boots, babies and barbecue!

my amazingly awesome bff threw me a honky-tonkin' baby shower a few weekends ago, and i loved it! unfortunately i don't have many pictures of it either.  i'm so grateful for so many wonderful friends who came to celebrate little wyatt's upcoming birth and arrival!  four weeks to go, possibly less.  we'll see! 

my sister (step, but still...i always wanted sisters, and now i have kari and shawna, yay!), kari, came and hung out for a while.  aren't we cute in our pregnant-ness?  kari is a few months behind me, due with little cali later in the summer.  i don't know how she works as hard as she does plus being prego.  she is a professional chef and has her hands full.  rest kari!

nina is so dang creative! where do i even start?  wish i'd taken pictures of the food tables and such...she is amazing.  we ate homemade pulled-pork sandwiches (yum nina!), homemade cole slaw and baked beans (thanks lucynthia!...seriously, your beans ROCK) and my family's potato salad (gracias mom!).  nina also had my favorite, and constant craving...chewy chips ahoy.  so bad.  i could eat a whole bag in a day.  easy.  there was also old-fashioned coke in glass bottles, lemonade, strawberries with the dip from heaven and the DELICIOUS chocolate and oreo moose mason jarred dessert.  i'm still dreaming of just the food.  

there were also quilts laying about on the grass for us all to sit on, not to mention the cute gift holder and awesome "wyatt" sign.  oh!  and then the peonies, roses and hydrangeas!  my faves.

nina...seriously?  i heart you way too much, for obvious reasons.  and also for the not-so-obvious reasons.  

now wyatt is much more ready to come!

bump - 28 weeks (and five days)

i've almost made it to 29 weeks!  this is a momentous occasion as i have still not had any pre-term labor...yipee!!!!  i couldn't be happier.  in case you would like to compare the growth from a few weeks ago, see here (i did).  so, let's see...let's go over our current pregnant symptoms:

• pregnant brain (forgetting things almost instantly)
• horrible heartburn, almost every night
• when heartburn is bad, reflux is most likely to occur (woke up with throw up in my mouth the other night.  not my proudest moment.  that's what i get for eating a piece of pie at nine o'clock at night).  honestly...what would i do without tums?
• itchy belly
• my feet and legs have started to swell up just a little, making it uncomfortable to sit or stand for too long at a time
•  

so the funny thing is, everyone keeps telling me how small i am.  it's sure flattering, but they're really not taking into consideration that fact that i've got a large bust.  it sure makes me seem like i've got a smaller tummy.  speaking of....i despise them.  i must not be a normal woman to not like being "well endowed".  in fact, i can't wait for the day when i might get a reduction (if after losing weight i'm still not a comfortable size).  my neck, shoulders and upper back could sure use some peace and quiet...thanks to "the girls" they're almost always so tense.

other fun prego facts right now for me at 28 weeks...

...baby boy baker's name will be: wyatt (yes, that will be his name!).   no, we're not obsessed

with mr. earpp.  in fact, stephen can't stand country music.

....also, mr. wyatt is the size of a head of cauliflower, weighing

in around 2.5 pounds at the moment. 

things are going quite well indeed.  happy to be pregnant most the time, especially when i weigh out the fact that i'll have a sweet little boy in my arms in a few months!

first bump picture

until the last few weeks i hardly even looked pregnant, so i thought it might be silly to take a picture of my fatty stomach before now.  so today marks our first bump picture.  this will now become a weekly occurrence, if my brain can keep track of that idea.  in past pregnancies i was horrible at it.  i figure since the third child usually has less documentation of growing up that i will make a good-sized effort to make that incorrect.  so little mr....here is your first bump picture at twenty-two weeks!

circa 1982

at least, that would be my guess as to the year that this photo was taken.  my mom and i were shopping at the carlsbad mall and stopped to take a look at the huge christmas tree (at least, i would gather it was huge from how high we're looking).  a photographer for a local newspaper snapped a photo of us and there you have it! 

i don't usually think that chloe really looks like me, except for her long blonde locks.  but when i look back at pictures of me when i was really little i finally see it. 

and isn't my mom pretty? 

love this.

3 0

i meant to post these a month ago...lovely.  but at least i'm doing it now, i say!  

i had a fabulous birthday this year!  hubby did a fantastic job at orchestrating all kinds of nice little things for me.  he got a bunch of girlfriends together to meet me at benihana's for my birthday dinner, which was so fun!  i had no idea until right before.  i was so happy most of them could make it!  we missed nina!! 

he also surprised me my birthday morning with thirty birthday balloons!  he made me a birthday cake!  i felt oh so loved.  thanks to my love!

i'm 30.  gulp. 

here's to a new decade of fabulous life!

