Brenna Art Gallery

It's hard to believe I've been maintaining this blog for four years now. It would be neat if there was a way to print off or archive everything posted here since the beginning for Brenna. I might look into that in my spare time, ha ha, ho ho. Granted, I took a six month leave of absence from this earlier in the year, but I'm still here.

Today for your viewing pleasure I bring you some of Brenna's latest artwork. She's been focusing lately on drawing family members. I don't think some of these need much explanation.

This art gallery was brought to you by the letters E and F. The F, by the way, is a bearded daddy fish. So, there.

Stay tuned, pictures from Brenna's birthday to follow in the coming days. I must catch up on the blogging before I leave again at the end of the month for work! Arrrgh!

Blog While The Bloggin's Good

Oh, the things that go on around here when I'm not around.

Seems the ladies had a tea party while I was out running errands one fine weekend afternoon.

There's the finger drinking tea pose.

The token face making from the almost four year old.

And a nice pose thrown in for good measure.

This random blue dog was invited to the party.

Mommy seems to be enjoying her imaginary tea as well.

And just because this picture won't fit with anything I could possibly blog about in the future, my daughter posing as a pirate. Arrgh.

Mixing Business With Pleasure

I've managed to only work two nights this week; Monday and tonight. Yippee for me. I guess that's better than every night. I'll be heading to Birmingham later this week and am looking forward to spending part of a weekend with my parents.

I'm still playing catch up on posting recent pictures, which is a nice alternative to posing the small child in faked situations.

Here are a few shots of Grandma Sheila's recent visit, and Brenna enjoying a new table that Grandma bought her. Much fun was had by all.

Stay tuned for some more cookie baking with the small child, as well as a divine tea party with mama. And what does F stand for? Hmm, only the shadow knows...

D Is For Dinosaur

More than a week later, and I've returned with many a photo to share with you good people. As luck would have it (for you), I'll be working a lot in the evenings between now and my next trip out of town (hopefully to cooler weather), and as a result, there will be ironically more time to post here (with the small child asleep, and whatnot).

Here is a sneak preview.

There will be, of course, lots of Brenna pictures, including ones like this at the laptop, making cookies with cousin Rachel, visiting with Grandma Sheila (now nearly three weeks ago), and a swell tea party with mama.

Catching up from a few weeks ago, here are Brenna's D crafts from pre-school, one being a dinosaur, and I'm not sure that that other thing is.

E is for elephant. Included here is a nice dinosaur craft, and a flower made at church a little while ago.

Be forewarned, these next few weeks won't be pretty, but we'll get through it. Cheers.

More Of Brenna's Favorite Things

Given the short amount of time I have before bed to post another update, I'm taking the easy way out and uploading more of Brenna's favorite things, as taken by her with our camera.

- Her Mommy



- Her Daddy, doning the coin (or as Emily calls them Mickey Mouse) gloves

- Her Dolly, all wrapped up and ready for bed

- The cover of Mommy's book

- Brenna's rendition of a dead ladybug (her words, not mine)

September Shenanigans

You would think with having a five day weekend for Labor Day, that I would have found time before now to post a new blog. However, between a visit from Grandma Sheila, and everything else that's been going on, here I am nearly two weeks on the other end of my last update. Shame on me.

Here are a few pictures since we last met.

Brenna has been enjoying putting makeup on anything with a pulse. Here is just one shot of she and her mommy, all painted up real nice.

Brenna's also been very interested in my coin collecting hobby. Here are a few shots of her donning the special coin handling gloves, and looking at some of the shinier ones. This picture was brought to you by Nutra-Grain bars and a filthy sink.

And finally, at least for now, a shot of her C work from preschool.

To recap, A is for alligator, B is for bear, and C is for cat. Stay tuned to find out what D is for, in the next update, along with some pictures of Brenna's visit with Grandma Sheila.

B Is For Brenna

Brenna wrapped up her second week of school last week, and is still enjoying it very much.

Below is a picture of her latest projects, celebrating the letter B, a personal favorite of hers, for obvious reasons. As you can probably also tell, circles have been the recent shape of choice in class, and you can see below how much better she's getting at writing her name, now that she's receiving some professional guidance.

