Happy Birthday, Brennan!

That's right, Brennan is 4 years old today. Pretty crazy. Even crazy to think that when we came to Ohio he was the same age as Aidan is now. So looking at Aidan and then Brennan, it's just amazing to see how much growth has happened in just 2-1/2 years.

Today was a full day of celebrating beginning with opening one present when he got up, then off to his first dentist appointment (I know we know how to party!). It didn't go so well at first, hence no pictures, but he soon warmed up and was a champ about it by the end. Unfortunately, he has a couple small cavities. Talk about feeling like "mom-of-the-Year." Anyone who knows me knows I'm a fiend about brushing my teeth and I'm very thorough about my kids teeth, so I felt pretty bummed for him and me too.

After the dentist, we had lunch, walked around the mall and Brennan got a new Lightening McQueen plate with his $4.00 in birthday money from us. It was on sale for $2.99 - score! After playing at the playground, we came home to get his birthday dinner ready. He picked chocolate chip pancakes for dinner. Couple that with the chocolate cupcakes we had for dessert and everybody was on a sugar high. Presents were opened, games were played, and then bed! Woo!









Me trying to keep Aidan's chocolate hand out of Brennan's hair.




One happy birthday boy...as he said, "Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate. Everything chocolate!"

Grandma Kathy's Visit & Aidan's First Birthday (Yes, that was in the summer :0)

No captions, just pictures to get you updated :0) :


















HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BIG MAN!

Happy Birthday & Happy Father's Day, Don!

We've had a couple of celebrations during the past few weeks. Don turned 31 on June 4 and then, of course, Father's Day last week. For Don's birthday, we got him some fun presents and spent the day together relaxing as a family. Then that evening, we had a double-date with our good friends Liesel and Darren - dinner at a local restaurant that's really tasty (included Deep Fried Bacon) and we saw Star Trek, which it was pretty good. Our wonderful friend Kristine, watched Brennan, Aidan, and their daughter, Liea. It was a fabulous day.





We had a quick overnight visit with our friends, the Rice Family and played some action-packed games of Family Business - yeah Don Bridgette won 'em all. To the mattresses!

For Father's Day, the gift from the boys and me was redecorating (or rather decorating) Don's office. Some nice pictures, a few decorative things, a couple Bonsai trees, a splash of color, desk organization, one candy dish later and voila! - the new office. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a before picture, so you'll just have to trust me that it was an improvement.






During Father's Day weekend, we also had some awesome fun with Kitty and John, some of our peeps from LA. They're moving to Australia and included us on their farewell tour. John is a Motion Capture Animator (the kind of animation they used for Gollum on LOTR) and is going to be working on a movie "Down Undah." It was so great seeing them because we just laugh the entire time we're together. Now I just miss them more.





Aidan turned 11 months on Father's Day and he is all over the place. He crawls so fast and has been pulling up and cruising for a few months now. Then on Thursday, he took his first two real steps! He did it two/three times that day. He was so excited with himself - it was super cute.






Brennan is still doing great with potty training and loves helping take care of Aidan - sometimes too much :0). He's recently really gotten into music and, in particular likes to play "drums" with any large object and my wooden spoons. He even went and grabbed one of his metal kitchen pans and used it as a cymbal kind of drum. It was cool. Then the other day, he gave Aidan a metal pan and spoon and the two of them sat there and jammed together. Classic!

The Unassailable Logic of a Three-Year-Old

(This is a duplicate post from my [Bridgette's] personal blog, but it's just so funny I had to share it here , too.)

Here's a conversation Brennan had today with the nursery worker at church:

Michelle - "Brennan, do you need to go to the bathroom?"
Brennan - "No."
Michelle - "Well, maybe Thomas on your underwear needs to go pee."
Brennan - "But Thomas doesn't have a penis."
Michelle - "Does your penis need to go pee?"
Brennan - "No, but my testicles might."
Michelle - "Do your testicles need to go pee?"
Brennan - "No, they don't have a penis."

There you have it, folks!

Coleman Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph

SO EXCITING!!!!!

Sorry, I was going to give you more time to peruse the new post from yesterday before putting another up, but I'm so excited that I just have to share. However, be forewarned, this is mom excitement so sorry if it's too much information for you.

