Christmas Pictures!

Seeing as Christmas is in the rear view mirror by almost a week, I thought it might be time to upload some pictures of our visit with Grandma and Grandpa H, including that day.

In the coming days I'll upload some other related shots including our meeting in Conyers with cousin Audrey and her little one, as well as Sheila (my biological /2nd mom / Brenna's 3rd grandma) and her two sons (my half brothers), and our trip down music row in Nashville before returning home.

I'm not sure when exactly some of these were taken, but this one appears to be me in mid sentence talking to my dad while Brenna is watching something on TV. She's a big fan of Noggin these days.

Emily likes this picture a lot, so I thought I'd share it with everyone else. This was either Friday before Christmas, or the night before when we went to church. Ignore the destruction in the background, yummy!

One of my favorite pictures from the trip, we're all looking at the camera and none of us look stoned! I'm proud to say that I didn't come across the first stoner Tom shot in all of the pictures I uploaded off Emily's camera, I must have been trying real hard to look excited at all times!

Brenna usually doesn't take to wearing things on her head, but this bow got by her somehow. This was on Christmas morning. In a lot of these shots from this trip her hair looked almost auburn colored. Whose child is this again?

Here's Emily doing her best deer in the headlights impression. I dig this picture, she's so pretty : )

Here is Grandpa W entertaining our little bear with a bug of some sort. A butterfly, perhaps? She seems to be digging his sound effects and wild arm movements. Sound effects are important.

Speaking of entertaining, here is Uncle Bill trying to win over Brenna with a Velcro Tigger. She loves this thing and will walk around the house with it strapped around her neck. She didn't seem interested in being too close to Uncle Bill during our visit, but chuckled at/with him on numerous occasions. What a funny fellow that Bill is.



Exhibit A of the aforementioned statement. Uncle Bill throwing down on the Backyardigans guitar. Brenna was amused. We all were.



Finally, a nice shot of both sets of grandparents with a squirmy fourteen month old.

Stay tuned, much more to come as time permits (in the small hours, no doubt).

Fish Tank

**NOTE: New posting in the Addicted To Hoes blog (12/27)**

While we were in Chattanooga visiting Grandma and Grandpa H. for the holidays, we took Brenna to the Aquarium.

Below is what the place looks like. I think my right foot was in the gutter when I took this, that's my only explanation for how crooked this shot is. I promise no alcohol was involved. As you can see, it was a fairly grey day, and we saw our share of light rain while there, but also had some nice weather scattered in between.

Probably my favorite shot, Emily managed to get Brenna to stand next to the penguin height chart. She just happened to stand in profile with the diagram, classic!

Brenna loved watching these guys swim around in their tank. We were even fortunate enough to see one poop into the pool, Mutual Of Omaha's got nothin' on us!

Here is Brenna saying hello to a passerby.

Here's a close up of one of the little buggers, don't know how I got this lucky to catch him whizzing by. Don't let my brilliance blind you, ha!

After the penguin tank, Emily decided to dive in with the lobsters and say hello.

We also stopped by a touch tank full of sting rays and sharks, and here's the evidence of that momentous occasion. From left to right:

Grandpa H's ear, Grandma H., Brenna, Daddy, Uncle Bill, Grandpa W.

Use your imagination, we were looking at something interesting here.

Another favorite of Brenna's was the butterfly garden / hot box. I think I lost about ten pounds of holiday cookies sweating in that exhibit.

Here's a shot of Brenna trying to touch one of the butterflys that was running loose in the jungle. The kid in the stripped shirt was seen here pondering how cool our daughter is, and wishing he could go home with us.

Nothing like a candid action shot. Grandma W is shuffling Brenna off to another part of the butterfly exhibit, with Brenna giving excellent direction. Grandma H is seen in the background looking on.

I took a zillion shots of these guys, and this is the only one that didn't turn out fuzzy.

And finally, here is sweaty Daddy and Brenna soaking it all in.

Stay tuned, I have a TON of pictures to post from this past week, and will upload them according to event. Ta ta!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

A quick Merry Christmas to everyone, we'll be back on Thursday, and hopefully by New Year's I'll have had a chance to go through all of our photos and videos from our trip to post some new entries.

This And That (And Then Some)

This may well be our last post before Emily, Brenna, myself, and Emily's parents travel east to visit my parents and extended family for the holidays. We'll be back on the 26th, and if time permits I may post a short blog or two while we're gone, but it's honestly not likely. It's enough that I'll have to check my work email while I'm "on vacation", and anything beyond that may be too much.

