This is when we were living in Twin Falls and when we were just starting to give Brindi baths. It is so crazy how small she was to fit in that small sink!
So tonight I was in the bedroom and Joe was in the front room. Well we both kept hearing noises. I thought it was the TV, but it sounded so weird. Well I looked out the window and nothing was there...then I thought for a second that the sound was coming from the vent right under the window because it seemed like it was echoing a little bit...well after scaring myself almost half to death imagining that some one was down stairs or something, I looked out the window and happened to look up at the tree. There sitting on the branch was an owl...yep an owl... So Joe and I decided that we were going to try and get a picture...so we turned off all the lights and sneaked outside and tried to snap a picture. It didn't turn out very well but you can kind of see the outline of the owl. You can see its eye, it looks like a distant star. Well the owl looked our way and then started to fly away...and then all of a sudden we heard more noise coming from behind us and we look around just in time to see two more owls in our other tree start to fly away too!!! It was so crazy....who knew there would be so many owls all together in the middle of the suburbs!!! I thought it was pretty cool...
I stole the above picture from my sisters blog. It was probably the best one of all three cousins.
Hold On! Already teaching them the buddy system!
I just really like this one of Brindi with her "dipped below one eye" look. 
's parents, Joe, Brindi and I all headed up to Salt Lake. We left after church and met most of Joe's family at Temple Square walked around looking at all the lights and then had yummy hot chocolate and cookies. Joe's Aunt Bobbie was nice enough to let us stay in her condo that night, which is nicer than any hotel. Monday we went shopping and ate at Sizzler so Joe could get his "all you can eat shrimp and steak". After that we said goodbye to some of Joe's family and then we went to the Church Museum. After 
zAspending a couple hours in 
there we got ready and headed to the Jazz game. It was a lot of fun and we had great seats thanks mostly because of Joe's dad and mom. I hope Joe enjoyed it as much as I did! Happy Birthday Babe. I love you!!!
Merry Christmas! We started the holiday season off by flying to Las Vegas on the 22nd of December to meet up with Celeste's parents for the day. It was great for Brindi to see her Hancock grandparents and Uncle Brennon. We had a fun time bowling, shopping and eating. The next day we headed to Utah for the rest of the holidays.
We had a traditional Christmas Eve party with the Petersens. Good basketball games, fun white elephant games, great dinner and of course the Nativity re-enactment. Santa Claus came towards the end of the party and Brindi was so excited to see him. My parents have a 5 foot dancing Santa that she loves to watch and is always trying to find him when we are up stairs. I think she as a little dissapointed that he didn't dance like the one at Grandpa's house but this one did give her a teddy bear.
Christmas was pretty exciting. Several presents, wrapping paper and family made for a great Christmas experience. You can see some of Brindi's presents above. Obviously she likes balls but not books. Much like her Father.
Brindi was also able to be with her cousins and actually play a little bit with them. She loves seeing people her own size. We are hoping that when she saw everyone else crawling and walking that it would make her jealous. We don't think it worked. But she was pretty happy to be around family has were Celeste and I.
We headed off to downtown St. Charles this afternoon. The city puts together a really cool downtown show. The streets are filled with about 30 different fairy tale characters from Father
Time to Santa Claus to Mother Goose and many other characters you knew of when you were a child. Another thing that is pretty cool is that each character carries a personalized card about 
themselves and how their story relates to Christmas. Its great for young kids and each time you talk to a character they will give you a card and the goal is to collect all the characters. They also do a parade down main street which we missed this year but hopefully we will see it next year. It was cold but for sure worth it. It will be a our fun St. Louis tradition for now on!
