Christmas tree hunting!

Tis the season! To spend way too much on a christmas tree! Well I can't say I mind it since it's still one of my favorite things to do! We debated about getting a fake tree this year but I realized that some of my best memories come from tree shopping. Plus some years i hope we can get one from the mountains of Idaho since it's only $10 and way more fun to cut it down yourself. We thought it would be fun to dress Gage up in his santa outfit his grandma Kelley got for him when he wasn't even born yet. It fit's great so I'm glad we went with the 18 month size instead of the 12 months. Who would have known he'd be so big! It sure was cold but we had a blast picking out the perfect tree! I love it!

Thanksgiving Time!

Thanksgiving has come and gone and I can say I'm thankful we survived all the winter driving! Thank goodness Cody handles the ice well! We had a blast spending the last week up in Idaho with friends and family. The one I think who enjoyed it the most way our puppy Tipsy who learned that there is a wonderful place called Idaho where you can run to your hearts content. A place where large, four legged beasts exist and a place where 15 degrees is no big thing. We got to stay with the Kunz's, Mom and Dad and we even got to have a sleepover with the Womack crew which was a blast from start to finish. I'm so glad that I was able to make it to my sister-in-law's bridal shower and as always the Browers prove themselves to be a fun, wild bunch! We also got to hang out with friends that we love so much! Gage and Trey are only a couple of months apart and it's been so much fun watching them grow up! Gage got his first "real" horse ride. I call it real because we weren't holding on to him so I think it was pretty legit. Coco, our yearling, wouldn't hold still enough so we got a great picture instead on Cymeron. Can't wait for Gage to get more horse time in the future! All in all it was a great week and I can't wait to go back in a month for Kaylee's wedding!

Videos!

Cody got the video converter up so here are some awesome videos of the boy. I also did a little photo shoot this morning cause Cody commented that we don't have enough 9 month pictures of Gage so I have now captured the many moods of Gage at this point in his life. And believe me- there are many. Enjoy the great pics!

Snow!

I feel like someone has hit the fast forward button with Gage lately! He's developing so fast now and it seems like every day he is getting just a little bit bigger. In the past couple of weeks he's learned how to pull himself up on stuff and has even figured out the neat trick that if he climbs up my leg I pick him up 9 times out of 10.
Mostly I pick him up because it's so dang cute and he has semi ignored me half his life so it's nice to be wanted. In fact, he's become so loving and cuddly. It must be that age where other kids refuse to go to anyone but their mom and Gage is exhibiting it in that he seems to prefer me. He still goes to anyone (as proven by his popularity in Relief Society today) but it's nice to be needed. At church this morning Cody made the discovery of Gage's first upper tooth. It explains his behavior from the last day or so and by tonight he was running a full out drama show. No amount of teething gel or medicine seemed to help so he went to be early. Poor little guy! Cody and I had a great weekend of projects. Some went well and others... not so well. Our TV broke recently and Cody was lucky enough to be awarded some extra money from the Army that they owe him for schooling so we finally joined the club of plasma owners. We got our 50 inch plasma off craigslist for a steal of $540 and even managed to find the perfect stand for only $60 more! It was just what I wanted (which was good because I was extremely sad to see my old entertainment center go- It took me 4 hours to set it up the first time and over an hour of hard labor to take it down so needless to say I had invested some serious time into it). I wanted a TV stand that would keep the DVD and Cable box out of Gage's reach and also to have some wood in it for my country themed living room. It turned out great. Unfortunately, we got it home and it was 2 inches too short for the TV to fit so my wonderfully handy husband re-drilled all the upper shelves and sawed holes in the back for cables to go in. That was our successful project. Now for the not so successful. We have been working on re-finishing a coffee table for the living room. It's the one in the picture before we decided to do our "final" coat of stain and seal. So re-doing furniture is no picnic. First you use a type of acid to take the original finish off- then you scrap that finish off- then you sand the whole thing- then you do the first, second and sometimes third coat of stain to get just what you want. That's where things broke down for us. We got the stain + finish combo and I don't think it agrees with cold weather because it was like trying to spread quick dry molasses on a table that just keeps getting darker and stickier. Totally ruined it so now we'll have to start from step one again. I think we'll try separate stain and finish this time. So help me I will finish this project! I've already done too much to drop it now. The picture with the TV was our pre-screw up and it looks so good! Anyway- you win some and you loose some. On the plus side it was a blast getting to use table saws, band saws and sanders with Cody. It reminded me of wood shop. Cody only has a week of classes left and then they give the students 3 weeks to study for and take their finals the first half of December. Hopefully he does well cause loosing the scholarship would be terrible. Stupid curve grade! He could get an A on the final and still fall in the lower 50% of his class. He's doing great so far and I'm so proud of all his hard work. I can't believe he's willing to go through this for me and Gage. What a loving husband!
Lastly I wanted to include pictures of Gage's first run in with snow. He was a little confused by it but the puppy sure had a blast! I have a couple of videos that I need to post but we just re-formatted the computer so I lost my video converting software so once I figure that out I'll be able to throw some videos on. Miss you all and love you all!

