Time Out for an Adventure

I have so much to get done today and the tension just kept building all morning as I was trying to complete tasks. At noon I finally gave up and decided that we all just needed to get out of the house. I loaded both kids into the stroller and walked up to Chick-fil-a for lunch. This probably doesn't sound like much of an adventure to most people, but with two unpredictable children anything can be an adventure. Both kids made it through the 20 minute walk without any major meltdowns. We ate in the restaurant - which was a first (we usually just drive through). Brenna was fascinated by the indoor play structure and willingly choked down a piece of chicken to get to go play. After that, we ran a couple quick errands at the shopping center then headed toward home. One last stop at the neighborhood park to wear off any energy that may be left, and now we are all in bed for a late nap time. :) I'm glad I took the time out. It didn't help with my to do list, but our impromptu adventure was much more fun for everyone than my cleaning rampage in the house this morning.

Love is in the Air

Nights like tonight make up for all of the rough days. Brenna's sweet, nurturing personality was in full-force. Hugs, kisses, "I love you"s, and love pats were in generous supply. Marshall joined in by giving Brenna tons and tons of kisses - stopping to clap between each (his new skill that he is very proud of). In all, a very happy night.

Tea for 3

We have officially entered tea party phase and Daddy is one of her favorite guests. Tonight, I put Marshall to bed and came out of his room to find Brenna and Stephen on their way to have a tea party before bath time. You gotta love a daddy who will sit and sip pretend tea from tiny blue cups. :)

Hey, what's taking so long in there?

The entire roll.

Brenna Calls Mia

Brenna's pretend cellphone conversations have become more complex lately. What used to just be "hi {giggle}, bye" has turned into calls with a purpose. At 2 1/2, she is now scheduling her own playdates.


These videos show a "conversation" between Brenna and her friend Mia. She wants to play with Mia after she takes her nap. The cell phone is not real - she's not really talking to anyone. 

It's a Joke

Brenna has learned a joke... sort of. It took me a couple days at first to figure out what she was trying to ask me. It all became clear when she informed me it was a joke.

Brenna: Why 6, 7?
Me: I don't know. Why?
Brenna: 6, 7, 8, 9. It's a joke! (hysterical laughing)

I think I like her version more than the usual "why is 6 afraid of 7?" :)

Yay! It's a school day!

Attention Everybody!

Brenna has taken to announcing our presence. I'm not sure where this came from. When we leave the house, she stands in the driveway while I put Marshall in the car and proclaims loudly, "Attention everybody! This is Marshall buddy and Mama!"

I'm waiting for the day when someone is walking by when she does this. :)

Mama's Little Helper

We've hit the phase where I can't work in the kitchen without Marshall "helping".

Fighting Naps

This is a picture of Marshall trying not to take a nap. He fell asleep sitting up with his head against the crib. I have a picture of brenna doing the same thing at about this age.

Found the picture of Brenna:

Playing with Food

This morning started with screaming, tantrums, and general crabbiness (not just the kids). I never would have guessed the memory we would make shortly thereafter. Once everyone had calmed down (and I had my cup of coffee), I took both kids up to the game room to play. I was hoping a change in location would equal a change in mood. Brenna went to her play kitchen and prepared a big bowl of wooden vegetables for our "lunch" then sat down next to me on the floor. Marshall crawled over by us and instead of Brenna flipping out over him touching her stuff, she gave him a spoon. I watched as together they mixed the bowl of veggies. No screaming. No pushing. Just calm playing. Then, without being prompted, Marshall scooped his spoon though the bowl, moved it to my mouth, and fed me a delicious bite of pretend lunch. :) The three of us sat there and fed each other one of the best lunches I can remember.

Foo Finishing

From the moment Brenna found her voice as an infant, she has always been a chatterbox. I remember having long, incoherent conversations with her as a toddler - her speech completely animated, but not containing a drop of English. Now at 2 1/2 years old, her grasp of the English language is impressive, but also contains a few unique Brenna words and phrases. My favorite of these is "foo finishing". This was a phrase that she began using in her early speech development and we continue to hear daily. Our best guess is that it translates to "not through finishing." Here's an example:

Me: Brenna, are you done eating?
Brenna: No. I foo finishing.

