Brennan does it

Sara and I are working on a Christmas project of making some ornaments I loved as a kid called Canvas Kissing Birds.  I bought plastic canvas and yarn and tapestry needles to work with.  Brennan saw Sara practicing sewing on the canvas and really wanted to do it.  We loaded him up a needle and gave him some canvas and he was so cute sewing.  He was really into it and even asked to do sewing the next day.  I love that he loves participating and doing whatever we are doing also he pretty tenacious about doing it.  He says "this hard" but keeps trying.

I know this is weird but I'd love it if he grew up loving to dance and sew.  I think it's admirable of men to develop their feminine side and not be afraid to show it.

He is the great copy cat, he repeats words, numbers, and songs that we sing.  He is learning things very quickly.  He is already counting to 10.  I'm kind of wondering if he might be color blind, sometimes he struggles with his colors but maybe it's just too early to tell.

Sara and I have started learning hand clapping games and we are working on learning Miss. Mary Mack.  Sara was trying to teach it to Brennan one day and it was pretty entertaining.  I've actually done Miss Mary Mack with him too and he does it better for me.  

Lastly, a cute pic:  the sleepy traveler

Growing fast and keepin' busy

Brennan has really grown up fast in the last couple of months.  He has really figured out talking and will say or repeat just about anything now.  He says "I love you" but it sounds like "Ya bo", so we say ya bo back to him.  Also he was stringing beads the other day and he kept saying "Mom, this hard".  His favorite thing to say is "I did it!".  Here is a vid of him doing buttons, too cute, I love how much he is concentrating.

He had us laughing too when he said in a deep husky voice over and over, "time out go to bed".   Their favorite song right now is "What does the fox say?" and he likes to say that over and over again and then he sings the rest of the song and tries to make the noises.

He doesn't always do what we ask him to do but we know that he understands a lot of what we are saying now.  It's been nice to be able to communicate with him better.  I can't imagine what he'll be like by Christmas because he's already progressed so fast.

He loves the new trampoline, he says trampoline and wants to go out every day to jump.  He dose somersaults on it and I'm sure he will figure out a way to injure himself somehow on it. 
Catching some air:

They want to be outside even if it's snowing, trying to catch snowflakes on their tongues

Our driveway is nice and big for riding bikes even in the winter too.  Also there is lots of good bike riding in the back yard.

We recently had Halloween here and I think it's B's favorite holiday so far.  He had a blast.  He walked the whole neighborhood trick or treating with sister.  He was running from house to house at full speed and refused to be carried and he ate his candy along the way.

It was also his second year trick or treating with Daddy at work:

Then we had a bad experience where he got into some candy with nuts in it.  He was eating his candy so fast that he was even leaving the wrappers on it.  Apparently he is still allergic to nuts.  I was hoping he would outgrow it.  Luckily some liquid benadryl helped calm this reaction down but not without some freaking out on my part.  I guess we should go to the allergist and have him tested too.

Brennan's breath holding has taken a bad turn lately too, it seems to happen when he is sick.  He held his breath one day and I couldn't snap him out of it by blowing in his face.  He turned purple and blue and was stiff as a board and his eyes were glazed.  Usually he comes right around pretty quick but this time he was out of it for a while.  It was pretty scary :(  We are still giving him iron drops.  His doctor said he might do this until he is 8, I really hope not.  I don't like it.

He goes back for his heart check at Children's in February.  I'm anxious to see what they say.  I wish his appt was sooner. 

Today the kids were both a little sick, so we stayed indoors and did arts and crafts.  I put down some paper rolls that Nanna sent them and they both painted for a long time.

This is how pretty much everything ends up with Brennan:

He also likes to play stickers and stick them on his face.

Sitting with sister:

We've been all about silly winter hats lately.  We have a moose, a wolf, and a panda bear.  Here we are in silly hats:

 
Here is my favorite pic of Bren so far at the fall festival :

Lastly, B's new favorite craze, Bob the Builder!  He loves it.  Luckily it's all available on Amazon Prime for free and Sister likes it a lot too.