Well we have had a few busy weeks here at the Brower home! Gage seems to be coming up with something new everyday! Sitting up, grabbing and eating food, pulling himself up the railing on his crib and screaming bloodly murder when he realizes that he can't get down. So many fun things! Cody also turned 29 a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to say thanks to everyone who got their birthday wishes to Cody. I love him so much and can not believe the effort he is putting into Law school right now. We're talking 12 hour days at school which really gets him down sometimes. He works so hard to take care of Gage and I and we couldn't be prouder! We also had our awesome friends down from Idaho this last weekend and had a blast with them. It was so nice to hang out with friends that you have history with and you don't have to do all that get to know you stuff. So thanks to garage sales I've acquired a new truck and rocking horse for Gage, both of which he loves. He likes the truck more because of the more stable hand holds but as you can see he's a natural on a horse. Well, at least he is till Tipsy licks his face and he falls off the horse! He has fluctuated between waking up 4 times a night at times to not waking up at all (like the last two nights) so I can't rightly says what his nights are usually like. What a great feeling to wake up at 6:30 and realize that the bottle you set out for the night is still there. If not for the bottle I would just figure I got up with him and didn't remember. He's finally beginning to realize that his parents are pretty cool. He'll actually tolerate an occasional snuggle (and not just when he's asleep and we sneak in his room) and I think he's starting to get excited when he sees me. Halloween wasn't bad even though none of us dressed up. Lets be honest- if I can't get candy out of dressing up whats the point? Maybe next year. We did go to a trunk or treat and give out candy but with our Idaho friends visiting I wanted to just spend time with them and not worry as much about Halloween. The videos are from any given time in the last two weeks. I've been a total blogging slacker but I still wanted to get them up cause some are really cute. I'll miss all you Kelley's at Thanksgiving! Can't wait to see you Browers! Love you all!

Neighborhood watch

I think I am now officially the place to be in the neighborhood. The neighborhood has a great collection of little kids who love to play with Gage and Tipsy all afternoon. Tipsy's in heaven the whole time but Gage interacts for about the first hour and then gets too overwhelmed and cries till I rescue him and kick everyone out. There's also one 15 year old named Hannah who originally came over to offer her bbsitting services (her little brother and sister hang out here) and now she just comes over after school to watch TV and hang out. Yesterday I got a call from her asking if I could get her from school since her mom and dad were at work and the school only had a half day. I was already out and about so I grabbed her and mentioned that I wasn't looking forward to going to the city office to get on food stamps and having to wait in line for 3 hours. She said she'd love to come and keep me company and play with Gage so I thought- why not. Kinda random but the company was nice. Additionally I also watch her two siblings in the morning from 7-8:20 3 days a week for the next 3 weeks because their mom had her hours at work changed and she needed some help. So yep- I always wondered if being a stay at home mom would be boring. How wrong I was. I just barely told the kids that today I was going to get some stuff done so they couldn't play. I can't believe the house is so quiet. How nice. The hard hat picture of gage is from my camera at our ward chilli cook off. They take it very seriously with 24 different entries of chilli and ton of decorations around the room simulating the 59'ers gold rush on Colorado. I didn't even know they found gold here. The things you learn. Also I've included a video of Gage and Tipsy. Gage was fussing this morning and all of a sudden I heard him giggling uncontrollably. I just caught the end of it but you can see who was causing all the fun.

Crawling!!!

I have been so negligent with my blogging so here are a couple of updates just to show everybody what we've been up to. I've found recently that my life consists of walks. They keep the kid from crying and most importantly they keep the puppy from going crazy and taking her energy out on my stuff. So we average at least two walks a day so that's what all my pictures are of. It's getting cooler and cooler here in Denver and the leaves changing are absolutely beautiful. Gage has been a pill for the last week waking up a ton and then we finally figured out that it was because Tipsy would be in his room at night sleeping and she get these nightmares that make her woof really softly. I guess Gage could hear her and would wake up at the same time. He also had tummy problems that whole week but we kicked Tipsy out of his room just in case. We are both much happier and more rested now.