The biggest event held at the Boone Home, where Joe works, is the Candlelight Tours. It is a trip that visitors can take into the past to see how christmas was in the 1800's. The entire village is lit with only candles, laterns and several bonfires. The people are acting as you come into each building and doing what they would be doing in the past. It has kept Joe pretty busy trying to make sure it all went smoothly. During the events the earliest he came home was around 12:30 am. Brindi and I went out the second weekend to see the event. Brindi didn't last long but we did see several of the vignettes. Some of my favorites included a lady talking at a mill about spices and then related the story to the spices and gifts that were given to the Christ child. The chapel was filled with choirs singing christmas music all night long. There was a carpenter, who looked a lot like santa, with his wife there nagging him to hurry and finish the chair he was making all the while she is talking his ear off and asking him all kinds of questions about what to wear for the party that night, what to make to eat and such. It was really comical and they were great actors. There was a black lady telling a stable boy what christmas was like as a slave. Daniel Boone was also there telling christmas traditions of the Boone family. But the best act was a lady who recounted the history of how Santa Claus came to be and ended with the story that gave the first description of how we see santa today, The Night Before Christmas. It was amazing! All in all the night was pretty good with Hot cocoa and cider to keep our bellies warm.
This is as close as Brindi is to the real thing, rocking horses at Costco. But we figured this is the best we can do for now and it will be good practice until she can get on the real thing.
I've been trying and trying to deny it, but after last night there is no more denying it...Brindi is a daddy's girl. It's a fact. Brindi and I were in the kitchen making dinner. She was as content as can be just swinging along. She was even doing a little singing with me. Well, about this time Joe walked in the door. He said hi and gave her kisses and then left the room to go change out of his work clothes. Well the moment he walked out of the kitchen, she started the "my heart is broken" cry, I couldn't believe it! I was still standing in the kitchen not 3 feet away from her and she's starring down the hall bawling for her daddy! Man do I feel like the evil stepmother...you'd think she would be more attached to me! I guess I should have been prepared for this...I had all the signs...
Brindi and I went to her 6 month check up this morning. She was so happy before we left...as you can see from the picture. She had smiles for everyone she met. She now weights 15.4 lbs (50%), is 27 in. long (90%) and has a head circumference of 42.3 in. (50%). For some reason this time was a little bit harder for her and me. They gave her a flu shot and then 3 others. Unlike when we came in she didn't have any smiles to give on her way out. She was not a happy girl, and of course I can't blame her. But, as soon as we got home she went straight to sleep.
Our stake has been challenged by the Stake Presidency to fill the temple this weekend. Each ward was challenged to supply 100 patrons to attend the temple today (Friday) and Saturday. We thought it was a pretty cool challenge. Celeste and I signed up to attend a session today at 4:00 pm. It was also going to be the first time we left Brindi with someone else. As we talked in the Celestial room we both admitted that we were thinking of Brindi. Not so much worrying about her but probably more grateful for her. It was great to finally get back to the Temple. We have not been to a session since Brindi was born, so it was an answer to prayer that the Stake Presidency challenged the stake. As for Brindi I don't think she even noticed we were gone. When we arrived to pick her up she was very content playing with all the new toys she found at the neighbors house. Sadly the picture to this post is only of me because if you know my wife you know how much she loves pictures.
At my work we put together a ghost tour at the Boone Home. Halloween: Ghosts from the Past. The way it works is like a giant haunted house that is tailored towards children. Everyone is 
guided but we take them to several different buildings to hear about ghost stories relating to the time of Daniel Boone. It was a pretty fun event. One of the things we needed to do to prepare for it was buy and carve a ton of pumpkins. Well the week before the event was one of our busiest weeks with K-12 field trips. So I decided to let 
Celeste get in on all the fun so I brought home around 15 pumpkins that we carved. So the night before I took them all out to the Boone home we put them out on the porch and lit them up. These are all of our pumpkins.
One of the lady's that did a story of Daniel Boone's death also made some cookies that taste really good but are pretty shady looking. What do you all think? We also went to our Ward Halloween Carnival this past week. We dressed Brindi up in her Halloween costume from Grammy 
Hancock and put on her pumpkin that Celeste made. She had a little hat but she was moving her head so much that it would not stay on so we took it away. It was pretty creative I thought. Brindi was a little small to do anything at the carnival but she loved looking around and was fascinated by all the ghosts, ghouls, and goblins she saw.
