Art

Taking a break from posting Brenna pictures, here are some of Brenna's latest artwork.

First, a very accurate drawing of me, sans the facial hair.

A very flattering picture of Emily.

I'll call this one the Slide Of Doom. Not sure how the head at the top comes into play, but it's all pretty impressive, just the same.

And finally, her latest creation from today, a picture of she and Emily. She stressed that she's the bigger person on the left, and Emily is the smaller one on the right.

Gave Up Givin' Up

So, this week we freaked ourselves out thinking our child had eye cancer due to a white blur that showed up in one of her eyes from a picture we took of her in the bathroom (see said picture in the last blog, and do some reading on retina blastoma, if you're so inclined).

It was good to take Brenna in to get her eyes checked anyway, but it was not a terribly pleasant trip. The first part went well, where she was asked to identify pictures of cakes, jeeps (which she identified as tractors), birdies, horsies, and monkeys (which was a picture of an old rotary phone, like a child Brenna's age knows what one of those things are). Then came the drops in the eyes. Anyway, some screaming and peeing on the waiting room carpet later, we were given a good report that all is well.

Anyway, to see if we could further freak ourselves out, we took a million pictures of our child's eyes (kind of counterproductive). The side benefit is that you get some new shots here!

Our child thoroughly enjoys playing any number of games on Noggin, and has mastered the mouse to the point where we just let her go on her own. She'll stand on her stepstool and play for 30 minutes at a time (unless she clicks on something that gets her off her game), sometimes longer. She's using her left hand primarily for this function, although we've seen her draw with both (she favors her left foot for kicking things).

Here are a few closeups of her eating carrots.

And finally, a pretty Cinderella outfit that she chose with a gift card that Grandma and Grandpa "H" sent her recently.

First August Post

My creativity has absolutely ran out when it comes to witty subject lines. What can you do, after nearly three years of keeping this site updated, it's probably a wonder that I still manage to update it on a fairly regular basis.

Here are some nifty collages of Brenna from church yesterday, with her cousin. Brenna loves playing with Ms. Diane and Papa Ron, and we're blessed that they take such good care of her and provide us with these wonderful pictures.

That's a block of ice that the kids are holding, licking, etc.

And from ice to water, here are a few shots of Brenna in the tub last night. Quite the card, she is.

With the flash on the camera, she's got a weird eye thing going on here, but look at that tongue. Another wonderful thing she's gotten from Daddy (or Gene Simmons).

A Few Shots From This Evening

While Emily was away working on the church this evening, I took a few pictures of Brenna and I hanging out at the house.

It was pretty much the usual:

- Eating tasty American cheese by the slice, and watching our favorites on Noggin

- Walking across the couch and jumping on me repeated times (I'll update everyone on how many new bruises I find on myself tomorrow morning)

- Taking some self portrait pictures on the couch

- And taking over the camera and snapping numerous pictures of inanimate objects, capturing me in one of those shots

In other random news, I've confirmed a flight to San Francisco for the first week in November for work. Two weeks thereafter Emily and I will be going to Honolulu for a late anniversary weekend, followed in early December with a week back in Chattanooga, visiting my parents on Lookout Mtn. Waaay too much flying in two months for me, but there's a lot to look forward to in at least two of those three trips. It's still up in air whether I'm heading to Atlanta the first week in September, I have my own opinions on that one, which I'll keep to myself. Flying is no longer appealing, unless I'm sharing the row with my wife and daughter.

Yippee, Another Brenna Post

In a long line of underwhelming blogs about our child, I present to you two new piddly pictures of our weekend.

We went down to Tucson on Saturday to see cousin Melanie and her family, along with her sister Christine and husband Jim, who were visiting, but failed to take any pictures of anyone. How bad do we suck for that one?

At any rate, here's a picture of Brenna taking a snoozy on me earlier this week. The later picture is of Brenna getting ready for Rock N Roll Sunday at church.

Quality Over Quantity

I finally have a few new pictures to share, and they're from today.

Here are a few shots of Brenna in her favorite dress from Easter. She requests this one from time to time, and tonight she wanted it adorned with angel wings, which you can't really see in the pictures because they were folded behind her.

