RED HAIR?

I was going to mention this about the pictures on the previous post but forgot- I thought the same thing when I saw them. But since I've already had a couple of people ask me about the red hair, I thought I'd just let everyone know. I think it's just the light over our kitchen table that's making it look SO red. (We use those energy saving light bulbs and the light from them is very orangey) But her real hair color is more brownish blondish. No, she's not a carrot top! Ha,Ha,Ha! :)

BTW- I don't think red hair is all bad. But as my family members know, I've always had this nightmare that my kids would have freakishly red hair. Um, can we say the guy Carrot Top. He scares me - literally!

CHOW TIME

She's eating SOLID foods!!! Now that Bri turned 6 months we started her on solids for the first time. We made it a whole 6 months with 100% breast feeding - no supplementing - I'm kinda impressed with ourselves. (Well I guess I can't say 100% because she sometimes gets apple juice because her multi-vitamin makes her a little constipated). We busted out the rice cereal on Sunday night and she actually did better than I thought she would. I made the cereal really runny like they suggest so it was really messy because it was basically trying to feed her pure liquid from a spoon. (But I guess messy is the name of the game when it comes to feeding babies. Right? :)) She wasn't too sure about it for the first couple of bites, she pulled some really funny faces, but by the end she actually opened her mouth for the spoon a couple of times.

FIRST BITE.

YUM - YUM!!!

STILL SMILING!


SHE LIKED TO CHEW ON THE SPOON.

I THINK SHE THOUGHT IT WAS A TOY. :)

SHE'S SO GROWN UP!

We've continued throughout the week and she is eating better everyday. I've started to make the cereal thicker and thicker every day and she's doing great. She usually eats most of the bowl but gets really distracted at the end - I try not to fight with her about it because I don't want to make eating a struggle, so for right now I just let her decide when she's done.

We're going to keep with cereal for a couple of weeks and then start the veggies. I actually went to a "make your own baby food" class last week and I think I'm going to give it a try. I wasn't too open to the idea at first but I went to the class with a friend who was really gung-ho about it, so I basically just went so she wouldn't have to go by herself. I guess I always imagined making baby food a big drawn out process of cooking all day, labeling, storing, freezing, but it's really not. I also thought that you had to buy everything fresh (which is terribly expensive up here), but I asked the instructor and she said that especially in Alaska the "fresh" produce we get really isn't all that fresh so the nutrition value is really about the same if you use canned or frozen. So I'm going to give it a try, at least with the fruits and veggies - I'm not sold on doing the meats yet. And because we attended the class we got a free food mill, so I might as well at least try.

SPOOKY GIRLS

Brianna and I have been sporting our Halloween shirts around town this month. Aren't we scary? :)

Here's a closer look at Bri's cause you can't see it too well in the other picture - it's too cute! I love the matching socks. You'll have to wait and check back later to see what her real costume is. :)

MIA

Man it seems like we're always on the run lately. Most of the time it's really nothing exciting, but between grocery shopping, cleaning the house, having company over, going to lunch with friends, visiting teaching, working - blah blah blah - it seems like I never get a break to sit down and blog. Well anyways here's a couple of things that you've missed at our house recently.

It's been getting colder, usually below 0 for most of the day. I always thought it was a chore to brave the weather with just myself, but with a baby it's seems like so much more work. You have to make sure the truck is actually warmed up all the way before you leave, bundle yourself, bundle, bundle, bundle the baby, and then try not to crash on the unplowed, icy Alaska roads. Not to mention that the idea of a "quick stop" has so gone out the window. You can never just stop at the store, run it, grab a gallon of milk, and run back out. With a baby you might as well just deal with no milk or get the rest of your grocery shopping done at the same time, because I'm not running us both out in the cold just for milk. Crazy!

Brianna has starting "TALKING"!!! (I'm working on getting a video of it so everyone can hear - it's so cute.) It's so amazing how much she's developing. She's says "Ma, Ma" and "Ba, Ba". I think all that sucking on her new teeth helped her to get her lips in place to make sounds. The first ma and ba came about 2 weeks ago when I was washing the dishes. I was so shocked, I was even a cheesy mom and called Justin at work and had him listen. She kept talking for 2 or 3 days and then the sounds disappeared and I couldn't get her to make them again, but this past weekend ma and ba returned - it's so fun to listen now to the even more exciting stories she tells us. She is also become quite a Curious George. (I don't know what I'm going to do when she starts crawling - which is so coming any day now.) She grabs at Everything and Anything! Diaper changes are starting to become a bit of a challenge because she wants to roll over and check out the wipes and lotion bottles above her head on the changing table. And she of course wants everything she's not supposed to have - remotes, silverware, glasses, mom's hair, dad's nose - I guess she a pretty typical baby.