I was up in Aidan's room switching out his clothes when Brennan woke up from his nap. He went downstairs to hang out while I finished up in Aidan's room. A few minutes later Brennan calls up to me saying he went poopie and pee-pee. He had a pull-up on since he'd gotten up from his nap, so I figured he used that and wanted me to help clean up. So I called down that I'd be there in a minute. He called back up again, explaining more...he had, in fact, pooped on the potty! I was so excited but also a little afraid to believe it. Sure enough, I run down and there's a little smiling boy sitting on the potty with poop in it! It was an exciting moment. He ended up pooping three times in the potty - woo hoo! Hopefully, this means we've had a breakthrough...hopefully...

Land of the Lost

No, I'm not referring to the new Will Ferrel movie which is a remake of the old TV show, but to our egregious lack of updating our blog. Three months!? It feels like we (or at least I - Bridgette) have been a little lost.

So I'll give you a quick synopsis of the last three months and then a boat-load of pictures sans captions - hey, if you want to get caught up I don't have time for that! :0)

After Brennan's birthday, we had a great visit from Grandpa Herb. My dad hadn't seen Aidan yet, so it was a true blessing that he had a business trip to Cleveland and could come down for a couple nights. Brennan sure loved seeing him. After that, January was a pretty slow month. Although, Aidan did begin to do some fun things. He started some consonant sounds (da-da and tuh-tuh) and started to blow raspberries - a lot (he still likes to do this). Aidan was also on the move. He began rolling over back in December and then sitting up on his own in January. In the beginning of February, we had a fun visit from the Gypsons and got to catch up with them and rub the belly that is now Chloe :0). I also celebrated my 33rd birthday (crazy!) by going on a lunch date with Don and then coming home for ice cream cake with the boys. By this time, Aidan was able to put himself back into a sitting position.

If you didn't know it, I'm on the MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) Steering Committee as the Publicity person. Every year our MOPS group has a tea and some moms share their story. I shared mine. It had been awhile, but it was a great time and I think it was what the Lord was asking for me to do. The biggest thing in March though was my first GIANT road trip with Brennan and Aidan - alone. Don was on a medical mission trip to Honduras and so I decided I didn't want to be by myself for the week and went to visit the Rices near Atlanta, GA. Both boys were actually great in the car. There were times that were difficult (like trying to use the restroom with both of them),but on the whole it was good. And of course, seeing Jenn, Brad, and Paige was awesome. We had so much fun (even if there was some sickness involved, Jenn - believe it!!) Don also went to NC four days after getting back from Honduras for study leave with friends from seminary. I stayed home that time but decided to have a tea and watch Pride and Prejudice. It was a great evening with wonderful fellowship and yummy food.

Now in April, our weather has been nicer and the sun is out. We had Snickers declawed (couldn't do it anymore - we'd like new furniture some day) on April 1. Don's family came down to celebrate Easter with us. We decided not to do a big dinner, which was nice because we were able to get out of the house more. We went to Franklin Conservatory in Columbus to check out the butterfly exhibit and we we wandered around our little downtown. Brennan has REALLY been missing them since they left. He even told me that I could bring him to Grandma and Grandpa's and leave him there so he has time with them - too cute! After Easter, we had a new roof put on. The biggest blessing there is that our insurance covered most of the cost, so we are truly thankful. Finally, just a couple of days ago, we took Brennan to his first movie! We went and saw Earth. It took him a couple minutes to warm up (mostly b/c of a PG preview at a G movie), but then he really enjoyed it and wanted to go again after we got home. :0)

Oh, and what evening out wouldn't be complete without a trip to Urgent Care. The picture below of Brennan's forehead is from an unfortunate meeting with an island counter top while we were at a friend's house for dinner. Thankfully, he did not need stitches. The doctor pinched the gaping wound together and sealed it with some "glue." Three scars for three years; let's hope this track record does not continue.

So that's it! Now here are all the photos - enjoy! We'll try to be better about this...really:





























Okay, I'm making an exception for this picture. Just before this was taken, Brad was putting on sunblock. He turned to Jenn and I and, in all seriousness asked, "Did I get it all?" Yeah,...Jenn & I were crackin' up.