New Brenna Video

This is a greatest hits of Brenna vid that contains lots of goodies in just six minutes, including:

- Brenna singing Jingle Bells, but using "no" for every word in the song (she knows the words, but was being funny)

- Putting her babies to sleep, singing them a lullaby complete with a mixture of her own song and the VeggieTales theme song ("Go to sleep/Dream a dream/Cauliflower/Half An Hour/Veggietales")

- Singing about Thomas The Tank Engine

- Telling daddy that eight is great, and five is jive, as taught to her as we were going through Fresh And Easy the other night, naming off the numbered aisles, one through eight

Enjoy, and keep scrolling, a photo blog from today has also been uploaded.

Blogzilla

Here are some more random pictures from the holidays.

Here is Brenna posing by her grandparents tree the day before Christmas.



Visiting Grandpa.

Back at our house taking a break from the festivities.



Now posing with Emily in Christmas attire.



Playing with cousins.

Fast forward to after the holidays, hanging out at the house and posing with some cool shades.

Post Christmas Carnage

For the time being I'm going to forego a post-Christmas blog. I have at least a dozen pictures to upload and comment on, so in the spirit of being fat, dumb, and lazy, I'm going to go for something easier tonight. Thanks for your patrionage.

Continuing my green steak, rather than figuring out how to get my old office desk to the landfill, I decided to saw it into numerous pieces and reconstruct it into what you see here. I've fastened this Frankendesk to the wall in the garage, and will be using it for additonal storage/organization. Don't be too impressed, if it were not for anchoring it to the wall and weighing it down at the base with an 80 pound bag of mortar, this thing would fold like a fat man sitting on a house of cards.



I typically try to post blogs with a similar theme, and keep it to three of four pictures that fit that theme. This one simply didn't go with anything, unless I wanted to blog about pirates. At any rate, here is a cute picture of Brenna and her Mama from recent days.



Cousin Rachel came over today to keep Brenna company today while we cleaned our house for Saturday's Open House. Here are a few shots of them palling around. Rachel was a huge help with Brenna, as well as helping me grocery shop, and dropping off our recycling.

If you were wondering how many lemons we harvesting this year, check out the Hoes blog!

Good Morning

Brenna woke up numerous times tonight, apparently from being cold, so she's taken up residence in our bed, and I'm here blogging. I went to bed so early myself I guess it's a wash for me in the end, and now I have time to upload dozens (well, not really) of new Brenna pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Thanks, by the way, for your continued support of our ad banner. You've raised over sixty dollars now for our little one!

It's been raining here since yesterday afternoon, we've gotten about four tenths of an inch so far, with much more on the way through Friday, and they're forecasting snow levels dropping to 3000 feet by the end of it all, so we may have some snow on the nearby mountains, which makes it seem a little bit more like Christmas.

Yesterday Emily and Brenna got a package in the mail from an online friend. Here they are fresh in from the rain with said package. Brenna absolutely loves the rain, no doubt because she's only seen it maybe five times in her lifetime. I can only imagine what she'd do at the first sight of snow.

I like this casual pose she's striking here with her hand in her jacket pocket. Our little casual rock star.

Here she is checking out a new dress she got in the box of goodies. She seems pretty happy with it.

And Emily is happy with her new measuring spoons (which Brenna thinks should be hers).

A close up of Brenna in her new dress.



Hey, Brenna got some new gloves for the cold weather that's to come. Here she is modeling them. I'd buy more gloves if the store catalogs modeled them like this.

Here are a few closeups of the family (I tried to squeeze in).

Ah, glorious gloves, you will never leave my hands again.

Like I said....

24 Hours Seems To Slip Into Days

Here's a quick post-weekend wrap up for you. Brenna is sporting some new pj's that Grandma and Grandpa H sent her a little while ago. They look pretty cozy, and she likes them quite a bit. Here she is wearing them, and telling Mama about the fish she just caught.



We tried hiding Brenna's Christmas gift around the side of the house, but she found it on Saturday. I was her first guest and was treated to lunch... numerous times.





And here Brenna is with her second guest. The house is a big hit, and so is the slide, sort of pictured above.

It's Finished (Sort Of)

I've done all I can at this point in the main part of the bathroom. Light fixture is in, medicine cabinet is back on the wall, fastened in better than before, the rest of the room is painted, and the floors have been caulked.

My next project lurks in the next room.

My Mind Wanders

For your viewing pleasure, another random mixture of blogginess.

I finally installed the bathroom light fixture today, yippee. Best I can tell, it's properly grounded, so that's also a good thing (guess I wouldn't be writing this if it were not). Boy, my horrible patch job looks pretty good in this light. If only you could see it in person, I have a LOT of sanding to do before I'll be happy with this part of the project. Coming soon, Tom pulls a toilet.

I was asked by work to submit a "zany" picture of myself in Christmas attire for a company card going out to our customers. This is the best I could come up with on such short notice. Yes, that would be a dog collar, and my neck itched the rest of the afternoon. Tazi still lives.