3 0

i'm not gonna write loads of awesome things about myself on my birthday.  but since i was cute when i was little, i'll show some of those pictures! 

and just for the record...i'm excited to be out of my 20's.  and yes, my dad and i are still like this when around each other.  i call it healthy.  

yes, my mom was young when i was one.  she was only 23 i think.  crazy to think that's how old stephen was when sienna was born (!!!!).  i know.

guess we know where chloe got her chunk from, huh?  =)

mud run 2009

wow, might sum it up in one word.  sore...might be another word to sum it up with.  here's some more:  hard, hot, dry, fun, challenging, empowering, wet, not wet, competitive, strong, happy, adrenaline.  seriously all these words remind me of the ASYMCA Mud Run that took place yesterday on the camp pendleton military base.  it is just a mixture of craziness and fun!  this year i was really nervous, more than i thought i would be, to run and compete.  i realize now that that is because i was trying to better my time, which really put the pressure on myself to do well.  what made it harder to do that:  hotter weather, dry weather (totally dry mouth most the run...thank goodness for water/powerade stations so often!), no water in the reservoir (SO sad...meaning no rest while floating across the reservoir like last year...not to mention no cooling off) and the fact that i was running it totally alone.  i had mike and robin with me for the first mile or so.  then it came time to go our seperate ways.  it really put a damper on my run when i got to that part of the race (the reservoir) and found no water to ease my eyes and tired legs.  my sis-in-law, robin, had warned me that her sister said there was no water in the reservoir, but for some reason my brain couldn't let go.  it was rough.  but i did get over it, i promise.  and i ran across where it would've been.  and then i kept going.  and it was great!!

nenna had fun hanging out at the mini-park in the festivities area.  chloe did too, until she fell off the swing onto her face.  i had walked away for a sec to get some water,  15 feet away.  chloe decided to get off and follow me while swinging back.  down, down she went!  i'm happy to report that she is fine; just another bump to her noggin.  it's a regular thing for the bug.

here we are...the three bodacious bakers that run the mud run this year.  robin, mike and me.  and i have to give major props out to mike, who let me use his visor the whole run.  man, was i lucky he did that.  it seriously saved me the whole race.  that sun was beating down on me, especially during miles 2-4 (huge hill).  i frequently felt bad that i got to use it when he probably was really wanting it back.  what a nice bro!  thanks mike (i'll return it soon...washing it).

the race pretty much just started here.  stephen was able to at least snap this of me, though nothing else.  apparently chloe gave him a pretty hard time around the time i ran in, so he totally missed me.  bummer!  that's mike and robin just behind me.  about 2 minutes later we all get sprayed by fire hoses....hallelujah, did it feel good!  robin got the most soaked.  mike used his super power strategies to fly under the radar there.

this is the first guy to cross the finish line, according to stephen.  this is the mud "swim", where you have to literally crawl/swim your way across.  it's only about 50 yards in length.  it feels so good to get in after all that toil up and down the mud hill.  phew!  the best is the marines yelling at you to "catch up to that girl in front of you"....saying "you can't let her beat you!".  i loved it!  it totally pushed me to go faster and try to beat her....which, i might add, i did. 

the plane above flew over us during the race.  it was HUGE.  it was landing just nearby at a small runway. 

and then you have chloe cheering whoever on.  oh, and me.  my time was 6 minutes better than last years time.  last year (1:26:39)....this year (1:20:??...despite what the website says, i KNOW it was 1:20 when i passed that finish line!)  go, go, go!!!

twas a good year at the mud run!  next year will be better!!!!

friday flashback!

(at the end of the race last year...totally pooped! pic by mariah)

think back one year and four months ago.  m-hm...that's the day...the day of the mud run 2008!  ours was june 14th.  what a fun race the camp pendleton mud run is!  my gosh!  i can't wait to run it again tomorrow.  if you're unfamiliar with it, it's a 10k with several obstacles in it, including climbing two five-foot walls, crossing a river, diving through mud).  i did it last year with my fellow brother and sister-in-laws, my dad and best buddy, cari.  it was killer hard, especially the ridiculously forever long hill around mile 1 or 2.  i couldn't believe how it never seemed to end.  the plus?  this year i know exactly what to expect!  i'm prepared (more or less) for it this time.  i'm planning on bettering my time from last year, 1:26:39.  i know i can do it!  wish me luck ya'll!

totally wicked!

about a month ago i was able to take my mom to see wicked for her first time!  my wonderful in-laws had taken me and stephen in january at the pantages theater in l.a., and ever since then i've been stuck on it.  love the music!  love the story.  love the costumes.  love it all!  so i decided to take mom to see it when it came to san diego!  and it came late during the summer...too perfect, since it was during her birthday! 

nina took some pics of three of the four of us.  i have no idea why we didn't take any of stephen...haha.  if i remember right, he was avoiding the camera.  could be wrong, but that's how i remember it.  isn't my mom so pretty?  i think so!  she totally loved the show, which i knew she would.  wicked success!

Brooke is...

So my sister-in-law, Katie, did this and I thought it was pretty funny. You "Google" the following and see what the results are: "(your name) is"....and write down the first 10 things that come up. Let's see........

1. Brooke is...a small-town hick with a high school education (NOT true)

2. Brooke writes lyrics about palm trees on her palm. (hm...maybe I should try?)

3. Brooke decided to help.

4. Brooke is a terrorist, Obama is the AntiChrist. (Whoa! I promise I'm not)

5. Brooke is up and about in Toluca Lake in sneakers and torn jeans. (kind of wish I was at a lake!)

6. Brooke is legit. (of course I am)

7. Brooke is not the only problem in this family! (yeah!)

8. Brooke is blushing right now. (nope)

9. Brooke is happy to see us! (us= you, my friends...then yes I am!)

10. Brooke is not helping (That seems quite contradictory to #3)

So, mine were not nearly as nice and friendly as Katie's, that's for sure. But it was fun to see what associations with my name there were!