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

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.