Getting ready

I spent all day yesterday sick. I don't know what it was, but I feel better today thank goodness. I realized that I have a ton to do before we leave on Thursday afternoon. I don't think I will have enough nap time to get it all done. Hopefully I will.

So, instead of working on some of my tasks at hand, I decided to write a little. I wanted to wish everyone a merry Christmas. I'm sorry you won't be receiving a Christmas card this year. We are really trying to cut costs right now. I am hoping that next year will be different. I miss sending our our annual cards.

I was walking this morning and realized that Christmas is only a week away, which in turn makes New Years only two weeks away. Where has the year gone. It has been such a busy one for us: moving, a new job, new friends (hopefully we will be more successful on that front next year). There is a lot of sadness for me in the last few months of this year. I hope that I won't remember this year just by those sad later moments. I want to remember Brenna's first birthday and all her milestones. I want to remember being closer to my family. There has been a lot of joy mixed in with the sadness and anxiety. I learned long ago that you can't have one without the other.

So, you may not hear from me until after Christmas. I hope that you enjoy this time with your family as much as we will with ours. There will be loads of pictures to show when we return from our mammoth drives. I look forward to a new year with all our friends and family.

New things

I know I have posted about new things often, but I just love to watch Brenna discover the world around her. Today I pulled out a box of packaging popcorn and let her go to town. (It has been a rainy day.) She made a mess, but had a blast for over an hour. Unfortunetly I was so busy keeping the popcorn out of her mouth that I forgot to snap a few shots of her play time. By lunch time, we had to put the box away and vaccuum up many tiny pieces of leftover popcorn. How fun!

A few days ago, I pulled out the playdoh. That was quite fun too. She loved mashing it between her fingers. The feel of playdoh must be so strange to a young childs little hands. It isn't very often that we as adults are able to immerse our hands into a new sensation. It was fun to watch her learn about that new feeling.


She has also recently learned how to climb into the kitchen chairs. She loves to sit there any time we are in the kitchen. Fortunetly there have not been any serious falls yet. Unfortunetly there have been a few not so serious fall that have lead to a few tears. It was hard not to laugh yesterday when one of these falls occured. She hit the back of her head on her way out of the chair. I picked her up to comfort her and say she was okay. As I did the mom thing, I sat into the accused chair. She asked to be put down and proceeded to ask me to get out of the chair. She pushed it away as if to say, "bad chair". It was cute.

The Beginning of a Beautiful Relationship

As most of you know, my love for horses runs deep within me. Unfortunately this is an expensive love that we can't afford right now. I have taught lessons for years and been riding most of those years as well. It is something I miss very much right now. I can't wait for the day that God blesses me with a horse again. I can't even think of words that can describe the longing I have to feel free and one with a horse again. For now I wait.

But, yesterday I took Brenna to a fellow church memeber's house. They own a lot of land, goats, 2 horses, some cows, and a cat. Brenna was able to ride a horse for the first time and we captured the moment. Her smiles show that perhaps she may develop my love for the beautiful animal as well. She loved sitting on the back of the horse and wanted to "go" every time the horse stopped. Pretty Boy was a big hit.













Today, at least twice and hour she says, "Neigh.... Ride?"
"No Brenna, We can't ride today. We will go see the horse another day."
Oh how I would love to have one of our own.

I'm so "tute"

"Brenna, are you cute?"

Head nod twice. "Tute."

The word itself elicits cuteness. It is one of Nathan and my favorite new words now. I wish everyone could hear her speak it.

Speaking of new words. There are so many of them and so many new actions as well. She does have a sense of humor. Nathan and I are laughing at her all the time. She loves it too. We are having so much fun with her at this age. What a blessing she is. I don't want to miss even a moment of this age. I want to capture who she is now and never forget all her little stages.

And since we are are the subject of my cute baby. I wanted to show you a picture of Brenna in her Christmas dress. Cindy gave it to her. I think Jessica and Alex must have worn the dress too. It is precious and I love having Brenna wear it this year. She was mighty cute this Sunday.

The art of talking in your sleep

Those of you who know me well, know that I talk in my sleep. I have been known to sit up in bed open my eyes and carry on an almost coherant conversation with you. It has brought joy to my husband and friends who have slept in the same room with me at times. I bring a little night time humor to their worlds.

I have been wondering if talking in your sleep is something in our genes that would be heretary or if it just seeks out a random person. I don't really have the answer to that, but may be closer. Last night Brenna started to talk. It was so cute and funny because she can't really say a lot of words yet. She was speaking in a clear voice but babbling over something. I just had to laugh. Nights will be fun with her too.

On another note. Annie wanted to say Merry Christmas to all.


One other event to share. Have you ever wondered what my pets do while Brenna naps?

Apparently they nap and bask in the sun. Ahh, she is finally asleep!

"Nanta" and Christmas fun

We went to the Christmas festival here in Karnes city on Saturday. The temperature was around 75 and it was very windy. Not feeling much like Christmas. I though there was a parade, but it ended up being the old fire truck bringing Santa to the festival. While Nathan was busy playing in the band and keeping his middle school kids in line, I decided to take Brenna over to take her picture with Santa. Now, here is a little background. We have been talking about Santa some this year. I have towels up in her bathroom that have a picture of Santa on them. She can now point at every Santa she sees and promptly say "Nanta, Nanta, Nanta". I was optimistic for the picture.

We stood in line for about 5-10 min, and we could see Santa the whole time. I kept pointing to show her what he looked like. She seemed interested and excited. Of course she was also interested in the baby behind us who had a bottle of "mulk". The running commentary was "baby, baby, mulk, mulk, nanta, nanta". It was a very exciting afternoon to say the least.

We finally make it to the front and I start walking towards santa. I can feel her arms and legs begin to wrap around me and hang on for dear life. I truly believe if I let go she would not have moved an inch. So, we get up to Santa and I say, "Brenna, can you sit on Santa's lap." To which she begins to reply, "No, No, No, No" with increasing resolve on each word. The picture is proof of how we solved this problem. It's not a great picture because it is actually a picture of a picture.


This is another cute picture of what Brenna was doing the rest of the festival. She does love her sticks and rocks.