early birthday celebration

For Taylie's birthday, we wanted to do something with just the 3 of us. One of her favorite movies is Madagascar, so we thought that we would attempt to take her to see Madagascar 2 which just came out. We were fully prepared to leave early if we needed to but we thought that it would be fun to try anyway. She was so excited when she was the posters for her movie.

We got her some treats to eat in the movie (after all, it was for her birthday...) She did pretty good, once the novelty wore off from the treats it was kind of hard to keep her seated because she wanted to roam the isles. It was relatively a success, we only missed about 25 minutes of the movie. Oh well, they all come out to film anyway.

First dentist visit

Seeing as how Taylie is almost 2 and has a mouth full of teeth, I figured that it was time to get her into the dentist for her first visit. We actually did this a few weeks ago, it was on my list of things to do before the baby came.

They were so great with her. They showed her all of the tools on the tray and showed her how to count her teeth (then she counted the teeth on her little monkey), they showed her the tool that blows air and blew some in her face and then squirted some water in her mouth and let her play with the spit sucker. She would ask for a drink of "wa-tie" (as she calls it) and then suck it out of her mouth until her lips were dry and then she would ask for another drink. It was also her job to hold the mirror for the dentist, and that is what she is chewing on is most of the pictures.



She sat like a perfect angel while he looked in her mouth and counted her teeth. She thought that it was great that she could watch TV while he was working in her mouth. She also liked being able to hold the tools for him. We are proud to report that she has no cavities!!!

Lucas Drake Brooks - November 19, 2008

This is our new little man!! He has tons of dark hair with red highlights, just like his daddy

This is almost identical to the picture that I have with Jacob holding Taylie for the first time. I guess some things never change.


I know...I look ravishing



When Taylie saw her brother for the first time, she was so excited. She calls him "her baby". She has to give him kisses every time that she sees him, or leaves a room, or comes into a room...or whenever he catches her eye. So far, she is the best big sister I could have hoped for her to be, and she seems to love him too. Like a good little brother should, he brought his big sister a present. He brought her some matchbox cars that she has a great time driving around the hospital room.


8 lbs 11 oz. 20 inches long


This is one of the first pictures with him cleaned up. You can kind of see the red in his hair right around his ear.

It is so hard to believe that he is a week old already! His hair reminds me of his daddy's, sticking up everywhere

He's Here!!

This is a quick update to let you all know that our little boy made an early appearance. We are so excited to have Lucas Drake as our newest member of the family. I will spare you all the details until a later date because I know that all anybody wants right now are pictures. Well, I will try and get on that in a few days because quite honestly I am very tired.

Lucas came into the world on November 19th (two days before my scheduled induction) at 10:15 pm after 15 hours of labor. He weighed 8 lbs 11 oz. and was 20 in. long. So far he is a very good baby and I do not have one little thing to complain about. It must be true that God gives you the kids you need when you need them other wise I could have very well lost my mind by now.

Getting ready for bed

Our bedtime routine has been set in stone since she was about 3 months old and it has been great!! The only thing we have recently added in are stories, as her attention span has gradually increased. Taylie decided that it is daddy's job to read stories before bed. After I get her all diapered and ready for bed she grabs her books and yells for daddy and tells him that it is time to read. They either sit in the rocking chair or cuddle in the big bed (as she calls it) and read the books "Goodnight Moon" and "Guess How Much I Love You". These books are also referred to as "Moon" and "The Monies" (as calls them....you know monies instead of bunnies?)

When they read goodnight moon, she notices the funniest things. If you ever read this book, try to find the elephant.....betcha didn't even know that there was one in there? I never did until she pointed it out to me.Taylie isn't much of a cuddle bug with anybody but me, so Jacob totally loves the few minutes of cuddling time that is just special for them.


When I get her ready for bed, after daddy gets her out of the bath, I put on a diaper and then lotion her down from head to toes and give her a nice little massage. This night instead of sitting up, she just plopped down in front of me and laid their for quite a while and just let me rub her back.
Could she be any more relaxed?
One night after they finished reading their books in the rocking chair, she got down and instead of running to her bed, she decided to run and hop into our bed. She climbed in and got under the covers and just laid as still as could be!! She was so quiet and didn't move, she was thinking that maybe we would let her sleep there. We asked her what she was doing, and she didn't make a peep! What did I do mom???

funny moments

When Taylie likes to sleep, she really likes to sleep!!! She had been asleep for 3 hours already and I had made 3 trips into her room to open the door and open the blinds and I had turned the volume up on the television and turned off her radio of sleepy music and then uncovered her from her blankets. On my fourth trip in, I came in on her and she had covered herself with her blanket to block out the light!!! I had to physically wake her up for her to come out of it. She has never slept so soundly or refused to wake up like that before. It cracked me up!

She tries to help for everything, if you want her to or not. This was during a diaper change and she was...trying to help, ugh! We now have to tell her to put her hands on her head to keep them out of places that we would rather not have them....if you know what I mean...

fun in the kitchen

We all know that this kid loves to help me in the kitchen, she is such a pro at adding the ingredients. She is even better at tasting what she has made....whether you want her to or not. This was a sunday morning and I promised Craig that I would make him sticky buns. They contain an insane amount of sugar not to mention the frosting that I put on top of them. She had been waiting for the frosting to be done so she could taste it. This is where I let her lick the beater of the mixer, of course, she loved it!!
My mom came over to help me out (one time of many...) because I was supposed to be resting. She brought over a whole bunch of stuff to make cookies with Taylie, which is her very favorite thing to help with. They spent part of the morning making the yummiest peanut butter cookies with chocolate in the middle.

