'm pretty sure I'm stuck here. So be sure to send your warm thoughts my way.

On a different note, I have to brag about the little one - I'm so not a proud mama or anything. But yesterday one of the lady's at church came over to say hi to Brianna and I. She was introducing her husband to me who I hadn't met yet and as she reached out to hold Bri she told her husband that she thinks that Brianna is the cutest baby in the ward. How sweet. I mean of course I think she's the cutest baby in the world - but it was fun to hear that other people think she's just as cute.

And again, on a totally different subject (this is starting to become a really random post), but I thought it was kinda funny (and probably the only one that will think it's funny). But my Miss Daizy dog has been outside for about a half hour under one of the trees in our yard with a squirrel treed. I think she's patiently waiting for her dad to come shoot it out of the tree for her. Hey, she might not be a very good raccoon / cougar hunter - but she's a heck of a squirrel dog. What a goober!

BEWARE... SHE BITES!

Yep that's right - Brianna got her first tooth!!! She chomped on my finger while she was playing as Justin and I were watching a movie on Sunday night and I felt this sharp poke. I told Justin that I thought I had just felt a tooth but he thought I was nuts. So I got up and turned on the light to further inspect and sure enough there's a little tooth on the bottom right side of her mouth. I was actually really surprised because I was expecting her to be really cranky but she's been so good lately that I had no idea that she was teething. I can't believe my little pumpkin is big enough for teeth!

(I tried to get a picture of her tooth, but she was not having any of it - So I just snapped a cute picture of her smiling instead)

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? (Warning: Nasty Picture Below)

Now I know that every mom has probably had this happen to them before, but I was just a little shocked at my little girl's magic trick she did yesterday. I was unpacking groceries as Brianna sat watching me in her Bumbo seat. As I finished up I went to take Bri out of her chair and found this...

Now what's wrong with this picture? Yep that's a whole lot of poop that's nowhere to be found in some one's diaper - it was virtually empty when I went and changed her. Not to mention those are the outside of her pants - the Outside! How does this happen? She must have some magical power that makes her poop appear on the outside of her pants instead of in her diaper. Amazing!?!

Well all I can say is that I'm sure glad I picked up these items at the grocery store!

BULLWINKLE

WAHOO!!!!!

Justin called me last night to report he got his moose. Yippee!!! I'm so excited for him! After all his work and tons of bad luck he so deserved this. He said that the size wasn't anything to brag about but you could tell in his voice that he was pretty stoked. Way to go babe!!!

WORKING GIRLS

Okay, so not working girls on the "corner", regular normal job working girls - get your mind out of the gutter. :) Well I went back to work this afternoon for a couple of hours and took Miss Bri with me. My old job has had some seriously bad staffing problems since I left - I like to think that it's just because I'm so wonderful and they'll never be able to fill my big shoes - but whatever. They called me a couple of weeks ago and asked if I would just come in for a couple of hours here and there just to help out until they get some new people hired and trained. I don't have any daycare for Brianna so they said that if I was willing to work, they'd be okay if I just brought her with me. So today we went off to work together! It actually went better than I thought it would be. Brianna was really good and only whined a couple of times, but just because she was really tired and needed a nap. I'm not sure if I got too much work done, but they seemed happy to have just an extra "half" pair of hands. We go back tomorrow, Friday and then again on Monday, and then we'll see if they still need help for the rest of the week. It actually was really nice to get out of the house for a little bit, and I think Bri enjoyed it too - I guess having to stare at my ugly mug every day would get pretty old after a while.

So other than work Bri and I haven't been up to too much else. Since dad's gone hunting we've just hung out together and had a lot of Girl Nights. Justin called last night to tell me he has yet to even see a moose. Oh I really hope he gets one soon, he told me that he's not coming home without shooting something, even if that meant he had to shoot the people in his hunting group. :) He cracks me up sometimes.

NOT VERY "LADY LIKE"

So I have started to notice that Brianna is taking after her dad more and more every day and not just in the looks department. A perfect example was yesterday at church. Brianna and I were sitting in Relief Society (a class for the women in our church) listening to the lesson. When my cute little girl let out the biggest fart while filling her diaper that I think I've ever heard a kid make. I mean she could seriously compete with a full grown man and possibly win. Everyone in the class of course heard it and all turned to stare in our direction. It was so funny and so embarrassing all at the same time. I humbly apologized to the class for interrupting the lesson and they all started to laugh. Yep, she would make her father proud. HA,HA,HA!!!

In other news, Justin is finally off moose hunting. It's been a nightmare getting him out there this year, but I think he's finally on his way. Getting to the place where he moose hunts is kind of a difficult task, they have to cross a big river on boat with their four wheeler's to get to the trail that takes them far back into the woods. He made plans with three different people that have boats to get him across the river, just to make sure that he'd be able to go. And with his poor luck all three fell threw. Two of them backed out at the last minute and the third, that actually was willing to take them across, got stuck and tore a hole in his boat while driving there to pick them up. So after coming back home Friday night he made a fourth plan to have another guy take them across the river - the bad part was that this guy's boat is not really big enough to carry four wheelers - but he was bound and determined that he could "make it work". So he called me last night to tell me that they had made it across with no one drowning, but he has soaking wet because he had to jump in the river to save one of the game carts that fell off. Good grief, I think he has way more drama in his life than us women. :) So everyone keep their fingers crossed for Mr Justin Face to get a big moose or it's going to be pretty miserable around here at the Walker house. Here's a funny picture of my "Great White Hunter" packing, even though he looks more like a Beverly Hillbilly with all that stuff!