So two stories for this blog. The first story I had to get specific permission from Cody to share but I thought it was so funny that we couldn't keep it to ourselves. There have been many things that have been so different from living in the county and this one takes the cake. Cody decided that he needed a hair cut so he goes into a salon close to the metro he rides to school. It seems normal enough with a front desk waiting area and hair cutting cubbies off the the side. The women informs him that she is the manager and the only one cutting hair at the time so she would be his stylist. So, after sitting Cody down and putting the apron thing on him she excuses herself to go change into her hair cutting clothes as she can't cut his hair in "these clothes." What she changes into can only be very loosely described as clothes. Much to Cody's horror she comes strutting out in a lingerie outfit, scissors in hand. Cody was so flustered and embarrassed that he totally blanked. It only took moments for the hair cutter to realize his discomfort and Cody said that she became just as uncomfortable. You may ask what kind of conversations someone would have in a situation like this? Me. He told her about me the whole time which I'm sure sent the straight message of "I'm a married man" as loud as he could. Finally the hair cut ended and she told him that there was a complimentary back rub from the saloons masseuse (also dressed in like manner) which Cody quickly declined. I should probably be offended that some women would dress like that around my husband but if you understood Cody's utter discomfort with situations like that you could see the funny side of it. I can just imagine someone like Pete or Brian getting into something like that and freaking out too. Poor Cody. Needless to say he will not be returning.

My second story is not something really funny but it was a first for me so here we go. Cody and I found a free piano on Craigslist so I rented a U-Haul trailer to go and pick it up. Leaving the parking lot I went to turn onto the main road and out of no where two teenage kids fly in front of my car coming down the side walk. I slam on my breaks, just clipping the second kids back tire, knocking him to the ground. I jumped out and helped him up. He said he was not hurt at all and that his bike looked fine and just then the person coming down the road jumped out of her car yelling at the boy to get my info because he had been the victim of a horrible accident. The boy assured her that he was fine and then she started yelling at me to call the police and take responsibility for what I had done. She threatened that if I didn't call them she would. The kid told her he really didn't want the police called cause he was fine and no damage done. The women finally got in her car and took off in disgust. I really feel bad about knocking the kid over but wow, that women was crazy. After she left the kid asked if I was going to call the police and I said it was up to him. He said no and took off with his friend. So I have now joined the terrible club of those who have hit kids with their cars. I couldn't believe it happened and that the women was so crazy about the whole thing. I can understand being concerned but being that aggressive just didn't fit the situation. Crazy lady.

Anyway- the last video is Gage doing his crawling/ inching/ disco "worm"ing. It gets him around and every day he figures it out a little bit more. I'm so proud of him. It's a big body to have to lug around!

Fall is in the air!

I wanted to post some pictures from my moms visit here and show the amazing things that she helped me do with my home. The room we really nailed was the dinning room (which now has one of the walls painted a light yellow cream to match the curtains- I'll post it updated when I get the other wall done :) . She also helped me get curtains up in the living room, which Cody continues to comment on everyday how much he loves them, and matching pillows for the couch. Don't get me wrong- I love my neighbors but it sure is nice to have a way to block them out now. We got the blue couch from craigslist with a bunch of pillows so mom just made covers for them. What a skill! I wish my mom could just come and live here with me forever but I'm so glad she made the humungous 20 hour trip by car just to come. We had a blast and I can't wait till I get to see her next.

PS the hat picture of Gage was taken after mom left when me and the neighborhood kids were playing around. I sure love those kids!

Mystery and intrigue

You're probably wondering what the heck Cody did with his hair. Well, in an attempt to fit in the the more casual dress of Denver University he decided to go back to his teenage roots. What do you think?

