5 Months

So here it is January 31st and I have yet to post some 5 month old pictures of Brooke. I am only 12 days late and it is already halfway to her turning 6 months! Oh well I guess that is what happens when you are busy. Anyways.....Brooke is still the same healthy, happy baby as she always has been. Since we came back from our trip to Denver, she has figured out how to roll from her back to her stomach and then from her stomach to her back again. Once she figured this out she soon found that rolling was a good mode of transportation. So she rolls from place to place to get where she wants to go or get what she wants. Since then she has managed to almost eat a hair clip and a granola bar. Brooke can also sit on her own now and only falls over if she gets too excited or loses concentration on sitting there. She is already trying to get into everything and it won't be long before she is crawling all over the place and even walking. I can't believe Brooke is almost 6 months old!

Brooke absolutely loves playing in this exersaucer. This thing can keep her entertained for quite a while so I use it when I am trying to get some school work or house work done.

Life Update

After our trip to Denver, Colorado I know there are a lot of people that are probably wanting to know what our plans are going to be. So here is the deal....we actually decided to take a trip to Boise this last weekend and take a look at our options there. We went the whole day this last Friday and looked at 15 different houses and took a peek at St. Luke's and St. Alphonsus. We felt so confident about wanting to move there that we actually made an offer on a house that same day. Dereck is already getting the process going on transferring to the Simplot in Nampa, and I have turned in my application to St. Lukes and am awaiting for the interviews to begin in March. So to make a long story short, we really enjoyed our trip to Denver but I don't know if we see ourselves living there. We made a pact with each other when we had started talking about moving that we would move wherever we felt we were supposed to be. It just so happens that everything just seems to be falling into place for Boise and I think we feel this is where we were meant to go. Here is the house we completely fell for.....

It is a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom with a nice yard and there is nothing behind us besides a field. It is in Nampa and was actually one of the smaller houses we looked at and it was not a house I expected to fall in love with. But the minute we walked in the door my face lit up and I completely fell for this house. Here are a few more pictures.....

This house is actually a short sale so it will probably be a couple months before we close on it and we are still waiting to hear back from the seller. But we will keep everyone updated on the progress of the house, our jobs, etc.

Family Pictures

So for a dance fundraiser for Dereck's cousin, we had our family pictures taken right before Thanksgiving. We not only had just our family's picture taken but we also had a picture of the whole Sanderson family taken. Dereck's grandpa was able to take part in the picture which turned out to be a pretty special thing. I have actually had the pictures for quite some time but I have not been able to get them scanned into a computer until now. So here is our family picture and when I get the whole Sanderson gang scanned in I will post that one too.....

Trip to Denver

As you can see, I am starting to fall behind in my blogs (as expected) so I am going to attempt to catch up in the next few days. There has been a lot going on in the last few weeks and we have been really busy trying to get back to reality and our normal lives. Anyways.....we are finally back from Colorado and are back into the routine of our daily lives now. Even though we had a great trip and I miss the Mile High City already, I am exhausted and it feels good to be home. On a high note, I survived my first week of my last semester of school ever this last week! Anyways, on to our trip.....we packed up the kids in the car last Monday and took off on our long journey (long car ride!) to Colorado. We took a small detour on our way and stopped in Sydney, Nebraska, to check out Cabelas. The kids and I just enjoyed looking at the displays of the animals while Dereck drooled over all the expensive hunting gear that we will never be able to afford. From there we took off and and finished our journey in Sterling, Colorado where we stayed for a couple of days visiting my grandparents. Since I don't see my grandparents very often, it was really nice to just relax and visit with them. Here are some pictures the kids and I took at Cabelas.....

On Wednesday morning, we took off from Sterling and headed to Denver. From the time we got there, we did not stop. We did so many things and had so many fun experiences that I could go on all day but I do not want to bore anyone so I will just summarize everything we did. On Thursday morning, I had an appointment with The Children's Hospital and had the opportunity to meet with the clinical nurse coordinator on the cardiac unit. The hospital and the staff is amazing and I think it would be a great place to work (they even had valet parking!). On Friday morning, I had an appointment with Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center-Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children. The nurse recruiter spent lots of time explaining the hospital and what the hospital has to offer, and he showed me each pediatric unit (NICU, PICU, Peds floor). This hospital was also amazing and I might have a hard time choosing between the two (they also had valet parking!). Here are pictures of The Children's Hospital (left) and Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center (right)....

In the midst of everything that week, we visited Bass Pro Shops/Outdoor World and the kids and I looked at all of the animal displays once again while Dereck drooled over everything. We also met with a realtor and looked at some of the neighborhoods in the northern metro area of Denver and some houses as well. It is definitely a good time for us to be buying as we found some killer deals on a few really nice houses. Each night we went out for dinner, we picked a new place to eat that neither of us had ever eaten at before. So on Thursday night, we went to a Buffalo Wild Wings and on Friday night, we went to the Hard Rock Cafe. We also tried to find as much time as possible every night to take the kids swimming in our hotel. It seems like we went and did all this fun stuff yet all Haylee could talk about was going swimming.

I figured the weekend would be more relaxing because of the fact that we had reserved most of it to spend time with my family. But I could not have been more wrong! On Saturday morning, my uncle took Dereck into the mountains to show him some property he owns. So while the boys were playing in the mountains, I took the kids to the Denver Zoo. This place was huge and had all kinds of different animals that I had never even seen. We didn't even make it through the entire zoo before we were all too exhausted and grumpy to finish. That afternoon we met back up with the boys and spent the afternoon/night with my family at my grandpa's house watching the NFL playoffs. Here are just a few of our pictures from the zoo.....

So our trip was almost over, and we had been promising Haylee the entire trip that we would take her to the aquarium. When we still had not gotten there by Sunday morning, we knew we had to go that day. So we went to church that morning with some of my family and then took off to the Downtown Aquarium. I would have to say that this was probably the highlight of our trip for Haylee. She wouldn't stop saying "Look at this" and "Look at that." Here are a few of the pictures from the aquarium.....

After the aquarium, we went to my uncle's house to eat some mexican food and hang out with the family while watching the NFL playoffs (can you see the trend?). Later that night, we watched my uncle and cousin play a hockey game and even took some time to have a few drinks, visit, and say our good-byes. On Monday morning, we packed back up and took off to come home. The car ride home seemed like it took forever. Time always seems to slow down when you really want something or want to be somewhere. Anyways.....we made it home and I still don't feel like I have completely recovered but we enjoyed our little vacation.