Happy boy!

Hey Mom! What are you doing on the floor?

Crazy hair!
Happy baby waking Daddy up!
He likes to feed himself now....most of the milk makes it in his mouth :)

The China Man Face

Every once in a while Justin will make this face, especially while he's eating. It's a happy face, but we can't figure out why or what it means!

Q&A with the Brooks Family

Q: How is Justin doing?
A: He is fantastic! He now has 6 teeth for sure and maybe a couple more. There are some white spots on his gums that they are not quite through, but soon he'll have a whole set :) When we try to look and count them he glues his lips shut....and he's a pretty strong little guy! He is back to his normal happy self though! AND - he has slept through the night wiht NO feedings for almost a week now! Yeah!

Q: How is the house selling going?
A: Don't ask. Just be glad you are not trying to sell your house in this market!

Q: So what are you going to do since Rob starts his new job on April 30th?
A: We have reservations at the Extended StayAmerica! It should be nice and cozy! Grandma Brooks took Quincy and Tucker to her house for a long vacation, so me, Rob and Justin will be living in pretty tight quarters for a while. We are going to give our house another month after we move and if we still have not sold it we will look for an apartment or something more long term.

Q: Why a hotel and not apartment?
A: We don't have to find a short term lease, go through the application process, put down a deposit, change utilities into our name, try to get internet, rent a UHaul to get enough furniture down there to get by, etc. Plus we can check out whenever we want to!

Q: What about the house you guys liked down there?
A: The builder was not being very reasonable. We asked him ahead of time if he would accept an offer with a house to sell contingency. He said he would, so we made an offer. He countered back and said closing in 2 weeks with no contingencies. I hope he's still on the market when we do sell our house and I'll go offer him less money! :) If it's meant to be it will happen!

Q: What about your job Melissa?
A: I have a great boss. He was not planning on the move happening until at least June 1st, but since Rob got his offer and they want him to start April 30th, John (my boss) is letting me move down at the same time so we don't have to live apart. I will be driving back to Lombard once a week or so to touch base with him and Matt who I technically still work inside sales for until June.


If there are any Q's that I have forgotten, please don't hesitate to post a comment and I will promptly return your A!

PS. Justin has a new face that he keeps making - smiling so funny and you can't see his eyes, but my camera card won't work and keeps wanting to reformat when i put it in my computer. I'll have Rob look at it when I get home and post later tonight!

Wii went bowling!

Rob and I got a Nintendo Wii and love it!

Last night we "went bowling". Justin loves it too! He likes the bright colors and the noise of the pins crashing. He was entertained for 3 games straight...all of which his mommy beat his daddy! Okay; we tied one!

Here are a couple pictures.

How It's Made

Have you seen the show on the Discovery Channel called "How's It Made"? Well, here is the way a birthday card is made at the Brooks household!







First you need to get a taste for the card....













Then you blow bubbles all over it until your face turns red....















The you bite all of the edges to make sure the recipient knows that you have 5 teeth....












Then you crinkle it up good so it barely fits in the envelope....













And Voila! You can put in the mail now mommy...I'm done with it!










Uncle Ryan you should be getting your belated birthday card tomorrow. And watch out Morgan, Great Grandma Metzler and Uncle Mikey - you guys are next!!!! :)

Weekend pictures....

Hello! The last few days in Justin's world have not been fun. He is getting more teeth and the poor guy is having a rough time with it. On Saturday he was okay - not too crabby, but not really himself either. Then on Sunday, he woke up at 6am and went to bed at 8pm with no more than a total of one hour of sleep all day...in short little cat naps. I felt so bad - we knew he was tired and he would close his eyes and then wake up just SCREAMING. He will not let us touch his mouth or look at his teeth, but Rob got to once and he felt a tooth on the top and saw one on the other side. He already had his top two and bottom two middle ones, so we're working on #5 & 6. He'll be eating wings with me at BW's in no time!

He was a little better yesterday but still not back to himself!




He loves hitting things lately. When we pick him up he "pats" our back. He got a drum for Christmas from Uncle Mikey and we thought it was a perfect time to get it out!

















