Happy New Year Friends

Well, Jeff and I are in the middle of a very exciting New Year's Eve. Jeff has finally crossed over and is reading. I never thought I would see the day. He must have gotten really bored while I was at work tonight. I don't want to spoil this new development so I decided to blog.
We had a wonderful Christmas with my family. My mom had so much fun with Brooklynn. She got her an "exersaucer" with lots of fun toys on it. She had to give it to us early because she couldn't stand the suspense any more. I can't help but think she was more excited about it than Brooklynn haha. But now Brookie has lots of fun with it. My mom also got us like a 3 month supply of food storage and an electric wheat grinder. I kinda started freaking out with the way the economy is turning and decided that we needed the food storage more than anything. And we don't really have the money to buy it ourselves. It was great. Jeff and I weren't going to get anything for each other, but we both broke down at the last minute haha. I just bought him a sweater that I thought he would look so cute in, and he bought me a foot massager since he refuses to touch my feet haha!! We didn't really do much down in St. George. We just hung out at the house mostly. It's about the same as what we do here lol. But it was still wonderful to see my family. My mom started crying right before we left, which of course made me cry. At the same time, I wasn't too sad because we will be going back in a couple weeks to surprise her for her 50th birthday! (But I couldn't tell her that!) Rachel and I are planning a surprise party for her, and my dad is going to make sure to keep her busy that day. I'm pretty excited for it. She hasn't had a party since she turned 40! Go figure.
Well, now that we are back at home, I have a nice routine with Brooklynn. Except, she is trying to ruin it! She has been so clingy the past couple of days. She always wants me to hold her...even if Jeff is holding her. But it was so cute tonight when I came home. She got so excited as soon as she saw me. It just made my whole day. I'm glad that she loves me. I just wish she would let me exercise and shower and clean without crying. What can you do! I do try to let her cry for a few mintues before giving in cause I don't want her to feel spoiled.
Unfortunately...not much else to report.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and did something more exciting than we did for New Year's Eve. :)

More pictures I couldn't resist

Just so cute!


Studying with Mom!


4 generations...how awesome!

I do NOT like green beans!! YUCK!


Say what?


Brookie at play...


I love Mommy's phone!


What a cute BYU fan! My good friend Emily gave her this cute shirt

I have officially graduated!

That's right...I can finally say it. It's a semester later than I originally planned, but I'm done now. And I have a few months to just be a mom before diving into graduate school. I finally finished those applications as well, so now I just have to wait. In the mean time, I am having the time of my life with Brooklynn these days. She is so much fun. She is almost crawling. She uses her legs to scoot herself around. She has 2 teeth! She cut the first one a few weeks ago, and she wasn't even fussy. The second one came only a couple weeks after that, and she has had a harder time with that one. I can't believe how fast this is all happening. Yesterday while I was exercising, she was playing in her portable crib, and she pulled herself up onto her feet. I don't think she can quite reach the coffee table to do that yet, but man oh man! I have decided that this is my favorite baby stage so far. I can sit her down on the floor with her toys in front of her and just let her play.
In other new...I really don't look forward to work these days. We are open later for the holidays, so I kind of dread going. I mean, I only work a few days a week, but we are open til 11, and it really stinks. No one even shops that late, which makes it even worse. At least the girls I work with are fun. And it's money...haha.
My birthday was last week. I had to remind Jeff the day before that he still needed to go shopping for it haha. That's a first. He just lost track of time. I told him pretty much exactly what I wanted, but I still ended up exchanging some of the gifts. I asked for those Down East tshirts, and he thought I asked for camis..but that was an easy switch. Then he bought me this book, and he was so excited about it because I didn't ask for it. He really wanted to surprise me, which was adorable. But I had already read it!! So I discreetly snuck the receipt out of the bag and will have to exchange it as soon as this snow clears up. But it still ended up being a fun day because Jeff made me feel special, and it's just fun to have little shows of affection like that.
Well, Brooklynn has awaken from her nap and needs some feeding!

Getting Brooklynn to laugh

And of course...pictures!

For Halloween Brooklynn was a kitty. How cute!! The whiskers stayed on about 5 minutes before she rubbed them off.



