beard growing contest

yes, that's right. a beard growing contest. one of tyler's first year friends decided to start an annual beard growing contest. the contest began right after the thanksgiving break and continued until the end of finals (december 19th). i admit i was not that excited about this from the start. sure the contest part sounded like a lot of fun, but kissing a guy with a beard sounded gross. but tyler was excited to participate and actually kept up with the best of them. i was surprised how long his beard got by the end. i was also surprised that i secretly starting rooting for tyler and was excited that his beard was so long.

on december 19th all of the participants, the wives and the children met at Bigg's Roadhouse for some steak eating. there the wives voted for the longest beard. the winner would receive a free steak dinner, courtesy of jeff and sarah nance.

here are most of the men that participated. take a look at how hairy some of them are!

i posted this one so you could get a good look at who won. taylor, the one with the baby, won the contest.

and on a side note...look at all this snow. this is in wauwatosa where we live. i guess it got dumped on since i've been in utah. i guess the people from wisconsin weren't lying when they said the winters were bad.

p.s. thanks sarah and byrdie for letting me steal pictures off your blog.

lovin' family and lovin' vacations

this vacation definitely goes down as one of my favorites so far. why you ask? because i was with my family. my complete family. every single sister, brother, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, neice and nephew were all there. and we all get along and have fun together. sure it's a little crazy sometimes, or maybe very crazy all of the time, but that's the only way i would have it.

we started off the vacation with my youngest sister getting married. both of them were extremely happy and my sister looked beautiful.

the women spent the morning making thanksgiving dinner while all of the men played in a flag football tournament. then we ate our delicious dinner. this year we had three tables set up to accomodate everyone. this was the first year we had a designated "kid table." they loved it. of course they would...no adult supervision! i don't think they realize that the adults loved it better. then the women happily turned all of the cleaning duties over to the men.

spending quality time with each other.

spening some quality time with the kiddos.

spending some quality time with the adults.

spending some quality time feeding the ducks.

and not spending enough quality time spleeping.

this year we left with only 1 er visit, 6 people throwing up, 5 upset stomachs, a couple of colds and tons of great memories.

and for your viewing pleasure-mike joined our family this past august. he was obviously holding out on us because we never knew that he had this cool talent.

happy thanksgiving

happy thanksgiving to all of you! we're headed out to texas to enjoy some time with the fam, attend my last siblings wedding in the dallas temple, and eat some good food 'till we're stuffed.

before we go we wanted to share some things we are grateful for. tyler always says that thanksgiving gets forgotten because christmas follows so close behind. there is no denying that when you walk through the stores this time of year and start thinking about all of the things you want. i've done it. i won't deny that. so before we caught up in the hustle and bustle...

we are grateful for (in no particular order):

family, friends, wisconsin, medical school, medical school acceptances, our home, little katleyn, our working car, airplanes, cheaper gas, a place to put a large food storage, my dear husband, warm water, cold water, carpools, and technology like webcams, cell phones and email, and of course, our Heavenly Father who has provided all of these things and more for us.

have a safe and happy thanksgiving!

really cheap really awesome

check out this blog. this girl, Dani, has created an awesome cd made up of 222 of the best pages from the last ten years of the friend magazine. these cds are only .50 and look like they have some great resources for fhe lessons. take a peek, she's only selling these cds until january 20th.

http://danicreations.blogspot.com/

i want

why do i do this to myself? wishing for expensive things after medical school has begun...sigh.

thoughts after election day

i saw this quote on jill's blog. i loved it because it explains exactly how i felt after everything was said and done on election day. only this woman expresses it so much better than i ever could. thanks for being so articulate soule mama.

"I'm excited today. I'm so very full of hope. Most of all, though, I'm relieved that it's over. I hate how politics - and election time in particular - divides our country, and divides friends and families - because I don't think we're really as divided as the political culture would have us believe. I like to believe we're more united than that. That we do all stand on some common ground, even though we may not always agree on the specifics."

amen to that.

savoring fall

fall in wisconsin. i didn't realize how much i could enjoy this season. the colors are amazing. the weather is, well, mostly nice. festivities everywhere. you just can't beat that. i've been taking advantage of this awesome time of year with plenty of photos of katelyn. probably too many, but that's a parents job i guess. the weather has been so kind these past couple of days. up into the seventies. we couldn't resist and had to get out. we spent time at the zoo, played at the park, took a nice long walk and played in the leaves. here are some pictures of our adventures in the leaves.

preparing to toss...

definitely her favorite thing to do in the leaves.

experimented with crawling around. wasn't quite as fun.

wishing she could play in somebody elses backyard.

the crunching noise was a favorite too.

very rare, a posed picture.