Well I'm going to have to finish my update tomorrow - I need to start dinner. But I thought I'd add these cute pictures. Brianna is a true Girly Girl!!! :) The other night she was constantly trying to move around while Justin was holding her. She ended up laying down on her belly in dad's lap, so he started rubbing her back - she loved it! It was too cute! She has even done it a couple times since. Oh Justin's going to be in trouble with 2 girls now begging for back rubs. :)

BITTER BEER FACE

I've been trying to get a good picture of this for awhile and can't quite capture the funniness of it - so here's the best ones we got. The day after her first tooth came in she found it and started sucking on it. It's hilarious to watch and sometimes quite ugly. We call it the bitter beer face or the little old lady face (because it looks like she's an old lady with no teeth). Along with this face comes this weird grunting sound - remember Forest Gump when his mom is getting it on with the principal so he can go to school and Forest makes "sex noises" at him when he comes out - that's what it sounds like! :) It's so funny but also kind of embarrassing - I laugh and want her to stop all at the same time. LOL!

Also every time Justin sees her do this he says, "I got a tooff", it's too cute, because it's really like she's trying to show us that she has a tooth. But we can't say it anymore because she has TEETH now! Her other bottom front tooth came in this past weekend.

In other news, our new tenants move in today. Yippee - we're done cleaning! It was a big process but the place looks better than it ever has since we've owned it. We fixed a lot of the drywall that had old, bad patches on it, fixed the 2 big holes that the last tenants made in the walls, put new oak trim in which looks really nice (it had the really cheap looking white trim before - now we want to do it on our side), and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. But the place looks great and the tenants seem nice so we're happy.

BABY SIT UPS

Look who's sitting up all by herself! The past 1-2 weeks she's started to really be able to sit up more and more without any help. She's almost mastered it - she has a hard time "saving" herself if she leans too far backward - but she's getting better everyday. I can't believe it - she's growing way too fast!!!

IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE...

CHRISTMAS! I know it's time for Halloween, but it's looking more like Santa should be coming instead of goblins around here. But I do have to admit - it is very pretty.

Last week, Justin was getting his military winter gear ready for work and was trying on his coat. BTW- Poor Justin, he works as a weapon instructor and teaches people to shoot every day. So in Utah they have a really nice indoor range to shoot in, but here in Alaska where it gets a whole lot colder, they have an outdoor range - Um kinda stupid if you ask me. But anyways he thought it would be funny to put up his furry hood and scare the dog. I do have to admit it was really funny watching him chase Alley around the house - she was terrified. But it wasn't nearly as funny after when the zipper got stuck and he couldn't get his coat off. Oh it makes me laugh even as a write this! :)

Hopefully he won't kill me for posting these pictures. :) Love you babe!!!

DIRTY PEOPLE... EEEWWW!!!

So the past week we've been cleaning out the other half of our duplex getting it ready for the new tenants. All I can say is YUCK!!! First off it's bad enough to have to clean up your own dirt, but cleaning other people's dirtiness is just plain gross. But these last tenants were super duper gross. I always knew they were trailer park trash, but they just stunk - literally. I think we've finally got the stench out after shampooing the carpet and many many bottles of carpet fresh. I mean you know it's bad if I complain - because everyone that knows me, knows that I'm not a clean freak, so I can understand normal dirt. (Chantel would run screaming in horror at this place! :) ) So my job has been washing walls for the past 3 days, which has been a chore. I know we have a lot of mosquitoes in Alaska and they sometimes get in your house and you have to kill them. But who smashes bug guts all over the wall and then doesn't wipe it off afterwards? Really, who does that? Not just one or two here or there either, I mean a TON all over the house - Nasty! Justin has been working with a contractor fixing two big holes in the wall - one of which was made by one of their friend's head, who was drunk and fell into the wall. I wasn't kidding about the TPT. But whatever, at least they're gone for good - they even finally towed their truck out of the drive way yesterday that hasn't started in like 6 months.

Sorry for this complain fest! People just annoy me too much. On a good note the new tenants move in on the 15th and I'm pretty sure they're going to be a whole lot better. Not Trista and Ryan good, but better - Come back, we miss you!!! (Those were our first tenants that totally spoiled us into thinking this job was easy) But they're a young military couple who just got married and have no kids. (Not that I don't like kids - it just means less wear and tear on your house - I sound like some business woman - HA!) So, yes I think we've learned our lesson on letting anyone "help" us find tenants - if you want something done right - do it yourself!

BULLWINKLE PART 2

I was talking to my mom last night and she was wondering why I haven't posted pictures of Justin's moose. I've been meaning to do this ever since he got back, but just kept forgetting - so here are a couple.

Now the frustrating part of the story. So last year when Justin went moose hunting he waited for the "big" one, passing up on 4 or 5 legal size moose that he could have shot - so he ended up coming home with nothing. So this year he said that he was going to shoot the first legal moose that he saw because he didn't want to come home empty handed. So the day after shooting his moose he took one of the guy's that he went hunting with out to help him. Now this kid is a totally city boy and wouldn't get a moose unless he accidentally hit it with his truck - he really had no clue. So Justin took him out, showed him a good hunting spot, called the moose in for the guy, woke him up to shoot his moose (yes, he was sleeping on his four wheeler at the time) and then the guy got buck fever and had to shoot the moose 7 times!!! Now as you can see from the picture below that this moose is about twice the size of Justin's - really irritating! I told Justin that he should of charged the guy money for this great guided moose hunt.

Oh well - he came away with a whole ton of meat so I guess it doesn't really matter. So, anyone up for a moose burger? Come on over, we'd love to have you!!!