I just loved this dress from my grandma. And look how well Brook poses :)



I love the face

Yes it's been a while

I have totally lost track of everyone! I am so sorry! Life got pretty hectic for a while. I finally finished my online class and got my presentation done for my other class. So now I finally have a break! Brooklynn is turning into quite a ham. She is laughing--but only when she gets really excited. She also makes raspberries all the time. She will just be sitting there and make raspberries like crazy. It's the funniest thing to watch. I wish we could get a video of it. She is starting to get into everything. I had to buy her more toys--one that makes sounds like crumpling paper because she now loves paper. When I study I have to give her a sheet of paper to crumple. lol. She is a lot of fun. She is sitting up all by herself as well. Holy cow!! Last night I went to a dinner with some of my old North Carolina friends. It was so much fun. I hadn't seen most people for years. It was so fun to get caught up with everyone and see where they all are in life now. It also made me miss some of the old times. I brought Brooklynn to show her off, but she only lasted about an hour and a half before she got extremely fussy. We still had a good time. In other news...I saw Twilight with Danika this past weekend. I absolutely loved it!! There were some cheesy moments, but overall, I loved watching the book come to life. I thought they did a great job staying true to the book. I loved the actors!! I can't wait to see it again lol. I was hoping I would have more to say, but now I need to catch up on everyone else's blog!!

McCleve Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

Brooklynn rolling over

The faces of Brooklynn

We got her this chair to help her sit up, and she loves it. I love the alfalfa hair!


HAHAHA! She sleeps like her mom!


Don't you love the hat?


Snuggling Daddy!

Holy Crow!

So yeah...it's been a while. Life just got real crazy once school started. This online class I have to do is so hard! It takes so much of my time. So my audiology class keeps getting put on the back burner. Things are about to get even crazier because I have to start working on a 40 minute presentation and study for my midterm for this audiology class while trying to stay on top of my online class that needs to be finished by Thanksgiving. AH! I also had to start volunteering a couple hours a week so I can add that to my grad school resume--apparently they like to see that in people. And studying gets really hard sometimes with Brooklynn cause she is just so cute I want to play with her all the time, or she gets fussy and I have to hold her. But I'm getting there!
In other news...Brooklynn has started rolling over! It is so funny to watch. She does it as soon as I lay her down, but she can only roll to her tummy, so she gets stuck and gets really mad. I love it. She also got her first cold this week. It hasn't been too bad. She has just had a really stuffy/runny nose, so I feel like I am constantly sucking snot out. lol. And she hates that! The humidifier has helped a lot with all the mucous stuck in her throat and stuff, but it's still so sad to hear her trying to breathe when her nose gets clogged. I'm just grateful she can breathe thru her mouth now, and that it hasn't been worse. Jeff also woke up sick this morning--only the second time he has been sick since we have been married lol.
That reminds me...Jeff's birthday was a week ago. We had a fun day. I got him Mario Kart Wii, and he loves it. It just may be one of the best presents I have ever gotten him. I made him skip priesthood so we could go on a date that night as well. I don't even remember the last time we did that. It was really nice. We had his family over last Sunday...that was nuts!! I was a little irritated that I had bothered to clean b/c by the time everyone left the place was a mess, and I haven't had time to clean again. Oh well, what can you do. It was pretty crazy fitting like 35 people into our little condo too. I can't believe we pulled it off. haha. Well, I think that about sums it up for now!

Random updates

We got Brookie's pictures done a couple of weeks ago. They turned out absolutely precious! She is doing very well. She babbles so much--it's just precious! I spent the last week at my mom's house. Jeff worked in Vernal the first half of the week, then joined me down there the rest of the week. He rode the shuttle down and had so much fun with that! haha. We didn't do a whole lot. My mom took us shopping to this western store and bought Brook 2 cute cowgirl outfits and the cutest cowgirl boots. My mom started going back to school last week,and it is so cute how excited she is. She's working very hard! We got back yesterday and had Aaron and his new firend...practically girlfriend...Whitney over. She is really cute, and Aaron is pretty crazy about her. We are all sensing something very serious, but it will be interesting to see how things unfold. I start my final 2 classes this week!!! I am excited and sad. College has been so much fun--even tho sometimes I wanted to rip my hair out. But I still have grad school to look forward to after this is over. Oh yes, and I start working part time this week at the mall. I'm a little nervous. Our awesome friends Jens and Patricia are going to watch Brookie for us. Jeff will also be keeping busy as he starts a side job. Rereading this, I feel like our lives are so uninteresting--let's be honest--except for Brookie, they are lol. But that's what's new with us!

Gotta add pictures!