now we're just waiting on the season's first snow that the weatherman claims is coming this weekend!

trick or treating is offically done

every year the medical college of wisconsin hosts a great trick-or-treating activity for the medical students and their families. i guess we didn't think two trunk-or-treats was enough candy already, so we put katelyn back in her costume one last time.

i guess katelyn had forgotten that we had already practiced this trick-or-treating thing because she was a little hesitant at first. it was fun to watch as she realized there were big bowls of candy waiting for her at each stop.

we saw a number of reactions from katelyn as she realized people were handing out free candy and that mom and dad were letting her take it. at some of the bowls she was very polite and only took one piece, at others she grabbed handfuls, and at some she just stared into the bowl laughing.

i think she's getting a little too comfortable with trick-or-treating. here she decided to just stay and sit by the candy.

she even made some stops to admire the decorations.

by the end she was worn out and had a bag full of candy. or maybe i should say that tyler and i had bag full of candy.

our last stop was in the cafeteria to munch on some yummy donuts and drink some delicious apple juice. we found this cute little set up and had to take a picture. katelyn was all too willing especially because there was a little chair set up just for her.

side note: nobody trick-or-treats on halloween day here. they have set dates and set times when everyone is supposed to trick-or-treat. our set day was october 26th (sunday) so were unable to go. so weird.

pumpkin patch

we had the perfect excuse to head out to a pumpkin patch on saturday. tyler had completed his FIVE tests (phew) this past week. with another test week under our belts, it was time for all of us to take a break. and what says relaxation better than a pumpkin patch? can't think of anything, can you?

it turned out to be the perfect day. the sun was back, the temperature was just right and this was just the place to take a little kid who wants to run around.

there was a little petting zoo and lots of pumpkins to touch and run around in, a hayride and a cornmaze.

we had a hard time pulling her away from the animals. she loved looking at them.

i've wanted to go to a pumpkin patch with katelyn since her first halloween. i was dying to get some cute pictures of her amongst the pumpkins. i realized though that it is very hard to get that perfect shot when chasing a running toddler. we still had a ton of fun though watching katelyn in the pumpkins.

there were lots of little cutouts like this to take pictures with. katelyn didn't quite understand that you are supposed to stand behind them. she just kept playing peek-a-boo and laughing at herself.

happy halloween!

company

we had our first visitors out here in wisconsin! my sister and brother-in-law, erin and thomas, dropped by for a quick little visit. erin just happened to have a conference in chicago, so they decided to pay us a visit. it was fun to have someone here to experience a little taste of wisconsin. they flew in to chicago, so we headed down, spent a wonderful evening at my cousin's house (thanks joy!), and headed out the next day. my cousin joy got us into this great museum called the science and progress museum. it was huge! we literally could have spent the whole day there. instead, we stayed about 3 hours. there was just so much to see, but we had to get back to wisconsin.

erin and thomas were pleasantly surprised at how beautiful wisconsin was. they weren't expecting much. i wasn't either though. imagine their surprise when they saw more than just farm after farm. it really is a very charming area. we spent our first available day exploring the wauwatosa/milwaukee area. we found the first lighthouse built in wisconsin, looked at a dirty part of the beach of lake michigan, and drove around and enjoyed the beautiful architecture. we even got to see some of the first signs of fall. i can't wait!
the last day they were here we went to old world wisconsin. this is a place where they have restored a bunch of old houses, shops and farms just as they looked long ago in wisconsin. you walk around from house to house and get to meet the people who "live" in them. then you learn all about their life style. the adults were all very interested in this. katelyn on the other hand just wanted to walk around and watch the animals all day.

all-in-all we had a great time. feel free to get really jealous about how much fun we had. maybe it will encourage you to come visit next.

invasion of privacy

our little one has always been a mama's girl. but since we've moved out to wisconsin, she's slowly switching sides. no hurt feelings here.

when tyler comes home katelyn runs to him and showers him with hugs and kisses and follows him around the house. pretty cute. no lie.

on one of these daddy days, tyler had to take a little bathroom break. naturally, he closed the door. i guess katelyn didn't want to miss anything daddy was doing because i found her like this...

trying to take a little peek under the bathroom door!

dear sisters,

i miss you. i wish you were here. i could always count on you to do dumb things with me.

