The Hills - lots of pictures!

We had a fun filled fabulous weekend! I will just tell the stories in pictures as we go.....


Justin had a ENT appointment on Thursday. He has to get tubes AGAIN :( October 14th. They might take out his adenoids while they are in there. If they do that, it is a 2-5 day recovery, so he'll still be good to go for the wedding!

What do you do to entertain a 2 year old during a 2 fricken hour appt? Have a photo shoot and show him each picture after you take it :)















































































Playing hockey with his "goalie"!













Friday night I took Justin to the Metamora vs. East Peoria football game. We had to park almost a mile away, the line to get in was over 300 people long (one old lady selling tickets - it was rideculous!) because it was hyped up to be a great game - both teams undefeated. Metamora won 50-0. We left when the 3rd string made their appearance in the 3rd quarter!







This was the visitors side. There were SO many people there!













Saturday morning we got up and went to breakfast with the Gibson Family (Rob's old boss - they have a son 6 months older than Justin). After breakfast we went to Tanners Orchard...what a fun time! I loved it there! Thanks Gibsons; we'll have to get together sometime soon!


Justin on his pony - his name was Ransom (thought you'd like that Mom!!)





On the way out to the pumpkin patch! It was a covered wagon pulled by a tractor - Justin liked it!













Sitting on a pumpkin :) When we got out there he said "I do potty" - aka he needs a bathroom. So I just pulled down his pants and told him to go...he looked at me confused, but then he went. He then wanted to pick up the pumpkin he peed on, but I distracted him away from that one :)
BTW - we were the only ones out there; nobody else was in sight!







Looking for the perfect pumpkin.......













....and this is what he picked :) It's the charlie brown tree of pumpkins. He picked it up himself - it is 1/2 green (since turned mostly orange) and would not let it go. We had planned to get 3 and Gibson's get 2 since they were 5 for $20, but he had to have this one, so for $5 it was not worth making him cry :) He still likes to go out on the front porch and hold his pumpkin!







After Tanners we went home and changed and were off to St. Louis (yes, busy day!) for the Cardinals game. We had great seats, it was perfect weather, there were 4 home runs (aka fireworks!) and we had zero traffic on the way out - perfect night!

Here is Justin taking in the sights as soon as we sat down.





I love this picture :) I might make it a 5x7 for his room.













Daddy and Justin!














Mommy and Justin - I bribed him to smile by promising him ice cream :)












Justin's 2nd MLB game (3rd if you count the Tigers/Cubs when I was 8 months pregnant!)














Too tired to stand and play trains!













To see more pictures from the weekend, they are on our Picassa site:

http://picasaweb.google.com/brooksfam.blogspot/TheHills926Thru928#

Saturday evening!

Rob just found out that his boss's boss has a pair of tickets for the Cardinals game tomorrow that he can't use, so we decided to take Justin! Kids under 3 don't need a ticket, so if he has to he can sit on our laps. I am guessing since the game has no playoff hopes that there might be 3 seats together somewhere in the stadium! Katie & Josh were going to watch Justin so Rob and I could go on a date, but we can't leave him home...I think he'll really enjoy the sights, sounds, people, etc of an evening baseball game in St. Louis! I will be sure to take pictures! We are going to try and make this a yearly event - got it in just in the nick of time this year since it's the last series of the season!!!

Blog I read frequently

Hi there! I stumbled across a blog a couple of weeks back and I read it often now. It's a blog about a single dad. His wife had their baby early after 5 weeks of bed rest and then 27 hours later she died of a pulmonary embolism before she ever got to hold her daughter. His blog is NOT censored in any sense of the word...it's his raw emotions of what it is like to be a single dad and a grieving widower at the same time. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll be amazed how much Madeline (the baby) looks like her mother. To start, go to the upper right hand corner of the blog and click on the "never been here before?" tab to get acquainted with what happened.

http://www.mattlogelin.com/

Have a great weekend!

The Hills 9-25-08

Hello! Not too much is new around here, but I thought I would post a few pics for all of Justin's adoring fans around the country :) I am ready for this week to be over! I have a big meeting at work at 11am that I am hoping goes well. I am actually hoping for a call sooner than that telling me that they fired Mark on the spot at his meeting (which they said they will do if he gives the grief when they split up accounts i.e. give me some of his accounts that he has not been covering properly). I am REALLY hoping so, but reality tells me it's not going to happen.

Tonight starts new shows! Yeah :) Tomorrow I think we'll go to the Metamora football game in East Peoria and then on Saturday morning we are going to breakfast and then Tanners Apple Orchard with the Gibson Family. Sunday we are going to lay around and watch football with Katie & Josh and make fun appetizers! Fun times :) I love our friends..... and I really wish we had family in the area to hang out with! hint, hint brother



When Justin didn't get drums for his bday, I thought that we avoided the "problem" gift, but I was wrong. Uncle Mikey bought an even worse present. He wants us to set them up AND it's like 12 toys in one - they are always all over my floor! But Justin loves it :) That's all that matters...








