Chicken Pox

Here is my little polka dot princess!


A day before we were suppose to fly out to Utah little red spots started appearing on Brooke's belly and back. I was pretty sure that it was chicken pox because she had been exposed to it 2 weeks prior. I wanted to make sure so after Craig got home from work we took her to Instacare to get her checked out. The Doc confirmed my suspicions so I called Travelocity to get our trip rescheduled. I had checked with them before I was sure that she had chicken pox and there was NO WAY that Delta would let my little diseased and extremely contagious little monkey get on the plane. After hours on the phone they finally waived the re booking fee and let us reschedule our vacation to see family next month with no additional charges. I was relieved. We are happy that we are still able to see everyone next month. This week has been rough for Brooke. She got it pretty bad and was very uncomfortable for at least the first 4 days. We have been spending our days in quarantine giving Brooke oatmeal baths, rubbing anti-itch ointment on her spots, reading lots of books, and watching TOY STORY and ELMO. Most of her spots are scabbed over which is good news. That means she is ALMOST no longer contagious and we can GET OUT of this house!!! My only escape this past week has been WAY too early in the morning when I make it over to the clubhouse gym to workout and be back before Craig leaves for work. I forgot how much I enjoy running all my stresses away. Anyways, I know this sounds odd but I'm almost hoping that in two weeks, after the incubation period, Jace starts sprouting red spots too. Don't worry I figured in enough time between our next trip so that if he does get chicken pox he will be recovered by the time we leave. My feelings are that I would rather he get chicken pox as a child and get it over with then to have the possibility of getting it when he is older and it's much more serious. He has had the vaccine which I'm assuming is why he has not already caught this very contagious disease but I'm almost regretting allowing them to give him the vaccine at all. It only lasts 5-10 yrs and it is MUCH worse if caught as an adult.

I know that some of you were sad that we didn't make it back to Utah when we had planned so I took this little video of Brooke. She is getting SO big and saying so many words right now. Her favorite is "NO". She says it all the time and I know that she doesn't know what it means yet because the other day I asked her if she wanted a bite of my snack and she said "NOOOO" while she snagged my spoon out my hand and took off with my food. She is my little eater . . very food motivated. Jace is the exact opposite! I practically have to spoon feed him healthy food. If he had his way he would eat nothing but pizza, fries, chips, cupcakes, chocolate chip cookies, and vanilla ice cream all the time.

Without further ado . .my little ray of sunshine . .miss Brooke Michelle Brammer.




QUOTES OF THE WEEK

Jace
As we are backing the car out of the garage on our way to take Brooke to Instacare Jace yells "I'm not trapped, I'm not trapped"!!! I looked back and noticed that we had been in too much of a hurry and had forgotten to buckle or "trap" Jace into his car seat.

Brooke
Every Morning we all say "Love you" to daddy about a million times. Usually as we say our last "Love you" we sit on the stairs and watch him walk out the garage door. This week Brooke joined in and told daddy "luvoo" too as he left for work. It made his day! She is learning so many new words lately. She even said "cucake" the other day when daddy brought a cupcake home for her when she was sick to help brighten her day.

Quotes of the Week & New Discoveries

QUOTES

Brooke:
As I am slaving over the stove with dinner, Craig comes over holding Brooke to see what I'm making, we laugh hysterically as Brooke pipes in with an excited "poo poop, poo poop" actually it was stroganoff but I guess it looked like something else.



Jace:
I say, "Jace, come sit down for dinner" he says " I'm not Jace, I'm Buzz B. Lightyear".

"Okay, Buzz Lightyear come sit down for dinner", "I can't I'm flying right now"
"Buzz, you need to come and eat", "I'm busy right now, mom", " Come sit down, NOW!" This conversation is repeated about 3 times.

We are all sitting at the table waiting for Jace as he is "flying" around the room.