Below you'll find one token Brenna picture. We don't have any new ones to upload since the last blog (at least not off my camera), and we have some video that Emily has been taking of Brenna dancing to the Rev'd Horton Heat DVD, and continuing to play with her fridge farm, which she adores (we'll be taking that with us on our trip)... but I haven't and won't have time to upload any of that before we leave.

In other random Brenna news:

- We are now regularly signing please and all done, which is a hoot. We also do the sign for hat and do quite the nice interpretive dance for the Itsy Bitsy Spider, which we've yet to capture on film. And there's the aforementioned raising of the roof with her arms anytime there's good music playing anywhere near her.

- We've discovered our Gene Simmons tongue and regularly show it off to mommy and daddy any chance we get.

- We're figuring out quite rapidly how to place the head and butt parts of our magnetic farm animals into our fridge farm and have got down to a science what a cow, sheep and duck sound like (and we woof anytime the dog goes by). The pig and horse are still a mystery.

- We're a big fan of side stepping around corners and playing peekaboo and/or trying to hide when we're being called for a diaper change or anything else we're not interested in doing at the moment. Curtains are good for peekaboo also, and we've mastered that as well.

- Zerberting (sp?) people's bellies is another fan favorite, as is pointing out our nose, eyes, mouth, ears and belly when asked.

- We've mastered the art of using a remote control, so far to the point of messing one up completely to where the sound portion won't work any more.

- Our vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds, no unfortunately being one of those newly picked up words, which is used in regularity. This is closely followed by head shaking when just about any question is asked of us. A new favorite is turtle, which we enunciate to perfection. We also are slowly mastering the Winnie The Pooh song, which according to Emily (via online research) goes (something) like this:

Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh
Tubby little cubby, all stuffed with fluff
Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh
Willy nilly, silly old bear

Brenna's version goes like this:

Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh
La la la la la la la la la
Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh
La la la la la

Okay, so that's actually about as much of the song as I knew up until this past Friday. Pretty good, I thought.

Oh yes, we also with regularity sing the chorus part of Amy Winehouse's "Rehab"... the no, no, no part, for those of you not familiar with this charming ditty.

I could go on, but that should tide you over until our return. Enjoy your holiday's, one and all!

Brenna Videos!

How many animal sounds can you hear Brenna imitating in these videos?

Bonus Brenna!

One more for the road, keep scrolling to see Brenna at church yesterday.

Below are a few more shots of Brenna from tonight. With it raining cats and dogs outside, there isn't much else to do tonight but goof around. The swing we bought for the back yard for her is slowly sinking into the mud, should make it real easy to anchor it... once it stops raining (boy, it's nice saying that).

More Church Fun!

Here are a few pictures of Brenna from yesterday in the church nursery. Check out all of those teeth in that gaping pie hole!

In the final picture, she's playing the part of Paul Schaffer (sp?), backing up Ms. Cobb on the xylophone. You go girl!

We're about to float away here, 4th day of rain, my 10 foot tall acacia tree is leaning at about a 45 degree angle now from literally sinking into the bog that's our backyard. The good news is that we've had a little over four inches of rain now since the middle of November between these two storms, and they're forecasting between 8 and 16 inches of snow over 6000 feet, and some places already have that much on the ground. Keep it coming!

200th Post!

I've finally returned from my trip to the Northwest, and was welcomed back by yet more (welcome) rain. We've had nearly four inches since mid-November now, with more scheduled tomorrow night through Tuesday. I'm sad to report that I took zero pictures while on my trip through Washington, and considering the foul weather, there wasn't much to look at anyway.

While I was gone, Emily took some pictures of Brenna around the house, and I've taken a few today, so here they are, for your viewing pleasure.

Grandma H was kind enough to ship Brenna her Xmas gift to her early, so she can enjoy it before we leave to visit them. Here is she is enjoying her new little home.

Skipping around, Emily took this picture a few weeks ago of Brenna and I enjoying a warmer, sunny day, out on the hammock.

Here, Brenna seems to be walking around the kitchen, carrying an empty bag of sugar. Not sure what this is about, I wasn't here.

Here's another shot with Brenna and Daddy, this one on the couch reading books and enjoying each others company.

Another new toy, this little gizmo shoots balls up in the air and be collected and put back into the chute, where it starts all over again. Brenna seems to love this thing.

Can't you tell she's ecstatic?

Finally, a last shot of Brenna and Daddy both at their most insightful.

