mobile

well, she's up and runnin'. brooklin has figured out how to get around. it started out as reaching and pushing with her legs. she looked like she was swimming on land. now she is just scootin' all over the place. she plays with the idea of getting up on her hands and knees. she'll rock back and forth for a few seconds and then plop back down on her belly. so, it's probably not too far off that i'll be chasing her around the house all day. she's already found the cords plugged into the outlets. she's growing up too fast. :(

playin' in the leaves

we decided to let brooklin play in the leaves at grandma and grandpa's on sunday. she wasn't too sure about the whole idea, but we got some pretty cute pictures out of it.

my masterpiece!

so, my sister called me yesterday and told me that she had read my blog about my stupid face pumpkin, and she asked if i wanted to come over and carve a redo pumpkin. they hadn't done their's yet so i joined them last night.


it was a lot of fun, but i was a little nervous. i was feeling the pressure because now everyone was expecting something good. with a little help from scotty i think i carved my best pumpkin yet! y'all may not think it's amazing, but i'm pretty proud of it. so, without further ado...


it's supposed to be a skull with a spiderweb on the back. can you tell?

autumn leaves

i love the fall. i always think that i don't because it gets cold and i have to start wearing a jacket, but as soon as the leaves start changing colors i remember how much i love autumn time. it's so beautiful! we live off of one of the prettiest streets when it comes to seeing the beautiful colors of the leaves. brooklin and i took a walk today just to check out the changing leaves. the sidewalks were just covered with yellow, orange, red and brown. i really am thankful to be living in such a beautiful place!

pumpkin party!

last night we had our annual pumpkin carving party with our friends the lydiards and the dahlstrom clan. the calders were able to join us via webcam for a few minutes. we had lots of yummy food including a really good pumpkin dip. who would've thought to make a dip with pumpkin in it? i guess you could add pumpkin to just about everything. the pumpkin carving was a blast. the dahlstrom boys loved playing in the guts. they just kept scooping them out and then putting them back in. jax told me he was making pumpkin soup. luckily he didn't want to share.
once again, scott's pumpkin is way better than mine. i told myself that this year i was going to carve something really cool in my pumpkin, and i was really going to take my time, and it was going to be something i was proud of but by the time it was my turn to carve and i could pass brooklin off to scott, it was way past her bedtime and she was getting really fussy. i felt really bad so i just carved a stupid face again this year. i was very disappointed. on the way home scott could tell i was a little sad about my stupid face, and he told me i could go out and buy another pumpkin. so stay tuned to see my real pumpkin. this was just a practice!

cousin jackson

brookie loves her cousin, jackson. she always gets so excited when she sees him and she'll just sit and watch whatever he seems to be doing at the moment. if he pulls all of the dvds off the rack she'll be right there next to him tasting each on as they come to her. if he takes a toy away from her she just sits there with a smile on her face and watches as he plays with it. if he squeals, she'll squeal. i can just see them getting into all kinds of trouble together. i'm really glad that she's going to be close to her cousin, i just wish that little lucy was here too. they would be the three amigos, and i'm pretty sure that jackson would still be the leader.

why do i feel so guilty?

so, when i quit my job in july so that i could be the mother that brooklin deserves, my employer asked if i wouldn't mind filling in a day here or there if they needed me, just until october when they would get the okay to hire someone to fill my position. i agreed, thinking that it would be no big deal, and it would be nice to have a little play money every once in a while. well here it is october heading into november and they asked if i'd work for a week next month. a whole week, not just a day or two. i was already beginning to dread the single days, but now they wanted a week, and in november, which i might remind you comes after october. i really didn't want to and i had a hard time saying no, so i came up with a lame excuse/white-lie so that i didn't have to tell them that i just really didn't want to. i feel really bad, not so much about the partial dishonesty, but about the fact that i'm not wanting to help them out. i know that if i did go in to work i would be absolutely miserable and i'd be complaining the whole week and probably the whole week prior. why do i feel so bad? i quit. and i did them a favor by filling in a few days this summer through the month of october, like i said i would. so why can't i tell them i just want to be done? i have another, more important job, and i don't do too well when i've got too many things on my plate, just ask my husband. i know i shouldn't feel bad, because i could have said no to working at all after i quit, and i was doing them a favor. but i still do.

new blogger

so, i've decided to catch up with the rest of the world and try blogging. i'm not going to make any promises that the things i post will be incredibly interesting, or that there will be a lot of pictures or even that i'm going to be very good at this whole thing. so please don't get your hopes up. i'm really technology illiterate, so we'll see how this goes. i may end up getting really frustrated with the computer and vow that i'll never touch the thing again (we have a love-hate relationship). i'm hoping, though, that i'll be able to do this with some success, whether that be someone actually visits my blog or i'll have some fun journaling my oh-so-interesting life. maybe both!