This term confuses most people as they think she is saying that she is done. She will correct them - "NO! I foo finishing!!!!"

Marshall is now starting to jabber. I'm excited for this phase and to see if he too will be so creative with his language.

Time flies by

It's been about a year and a half since I last posted a family update. Wow, time has flown by. In that time, Stephen has earned his pilot's license, Brenna has grown into a full-fledged 2-year-old, and we welcomed a new baby boy named Marshall into our family on Feb. 12, 2011. Life is crazier than ever.

Marshall will be 11 months old tomorrow and I'm not sure where all the time has gone. Watching him every day reminds me of this time with Brenna and I find myself remembering some of those baby days and wishing I would have recorded them. So... here I am back on the blog with the intent to keep better track of our family life and preserve as many memories as I can.

Wish me luck.

Almost flying

Well, as it turns out, a LOT of dust has to be blown off. I've been taking flight lessons all year, though my instructor only teaches on the weekend because of his day job, which is handy with my day job. It's been 9 months since I started, but only flying on the weekends and only then when we're in town doesn't leave much time.

I'm probably a month away from taking my checkride, but for those interested, I thought I'd post a little update on the last few flights I took. Here's a view of the following three flights courtesy of my handy-dandy GPS that I throw up on the dash when I'm flying to log everything.

Flight 1 (red): This was my long cross-country flight to KLFK (Lufkin, TX) on . At least the first half of it before my GPS battery died...

Flight 2 (turquoise): This was my flight from this past Saturday (January 1, 2011) where we practiced stalls, steep turns, and slow flight.

Flight 3 (blue): And finally this was my flight just yesterday (Sunday, January 2, 2011) where I put the eye-blockers on and flew completely on instruments. My instructor told me where to go, got me good and lost, took the foggles off and then said "ok, take me back home". I'm writing this post so you know what happened.

Click on the picture below for the details.

Mid-Summer Update

Where has the time gone?!?! Somehow I blinked and Brenna has gone from crawling to almost walking and is over a year old! Brenna's birthday was more of a birthday week. Grandma Judy flew in from Minnesota and Brenna finally got to meet her uncle Tom who flew in from Georgia for the occasion. Birthday week festivities included a trip to the Houston zoo, a weekend at Stephen's parent's ranch, and lots of time to play. I spent way too much time trying to perfect a monkey-themed cake, but the final product was worth it.

We've been spending a lot of time at the pool this summer. Brenna LOVES to swim. She's fearless and doesn't mind dunking her head under water - definitely a fish like her mama. Looks like I finally got my swimming buddy. :)

Stephen has been spending a lot of time in the air. Besides his traveling for work, he has been working on his pilot's license. He flies almost every weekend that we are home and is really enjoying it.

In between chasing Brenna, changing diapers, meals, and naps, I've been trying to keep up with projects around here. My to-do list just keeps getting longer and not much gets done. I've just learned to accept that this is how things will be for the foreseeable future... and that's a big step for me. :) So, I can now check off "update blog" on the to-do list, but I better add it right back on or the next update won't come until after Christmas!

Finally Mobile

The end of my calm days is here. Brenna learned how to crawl!

Taking to the Air - Again

OK, I finally did it. When I turned 40 last year I realized that it had been just over 18 years since I had been in an airplane. (Well, ok, since I had been in an airplane by myself. As of this moment I have 460,920 lifetime flight miles with Continental Airlines, so I've definitely been in an airplane since.) So I started studying. A lot has changed in the aviation industry in 18 years, but I also wanted to know everything I could possibly know before I stepped back into a little Cessna again, so I've been studying A LOT. (But still, how could that take a year?? See entries with "Brenna" below, and then go to VMware.com and you'll get the idea.) Well, today is my birthday again and so I walked into the flight school that I spent way too much time researching and choosing from many and signed up. My "first" flight is on Friday. How much dust has to be blown off of over 39 hours of flight time and 14 of pilot-in-command time from almost 20 years ago? Stay tuned...