Here I Am

I'm finally in Lacey, Washington, outside of Olympia. Long day that started at four this morning, and is wrapping up now (after midnight). Thankfully the rain wasn't terrible driving here from the airport, and it's in the 50's, so I can't complain.

I am here:




Ah, trees. I had forgotten what real trees looked like, it's nice to be reminded now and again.

I'm hoping if the clouds clear (which they're supposed to on Thursday), to get a picture of Mt. Rainer, which is due east of here by not too much distance. About equally as far to the west is the Pacific and the south side of the Puget (sp?) Sound is very close to hear. I'm surrounded by things that don't exist back in AZ, how exciting!

Anyway, my apologies in advance for no Brenna pictures this week, if I find anything of interest on my laptop to post (other than hotel pictures), I'll do that. The Internet gods have blessed me with a CAT5 connection in my room, so I'm flying along here.

Cheers!

Look, We're Still Here

Eight days later, and finally a new blog. This past week has been rough, long hours for work, preparing for a trip to Seattle tomorrow for the week. Forty degrees and raining every day, that should be fun, although I don't mind seeing rain. We actually managed well over two inches of rain the last few days, it was quite nice. On Friday it rained for almost twelve hours straight.

Below are a few new shots of Brenna going to church this morning, to tide you over until I return.

Brenna Leftovers

In the grand Thanksgiving tradition, I give you leftovers from some recent events that I've skipped over in the past or simply missed while trying to update everyone on our happenings. A few of these that I've come across aren't too shabby.

We had a nice holiday weekend so far, starting off with turkey on Thursday at Emily's aunt's house. Friday was spent around the house, after we went to Kohl's at 4am to meet up with other maniac's looking for good deals (and there were plenty of those, definitely worth getting up that early).

Today (Saturday) we ran a few errands, and went to a movie this afternoon will Aunt Beth watched our little wild monkey girl (Beowulf was a pretty slick flick).

At any rate, below is a shot of Brenna and Emily at the church's fall festival, held a few weeks ago. This of Brenna inside the bounce house with her mama. Most of my shots from this turned out blurry (not enough light), but I found this one to share.

Here's one of me pushing Brenna around on her scooty puff lion mobile. She's gotten big enough to want to be pushed along on this thing, and I help her as far as my fat belly allows me to without passing out on the floor from exhaustion.

These are my favorite recent shots of Brenna helping me a) check my email, b) check my belly button for any nefarious lint items... and finally, just being darn cute.

Gobble Gobble

Three quick, cute pictures of Brenna for Turkey Day!

Brenna's Fantastic Journey
(Interpreted Through Carpet Readings)

Emily and Brenna are safely back from their trip to Pennsylvania. Fun was had by all.

I've plucked some random pictures from Emily's camera to share here, and will take a stab at explaining what's going on in each shot, with the assistance of carpet and other assorted flooring (stay with me, this is going somewhere, I promise).

This first shot appears to be Brenna sitting in her stroller in one of the three airports she frequented. I'm going to guess O'Hare in Chicago, although this could be Terminal 2 at Sky Harbor, as I'm only familiar with Terminal 4 and it's airplane patterned flooring. Either way, we appear to be patiently waiting for a plane.




This one is of Brenna patiently waiting for Emily to get ready so they could go visit with the other mothers and kiddies. She looks like she's sitting in the dentist's office waiting to get called back for a cleaning. I dig the rolled up pants.



This appears to be a picture from their hotel room. What a bizarre year that there are still leaves on trees in mid November that far north. Emily tells me it wasn't near as cold as she was expecting.




Ok, I'm guessing again my the cheap pattern and texture that this is Brenna and some new found friends visiting in the conference room at the hotel. There must be something interesting in that cup, what, we'll never know.




Here is Brenna hanging out at the host mother's house, I suspect on Saturday, when they all got together for an early Thanksgiving lunch/dinner. Emily says that everyone loved the sweet potato casserole that she made from my mom's recipe. Ohio State ended up easily winning that game, in case you're wondering and/or live in a cave.




Here's Brenna, extremely excited to be hanging out with this fellow. I see she managed to commandeer some one's remote control. This is one of her favorite things to do, to change the channel to shopping networks or pay per view.

Brenna with a bunch of random people that I don't know. Comments welcome from the peanut gallery, if you wish to identify yourself.

Emily says it was snowing at the airport in Allentown/Bethlehem, sure looks like it. Goodbye to Pennsylvania!