Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!

Brooke's Grammie and Grandpa Alley recently returned from a trip to Australia visiting Aunt Jamie. Of course, they came back with some fun gifts that Brooke had fun exploring.


Brooke was also happy to get back to one of her best friends, The Dog.


Brooke was 6 months old yesterday. Hard to believe! We're headed to the doctor now so I'll have a later post with some stats and deeper thoughts about the most amazing 6 months of our lives.

Open Up!

As I mentioned in my last post, we've been trying some solid foods with Brooke. We started with bananas, basically because we had those in the house and I didn't have to go out and buy baby food. Since then, we've also introduced rice cereal and peas. She seems to have enjoyed each of them, and I'm actually kind of excited about introducing other foods. Matt's pretty picky, so it would be exciting to have someone else in the house who likes to try new foods. Time will tell...



As you can tell from this video, she's getting the hang of it pretty quickly. She gets really excited when she sees the bowl and spoon and likes to "help" by grabbing at the spoon and trying to put it in her mouth.

While we were in St. Louis, my dad was a able to feed her a couple of times. He did a much better job of getting it all in her mouth than we had.

Quick Update

I apologize for the extended absence. Since I last posted, we made a fairly quick decision to put our house on the market. We'd like to move closer to both of our works, church, and technically both of our families (hopefully we'll be about 15 minutes closer to St. Louis - I like to be optimistic). It's something that we knew would happen eventually, but it was very out-of-character for both of us to talk about it one night and decide to proceed a couple of nights later. So, after several days of intense cleaning, purging, and organizing, our place is on the market. We'll see what happens...


Some other things we've been up to:

-Visiting St. Louis (there's a shameful lack of pictures from this past weekend)
-Matt and I are both training for a half-marathon. 5 weeks into it, I daresay we're actually enjoying ourselves.
-Brooke is starting to try some solid foods. The Girl likes to eat! There will be pictures and possible video of this to follow. Hopefully it won't take another 2 weeks for me to get them up here.

I'll leave you with some pictures from Easter, which we spent with Matt's parents and grandparents.


The gaudy thing on Matt's finger is his state championship ring from last year. The look on Brooke's face pretty much captures how I feel about football by early to mid-October.

The Big Guy

Ozzie's third birthday is tomorrow, so I thought that warranted dedicating a post to him. We got our labradoodle, Ozzie, three years ago this June. He was pretty much a concession gift from Matt for my agreeing to move up to Chicago. (I still feel as though my suggestion to name him "Ozzie" after the White Sox manager was a key selling point.) We really couldn't have asked for a better dog, even if he is a little odd-looking and sheds more than they said he would. He was easy to housebreak, is extremely loyal, smart, loving and playful. He demands a fair amount of attention, but that was easily my fault . He was ridiculously spoiled and basically the center of my universe for 2 1/2 years (he got 2 walks a day, rain, shine, or snow for 2 straight years - and we have a fenced-in backyard). Then SHE came along. While Ozzie's still getting used to Brooke, and doesn't seem especially excited about her, he's continued to be patient with her and us.


Each year for his birthday, I make Ozzie a special "doggie cake". In all fairness, it's not that difficult to make. The main ingredients are carrots, peanut butter, and honey, with a cottage cheese dressing. We "celebrated" a little early this year, but we won't tell him that. Thanks for being such a great dog, Oz! (I also told him this since I realize he won't be getting on the computer and reading my blog).


Disclaimer: I only stepped away from Brooke for a second to take this picture. I realize that the warning note in red on the Bumbo says not to use it on elevated surfaces.

The Beach

While in Florida, we spent a day at the beach. This was the first time that the ocean water was warm enough to dip Brooke's feet.


She tried the boogie board and is already better at it than her mom.


After a long day, Brooke and Mati were ready for a nap in the shade.

We're Ba-ack!

We had a great time in Florida last week. It was Brooke's third time, and seemed a little more fun because it was by far the most interactive and alert that she's been down there. She did a good job on the flights. There was some crying, but most of it was by me when they lost my luggage (we got it back by noon the next day).


Brooke really seemed to have a good time in the pool. It would appear that she's catching on quickly to her mother's love of warmth and sunshine.



I'll end with what I think will become a classic Brooke story. We went to a spring training game while down there and sat in the lawn. This was during Brooke's nap time and she was just about out when the beer guy came by and bellowed, "Beer Man!" Cue Brooke's pouty face and, about 2 seconds later, full-on wail. The entire section around us begain booing the beer guy. He commented that it was the first time he'd ever been booed. Every time he came by after that, he whispered. You can see from the picture how tired and "over it" she was. Pretty sure we'll wait a little while before her first White Sox or Cardinals game.

Peace Out!

We leave today for what is becoming our annual spring break trip to Florida. Can you tell Brooke's excited? We're really lucky and thankful that Matt's parents are so generous to let us use their place for a little getaway. I hope to report back with a tan, lots of cute pictures (especially from Uncle B and Uncle Jeff's "legit" cameras), and stories of uneventful plane rides.