Beanbags, beads, tinker vacuums, and boni's

Brennan likes going to the skating rink to watch sister take skating lessons but his favorite part is watching the Zamboni after her lesson is done.  We always stay 10 minutes after her lesson to watch the Zamboni.  He calls it a boni and it's cute, so I wanted to get it on tape. 
Someday soon maybe he will get to ice skate too.

B is also happy with the new bean bag we got in the play room.

He also loved his farm stringing beads that Nanna sent.  

The kids love to play with Tinker Toys and they make fun items like wind mills and lawn mowers or vacuums and then give them funny names.  They take it really seriously too.

Going hike a hike

Brennan loves to go "hike a hike" as we call it.  He asks for it by name, jumps up and down, and spins around.  This weekend we hiked up to Escalante Cross.  It's a short hike, about a mile and a quarter.  He hiked the whole way with Sara and I helping him along.  When we got to the top, there was a very cool rock that he had a blast climbing around on.

He loves his big Sister

 Sara found a lambs ear plant and was telling Brennan to feel it.  They also found and smelled Sage and Mint.

Also, this week Sara put her dress on B who was more than willing to wear it and twirl. 

Princesses and messes

Brennan talks about princesses all the time.  Every time he sees dresses or dolls he says princess!  Also he asks to be a princess and wear the tutus that Sara has.  He also loves to play with a doll that she has that was Grandma Bell's doll, a Russian doll.  He and Sara carry it around the house and play "parents".  It's really cute, I should get a video of that.  Also, this week when I painted Sara's nails, he insisted on having his painted too, so we did.  He has blue sparkly nails and pink toe nails. 

I'm not that worried about it, although I do take his tutu off before we go in a store.  I feel like maybe it will bring out his sensitive and nurturing side and when he's old enough it will work itself out.  We have relatives whose boys are very tough, always hitting and wrestling and honestly I'd rather Brennan keep that kind of behavior to a minimum.  If parents do have any influence over how their children turn out, I'd rather steer him towards art, music, dance, outdoors activities, etc and less the football, karate, kick ass and macho type mentality stuff.  Who knows, he may choose that someday anyway but for now, he's happy with being our little biking princess. 

Dan is dabbling in toilet training Brennan and I'm not sure I'm really on board.  He toilet trained Sara and I'm glad he's willing to take on the task.  However we waited until Sara was three and she was totally ready and it went smoothly, or maybe it was just because she is Sara and has always been easier to deal with.  With Brennan however, he can't communicate as well, so we can't really explain to him why you have to wash your hands and why you can't just run around the house with no pants on peeing all over everything.  I'm afraid it's just going to mean lots of hassle and nightmare type trouble for me and it's unnecessary torture, if we just waited.  

Case and point, he thinks it's OK to take off his pants and diaper off now whenever he wants.   He's apparently feeling a new freedom and running with it, literally.  This week he walked up to the toilet and peed on it, not in it, close but no cigar.  Also, while I was talking to a neighbor, he ran inside and I assume he tried to sit on the toilet and poop, but the poop ended up in the diaper and he took his diaper off himself.  Then he came back out, naked on his bicycle and ran around the yard naked in front of everyone.  Anyway, I was terrified to go back into the house to see what kind of mess was in store for me.  Sara helped me hunt down his diaper and we totally got lucky that he just stepped out of it and didn't play with the poop or walk it all over the house.

 
I told Dan all of this and he still wants to try and toilet train him now.  I just think it would be easier and better for everyone if we waited until B's communication skills are better, and his maturity but I guess I'm along for the ride.  I just really don't want poop and pee all over our new house but maybe it's unavoidable anyway. 

 On a brighter note, we've been doing even more arts and crafts and B has really been getting into them.  He gets a certain look on his face when he's really entertained and fascinated by something.  He had that look doing these activities and he was for sure really into it.

Painting, I got a vid of him doing paints, funny to see the difference between how he paints, very messy and to compare it with his sisters.

Moosey really enjoyed playing with our homemade play dough this week too.

He was really proud of this little alien that he made.

Brennan is really sweet, he asks for hugs and kisses and says " snuggle" and then will roll all over you like a little puppy.  He really loves to read books, mostly the my first word books but Big Red Barn is his very favorite book.  We read it at least 5 times a day despite the fact that it is falling apart and missing pages.  It was Sara's favorite too.