This is a recent water color that she did at church. I like this one so much I'm going to frame it. Perhaps I'm biased, but this is just as good as the artwork on Robert Plant's "Shaken And Stirred" album from the mid-80's. I think it should be vertical, from where her name is (not pictured), but I like it configured this way just the same.

First the crafts, then the girl.

Here's a random shot of her sitting on the couch in her long-sleeved pj's (because it gets so cold around here in late August), watching one of her favorites on Nick Jr.

Here she is enjoying some finger painting in her old high chair.

And finally some war paint, er, make up that she allowed me to put on her the other night. Sorry, no pictures of the job she did on me. How convenient.

Brenna's Favorite Things

Seems to me that when you give an almost 4 year old control over your digital camera, that you get an interesting perspective of some of the things around the home that interests them the most, or that they're most fond of.

Things last night that fascinated the small child:

- Her knees

- Her daddy

- Her mommy

- Her home



- And probably most important, her Nick Jr, particularly The Upside Down Show

Who Makes Your Money

The keys on our new laptop are configured differently than what I'm apparently used to on a standard desktop keyboard. Just about every time I reach for the Shift button for an upper case character, I inadvertently hit the Control button, sending my browser into the abyss. This makes the blogging process rather tedious. That being said, don't be surprised if in the future all of my posts are in lower case. I'm not crazy, just fed up.

Brenna is now into her second week of pre-school, and she's still enjoying it very much. They're going through the letters in the alphabet, so today I present you with crafts made on "A-Day". Included was a nifty song about an alligator snapping monkeys out of a tree, and a nefarious looking character with pasta for a mouth and a butterfly pendant.

Brenna's First Day Of School

It seems like yesterday that I was firing up the old blog machine, posting things about Brenna's first words, first steps, and so on. Here we are nearly four years later, and the small child is going to pre-K two mornings a week. Wow.

Anyway, here are a few pictures of Brenna getting ready/dressed, showing off her new backpack, and the school that she'll be attending this year. From her teacher's weekly planner, it looks like she has a lot of exciting things to look forward to.

When asked what she did on her first day, the small child indicated that she sang songs and that was all she felt like telling me at the time.

The Brenna And Rachel Show

Cousin/niece Rachel spent the better part of the weekend with us, and we were all tickled, particularly Brenna, who is very fond of her (not that we aren't).

Below are some of the highlights of the shenanigans.

On one of the two evenings that Rachel was with us, there was a makeup party. Blue Man Group, eat your heart(s) out, you've got nothing on these two. Brenna is so deliberate with her makeup application, it's pretty amazing, I should think, for a child her age. She made for certain that every square inch of Rachel's face was covered with something.

We were blessed Saturday morning with clouds and a little drizzle. What a great opportunity to use our pass to the Arboretum, which Rachel has been wanting to go back to for quite a while. Should you be interested in seeing more pictures of the plants, why don't you mosey over to the Hoes blog for a spell.

Here we are hiking a trail (at Brenna's suggestion) that I don't believe we've ever been on before. Of course, the one in the stroller had it easy.

Kuddos, by the way, to the wife and myself for having now lost thirty pounds this year between us. Emily is getting so thin she disappears behind the stroller!

Here are two misfires from lunch at the Arboretum. The first one capturing Rachel in what looks like a mid-sneeze, and the second one with Brenna smiling at her sandwich. Hmm, turkey and cheeeese.

Thumbs up, indeed, Rachel, thumbs up.

Admission to the Arboretum: Free

Lunch at said Arboretum: Twelve dollars

Capturing the ultimate "I'm humoring you, daddy" picture of the small child: Priceless.

Short But Sweet

Here's the short of it:

- I'm still struggling to find an i.Link cable to upload video off our camcorder to the blog site. You used to could do it with a USB cable, but that was with Windows XP. 7 doesn't allow that. So, you'll have to just wait for Brenna's rendition of "My Life Would Suck Without You", sorry!

- The big storms continue to miss us, but we've gotten a few good rains, and the yard is enjoying the humidity. Hey, why don't you mosey over to the Hoes blog and soak in some pictures, I've posted a new update there!

- Why am I shouting?!

The sweet of it:

- Brenna posing (sort of), with one of her new shirts that Grandma Homans just sent her. She wore it all day with the tag still on it. I had to wrestle her to the ground like a hog to get it off of her for the wash!

!!!!!!