Don't worry- I'm just kidding! Cody and I did a dinner mystery dinner with some LDS Law students and their wives and the theme was eat, drink and be married. I was the blushing bride with Cody and the rebellious bike gang member who, against my fathers wishes, was going to marry me. My "dad" was the murdered fellow after he stormed in, trying to break up the wedding (thanks for not actually doing that in real life Dad!) so we had tons of fun dressing up for it. I'll have to post more pictures from one of the other people there who has pictures of everyone. Anyway- it was a total blast and we're so happy to have such a fun group of friends here already. In other law news Cody has joined a group that runs mock trials to teach them how court proceedings work and they are going to do a practice run this Sat and need an expert witness so i get to be Cael "Crash" something and be crossed examined and stuff. Cody and I are going to prepare tonight so he and I nail it in court. The case is over an accident and who's fault it really was- the possibly intoxicated girl or the sleep deprived doctor on his was to the hospital for an emergency. I'm the accident expert supporting the doctor and Cody with be examining me so I really need to know my stuff when the other side cross examines me. At least the law students will probably be more scared than I will. :) So exciting!
In other news I have recently adopted about 10-15 neighborhood kids that all run around in a pack together and one day asked to play with the puppy. So I agreed, not knowing that I would be having a mini day care after school everyday. They are the sweetest kids all between 1st grade to 7th grade and they love my unfinished basement cause they can run and play and hide in there all they want. It's been great with the puppy cause they almost run her dead playing everyday and the little girls love to hold and play with Gage so he's getting some interaction there too. It's so nice to be able to be around kids again. I'm sure I'll have a lot of fun with this one.
Gage is being pretty grumpy with his two new teeth . I feel so bad for him but we all had to just tough through it so I guess he will too. We're also trying to move to a two nap a day system and also get used to a new puppy so really it might be all those things together. I have to use an "unhappy" voice when Tipsy is being naughty and if they're anything you need to know- Gage is very sensitive to any sort of yelling. Once Cody was impersonating a teacher of his that spoke with a really loud voice and when he finished talking Gage just burst into tears and couldn't calm down for at least a minute. Poor kid. With the puppy and the neighborhood mob he doesn't have the same calm life he used to. Oh well. It'll be good for him. Anyway- I need to start studying my testimony and evidence so I'll write next time and say how the mock court trial went.

Puppy!!!

I would not have guessed yesterday morning that I would be a dog owner but... surprise! We got a puppy! She is a Rhodesian Ridgeback/ Labrador mix. So the ridgebacks most distinguishing feature is that along their back/spine the hair grows in two different directions so they always have a Mohawk on their back. This breed of dog was originally (and still is) used for lion hunts in South Africa so they are extremely fit dogs that show extraordinary devotion to the family's that own them. The locals take them out in packs of 20 and by the time the catch up with the dogs they've cornered the lion and kept it at bay till the owner can shoot it. Not a bad herritage. And the great thing about it is that they aren't violent dogs. Very friendly and gentle in fact and then you throw a half Lab in there and we think she'll be great. Cody served in a town in Russia called Vtipsk and for some reason he always wanted to name a dog after it (go figure) so we decided to name her that and call her Tip or Tipsy or Tips (depending on how much trouble she's in at the time). So far she has barely even so much as whimpered and drum roll please... hasn't even had a accident in the house! I know! Potty trained at 3 months! Who would have guessed? She is doing great with Gage except that she doesn't know her limits with him yet. She can be a little rough and then he cries which makes her lick his face all over to make him feel better which only makes him cry more. Oh- funniest story of the week! So I took Gage and Tipsy to grab some free couches and something you need to know about Tipsy is that she is terrified of driving in the car for some reason. So I loaded up the car and walked away for a few minutes just to talk to the homeowner and when I came back I discovered that Tipsy (in her terrified state) had climbed up in Gage's car seat with him and was curled up on his lap. Now Tipsy isn't a small puppy at all! She was almost totally covering him and poor Gage was in hysterics. No doubt Tipsy was trying to calm him by attack licking his face the whole time. Oh priceless! It took me 10 minutes just to calm Gage down but it was worth the 30 minutes it took me to stop laughing. Anyway- the story behind Tipsy is that the home she came from only owned her for two weeks and decided to give her up instead of the 30 pound, 10 year old, bright orange cat. Turns out Tipsy's lion hunting instincts had taken over and she was constantly "herding" and "cornering" the cat (who, in Tipsy's defense, strongly resembles a lion). So the owner decided that their pet of 10 years deserved to stay over the dog. And the best part is that for just $25 they gave me a huge bag of food, a dog bed, tons of toys and treats and a $30 pooper scooper. What a deal! Plus when they got her from the store two weeks ago they paid $75 for her so we got a great steal! And I can already tell that she is going to be pretty easy to train. Both breeds are known for their intelligence and I can already see that in her so she should learn her lessons very quickly.Both breeds are also known for their size (75 + pounds). Yikes! Poor Gage just has to survive till then. So without further ado here are some cute pictures of her.

before and after

Ok- I'm going to attempt in some way to actually finish this blog post even though Gage is due to wake up any minute from a nap. So this one is just going to show some before and after pictures or a couple of projects I've been working on. There are endless more but I'm happy to report that at least these ones are good enough for public opinion. One is my living room where I painted the brick- took some shelves down- and gave the two alcoves on either side a pretty light jade color. Cody and I couldn't stop starring at it for days. PS brick, it turns out, is incredibly time consuming to paint. But well worth it. I also painted the fish tank stand that used to be an ugly damaged wood. The other picture is of the tiling job that my mom in law and I did. She is such a wonderful women to share her knowledge and help with me! Cody and I found a very retro surprise when we pulled up the carpet. Turns out linoleum was there but not the best design. So there you go! The projects continue!