Oh so much to tell!

I really don't know how almost an entire month slipped by without me writing. It's not like I have much to do ;). So here's the latest. We blessed Brooklynn on the 3rd. That was an awesome experience. Jeff gave her a beautiful blessing, and we both pictured her growing up and entering the different stages of her life as he blessed her. It was so neat. And that event made so proud and happy to be her mother. I felt so blessed to be raising such a sweet girl.
The funny parts of that day were that she absolutely hated her dress. We put it on when we got to church and had to take it off as soon as Jeff came back to sit down with her. Luckily I had put a onesie underneath it. I was sad tho because her dress is so cute! Then we had a big picnic in the park with our families, and that was really nice until she got a little overstimulated and screamed bloody murder for about half an hour til she fell asleep. It was too much excitement for her. I was so excited to have my family here from St George as well. We spent the weekend with them. My sister Rachel did not want to stop holding Brookie. It was cute.
Unfortunately, my dad had to have a major neck surgery the day before the blessing up here in Provo, so he wasn't able to participate in the blessing, but at least we got to visit with him in the hospital. He was pretty bummed about missing his first granddaughter's blessing, as was I. But he had been in a lot of pain before the surgery, so he was lucky to get in so soon. He is still recovering but doing much better.
We celebrated my grandma's 80th birthday this past weekend, which was fun because my dad has such a big family it is very rare I get to see everyone. It was so neat to hear all of my aunts and uncles talk about how much they love my grandma and the incredible sacrifices she made to raise 12 children. It really motivated me to try to be a super mom like that. She is so fortunate cause I know she can look back on her life and have no regrets about how she has lived her life.
Life in general has been great. Brooklynn is such a good, happy baby. She is so fun to play with. She coo's so much and smiles. We are falling more in love with her everyday. Sorry to cram so much into one post, but that's what happens when I get lazy:)

Fun in St. George

We went down to St. George this past weekend to visit my family again. We had so much fun. And everyone loved playing with Brooklynn. She has really blossomed. She smiles a ton. Grandma got her to smile a lot!! And she is "talking." It is so cute. It is so fun to play with her now. My mom could not get enough of her. She put off cleaning for two days because she was so distracted playing with Brookie. Jeff was able to golf with his grandpa twice. He took my brother Aaron with him the second time, and they were able to have some "manly bonding time." They had an interesting adventure when my mom sent them to the grocery store together. They were both dressed in polo shirts and khaki shorts. And my brother is a little obsessed with his appearance. So while the two guys were at the store together, Aaron asked a store clerk if they had any loufas and some Nair. How great is that? (And he was totally serious by the way) I thought it made for a great story. We also got caught up on all the girl drama Aaron has had in the month and a half he has been home. It is pretty funny. Saturday night was really fun because we had a pool party with some of my family's good friends down there, and they are awesome. My mom, Aaron, Jeff, Rachel, and a couple of the guys engaged in a diving contest of sorts...doing various dives, belly flops and random jumps. It was hilarious. My mom awoke the next morning realizing that she is almost 50 and perhaps a little too old for that kind of excitement lol. And in other great news...I came home with like 10 of my mom's books so now I have plenty of entertainment while at home with my darling baby! yay!!

Bath time

I just could not resist putting these pictures up! She loves her bath time!

Overcoming colic

It's been an eventful couple of days! Brooklynn started spitting up a lot a few days ago. I tried feeding her less, and that went better for a few hours. Well then the crying started. Monday morning at like 6 she just started screaming right after I had fed her. Nothing I did calmed her down. I started crying because I could tell she was hurting, and there was nothing I could do. I had Jeff give her a blessing, and she eventually calmed down. Well, that night she had another episode. She just screamed for like two hours. That's when I decided she was colicky. So we started feeding her formula, and she started feeling better almost instantly. By Tuesday afternoon she was a totally different baby. She has been so happy ever since. She's even making cute cooing sounds and she doesn't demand to be held all the time. She just sits on the couch and kicks around. It's so cute! I am a little sad because I was really enjoying breastfeeding her (and that's a lot cheaper :)). But since she is doing so much better on formula, I just don't know if I should keep trying to breastfeed. If anyone has suggestions, I am open! In other news...I have started reading again. I forgot how much I love reading!! Carol Warburton is the author if anyone is looking for some good books. Right now I am reading Midnight Whispers, and I love it!! I love it so much I am not getting anything else done besides feeding and changing Brook! haha.