And finally, a few Brenna tub time pictures from tonight. The first shot didn't go so well, but I caught her on the second. Her big thing right now is drawing palm trees and saguaros, among other random things, like dinosaurs and rocket ships. What an imagination this child has.

The Pictureless Blog

No new Brenna pictures, just me rambling, so sorry for you.

A couple of quick (non-related) Brenna updates:

1 - I've patched the hole in our bathroom wall where our new light fixture will eventually go. It's not pretty, but hopefully I can sand it into something that looks decent.

2 - I've unearthed the panels from my old office desk and am working on building a makeshift cabinet out of it for additional storage in the garage. This should be interesting.

Brenna is doing well, hopefully we'll have some new pictures to share soon.

Something For Everyone

This blog has a little something for everyone.

1. For the person that likes home improvement stuff.

I'm finally moving forward with getting lighting into our bathroom again. After crawling around in the attic all morning, I gave up hope of finding any slack in the line that runs down to the light box. However, as luck would have it, there was enough slack in the wall already to move the box over to the false stud I built today. I have a piece of sheet rock cut, and as soon as Brenna is through napping, will be covering this hole, laying spackle, and installing the light fixture. Exciting times!

I've also started laying tile into the toilet room, and am about ready to read up on how to drain, lift and re-install a toilet, so I can tile what's left. If I can get past the electrical part of this renovation, the plumbing should be a piece of cake (ha!).

2. For the person that doesn't give two rips about anything but Brenna.

Here she is posing in front of our tree, holding a giraffe, one of her favorite animals.

And a close up of her.

3. For the person that misses the Brenna Art Gallery

Here she is working in her new favorite medium, chocolate pudding. My, the creations that can come forth from a tub of pudding. Brenna indicated that she was putting on sunscreen., when asked what she was doing here.

4. For the person that's freezing to death in some other part of the country, and wishes we'd be stricken by the same fate.

Sorry, while these two are wrapped up on the hammock in this picture from this morning, it was 60 degrees when this was taken, and is 70 now.

Another gardening update on the other blog to follow, a few pictures of the pomegranates at their peak color.

Still Here

A quick update, below is Brenna watching her favorite movie, Monsters, Inc. She requests this every night when she gets home, hums the opening tune, and "says" all of Boo's lines when she comes on. On occasion, she'll sit through the entire thing. We're sporting a neat holiday outfit in this shot, as well.

These pictures probably belong on the Hoes blog, but I've already updated that one with a few yard shots, so here you go. A few sunset shots from a few days ago.

In other news, I've ridden my new bike around the neighborhood the last four afternoons, and have logged a little over 15 miles (says my odometer). The tires on this bike are narrower than anything I've ever ridden, and I'm still a little shaky riding on sidewalks and navigating turns, although I'm getting better. I don't think this bike will suffice for an off-road trip over to Emily's parents, but that's an excuse to buy another one, ha!

Also, after months of neglect, the bathroom renovation is moving forward. I'm doing some simple things in there right now, like patching holes, painting baseboards, etc. I laid the last few vinyl tiles I had, slowly moving into the toilet room, where all of the old tile has been lifted, saved for where the commode is sitting. This weekend I'm going to cut the power to the house and see how much slack I have in the electrical that runs down to the old light fixture. With any luck there will be enough play to move the power over about a foot to a false stud I'll be putting in where the new fixture will go. It's getting kind of old taking showers in the morning by the light of the toilet room. I'll upload more pictures from this project once I have something substantial to share.

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly
(The Making Of A Christmas Card)

It dawned on us that today is the 9th, so we might want to get started on our holiday card for this year. I don't recall us even doing one last year, so give us a E for effort, if you will.

There were probably thousands of pictures taken tonight in an attempt to capture Brenna at her cutest, and here are a few of the finalists, both by herself, and group shots.

First, my test shot, egads, what was I thinking. That'll never make the card, maybe exorcise some demons, but not a Christmas card.

I went for the stately look here, but this one didn't make the final cut. I thought everyone from the South posed for pictures like this.

Here's the "getting Brenna to smile shot", but instead it's the "I look like a 'tard" shot. Very nice, but not card material.

Finally, a nice one of Brenna, who finally began to enjoy herself when we put her on the pool table.

And yet another decent shot in her new Christmas outfit.

And finally, coming to a Christmas (perhaps holiday, depending on the timing) card in your mailbox soon. What will probably/maybe be the final shot. I'm so noncommital.

A Non-Brenna Post... Yippee!

My folding bike arrived today, my search is finally over. I practiced getting my balance by rolling around the house for a while this afternoon, and then bellied up and headed out the door. I'm happy to report that after not ridden a bike in nearly twenty years, I managed to stay off the asphalt and actually rode around for about thirty minutes. I'll definitely be investing in a better seat, the one that came with the bike was a smidge hard.

Here's a picture of the bike, 20 inch wheels, no gears, and a hand brake, pretty simple, but a piece of cake to ride around in our flat neighborhood.




And here it is folded up, this will easily fit in the back of our car. I probably rode around at least for a few miles this afternoon, so ramping up to nine miles to ride over to Emily's parents should be easy, short of finding a safe route over there.