Brenna's First Christmas

What a busy last few days we've had with Brenna. After hours of consoling, we've managed to put her down this evening, I think taking her around from place to place was finally too much stimulation for her.

We'll be spending the last few days around the house with Grandma and Grandpa H. before they leave for home, but in the meantime, below are a few of the highlights of the last couple of days.

Here is Brenna in her favorite new seat. She seems to like it.

Here are mom and dad and Brenna at Emily's parents house.

Both sets of grandparents with Brenna.

Emily's sister Beth, with husband John, and their daughter Rachel.

A candid shot of Brenna and Daddy. Oh, that zany Daddy.

Brenna showing off her Christmas outfit (one of them).

Grandma H with Brenna.

Mama with Brenna sleeping in her tater sack.

Grandma and Grandpa H. with Brenna and Daddy.

Big Day For Brenna

Today the three of us, with Grandma and Grandpa H, drove down to Tucson to see cousin Melanie and her husband Darrick. We woke this morning to a dense fog, caused from the rain we had the prior day (see the Addicted to Hoes blog for pictures... shameless plug), and drove through it until we neared Florence, about a half an hour down the road from our house. Brenna did very well on the two hour plus drive, until we reached Tucson. We stopped briefly to refuel her, but were rewarded by being able to eat a peaceful lunch with our family. Below is a picture (the only one) of everyone together (except me). Melanie is about a month out from her due date, and is glowing. We're all very excited about the arrival of Alexander Sean and look forward to meeting him sometime in February. Hopefully by then Brenna will be able to withstand a 4-5 hour roundtrip drive, strapped into a car seat (we had a "slight" meltdown on the way home that told us she's not quite ready for that long a period of confinement/containment).
















We later attempted to give our daughter a break from the car seat on the way home, stopping at Target to pick up a Bumbo for her. What is a Bumbo (sp?) you may ask? See below and be amazed by Brenna's abililty to hold up her head in this contraption all by herself. I took three pictures of her, trying to capture a smile, and came up with a wide variety of expressions, none of which I'd consider to be what I was looking for, but amusing just the same.

In this first picture, she seems to be figuring out what to do in it, holding onto the crotch rod (well, what would you call it?) for support.
















Here, she seems to have gotten the hang of sitting (somewhat) upright on her own, preparing to stuff as many fingers in her mouth as she can handle. She hasn't quite figured out what she has five individual fingers on each hand, but one day that thumb will break free and find itself in her mouth.
















This was the closest I got to a smile, um, sure. This is the classic deer-in-the-headlights shot.

Christmas Quickly Approaching

We're slowly approaching the big day, and I apologize for the lack of posts lately, Grandma and Grandpa H have been here since Wednesday afternoon, and we've been spending our timing visiting with them.

We actually had some rain yesterday and this morning it's so foggy you can barely see out the front door (that's a once every couple of years event).

Today we're all driving down to Tucson to have lunch with cousin Melanie and (hopefully) her husband Darrick. Should be a fun day!

Below are some recent pictures of Brenna leading up to the holidays and one of Grandpa holding her while she's intent on watching TV (her new pasttime).

Busy Weekend

This was one of those weekends where you blink and it's Monday morning again. Well, not quite yet, but it may as well be. Brenna is dozing in her swing, which has been a Godsend lately, and I thought I'd post a few pictures while the silence is deafening.

Here's a picture of Brenna at church two weekends ago, she's enjoying her time in the nursery while we go to bible study, etc.

Brenna at home below, being held by mama, staring at the goofy guy behind the camera.

Here's Brenna thinking about being happy, but not quite there yet.

Brenna sticking her tongue out at her circling sheep.

Whew, all of this blogging just wore us out!

Brenna Video #2

Here's another short clip, a more animated Brenna.

http://www.dropshots.com/day.php?userid=217718&cdate=20061212&ctime=160624

Video Test of Brenna

I'm experimenting with uploading video of Brenna to dropshots.com. To see a third world quality video of Brenna eating her hand, click on the link below and let me know if you can see her! Oh, and make sure you crank the volume up on your speakers to hear the excellent music that she's jamming to!

http://www.dropshots.com/day.php?userid=217718&cdate=20061211&ctime=173328

Merry Christmas Everybody!!!

Oh wait, Christmas is still two weeks away? Oh well, that didn't stop us from sticking Brenna into a stuffy sweater for this picture. We managed to take four pictures, including this one, before our daughter protested. This was the best of the four... I guess I wouldn't smile either if I was burning up.