He loves playing trucks and he has a large ball that we play with in the house.  He still asks to ride his bike all day long, it's probably his favorite thing.

Bikes and Tutus

Brennan is a tough guy with a sensitive side.  A lot like his Dad, he can be very sensitive and compassionate and very tough at the same time.  Brennan lives for his bike, just like his Daddy too. 

Brennan is very confident on his new bike.  He even stands up on the frame and rides it doing tricks.  No one can believe it when they see him riding it.  He jumps curbs and does tricks.  Sara has been wanting to ride in the dirt hills behind our house.  Brennan likes it too and he goes down the dirt hills also, sometimes he does fine and other times he crashes at the bottom.  We should really get him some gloves and pads.
Here is a video that unfortunately I took in the dark of him riding his bike down the hill. 
He has no fear just like his sister, who is also riding the hills with her bike with no training wheels!  Brennan is also learning to stop and watch for cars when he rides on the sidewalks, so we hope that he is eventually going to get the maturity he is now lacking for the responsibility of riding a bike.

He also shows his sensitive side.  He talks about playing princesses with his sister and he likes wearing her tutus and sparkly shoes.  Also he can really bust a move and do some good flips.  


Also he has been really getting into painting with sister.  He was so excited to us a real paint brush instead of finger paints and he kept saying "Look-it" for me to look at what he was doing. 

Brennan is super cute and just as challenging.  This week he held his breath and passed out face down in a pile of mud.  It might have even been funny if it hasn't been so sad :(

Splash Pad Nirvana

It has been a fun summer water wise for the kids.  The invention of Splash Pads has revolutionized summer fun for children.  A near by town has taken it to the next level and added a river and a waterfall onto their splash pad.  It's an extremely popular feature and we've been going to it a lot this summer.  It's been heavily crowded up until now but if you go after 7 pm you have the place to yourself.

The kids go nuts there running in all the spraying jets, running through the river, and playing in the various fountains and water falls.  Brennan especially thinks it's pretty great.   Kids also bring toys like balls or foam balls or floating things to play with in the river.

 Today I got some video of them running and playing at the splash pad river park Vid 1
Vid 2

Tonight was the first time Dan had ever been to the water park and he said he wished we could do this in our back yard, that would be really fun, except maybe in the Winter...

Bot Bots

Today I tried to take Brennan to Sara's Piano Pals music class and it was a huge nightmare.  He screamed his head off and I basically waited out in the parking lot for him to quit screaming for at least half the class while Sara took the class by herself.  It's causing me anxiety to think about finding a sitter for him for the next year so that Sara can take piano.  It's just not going to be an option this time to bring him to class with her.   Her piano palls class is a lot more crowded and so is the music academy in the afternoon so screaming and bad behavior isn't as tolerated.

We had some 14 year old girls move in next door and they have already said they would love to babysit.  I'm hoping that we can really take advantage of this and that maybe I can even get them to come sit with him while he is sleeping and Sara is taking her piano class. 

He does a lot of really annoying things like getting into places around the house he shouldn't and screaming for things he wants or doesn't want.  Luckily he balances it out with cute stuff too.  We hung up a robot picture in his room and when he sees it he calls them "bot bots".  It's really cute and I finally got a video of it after trying for more than a week.   He is already starting to be able to say robot now so I wanted to get it on vid before he stopped saying it. 

Also, he is a free range sleeper now.  We put him in his bed every night but he wanders around.  Sometimes he is sleeping in Sara's room on her floor or bed, sometimes we find him on our floor asleep and sometimes he is just in his closet or on his own bedroom floor asleep.  So one morning he came walking out of his room with his plastic swim diaper on over his PJ's and one of his feet in an empty wipes wrapper that had been in his trash can.  He must have had a really good time digging through his room before he fell asleep that night.

He also has been feeling really tempted by his sister's new sparkly shoes and has been wearing them around the house.  We ended up having to put them up in her closet because we were trying to keep them clean for her to start school and he wanted to wear them outside.

Brennan really likes to color and paint too but it never ends well for me.  He will either eat the crayons or paint and or rub them all in his hair.   Here is a recent example of a fine mess that he made eating crayons.