A smart Craig tricks Jace by saying " Hey, Buzz don't you need to fuel up . . you've been doing a lot of flying today. You need to come eat because your fuel is FOOD and if you run out of fuel you won't be able to fly anymore." He thinks about this for a moment then he jumps off the couch and yells " To Infinity and Beyond" as he spreads his wings/arms "Okay dad, um I mean Woody. Dad you're Woody and Mom you're Andy, Okay? Hey dad, I mean Andy, I mean Woody. I need to tell you a secret.
Craig says "Okay, What?" He whispers to Craig, "I think that I may have broken my wing, but I can fix it because I'm a fixer man too" He "fixes" his broken wing, eats his dinner and then continues to "fly" around the house.


NEW DISCOVERIES

Brooke has recently discovered that she can accessorize herself with items from all over the house. Her favorite this week is an empty cool whip container that she uses as a hat. She has also recently become obsessed with shoes. I'm a little worried since she's only 17 months and is ALREADY obsessed with shoes. This is odd to me since I'm not really a shoe fanatic. She loves to put on her own tan fluffy boots and pink cupcake sneakers but she also loves finding Jace's yellow rain boots, Daddy's work shoes, and Mom's high heals or slippers. This afternoon she came walking down the wood hallway wearing nothing but a diaper, Jace's yellow rain boots, and a smile. She was really strutting her stuff too . .head held high just waiting for us to compliment her. She especially LOVES showing daddy any time she dresses up because he always "ooohs and aaaahs" and tells her she's gorgeous. She definitely has Craig wrapped around her little finger . .she is a little daddy's girl and definitely a little girly girl too!





















Jace has discovered and fallen in love with the movie TOY STORY and has been watching it almost every day since. This has been going on for about a week now. It has been a bit of a pleasant change since before that his favorite movie was WALL-E which he has wanted to watch everyday for the last 2 months. I am officially WALL-ED out. He loves to pretend that he is Buzz Lightyear and will "fly" around the house most of the day. He has also discovered friends here. It has been a lot of fun to have other kids around. . . with babysitting swaps and play dates . . Jace has discovered that playing with other kids his age is actually fun. It's been good for him to get a little social interaction. I am TRYING to teach him to not be so bossy though . . if anyone has suggestions . .help!



Craig & I discovered the Camas Library and may I say that it is absolutely awesome!! It is LITERALLY the best public library in the state of Washington. We are very lucky that we live so close to it. We are both looking for a good book to read . . .again, any suggestions?

Happy Holidays . . .a little late.

Christmas Eve Pajamas

We had a wonderful Christmas and New Year Celebration! This was the first Christmas that we spent on our own . . no family. It was very interesting and fun at the same time. It was great to have a white Christmas even though we didn't expect one here of all places. We had a tropical feast for our Christmas Eve party - very nontraditional. Instead of Turkey we had Crab Legs, cheddar biscuits, salad, and tropical drinks. Craig read Christmas stories to the kids and we gave "presents" to Jesus in celebration of his birthday. This was what Jace had us write on his paper " I will be nicer and not poop my pants". He thought that would be an excellent gift for Jesus. After the kids went to bed Craig and I watched "It's a wonderful Life". Jace was so excited to see if Santa came . . .and he certainly did come. We had a fun time watching the kids play with their gifts and open presents. Here are the kids playing with some of their new presents a few days later.



Brooke giving her baby doll a kiss. What a precious moment!




Jace with his new firetruck.


Jace learning to write the letter A on his new chalk board art easel.

We also had an awesome New Year's celebration too. We were able to go over to a friends house and play games all night long. Thanks Genevieve & Scott - we had a blast!

We hope you all had a great 2008! We sure did!

SNOWED IN

Here are some pictures of the storm. Keep in mind that the Portland/Vancouver area hardly ever even gets snow period. This is VERY unusual . .according to the news a storm like this hasn't happened for 25 years. Last year they didn't get any snow at all.


Once we got out of the mall after seeing Santa we were worried that we might not be able to make it home. There was a huge snow storm and we thought that the bridge from Portland to Vancouver might be closed. Luckily we were able to get across and make it home. Although, on the way up one of the steep roads in our housing community I had to get out and push while Craig floored it so we could make it up. . .it's really steep! We were happy to get home and be safe and snug in our house. Just after that someone called from the ward to let us know that church would be cancelled on Sunday. I thought we left the snow in Utah but I think it followed us here. This is one of the worst blizzards I've ever seen. . . we are officially snowed in!