He wonders why they won't fall over when he uses a squish ball.












Justin loves wearing Daddy's ties when he comes home from work.



















Here is our source of last night's entertainment..... he was HUGE!







I would not let the dogs hurt the frog, but they sure had fun! Justin was laughing at them chasing the thing too....I have a video I'll try to upload later.












He wanted it SO badly :)









Justin keeps saying "I hold frog"










Come on Mom....put him back down so we can play!









The frog has had enough :) I put him over the fence after this so he could spend the rest of his evening in peace!







Daddy spraying the poison ivy - luckily we found it by sight and not red rashes!











Justin raking up the excess grass from when I mowed - the lawn was SO long from the flooding!

How I love thee.......

.....my new best friend! (Just kidding Katie!) We had purchased one on Woot a while back, but Justin decided that dropping it repeatedly and playing with it all of the time was a good idea - Roomba thought otherwise and quit working. We never realized how much it helped with my sanity until we didn't have it (I HATE dog hair SO much). I love coming home to little or no dog hair on my main floor and all I have to do is empty the bin! I thought about getting a stick vac that I could just do every night to control the hair between the weekly Dyson chore, but decided to spend a little more and get a robot to do the work for us! This one is a lot nicer than our other one too! I guess we'll keep the dogs now... :)

The Hills 9-22-08 (edited)

Hello! This weekend went by waaayyy too fast. I was not ready for the alarm to go off this morning!

Friday: After work Rob, Justin and I went to the Chinese buffet for dinner. We decided that is a good place for Justin because when he gets bored with eating, you just put something new in front of him :) I feel bad for the lady who had to clean up his spot! After that we met Katie & Josh at the Adler's house to baby-sit. Justin and Madison played together good (she is 3 months younger) and Justin was really good with Lincoln too (3.5 months old)! He kept rubbing his belly saying "Hi baby"

Saturday: Ran errands, sorted boxes, slept (Justin and Mommy anyways!) and went to a hockey game. Hockey was supposed to be at 6:45pm, but the opponents bus broke down and the game started closer to 9pm. Justin sat like and angel by us waiting for the game to start. We made it through two periods - he still was not crabby, but he was really tired so we headed home. Fun times at the ice :)

Sunday: Went grocery shopping, watched football, mowed the lawn, got rid of our gross bug infested pumpkins and watched more football!

EDIT: The dots you see on Justin's nose are apparently a bite mark. They were there when we picked him up from school one day last week. We asked him what happened, and he said "Lauren bites my nose."




mmm....French fries dipped in ice cream :)













Daddy and Justin watching the game. It was the same arena Rob plays in, so when the game started Justin said "Daddy go play" and was pushing him off of the bleacher!











Happy to be watching hockey again!













Feeding his new pig! He loves to put money in it :)

The Hills 9-19-08

Sorry - no new Justin pics. I'll try to get some this weekend!

Things with Justin are good - he goes to sleep in his big boy bed with no problem! He has also gone 4 days without an accident at school or at home! He's growing up and we're so proud of him!!!

Last night Grandma Brooks and Godsie were here to see Justin before Godsie goes to FL. It worked out perfectly because it was the MTU vs. NMU football game on TV and I had an alumni event that I organized, so we had a babysitter! The party went really good! We had 40 alumni there plus families....everything from interns to a guy who was Tech's hockey captain in 1948-1950 :) Very cool guy! I am planning a hockey event too, so I am more excited to do it now that I see Peoria has such a strong alumni interest!!!

The river is supposed to crest here tonight - it's SO high! I took some pics this morning after I dropped Justin off at day care....






Drinking fountain for a duck?













There is normally a sidewalk in front of the riverplex...














Don't think this table will be eaten on for a while!













Unbelievable!













Ironically this is "Water St." :)













This is a parking garage on the lower level and restaurants on the top. Hopefully nobody is parked there :)














The parking attendent booth













Water Street again














Seriously?......duh.












I wish I could make this one a scratch and sniff - it was SO gross....the debris collecting on the dock.











This weekend is Oktober fest down on the riverfront. They have the tents set up as far from the water as they can get, but we'll see what happens! Even if it does not flood anymore, there is literally no parking around there at all....it's all underwater!










A better picture of the Riverplex














Rob and I in our "volunteer" shirts before leaving for the party. Normally, if I come down in a red shirt and Rob is wearing red, maroon, burnt orange or anything similar he will go change so we don't match. I had to catch this on camera :)