Here he is looking cute in his space ship PJ's

Here are the kids on a recent hike.  Sara was trying to make Brennan smile.  We saw a huge rat snake on this hike, it was about 4 feet long and about 3 inches in diameter.  It came right up to the kids feet and crawled in front of them.   Brennan held perfectly still.  For one brief instant I calculated the risks in my head of the snake being able to eat Brennan but I determined it was safe.  I was really proud of him that he didn't try to run away and he even wanted to stay and watch it longer, we had to pull him away.

Brennan recently had his 2 year check up and got mostly good news.  He has been growing well.  His weight was 26 pounds which surprised me a little because I thought he was more like 30 pounds.  However his weight was in the 32nd percentile and his height, 34 inches was in the 42nd percentile. 

The doctor did say that he still has a loud heart murmur and we will just wait and see as he approaches 5 years of age is he needs any surgical correction.  Also he has a belly hernia and that might need surgery as well in the future.   Brennan had his iron checked, he is so good at the doctor's office.  He laughed when the little pin went "click" and poked his finger.  Sara would have been climbing on top of my head and freaking out.  Also he took his last immunization shot without crying no problem, all he said was "owie".   Also we all got our flu shots, so let's hope that works for us this year and that we are done with doctor visit for a WHOLE YEAR!!  Lastly, his ear tubes were still in perfect position. 

Where to begin?

I can't believe that it's been since March that I've blogged on Brennan's blog.   He has grown up so much since then and has changed in so many ways I'm not even sure where to begin.  He is still as demanding, feisty, and daring as ever though, that much has not changed.

April and May were kind of a blur because we were selling our old house.  In May we went to visit Nanna and I blogged about most of that on the Yodame blog.  Brennan particularly loved riding his Harley Trike while we were at Nanna's.  It's probably just easier to say read the Yodame blog to see what we did in May and June and I'll pick up here again with July.

Grandpa Glade came to visit for a week.  The kids had fun hanging out with him and he took them on walks and to ride their bikes multiple times a day which made them very happy!  They were really sad when he left. 

July is Brennan's big month because it's his birthday, on July 25th he turned 2!!  We have been through so much with him that I patted myself on the back for keeping him alive this long.  It was a fun day and we had a combined cousins party, for Sophie and Malina too, at our new house .   The kids all ran round and played hide-and-go-seek and had a big dance party.   Lots of Aunts and Uncles came and Grandparents too.

Brennan went around and gave hugs to everyone for his presents

He looked cute in his little turtle Hawaiian shirt.

There was a candle for each kid on the cake.  Brennan is actually afraid of fire (which make sense after you fall into a fire pit I suppose) so sister blew it out for him.

Then everyone ate cake, this was the kids table...

And the adults table...

For Brennan's birthday, Sara wanted to do her favorite thing that she does on her birthday, going to Jumping Jacks.  She thinks that's how birthdays should be spent.  I figured why not, so we drove up to Lindon in the morning and I was pleasantly surprised that for the first half hour we were the only people there, we had the place to ourselves, then after that, there were only a hand full of kids.  Brennan did have fun and he went nuts, his favorite thing was the biggest slide in the place, the tall 2 story slide, the did it over and over and over.  He ended up with burns on his elbows from it he did it so many times.  He's a thrill seeker.  Here he is going down the big slide with Sister. 


In other news, Brennan has been riding his balance bike for about two weeks and is already a little pro at it.  When he got it for Christmas last year his feet didn't even touch the ground but his legs have grown a bit now.  So we just decided to try it again now that everything is out of storage.

Brennan talks non-stop about bikes and has since he learned to talk.  He spots bikes in the neighborhood anywhere and everywhere, and anything anyone says anything to him he usually just replies "bike".  That about sums it up.  He's obsessed with bikes, even before he'd ever ridden one.  It's a good thing I got him a helmet already because when we tried his balance bike again this time, he was ready and he took off.  It took him 2 days to learn to balance and to stop falling over and then he was unstoppable.  By the end of the week he was balancing on it and could cruise 30 feet down a hill without putting his feet down. 

Here's a video I got of him, it's not the best but it shows what he can do.
He might even be mountain biking by the time he's 5, who knows.  I'm excited to see what the future holds. 

Overall, Brennan has done a ton of growing up this summer.  He's still our cute little guy.