I thought that I would put this one on again because it is so funny. I was trying to bake and fill my smaller buckets and she thought that it was great to stick her finger in and give it all a taste....sugar and flour too, yuck!

Baby update

Unfortunately, there is not a whole lot to update on. After the little episode that we had when I was at 33 weeks and 3 days, there has not been a whole lot of change. That night, I had dilated to 1 1/2 cm and was 70-80% effaced and he is sitting at a -1 station, which was pretty impressive (for lack of a better term) for being so early. Since then I had been contracting quite regularly and have been pretty uncomfortable since the baby dropped so low so quickly. At my 36 week appointment I was dilated to 2 cm and 80% effaced. I was glad that there was some progress. Then today at my 37 week appointment, I was expecting more change because I have been contracting regularly several times an hour for the last 5 days. I was quite mad to find out that everything is still the same as last week!! grrr!!! What is the point of being so miserable and hurting if no progress is being made?! Needless to say it stinks. The doctor said that next week they will strip my membranes and then at week 39 is my scheduled induction. The doctor actually had the nerve to suggest that I am allowed to go into labor on my own, so maybe I should try that. He was part kidding, he could tell I was ticked off. Anyway, we will keep you posted but for now, nothing new.

More coloring adventures

I was just getting out of the shower one Sunday when I heard Jacob talking to Taylie in the other room. What I heard made me go running... they were the words "uh-oh, what did you do???" She when I ran out into the other room, I saw that she had grabbed my eyeliner and the proceeded to "color" (as she called it) her eyes. I just couldn't help but laugh, so when I asked her what she did she told me that she "colored eyes" and that she was "petty" I told her that she was very beautiful that she colored her eyes and she looked very pretty. She was very happy that she colored her eyes like mom. The challenge was getting that much eyeliner off. It actually took a couple days worth of baths and face washings to get it completely off.

First haircut

I had been putting off getting her hair cut for the longest time. I just could not bring myself to cut the cute little baby hair that she was born with. As you can tell, her bangs were so long that they were right in her line of vision. She has such fine hair that they did not stay swept of of they way very well and she was constantly trying to fix her hair so she could see. I called up my long time best friend of about 18 years now who does hair and asked her if she would trim up her bangs for me. I was to chicken to get the rest of it cut, I just wanted to do as little as possible. She was so great with Taylie and her little bangs turned out so cute!

Some more photos to document the event

This is the after shot. I love being able to see those beautiful blue eyes!! I thank her grandma's for passing them on to her.

Our wild hair-woman

Taylie got her daddy's hair for sure. Even though it has gotten longer and filled out quite a bit, it has a mind of it's own. I think that it is so cute all of the crazy things it does all on its own. This is right after a nap.

This is another day after waking up from a nap

I think that is was one day after breakfast and she had rubbed syrup all over her hair and this was the best I could do to clean it up without a full bath

This was with a little help from daddy....

This was before her first haircut. Her bangs were so long that they were right in her line of vision and so we had to put them in a pony tail on the top of her head so she could see. When we took them out, you get a result similar to the top picture. Yes, she is actually eating sugar out of my storage bucket. While I was refilling the smaller ones, she thought that it would be interesting to see what it tasted like, so once she sneaked the first taste it was like trying to stop a monster. She loves to help me bake and I think that this is why.

Naming the baby

So we appreciate all of the votes that have come in on the selected names for this boy. That being said, we cannot seem to decide on one that fits. If you have any other suggestions please feel free to post them for review in the comments. We need all the help we can get!!!

a day at the zoo

While Jacob is has his last week of freedom in between jobs, we decided to do some fun family things. We went to the zoo on the 14th and had a blast. It is so fun to see her react because everything was new! The only thing was it seemed as though the fake animals or things you could see anywhere were the most entertaining. This is Taylie sitting on a statue of a rhino.

again, with the fake animals. This was a HUGE wooden elephant that had a motion sensor so when you would walk by or sit on him he would "sneeze" and spray water out of his trunk all over whoever was standing in front of it.

this is a little better shot of the elephant. She would have been so happy if we spent all day sitting right here letting her get sprayed by the water.

This is some sort of small monkey. I believe that she was trying to wake it up so it would play

More monkeys....I think that she was showing me where her eye was.

Taylie and daddy with the rhino.
Aren't they so cute!?


black bears

zebras


This baby giraffe is actually as close as it looks!


We decided to have her take a ride on the merry-go-round because she has never done it before. It was so much fun!! She really didn't want to get off. She was so sad when it was over, but you can tell that besides the wooden , water spraying elephant, this was probably the highlight of her day.
she loved riding the elephant with dad!
When we told Taylie that we were going to the zoo last sunday, all she could talk about all week was going to see the "elles" . She was so excited to see an elephant she talked about them all day. As you can tell, her favorite "elles" were the water spraying one and the one that she could ride on the merry-go-round. The real ones were not as interesting I guess.

If you have been to Hogle Zoo, you probabl6y recognize this. It is how big you measure up to a gorilla. She stretched and reached to be as big as she could be. She is not very big as you can tell.

This is after our 3 1/2 hour trip to the zoo. She was a little worn out, but at least we know she had fun!