(i'm sorry two of you are missing in this picture).

love,

brooke

oops

living in a new place you expect to encounter some new people and some new places to visit. well, in our place we have also unexpectedly been greeted by these new little guys.

i happened to walk into the room both times and did a very good job of screaming for tyler's help.

after doing a little research i found out that these critters are called house centipedes. wikipedia claims they are considered beneficial because they eat household pests. Yeah right, they are the household pest! I guess that they can bite, but their bite is not harmful in anyway.

last night katelyn woke up at 4:00 a.m. crying. we helped her calm down, got her a drink of milk and put her back in her crib. as i was laying her back down, my finger brushed something bumpy underneath her back. i reached back under and felt it again, so i quickly grabbed it and threw it at the wall.
when i got back to bed i mentioned to tyler that i thought i had just thrown a bug from katelyn's crib, and i was pretty sure it was one of those centipede things. of course, after that i couldn't get to sleep. i kept worrying that katelyn must have been bitten.
in the morning i went to investigate to see if i could find that bug. i was looking in the area i threw it and looked down and saw one of katelyn's hair elastics that wasn't there last night. i picked it up and rubbed it between my fingers and realized that my "bug" was actually one of katelyn's hair elastics! Oops. at least she walked away without any bites from the hair elastic.

look who decided to put those legs to good use

we are so excited that we finally have a walker. katelyn started to really try to walk between us at the beginning of month. she was getting really good at it, but i think she waited to become an official walker until we could be home with tyler again. the very next day we got back from utah she was walking! oh, and notice the very loved (translate: very dirty) elephant in her hand. that little guy goes with her everywhere. i have a hard time stealing him away to wash him.

this little one is very much like her mommy. always taking her sweet time to get things done, but once she puts her mind to it there's no stopping her.

p.s. abby, maybe this gives you little glimpse inside our apartment.

family pictures

since i've been sitting at my computer for far to long, i am just going to give you the link to our slideshow of our family pictures. after trying a number of times to post it right to the blog, i failed. so, hopefully this works.

http://picasaweb.google.com/tyhedin/FamilyPictures/photo#s5236689220606018706

these pictures were taken right before we left utah. there are plenty of katelyn. not much of us three. everytime we were all sitting together and the photographer pointed the camera at us, she cried. good little girl.

I'm back...

Dear Girls,

I miss that old tree, I miss chatting and most of all I miss you guys and your cute kids. I'm back in Utah, so save me a seat outside! I'm coming to visit tomorrow!

Love,

Brooke

The Badger State

We have officially made it to Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. After a fairly easy drive across six states, we finallly made it! These pictures only show Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and Wyoming. Nebraska by far was the best state to enter. There is a HUGE statue of Jesus greeting us as we drove by. Kind of random considering we were in the middle of no where. We weren't quite sure what to think of it.

Before we left for our 21 hour drive, we were planning for the worst with Katelyn. We imagined a screaming child desperate to get out of her car seat the whole way there. Surprisingly, she did very well. She slept a lot of the trip, played with toys and ate whatever we handed her from the front seat. Now, I'm not going to lie and say it was perfect the whole way. She had her moments, but we survived. We purposefully planned to take three days to make the drive so we could take some longer stops to let Katelyn get out and move. This seemed to help.

Left to Right: Katelyn chillin' on the floor of our car during a gas stop, visiting Winter Quarters, Nebraska and the Winter Quarters Nebraska Temple, Katelyn swinging.

At one point of the drive, I heard Katelyn giggling in her carseat. I looked back only to find that Katelyn had somehow reached the Circus Animal cookies from the seat next to her and was happily digging in the bag eating to her hearts content.

Katelyn chillin' on the air matress with Daddy

As we were getting closer to Wisconsin, we receieved a call from our moving company saying that our stuff, which was originally supposed to be there on Friday, was actually going to get there on Monday. That meant we wouldn't have any of our stuff for four days. We decided to tough it out in our new place. So we went and bought an air matress, blankets, towels and some hand soap. Everything we would need to make it.

We are happy to be here and have adjusted well so far to some changes around the Wisconsin area such as: the accents-beg instead of bag and getting lost in this city over and over again! We think the other members/students know what it feels like to move far away from family and friends. They have quickly taken us under their wings and we feel very grateful for that!

Camping

We got together with some of our good friends and decided to go camping together before we left Utah. We pretended like we knew what we were doing and where we were going and headed up Provo Canyon. We left later than we planned--which isn't a good idea if you want to find a good camping site on a Friday night.

At the first campsite we saw full signs, so we decided to keep driving the loop and go to American Fork canyon. Every camp site we saw after that was full. We started to think that maybe we wouldn't find a spot. We decided to try one last camping site and happened to find an empty fire pit!

The men building--that's right, building--a table for our food. Quite handy.

Katelyn enjoying her big girl chair.

Dallin enjoying the big girl chair.

Havin' some fun with Daddy.

The ladies. I'll miss these girls.

In the end, Tyler and I didn't end up camping out. The stresses of moving got the better of us. We headed home so we could get an early start on things the next morning!