Why I Get Nothing Done

Brenna went to bed early tonight so I decided to avoid my usual routine of plopping my butt on the couch and actually get something done right away. I only had one real goal for tonight - to get the kitchen cleaned up and dishes done. This is how my night went...

• Fill up sink with soap and hot water to hand wash bottles and pans.
• While the sink is filling, open up dishwasher to put dishes away.
• Notice that there is a cantaloupe on the counter that needs to get cut up and put in the refrigerator. Stop putting away dishes and cut up cantaloupe.
• Cantaloupe done and in fridge - go back to putting dishes away, but on the way back to the dishwasher remember that diapers need to be washed.
• Load diapers into washer then return to the kitchen and notice baby food jars that need to go out to the garage (I'm saving up baby food jars for someone that wants them to make tea light holders for their wedding.)
• Baby food jar bag in the garage is full. Start a new bag and find cardboard to use between the layers of jars.
• Look in recycling for cardboard - none there. Remember that the china in the dining room needs to be repacked into sturdy boxes.
• Off to dining room to repack china in order to use the cardboard from the old boxes for the baby jars.
• One of the boxes for the china doesn't have handles. Dig through studio to find a way to engineer handles for the box.
• Create handles from packing tape and ribbon then add bright colored labels to the boxes that say CHINA... just because for some reason I think they need them. (No, writing on the boxes in a big black marker just would not do.)
• Finally get back to doing dishes... but since nearly 2 hours have passed, the dishwater is now cold. Drain water and start over.

So... here I sit trying to understand my craziness and with a bigger mess than I started with. Not only are the dishes not done, but there is now packing material spread all over the dining room, 3 boxes that need to be carried to the attic, and a half-washed load of diapers in the wash since I forgot to turn them back on for the 2nd cycle.

Tomorrow night I think I'll go back to the old routine of plopping my butt on the couch with a glass of wine. :)

What's for Dinner: BBQ Chicken Pizza

I've been trying to cook meals lately that all three of us can eat. Tonight's meal is one of my favorites. Not only am I able to make Brenna's meal out of it, but it's also chock full of vegetables that are well hidden so Stephen will eat them. :)

The recipe is really simple, and I cheat even further by using a ready-made, roasted turkey breast from the deli instead of cooking up chicken. For those of you that haven't been around me while I'm cooking, be forewarned that I don't measure anything. To help, I've included a few photos.

Ingredients:

Onion

Carrots

Garlic

Zucchini, cut in small cubes

Chicken (or Turkey Breast)

Shredded Mozzarella Cheese

Goat Cheese

Parmesan Cheese

Boboli Pizza Crust

Barbeque Sauce

Chop the onion and carrots and saute them in olive oil with the garlic until the carrots are tender. Add the zucchini and cook until slightly tender (I don't like it mushy). Remove from heat. Chop up the chicken or turkey and add to mixture.

Set aside about 1/2 cup of the chicken and vegetable mixture to use for baby's meal. Spread barbeque sauce on top of Boboli crust then cover with remaining chicken and vegetable mixture. Cover with mozzarella cheese then sprinkle with shredded parmesan and crumbled goat cheese. Bake in oven at 450 degrees until cheese is browned and crust is crispy.

While pizza is baking, puree the 1/2 cup of chicken vegetable mixture with 1 jar of carrot baby food and a bit of water. This will make enough for two meals. Remove 1/2 cup of puree and put in the refrigerator or freezer. Add multi-grain barley cereal (or rice cereal) to remaining puree to thicken.

This Bites

Today I felt a little, sharp nub protruding through Brenna's bottom gum, confirming that all of the fussiness this past week has been from teething. Her nights are getting better with less frequent yelling, but daytime has been a challenge. Naps have been pretty much non-existent the past two days. The only way I have been able to get her to sleep today is to play a Baby Einstein DVD to distract her while I rock her. So much for those good sleeping routines we worked so hard to establish. I'm hoping and praying that she will easily fall back into her normal nap routine after these first teeth finish coming in... whenever that may be.