End of the Year 2014

Tonight for our Christmas Punch Calendar activity we did an end of the year list and asked each kid some questions.  Brennan had the most entertaining responses (yes I spelled Mommy wrong).

I hope I can remember to do this survey again next year.  I think it will be entertaining to see how their responses change and to read them the ones from the previous years as they age.

Also tonight, we did a coloring activity, it was easy to see which one was Brennan's he's still very much a scribbler but he never passes up a chance to color, although his favorite thing is cutting with scissors.  He never passes up a chance to cut up anything he colors.

I won't say it's been an easy year with Brennan.  He is a far different child than Sara. I think my expectations suffer a little based on what I thought raising a child was like based on my previous experience with Sara.  Sara made it easy peasy with her more laid back, easy to go along and get along attitude.  Brennan can be a real challenge at times and I've struggled off and on.    I wish I could say it's been all roses but I can't.

The latest and greatest difficulty is trantruming.  He's discovered it and is good at it.  Putting on a sweater or jacket of any kind sends him into an all out rage, he even held his breath and passed out once just because I put his sweater on.  He starts telling me early in the morning, before breakfast and before we even get dressed that he's not going to wear a jacket and will continue to tell me that he's not going to wear a jacket all day long, to the point where I've told him I don't talk about jackets any more.   Inevitably when we go outside and the cold wind is blowing he complains about being freezing.   I'm not sure how this is going to resolve, but I'm assuming either he will get frostbite or grow out of it.  His personality can be very intense and unrelenting.

Also. lately we have a real potty mouth.  I'm not sure how much of it he learned from Sara or Dan and I.  One night I was reading him a book and he leaned into my ear like he was going to say something nice and said, " Mom, kiss my butt crack".  He thinks saying butt crack, poop, stinky, and words like that are hilarious as well as burping and farting. It's become an every day occurrence.  I told Dan I feel like he acts like a mini-frat boy, Dan says he thinks it's just normal boy behavior.  I'm not really sure if it's normal or not or how worried we should be about it at this point. Once again, something I wasn't really prepared for. 

I'm hopeful that in 2015 he'll learn to sleep better, stop tantruming and holding his breath, and he'll mature a little and not be as difficult, I have my doubts though that it will happen right away.

He is cute and he can be quite nice at times and that makes up for it to some extent.

I'm glad I finally got him in a pre-school. that gives both of us a break and him a new outlook during the week.  He really enjoys it and that makes me happy that he's happy there.  I just hope he does not tell the preschool teacher to kiss his butt crack. 

This is his very first school picture:

Also, here is a cute selfie the other day :

3 years old!

We celebrated Brennan's birthday this year with a bang.  I had the crazy idea of renting a huge water slide and pitched it to Dan who gave the green light.  We found one that had a bounce house/ water slide.  It was a huge hit at the family party and a lot of fun.

Sara and I also had fun decorating the house for the party.

Then he opened presents. He got a bunch of new cars that he was excited about and some new huge trucks from Nanna. 

His favorite present was his new bike though.  He has been riding his balance bike since he was one and a half.  It took him about 24 hours to be able to ride his new bike without training wheels and another 24 hours before he was riding it and doing tricks with his feet up on the handlebars.

He also graduated to his big boy bed.  We went to the store with the intention of getting him a bunk bed but when he saw this car bed I knew we weren't going to be getting the bunk. 

Brenny has been extra busy so far this year.  When sister went back to school he started toddler tunes piano and swimming.  It's the same thing that Sara did at that age.  After almost 2 years of coming to her lessons and watching her, he finally gets a turn.

 He loves doing swimming and piano and is doing really well.  He's more of a wildcard than Sara was at that age, so I never know what he's going to do at class. Recently he started squirting his swimming teacher in the face with water toys and would laugh and wouldn't quit.  So far, he has behaved perfectly well at piano too.  They even moved him up to an older class.

He is staying busy but really misses his Sister while she is at school too.  He gets upset if she forgets to give him hugs and kisses before she leaves for school.  Also he complains a lot during the day that she is not home.  They are used to playing together quite a bit.  When she gets home from school he always tells her that he missed her.   He also really complains when she goes to play with her friends.  He desperately wants to play too but the girls really don't want him to tag along, so he sits at home and cries at the window like a dog when its owner leaves.  I've been using the time to read to him or play a game with him or color when sister goes to play with friends, to help distract him.



I'm really glad he has learned to love reading so much lately.  We spend quite a bit of time doing that every day.  Also he loves to paint and sometimes we even go to Novell for lunch dates with Daddy and to feed the ducks.   Also, I take him on a bike ride around the neighborhood every morning, he really loves zooming around the neighborhood and stopping at the park on the way home.

Brennan had his 3 year old checkup today.  He weighed 34 pounds which puts him in the 50th percentile for weight and 38 inches that put him in the 70th percentile for height.  He has really caught up on his growth and has gotten quite tall.  Maybe he will even be 6 ft tall someday or taller, who knows.  They say you can double a kids height at 3 years old and that will give you their adult height.  So that would be about 6 feet 4 inches if true. 

Brennan's doctor asked him this morning if he eats meat or grass. Brennan replied that he does not eat grass because it makes him puke but that dinosaurs do eat grass, even though sometimes it makes them puke too. That's what you get for asking a 3 year old a silly question.  He can be a real cut up. 

My favorite things about Brennan right now are that he loves to laugh, loves to read, ride his bike, loves to cuddle and give kisses, and loves his sister most of all.   We never could have imagined this little guy in our lives 7 years ago and now I can't imagine our family any other way.

He's a big boy now!