So Bri and I are just hanging out here around the house this week. I am going to work a couple of afternoons at my old job later this week. They've been having a lot of staffing problems the past month, so I'm going in to help them out. I don't have anyone to babysit Bri, so she's coming along with me, which should be really interesting. Hopefully she'll be a good girl and I'll be able to actually do some work while I'm there.

Oh and we are getting new neighbors - Wahoo! Our nasty tenants found a house that they wanted to buy and asked if it was okay if they left. So because we really don't like them, we let them out of their lease early so we could try and get some non-white trash tenants. I was really worried about doing this because it took us over two months to find these tenants last winter and it really puts a strain on our finances when the apartment goes empty. But to my surprise we got it leased out in 3 days - yes three!!! I was so excited! So hopefully these people are a little more normal, which won't be hard considering their competition. :)

GROWING GIRL

Brianna's 4 month well child check was yesterday, so I thought I'd share her stats.

Weight: 15lbs 11oz - 90%
Height: 24.5" - 50%
Head: 16.5" - 75%

I also thought I'd share some of my favorite pictures that we've taken over the last couple of weeks.

Bri has found a true love for toes! The bad part is she also likes them when she's got socks on - so most of the time she has soaking wet feet.

She also has started sucking her thumb. If anyone has any advise on how to break this habit at this age be sure to let me know. The doctor pretty much told us there's not really any hope at this age, but we can try if we want. Umm - thanks for the advice? :)

Givin loves to Miss Daizy.

My monkey eating her monkeys.

We thought we might set her out in the yard for decoration.

Also at her doctor's visit I had one of those bad mom moments. I kinda felt like I was on that show Supernanny and I was the dumb parent that didn't realize that their an idiot. Since we came home from vacation in Utah Bri has had a really messed up sleep schedule. She went from sleeping 7-8 hours a night to 2-3 hours. There were very few good night mixed in, but for the most part she just kept getting worse and worse - so I asked the doc for some advise. Well as soon as she said anything I was like - "Hello! Why didn't I think of that?" Every time that she wakes up in the night I have gotten up with her and feed her thinking if she woke up she must be hungry and letting her fall back asleep while she ate. Umm duh - nothing like teaching your child the only way to fall back asleep is to get fed. The doc said that we should really be trying to teach her to fall asleep on her own, and if she wakes up after only being asleep for 2 hours to let her cry and let her teach herself how to put herself back to sleep.

So we started the torture last night, and let's just say it was torture. :) She did really good when we put her to bed awake, she whined for 10-15 minutes and then fell asleep. And then she woke up a couple hours later... I felt so bad!!! The first 30 mins of crying I was okay with, it was the next 90 minutes that I had a really hard time with. She'd quiet down every so often and I would think finally, and then it would immediately start again. I kept having to tell myself, "Lisa if you go in and get her now, you'll ruin the whole thing and she'll learn that it she just cries long enough mom will come running." But she finally did it after 2 crazy hours and she slept for the rest of the night. Man I'm glad that infants don't carry grudges, cause I was afraid she might really hate me for pulling that stunt. But she still seems to love mom today, so I guess will still be friends. :)

FUN WITH GRANDPARENTS

So I haven't posted in a while because we've been playing and having fun with Grandma and Grandpa Anderson. I know that we were just in Utah visiting them, but my parents got a really good deal on airfare and couldn't pass up the chance to come see us. It was so nice to have them here, it's really sad that we live so far away and don't get to see them as much as we'd like.

Mostly we just hung out together at the house, talked, and played with Brianna. My parents watched Bri one night and let Justin and I go on a date night. It was so fun and very much appreciated. We first went on a little four wheeler ride where I got to try out my new four wheeler that Justin won for me. And then we went to the Turtle Club and had prime rib and their sinfully delicious cheesecake - Yum-O!!! It was kind of weird though not having Bri with us, we almost didn't know what to talk about without her. But we had a really good time stuffing our faces until we both thought we were going to pop.

Later in the week we drove down to see Denali National Park, it was cloudy so we couldn't see Mt. McKinley which was a bummer, but it still was a nice and pretty drive. We also went to the Santa Claus House and took Bri's picture with Santa, bought some cute Christmas ornaments and checked out the reindeer. Bri became one of the tourist attractions as we were leaving, a bus load of Asian tourists came in as we here heading out and they all started snapping pictures of Brianna. At first I was a little annoyed having strangers taking pictures of my little girl, but after talking it over with my mom, we decided if we were in a different country and there was a cute little kid we would probably take a picture of them too. So I guess I should be flattered that our girl is cute enough that strangers want a photo of her.

All in all we had a really nice visit with grandma and grandpa. They of course spoiled Bri again - which she truly enjoyed! :) Although we're having a little power struggle with her wanting so much attention, but we wouldn't change her fun grandparents for the world - we LOVE them! It was really sad to see them go because we know we won't see any more family for awhile. :(