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. :(

YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!

On Friday night Justin was really nice and took me to dinner. We haven't been able to go out as much as we used to since having the baby so it was a rare treat. We were at Chili's and the waitress had came back with our appetizer and drinks. She took our order, but as she grabbed Justin's menu she accidentally bumped my diet coke which sent it flying right into my lap. I was SOAKED!!! Let's just say I could have literally rung out my underwear I was so wet. I was also holding Bri and one of her pant legs and socks was hit by the flying drink as well. Now I know accidents happen, that's just life, so I was really nice to the waitress and told her to not even worry about it, that it was no big deal. You could tell she was really embarrassed, so I made a point to be really nice to her. So having been a waitress before, I guess I just assumed that I would get some kind of discount when the check came. Um, just kidding. All I could think of when we got the check was "you've got to be kidding me!". Not only did she not give me my meal for free, there was absolutely no discount on our check. I mean come on, throw in a free dessert or at least give me the freakin diet coke for free! Now I am a real stickler when it comes to tipping - it's a must! Even if you give me poor to okay service you're going to get 15%, and if you're good, I tip 20% or more. So needless to say this was one of my very rare times that I didn't leave even a single penny. And in true Justin fashion, he even went and wrote her a little note on why she didn't receive a tip from us that night. He was very nice (due to my threats from across the table), he just told her that sometimes you have to at least pretend you care when you spill something all over your customers and give them some kind of discount, it didn't have to be a lot, just something to let us know you cared. Let's just say I was astonished as I waddled out of Chili's, looking like I'd wet myself, that I had just payed full price for this!

SAYING "I DON'T LIKE YOU" NICELY???

Telling someone you don't like them nicely, is there such a thing? Not that I know of. I ask this question because I find myself meeting new people here, and while these people are nice enough, they just aren't people I click with. I don't hate these people at all, they've done nothing bad to me, and they really are good people - I just don't care to hang out with them. So instead of just being able to tell them this, I have reverted to being that stupid teenager girl that keeps avoiding the phone call of that obnoxious ugly boy that keeps calling and calling and calling. Why is there is no polite way to do this? It's so frustrating. Why can't this world be a little less sensitive and just accept that some people just don't like your company? I mean I totally know that everyone in this world doesn't just love me to pieces. (I don't know why... but whatever - ha, ha, ha) So why can't we just say, "Hey your a nice person, but stop calling me because I really don't want to hang out with you" without offending them? So if anyone has some advice on this subject be sure to let me know.