We had a busy day with Brenna, took her to Babys R Us, Target, Sonic, Emily's hair stylist, and an open house Xmas party hosted by a friend of Emily's. Whew, that's a mouthful, and Brenna seemed to think so also, as around four this afternoon the screaming began, and continued, and continued until about three hours later. Mom and daughter are now fast asleep, leaving me time to get as many things done in peace and quiet as I can.

Before I forget, one new picture on the Hoes blog being posted tonight of a red ice plant I bought in October that's blooming purple. I'm crying foul, but what can you do.

Friday's Here

Friday is here, it came pretty quick, and I'm sure Monday will be here soon enough.

Tonight we're going out to Golden Trough to celebrate Emily's dads birthday. I've posted an update on our Chinese Pistache tree on the Hoes blog, but that's about all that's happened since the last post.

For your viewing pleasure, more Brenna pictures!

Below is Brenna after bath time.

Here's Brenna with her Don King hair:

Caught! Brenna captures one of her wooly sheep.

Finally, Brenna getting ready to go to Grandma's this morning.

More Fall Colors!

One more tree in the yard is changing, check it out at the Hoes Blog link to the right!

For The Brenna Junkies

Seriously, if I had anything else other than Brenna pictures, I'd do it... no, really. This is not a Brenna only website... hey, did you see that last post? It was of a DIFFERENT baby! Yes, there are other babies out there besides our own, I fully acknowledge that! And hey, when cousin Melanie's little one arrives in February, I bet we'll have a picture of him here also!

Glad it's Wednesday already, everything is going well here. Yesterday Emily's mom came over and soothed Brenna while Emily sewed a baby sling and I cleaned house (as usual). Tonight I went over to the in-laws and planted some vines and bushes around the arbor/deck that Ron built for Becky. Emily is playing the part of baby bed right now while Dwight Yoakam's Greatest Hits plays in the background for perhaps the thousanth time this week (one of Brenna's favorite CDs, what can I say, the ladies love Dwight).

Here's something new, a Brenna picture! This is from some random morning earlier in the week, where I'm holding the sleepytime girl while mom is out catching dog pee for the morning blood sugar test. Yes, our dog has diabetes, if I haven't mentioned that before, and Emily collects piss and gives him a shot twice a day. We've both agreed that should anything else come up that we'll have to draw the line on extending Mr. Tazi's life. Not a happy thought, and I'd rather not change this blog site to The Adventures Of TEBO, but time will tell.

Okay, here's another one, some more candid Brenna close ups. She still gets a hoot out of her twirling sheep. In this picture, she's trying to help me beat on them, she gets a kick out of sheep in pain, apparently. Perhaps they've been baaaaaad. Okay, that was absolutely horrible, my apologies.

Here's what Brenna sees, for those of you wondering what these sheep look like. That would be my wife there in the corner.

And one more for the road....

A New Member Of The (Somewhat) Immediate Family



Not terribly immediate for me, but Emily's cousin Jenny gave birth to a little 7 lb boy, Jayden this past Sunday. He's spent the last week in NICU due to being about a month early. We're all terribly excited and pray for the health of her little one!

(Photo "borrowed" from Jenny's online photo album)

Brenna At Church!



















The nice lady in the church's daycare took this picture of Brenna, below is a brief snippet that she emailed Emily:





Brenna enjoyed the Nativity Story Sunday! We only let her sit in this seat for the picture but when she gets a little stronger I think she’ll feel really independent in there. Brenna responded to the “Bible Thoughts”. I believe she knows exactly what the story is, that God picked Mary and Joseph to be Jesus’ parents and we thank God for Brenna’s parents.

Have a wonderful week.

Blessings from Brenna’s teachers





Since our chuch has been without a permanent pastor, people have been leaving in droves for the "big church" on the corner down by Crismon and the highway (for all of you that know this area in detail, that would be my wife and I). I guess they don't like something about the gentleman that's been filling in since Tony's departure, or they don't like how the Seach Committee's finding a permanent replacement, but I find it utterly ridiculous if either of those are their reasons for moving somewhere else. I told Emily this earlier today, this email and picture show that we're truly blessed with the people that are still at Skyline and it doesn't matter who's delivering the message of salvation every Sunday, as long as it's being delivered and not being clouded by politics of misinterpretations of the Word.

I Can Show You Some Of The People In My Life

I have no shame, thanks to Phil Collins for the title to this blog. It's actually one person in my life, and you'll see many pictures of her as you scroll down.

