Easter

For Easter Sunday we went to my parent's place to celebrate.  Here are some pictures of the day. 
Brooks liked the plastic Easter eggs and playing in the grass for one of the first times!

But he was also just as interested in the softball bats and football...

While we waited for Cody, Curtis, Lane and Katelyn to get there, we passed the time throwing the softball, hitting soft-toss with the softballs and a little catch with the football.  We were so thankful it was a nice enough day to be outside.  Here are pics of Bret and Laura and Blake playing football

Since Lane was the only kid that could hunt Easter eggs, we waited until they got there to hide them.  Lane had fun hunting them, but I think it would have been a lot more fun if he wasn't the only kid doing it!

Overall it was a fun day with family, and I think we were all tired just like Brooks! (and that is a smile with dad, not a cry!)

Brooks

Brooks has been growing up so much these past few weeks that I thought I'd better share some of the latest things he's been doing. 
Brooks still LOVES to play with laundry and pull it out while I'm folding it.  At least it's an easy way to keep him entertained and get some work done at the same time!

One day he was playing with the laundry by our couch while I was doing something in the kitchen.  I could tell he was having a good time, but all I could see was his head pop up from behind the ottoman every now and then.  When I went over to pick up the mess of clothes, this is what I found:

Somehow he had pulled his own pants off in the process of emptying the laundry basket.  I just thought he looked so silly pantless! :)

The pants must have just been too big for him or something, because later in the same day he was over in the same corner of the couch playing with his books, and once again I found a bare legged little boy just having a blast!

Brooks has also started eating a few more foods.  I still struggle with getting him to feed himself small pieces of fruit, bread, or even Cherrios, but we're working on it.  He still loves to just eat puffs and his baby food.  At least I can get him to eat just about any baby food from a jar, but he shows no interest in feeding himself, just wants mommy to do it!  And he also loves vanilla yogurt...he'd probably eat the whole container if I let him!

Here is Brooks enjoying an afternoon snack of Kix...he likes them best if I put them in a big bowl and he can play with them while he eats.  A few do eventually reach his mouth.

Brooks also still loves playing with his Daddy.  He gets pretty excited when Blake comes home from work.  His latest thing is head butting.  He'll crawl up to Blake, run into him with his head, the crawl away laughing.  He also loves it if Blake head butts him in the side and knocks him over when he's crawling.  He just thinks it's hilarious! I don't have any pictures of him doing just that, but any play time with dad is fun!

Brooks is still clapping when he's excited.  He loved the balloon we brought home with us from Red Robin.

Brooks is also jabbering a lot these days.  He is forming new words/sounds all the time.  He has started sort of saying 'duck' 'dog' and 'cat' besides the normal mama and dada.  We just got a new puppy this past weekend, and he says a form of 'dog' every time he sees her.  Cheyenne has been a good dog so far for us, and I'll post more on her later when I get some better pics of her uploaded to our computer. 

Brooks has also started carrying toys around in his mouth while he cruising along furniture.  We caught him the other night with the football, and he just looked so goofy we had to get some photos!

So in time for his first birthday in a couple weeks, Brooks is acting more and more like a toddler than a baby.  It's so fun watching him grow up, learn new things, and enjoy life.  We're so blessed to have such a happy and healthy little boy.

ACE Convention

On March 30, (yes, we flew out on my bday! I think this is the first time I've gotten to travel somewhere for my birthday..even if it was for 'work') we flew to Chicago for the 2011 Spring ACE Hardware convention.  It was nice to get away for a few days, but it was still work and busy getting everything done we needed to before we left.  We had some Chicago style pizza at Gino's East and ate with my uncle and his wife a couple times too.  At the show we found a couple of new products we are going to carry at the store, (check out York Ace Hardware on Facebook for updates) and overall had a good time.  My parents came along to help watch Brooks for me, which was nice!  Here are a few pics from the trip!

  

 Milwaukee tools trying to sell more stuff to Blake

 Brooks absolutely loved the "Step 2" booth.  The reps let him borrow the little push car for a while, and he just grinned from ear to ear when we put him in it!

  It was difficult sometimes to get Brooks to drink his bottle, but between mom and I, we usually got it worked out somehow!

We also got a chance to go up the Hancock tower.  Brooks slept through the first part of it, but that was good...he was so worn out!

Unfortunately it was also pretty cold and windy, but did we expect anything less?  We did our best to bundle Brooks in the stroller and keep him out of the wind!

It was a good weekend, but we were also just glad to get home.  Our flight back to Omaha was the roughest I'd ever experienced with turbulence.  It was really windy out and we were bouncing around pretty good.  The lady behind us was freaking out and spilled her drink, Brooks was fussing because his ears were hurting, and I was just holding on to him tight enough that he wouldn't fall off my lap!  Needless to say, everyone was pretty happy when we were on the ground! (It didn't help that we were flying Southwest the same weekend one of its aircrafts had a roof blown off in the middle of a flight and we were already delayed an hour!)