She's been doing pretty well with letting me take pictures of her, rather than demanding to take them herself, which is working out much better for both of us.

After dress-wearing time, I ran down to the gas station and picked up some tasty treats, and here Brenna is enjoying a Push-Up. Messy little things when they get all melty (Brenna is in the tub as we speak, cleaning up from that ordeal).

And finally, some art work from tonight, Brenna is really enjoying her water colors, and we think she's doing a fine job with them. On her easel she can draw us a number of letters now, including B (obviously), D, L, and X, to name a few that I recall, off hand. We're also working on her number identification skills with the balls from our pool table, and she's doing pretty well up to about 11 or 12. And with some decent regularity, she's counting to 20 now. Just don't ask her to perform any of these skills on demand, or you'll get the Helen Keller response.

We're heading to Tucson to visit family tomorrow, I'll post pictures soon from that adventure. We're looking very much forward to it!

More Old Brenna Shots

Here are some more pictures from last week or so.

The first few are of Brenna hiding from Grandma "H", while Grandma "H" was taking pictures of her.

The next one is of Brenna over at Aunt Beth's house, playing in the pool, and the final one is Brenna inspecting th ceiling for cobwebs with Grandpa "H".

Brenna's Spider

No new Brenna pictures today, but I have some Brenna art for you. This is a lovely drawing of a spider, according to our daughter, and I have to say it looks very much like one. Perhaps a patch-wearing, pirate/spider, but a spider, nonetheless.

Our little girl is doing very well with her potty-training these days (no pictures of this, either), she's pretty much to the point of wearing no diapers during the day, just at night. We're both very proud of her.

A Few More

Here are a few more Brenna shots from this past week.

The first two are of her at the local library. Another of her hiding behind the couch cushions, which she does regularly. And finally, one with Grandma "H", reading a book.

Another Four Pack Of Brenna

Here are a few more pictures of Brenna from when Grandparents "H" visited (I've been asked to refrain from referring to our last name here, on the off chance some lunatic decides to break into our house and use the facilities without flushing).

One day during the aforementioned visit, we took Brenna to an strip mall where they have cool kiddie playground areas. They were nice and shaded, as well as misted, which didn't help much in our searing heat, but it was a nice thought.

Here we are climbing on a mushroom.




And climbing on a caterpillar.





And sliding down a tree type thing.




And on a completely random note, here she is climbing all over me while I'm trying to read. And she's eating a cereal bar, multi-tasking at it's finest.

Another Four Pack Of Brenna

Continuing on the grand tradition of milking older photos for all they're worth, here are a few shots of Brenna dancing around the house last week, courtesy of Grandma H.

Here she is paying homage to the Dance God Napoleon Dynamite.




After a number of tricky maneuvers, Brenna breaks it down in to a nice split.



Exhausted, she relaxes in one of her favorite lounging chairs, pleased with herself.

And finally, perhaps growing weary of the picture taking, or maybe pondering her next innovative move.

Random Brenna

For the next week or so (at least), I'll be posting random Brenna pictures from Grandma and Grandpa H. recent visit. There are a lot of good shots to share, and here are four of them.

1. Grandpa helping Brenna with a wind tunnel experiment at the Phoenix Children's Museum.

2. Me in the hotel pool with Brenna, who's sporting some nice shades. Don't let my pastiness blind you, no skin cancer for me.

3. Back at the house, Grandpa H. is pictured here helping Brenna put a new puzzle together. The ever vigilant father that I am, I'm gazing off into the front room, no doubt thinking about the next blog I'm going to upload.

4. And finally, outside in the back yard, enjoying the pleasant 100 degree weather we have around here in the summer. Brenna is playing with her water table that Grandparents H. gave her a few trips ago. She spent a lot of time playing with this table while they were here, making "ice cream".

Princess Photos

Aunt Beth sent Emily these nice pictures of Brenna and Rachel playing dress up about a week ago, and I've just gotten around to posting a few of them.

Grandma and Grandpa H. are wrapping up their visit with us tomorrow, but I have plenty more pictures to post here of their time with Brenna, and will be doing so in the coming days.