Little drummer boy

I know I'm good! He was trying to drink out of the drum too - I couldn't believe he could pick it up! He's got some strong arms!

All that drumming makes a boy tired!

He is starting to hold his own bottle...not for very long because it's more fun to play with it though!

For Easter dinner, we went to Biaggi's with the Jacobs. We had fun except when Justin threw up his whole bottle right when the food came :( He was then wearing his All Star pajamas for the rest of dinner - nice Easter attire!

I wanted to get a picture of Alec and Justin, but Justin just kept looking at Alec and not me. He LOVES Alec. Everytime we see them he watches Alec where ever he goes.

Aunt Connie, Uncle David and Justin - who has been awake for 9 hours with no nap.

We gave him some apple juice in his sippy cup. He was pretty good with it! More juice on his bib, but he knew what part had to go in his mouth!

Blake's Birthday Party

On Saturday we went to the Sears Centre for Blake's birthday party. He had it at the Chicago Storm Soccer game. It was a fun time (for me and Rob since we were not in charge of 20 ten year olds!) even though the Storm got their butts kicked!






Blake and Justin













The opposing team's mascot (Milwaukee Wave) came to rile up the boys!
















Daddy and Justin
















Rousing rendition of Happy Birthday sung by 20 screaming boys :)

Kim's Bachelorette Party

Last weekend the girls from Michigan took the train to Chicago for Kim's bachelorette party. I picked Amy up from O'Hare and we met them downtown. We had a very fun, laid back 2 nights downtown. Thursday we surprised Kim with Red Wings/Blackhawks tickets. Michelle made her a special veil for the game (see below!). The game was great, but a bummer ending....it went into overtime, then a shoot out and then a sudden death shoot out. Osgood just couldn't quite hold on! Oh well - a great time had by all :)








After the game














Kim's "special" dessert at Mambo Grill













Melissa and Jamie at Howl at the Moon piano bar. I miss you Jame!! It was great to see you again and catch up :)

Happy Baby!

Here are some pictures of our happy baby last night! He was so much fun :) He has learned to scream/squeal when he's happy - it's so funny!









Not sure he can smile any harder!


















Come here Daddy - Let me stick my fingers in your mouth to see how many teeth you have :)














My 4 boys hanging out watching Wheel of Fortune - Justin's favorite show!









Learning to drive already! It's really funny when he has one hand on the wheel and the other on the green accelerator, but I was not quick enough to get it on camera...

If you look hard enough you can see his bottom two chompers. He has 4 teeth already!












Rolling all over the place, but still not crawling!














Tickle, tickle













This is his favorite toy. He kept wanting our real remote and he would change channels, inputs and volumes so Rob gave him an old one we had and he LOVES it :) He just can't make it make the TiVO noises that he likes!













Happy boy :)

Sorry!

Sorry I have not posted in a while; things have been really busy! Working full time, having a baby, trying to sell a house, find a new house, get moving quotes, etc. takes up a lot of time!

First for the good news....Rob got a new job! He will be working in Peoria for Clifton Gunderson. He has a job in their technology department; I can't remember his title right now but something with software development. Justin and I are so proud of him :)

For the bad news.....the housing market sucks! We have only had 4 showings in two weeks. I am getting really discouraged, but trying not to. Rob has to start his job on April 30th - yes; as in less than a month. We don't know what we are going to do. We might be back to living in an apartment down there until our house sells? Who knows. I really wish someone would just buy our house so I can stop worrying and sleep at night!

The other thing that is on our mind is that we went to Peoria last weekend (thanks for babysitting Grandma Brooks!) to house hunt with our realtor down there and we found one that we really like. Okay; I love it but I am trying not to. I don't want to have 2 mortgages and take the chance that it will only be for a short period of time. I think that we might put in an offer with a contingency that we have to sell our house. If it works out then it's meant to be; if not then maybe it's because there is something better that we just have not found yet. Sounds simple enough, right? I just need to stop looking at the virtual tour of the house that I want so bad!

I promise that I will take more pictures of Justin soon and post them. I am ignoring the hate mail I'm getting for lack of pictures by the way!!! :)

AJ - your prayers seem to help; think you could put in a good word for our house???