Enjoying parenthood!

So now that I feel more fully recovered from everything and have started getting the hang of this mom thing, I am loving being a mom. Brook has only been getting up once at night. She has to sleep with me most of the time, but it's better than not sleeping at all!! She is so cute when she is in a good mood lol. I love watching her look around and make cute baby noises. My favorite is when she clicks her tongue. Jeff and I are having so much fun playing with her. And yesterday she actually slept for 3 hours so I was finally able to clean the house!! Jeff was happy about that too haha. I gave her a bath this morning ans she loved it. She was adorable. I really want to make a video of her in the bath. Gotta love babies!

Coming out...

Wow has it been an experience adjusting to life with Brooklynn! The first week home I felt so overwhelmed because I was still so tired, but I was never able to sleep between feeding her and trying to spend time with my family. My mom helped out tons...too bad she couldn't breastfeed for me too! hehe. And just when I thought we had an awesome schedule down, she seems to have hit a growth spurt. I can't seem to feed her enough, but I have learned this is normal. I was worried I wasn't producing enough milk or something, but other friends are going thru the same thing, which makes me feel much better! And now I finally have a few minutes to myself to update the blog. I really do love Brookie. She is so cute and fun. But this is also the hardest thing I have ever done! I am so grateful I am able to stay home and take care of her. I really don't think I could manage a job and her. And I think she is starting to favor me since I am always with her hehe. Don't tell Jeff...he might get jealous:) Here are some new pics. We can't seem to take enough :)

Pictures!

Brooklynn is here!!

Well, here is the story of how Brookie came into the world. I started having regular contractions at about 4:00 on friday. So we finally went to the hospital at 6. By then they were 3 minutes apart, but I was only dilated at to a 2. So pretty much I didn't dilate to a 10 until 7:30 the next morning!! Long night!! I pushed for an hour and a half, only to find out I had to have a c-section because her head was turned to the side. The doctor said it would be too dangerous to use foreceps. So she was finally born at 10:02. So while I was sitting on the other side of the curtain, and I heard her cry, I started bawling. It was amazing. She was 7 pounds 1 ounce and 20 1/2 inches long. Her full name is Brooklynn Rachel McCleve. She got jaundice, but luckily she was better after being in lights for one day. I am getting better everyday, but I can't lift anything or do any heavy work for 6 weeks. Oh boy! Our first night at home with her was a challenge cause we were both so tired, and she had slept all day. But we survived. It really is amazing having her here. It is awesome how much we love her. Jeff has been so supportive and helpful thru this whole thing. I could not ask for a better husband. And my family has been so helpful as well. My mom is here taking care of us now! We are just so happy to have her here!

Getting impatient

Well, I had another doctor's appointment today. And still nothing has changed! I have been dilated at a 2 for two weeks now, and I am only 50% effaced. I was checked by the nurse today because my doctor was doing an emergency c-section, and she thinks that I dropped a little bit. But I never know how seriously to take what she says because she tends to be wrong. If she's not that's awesome, but still she said it was only a little. The baby dropped from a -4 to a -3. Not so great. This probably sounds really negative...sorry about that. I am just feeling really down about it. I am pretty sure she is going to be late. I was thinking about it...when I first found out I was pregnant, I predicted my due date would be June 10th...so maybe she will come then. My cousin thinks the 12th. At this point, either one of those days is fine with me because if she doesn't come then, I have to wait until about the 18th to be induced. How sad is that? I really will go crazy by then. I have just been having a lot of pains lately, and there is nothing I can do about it. So the more this day gets pushed off, the more I am losing control of my emotions. It's crazy!! But yeah, I better stop venting before I make myself look bad. lol. I will keep you updated!

Our last hurrah!

We wento to Bear Lake a little over a week ago with Tim and Kara for one last getaway before the baby comes. Unfortunately nothing was open yet besides the golf course, so Kara and I tagged along with the boys while they golfed. We also played some tennis and all suffered sunburns from that. We didn't anticipate it being so hot and sunny! What is funny is that, when we saw each other a week later, we were all peeling! Also while there, the four of us engaged in a battle of Spades, and unfortunately the boys came out on top. Kara and I put a pretty good fight though. It was really fun to get away for a couple days and do something other than watch TV all day. :)

Visiting the family

Some pics from the weekend at my parents' house. We had lots of fun!