This is a picture of our driveway taken from an upstairs window. That is our car under all the snow. I feel bad for Craig . .he's the one that has to shovel it all.


Here is the road in front of our house again taken from an upstairs window.



Monday Noon

This is the door to the back yard.








Jace loved being outside "helping" daddy.


I borrowed a sled and took the kids on a walk while Craig shoveled the driveway.





Craig attempting to dig out the driveway.



This pile of snow is our car.




Obviously, there was no way for Craig to make it to work today even though Fisher Investments is one of the few companies that decided to stay open. He called his manager this morning and he told Craig that he was just waiting for the call. In fact, he told Craig that he hoped he would see him sometime this WEEK because it isn't supposed to start melting until this weekend. Hardly anyone was able to make it in . .just those that live VERY close to work . .I wouldn't be surprised if they walked in to work. Besides the fact that there is 3 feet of snow in our driveway and at least a foot of snow on the road outside our house that hasn't been plowed, all the major freeways and roads have been closed and to boot you are not even allowed to be on the roads unless you have 4 wheel drive and chains (we have neither). This is not just snow either . .there is a layer of ice at the bottom, 6 inches of snow, another layer of ice, more snow and more ice. Yesterday when we went outside with the kids . . Jace could actually walk on top of the snow in the front yard. Craig and I just crunched though what felt like blocks of ice.

I have learned my lesson about being prepared for situations like this. We really should have gone grocery shopping instead of to the mall on Sat. morning. Luckily we have milk but we don't even have any eggs or a lot of other things. Being LDS we do have some food storage that will save us from starvation but instead of having a feast on Christmas we may be having canned soup. I thinks it's funny that Craig always leaves his Christmas shopping until Christmas Eve . .so I was teasing him earlier today that I was glad that I had done mine previously. I hope that we are able to get on the roads soon but for now I am thankful that we still have power, we have food to eat, we are enjoying having daddy home, and we haven't had a medical crisis. We are having fun making Christmas cookies, drinking cocoa, watching Christmas movies, and playing board games. We are, for the most part, enjoying being SNOWED IN.

Smile for Santa

We took the kids to the Clackamas Town Center Mall in Portland, OR to visit Santa today!


Jace was very excited to give him THE LIST: A play kitchen set, a firetruck, a gun that shoots balls, and a WALL-E toothbrush. Brooke wasn't that interested in the bearded man.


I think we only waited in line for 10 minutes or so but for Jace it seemed like eternity. While we were waiting he befriended a little blond girl about Brooke's age. She kept giggling at him and he would smile at her . .then he gave her a hug. Everyone around us responded with a " Ahhhh . .how sweet". Then he started kissing her (just on the cheek) and I saw the little girls father jaw drop and then he said " I think that's a little too much love". I had to explain to Jace that he can't just go around kissing girls except his sister. He then gave Brooke a huge kiss on the cheek.

A World of White

When we first moved here (Washougal/Vancouver, WA) we were told that it hardly ever snows here and if it does then it melts as soon as it touches the ground. Well, according to the news we are experiencing an Arctic Blast and it is snowing like crazy! We, of course, are used to the snow being from Utah. However, everyone else it freaking out. They just do not have equipment here to deal with snow . .plows, etc . . so everything just closes down. . .schools, businesses,church, etc. Very odd for us. Although, last Sunday on our way home from church we almost crashed a couple of times. We live on the hill and because there is so much ice under the snow it's a little like an ice rink on the roads. The 2 wards after us were cancelled. Craig's work hasn't closed for the weather so far but last night I wasn't sure if he would be able to make it back home from work. Jace is having a blast making snowballs and playing in the snow as is Brooke. Right now we are just enjoying the winter wonderland outside . . .the snow is so beautiful.

Little miss pink pucker lips .. .for some reason this pictures makes me think of Strawberry Shortcake . .don't know why though.

My 3yr. old . . . the hairstylist :(

Jace cut his own hair.














I cried . . . then he got a buzz! You can still see where he cut it in the front but at least it's less noticeable. Kids do the darnedest things.














He is a cute little skinhead though. . . :)