Brennan has really grown up this summer and fast!  He is set to turn three at the end of this month and he is so excited for his birthday.  He talks about blowing out his candles non-stop and he says he can't wait for Santa to bring him his birthday presents. I guess he's a bit confused.  Also, he has been telling us he wants a cake with a crab on it that says, "Oh snap, it's my birthday".   He has a shirt that he likes that says Oh snap, time for bed.  I guess we'll see what we can come up with.

He has definitely gotten much taller and much heavier this summer.  He is squarely in his 2T stuff and moving on up to 3T.  His appetite has gotten tons bigger too.

Daddy got him a big boy bike early.  He rides it already just fine without any training wheels.  He's still figuring out the pedals a bit and pedaling backwards to stop, but he has the balance down.

 

He is also potty trained now, yay!! He got donut rewards for his first few poops in the potty.  We had about 2 weeks of intensive training and accidents but he takes himself to the toilet now just fine.  The only challenge we have left is getting him to put pants back on.  He really loves to run around naked now.

He's been having a really fun summer playing and doing all kinds of things.   He loves to play in the water, whether it's a home, the splash pad, or pool.

He catches all kinds of critters by himself.  He's partial to lizards and bugs.

We have had lots of fun outdoor adventures already this summer.  He loves getting dirty and if water is involved, all the better.

He so cute!

Still his favorite person and the person he spends the most time with is Sister (that's what he calls her).

It's hard to believe he's about to be three.  We hope to get him started in swimming lessons and violin or toddler music class in the Fall.  It will be fun to spend more one-on-one time with him when Sara goes to 1st grade. 

Random picture post

Brennan really loved the snow this year, he wanted to be shoveling snow or jumping on the trampoline all winter.

One morning Daddy decided the coffee maker was dead and decided to take it apart.  Brennan was very interested in seeing what Sara called the 'guts and brains' inside it.

Sister has been reading to him a lot.  She likes to take him in her room and they read nature magazines and books.

Brennan is trying to figure out the holidays.  He still asks me every day what happened to Santa and Christmas.  I usually tell him that Santa is sleeping, Sara tells him that Santa had to go make toys for next year.  He didn't really understand Valentines Day but he loved his presents that we set out for him Valentines morning.  I think Sara has already give him a heads up for Easter, it's one of her favorites.  He also thinks birthdays are holidays.

We recently got his hair cut and the hair dresser spiked his hair with product.  It was cute, Sara found it highly amusing.  Brennan didn't seem to notice too much.  I don't know how I feel about this hair style, people go overboard with it, so I'm not sure I'll really do it very much but it was fun to see it.

He  just got his annual heart re-check for the hole and murmur he had.  We got the best possible news, the hole closed up on its own, no surgery and no more cardiology visits!!  He is cleared and totally normal.  Yay!  Now if we can just figure out what is going on with his hernia and his low iron.

Brennan really got into helping me start seeds this year.  He helped me way more than Sara and he was really good at it.

Brennan has learned to talk more better to where you can understand a lot of the things he says.  Also he has become extra affectionate, he gives me about 100 kisses and hugs a day.  He also likes to pet our heads and say, Sister is fuzzy, Momma is fuzzy, Daddy is fuzzy, and then do himeself too.

I love some of the things he says and sings.  He sings part of the Gangham Style song every day, he says, Heeeeey, Gangnam Style, over and over.  Also he likes to ask, "Can we" a lot and my favorite thing he says is "Sure", he says it a lot and it's cute.

He loves trucks, the trampoline, coloring, his bike, mud, sand, hiking, his sister, and avocado.  

Catching up

Sometimes we call Brennan Chuck Chuck, he seems to like it.  He calls himself Brennan though.  He had a good Christmas, he was quite taken with Christmas, he's still talking about Santa and this week he asked me about the Punch Calendar and where the presents are.  It's hard to explain to him that he has to wait another year before it all comes back.

Here is a pic of them at Christmas time in Riverwoods enjoying the lights on a very very cold night.

 And a pic of him at the ice castle in Midway UT, a rather disappointing event.

He also was wondering where Nanna went after she stayed with us for 3 weeks.  He told Dan that he thought she was just hiding.  However we explained to him that she went back to Nanna's house and then he understood.

On the way back from taking Nanna to the airport, we decided to go somewhere we've never been bu always wanted to go.  Red Butte Gardens, even though it was Wintertime it was still interesting there. 

B had fun climbing around on this moose :

 They had some gigantic pine cones there, almost as big as B

We can't wait to go back in the Spring and check out the gardens with foliage and flowers!

In the next few days, it snowed a lot.  Brennan is really keen to help shovel the driveway, Sara too.  They are great shovelers and really helped me out.

 Also in January, Brennan visited the dentist for the first time.  They were really impressed at how good he was, most kids they said usually scream or don't want to lay in the chair.  He laid perfectly still and did everything they asked, he even wore the sunglasses they gave him and watched them movie while they cleaned his teeth.

Then while he waited on Sister to get her teeth cleaned, he got to brush a giant dogs teeth with a giant tooth brush.

Both he and sister had no cavities, yay!

They have been doing lots of Winter biking too, Brennan has been burning up the pavement on his bike.

lots of playing with Sister on cold days inside, playing horsey.

He likes to play with his truck and cars, he lines them up on the stairs every day, he always lines them up wherever he plays with them.  He also likes Lego's and tinker toys and building things.

Recently I took them to the Circus.  Brennan loved it until they shot off some pyrotechnics and when the motorcycles were really loud then he buried his head in my jacket and wouldn't look up.  He was kind of mesmerized by it all and overwhelmed.  When we got home he told Dan that he got to see cats (there were huge Siberian tigers) and cycles. 

He's still really cute and growing fast and we really enjoy keeping up with him