We've had a fairly uneventful week here, which is probably a good thing. Emily found something called Gripe Water that has calmed Brenna's night fits quite a bit. We're still taking car rides around the greater Apache Junction metroplex from time to time (and actually got rained once, well, spat on, depending on how you look at it), but our evenings after work are not as chaotic as they had been.

Anyway, the following picture is from tonight, Brenna's grasping something for the first time.... well, mom helped, but there it is. Brenna is carrying on her nightly conversation with her best friend, the bug eyed bee that resides to the right side (or left, hmmm) of her shaky chair. A rather lively discussion it was, I'm sure they were talking about the upcoming '08 elections, or something along those lines.
















The next three pictures show the many faces of Brenna. These were all taken by Emily within seconds of each other. It would appear in the last of these three that our daughter is inciting a riot among the migrant workers, or some such. Who thought anarchy could be so much fun.


















































There's really no telling what's on her mind in this picture, but it looks like she's having fun.






















And finally, the last picture, because I know it will take me the rest of the night to get this blog to align right (Blogger, your new beta site SUCKS). Ahem, below is a recent bath time adventure with mommy and baby girl. Brenna is typically very well behaved when getting cleaned up.

All in all, we're putting one foot in front of the next, and as long as we don't fall on our faces too often, I should say things are okay here.

Turkey Day

Below is a picture of Brenna with Grandma and Grandpa from Thanksgiving. Looks like Brenna had too much to eat and is pondering giving some of it back.

Good times were had by all, we spent Thursday eating and sitting around. Emily spent Friday with her folks while I worked. On Saturday I helped Ron start building a covered deck for Becky (which he may be finished with today).

It's finally starting to feel like fall, the high today barely reached 70 degrees, and it was breezy.




















Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that's a pumpkin hat. It lasted about ten minutes before it was removed.

Fall?

89 degrees in late November? Believe it. Supposedly it's going to be in the high 70's by weeks end, I'll believe it when I see it.

Wanna see some more "fall colors"? Addicted To Hoes has your fall fix, new blog posted there.

For those of you here for Brenna, here she is taking a bottle from Daddy.

Long Weekend

We started this weekend off on Friday, taking Brenna to her first national park, the Casa Grande Ruins, about an hour south of here. She slept all the way there, slept throughout our short tour of the ruins (have been there once before last November) and all the way to Florence before we had to stop to feed her (well, Emily did the feeding, I sat and whistled to myself).

Here is Brenna in front of the ruins. Nevermind the moron and his kid that wouldn't get out of the way of a touching family picture.

And here again in front of the viewing ramada, opposite the ruins.

It was a rather warm day, in the low 80's, but all in all a good time.

Later that day we received news that our dog Tazi was diagnosed with diabetes. Emily spent the remainder of Friday at the vets, learning how to give him shots twice a day, and test his pee (hmmm, fun) for blood sugar content.

Although I have no pictures to prove it, Saturday I went with Emily's dad and nephew back to the Florence area (between Florence and Hayden) for some hiking and quail hunting (I did the hiking, they did the shooting). Later that day her dad and brother-in-law came over and grinded up some tree limbs in a chipper that was found at a garage sale a few weeks ago.

Sunday was spent going to Sunday School for the first time since Brenna was born, and working out in the yard, where believe it or not, bulbs I planted back in late October are starting to come up!

Emily has one more week at home before she goes back to work, and Turkey Day is almost upon us!

Have A Green Thumb?

Well, me either, but I give it a go. There's a new post in the Addicted To Hoes blog! Whoo hoo! Fall colors ahoy!

These Are Some Of My Favorite Things

(by Brenna)

- Riding in my shaky seat that plays music and has a bumble bee attached

- Riding in the car while Daddy plays loud music

- Dancing with Mommy while listening to loud music

- Going outside in the yard or riding in my stroller

- Laying in my crib watching my sheep go around and around and around and around

Here are some recent pictures, Daddy really likes this farmer outfit, I'm not too fond of it, matter of fact, I've pooped on it a time or two, hoping it'd get thrown out, but to no avail.

Here's a picture of me humoring Daddy while he poses with me in this outfit. I'm sooo happy to be wearing this.

I'm not sure what was so damn... um, darn funny here, but I was living La Vida Loca (I'm picking up some Spanish from the locals).

Someone must have been tickling me, or maybe I pooped on Mommy while she was changing me, that's the best, ha ha ha ha!

Finally, my first, I mean my last topless photo. I think my hair is starting to thin out, I'm sporting a widow's peak, I sure hope it grows back soon!