In the Aftermath of Christmas Day

Well, we had a wonderful Christmas day. I guess I should step back one day. I was actually not feeling well at all on Christmas Eve morning. I spent most of the morning in bed. By the afternoon, I was feeling better, but Nathan couldn't breathe though his nose. That was very unfortunate because he had to sing a solo and lead music at the Christmas Eve service that night. Hello Afrin. He calls it the miracle drug. Clears the nose instantly. I was actually amazed that the voice I heard that night was from the same person I had been hearing all afternoon. The service was wonderful. I do love candlelight Christmas Eve service. It was a little different for me because it was the first time Brenna had to sit with me through a service. She was a little distracting for me, but I still enjoyed the service.


That night we played elves. I love seeing all the presents under the tree late on Christmas Eve. Nathan and I went to bed and anticipated the fun of the morning. Brenna didn't disappoint us. She woke up early and excited about Christmas morning. What a joy it was for us to be at home with with her. I loved being able to watch her open her gifts. She was so excited when she came in first thing and saw her dolphin and her bike. I loved her exclamation. "A bike for me. It's just what I wanted for Christmas!" (Note: She really just likes to sit on it. No luck on the riding yet. Maybe one day she will learn to peddle. I won't even try to imagine no training wheels.)




We left for Mom and Dad's house in the afternoon. Christmas dinner was late but good. Now we are awaiting the arrival of Tanner (and family). We decided to wait to open the rest of the gifts which has been a little hard especially with an almost four year old She knows Christmas Day has passed, but has to look at a tree loaded with gifts everyday. She keeps asking, "Is Tanner coming today?" We tried to explain that we are waiting for Tanner and Avery so that we can all open together. That is a little hard for her, but she is managing well. It will be worth the wait come tomorrow when we can answer Brenna's daily question with "Yes, Tanner is coming today after your nap." I am looking forward to Christmas Day round two with everyone here.


Meanwhile, we have been enjoying our newest addition to the family. Call me crazy, but I just couldn't resist the cute little puppies that Mom's dog had. I love Toy Havanese breed. I may be hating myself next week when Annie and Westin realize that the puppy is coming to stay at our house. I will have to be a constant referee for sure, but she is just too cute to resist. Brenna really loves her and it will be fun to watch them grow together. We have named her Sophie Puchabelle Jones, but will call her Sophie Belle or just Sophie. She is a ball of cuteness.


Oh, one other funny story of the week. Brenna has discovered the joy of "Lip Chomp". (aka Chapstick) She has been so funny asking for her lip chomp every time she puts it down. We have laughed a lot.


I hope your Christmas week has been filled with laughter and joy as well. We have missed everyone we didn't get to see. I'll let you know how round two goes for us in a few days.

I can't believe I almost forgot the exclamation of last night. GO DAWGS! I cheered for a football team for the first time that I can remember last night. It was a lot of fun, but a little too stressful for me. Not sure I will be that committed again, but it was fun. So exciting to watch Georgia win. Sorry my Aggie friends.

Life According to Annie (Boo Bear) Oakley Jones

1. One's name doesn't always determine one's personality. Sometimes it does.
When Nathan and I picked Annie out of the litter we quickly came up with her name. I left our friends house singing, "I can do anything better than you." We watched our newly picked puppy fight back against her much larger brother. She was determined to win the battle. She was also determined to get out first. It was quite cute to watch her determination.

2. Have a style all your own.
When Annie was a puppy her two big ears didn't look so big because they lay flat against her head. Several months after we got her, I noticed that her ears started to stick up. For months I taped pennies to the ends of them to try and "train" the wayward ears to lay down. All my hard work did no good. She refused to allow her ears to stay down. That should have been a warning to me from the beginning. Annie was not going to be a laid back dog that simply did what she was asked to do. She had her own ideas.

3. You are always the biggest no matter what that other dog says.
Annie has "big dog complex". Maybe we are similar in that aspect. She always sees herself as bigger than she is. She truly believes she is bigger than every dog she meets. I try to explain to her that some dogs can eat her in one bite, but she just doesn't believe me.

4. Enjoy life to the fullest.

5. Always take time to enjoy a belly scratch.

6. Why be quite when you could be very loud?

7. Look for the opportunities in life to bark. They are always there.

8. When there is a "will" there is a "way", and there is always a "will".
This last philosophy brings me to the reason I am writing this post. We came home from Church today to find several chip bags littered across the floor. Annie is amazing in her ability to find and eat hidden foods. From the beginning of her life she has always been able to eat food out of bags, wrappers, and containers without eating the coverings. We don't know how she does it. The first time we saw this amazing ability of hers we came home to find our floor littered with little silver wrappers. I had a bowl of chocolate kisses sitting on our coffee table. Annie found the joys of kisses. Amazingly enough she didn't eat any of the wrappers. She vomited chocolate all night but was not harmed in any other way. Chocolate remains one of her favorite delicacies.

One day when I left for work, I accidental left my lunch bag on a chair. That evening when I came home, there was a small, snout sized tear in the bag. I found all the Ziploc baggies opened, empty, but not torn. I didn't find any of my lunch.

I normally leave my purse sitting on the couch. There have been several incidents of missing food that I didn't discover for awhile. She is a sneaky one. She can dig through my purse without dumping the purse over to find her treasures. She has found M&Ms from a plastic egg, junior mints from their box, fasier mints from a Ziploc bag, and endless snacks for Brenna through her three years. You would think I would learn to stop leaving food in my purse.

As you can see, today's incident is not an isolated one. We aren't sure how she even got the big bag of chips off the counter. It must have fallen down. She opened the big bag with a snout sized hole then continued to rip the perforated opening. She delicately stole three personal size bags of chips opened each back without tearing it at all. Not sure how she did that either. There were no holes in the individual bags. There were no crumbs left over. At least she cleans up after herself and only leaves the bags that are uneatable.

Christmas

Brenna and I have been baking this week. On the first day, we opened one of the "before Christmas" gifts that Oma and Pepere sent. She pulled out a Christmas apron, chef hat and oven mitts. She soon noticed my apron and oven mitts and asked where my hat was. I had to explain that Mommy didn't have a cute hat like she did. Can you guess her next question? If you guessed "Why not?" you are correct.



She also opened a box set of pre-baked gingerbread men to decorate. That was fun activity that lasted until lunch. Not sure if the cookies or Brenna's tummy got more of the decorations.



Then yesterday, I picked up the tradition that Mom set for our family. I decided to take on the mammoth task of baking five batches of Dilly Bread. I only had one mishaps. Our house is so cold even with the heat that bread won't rise. My solution? Leave the oven on all day and place the covered dough on top of the hot oven. Thank goodness that worked. The bread tasted and smelled as good as I always remembered it tasting. I do love Dilly Bread fresh out of the oven.

And why only bake one type of food when you could bake bread, cupcakes, and cake balls. It was a crazy day. Brenna got to watch TV all morning. Great morning for her. She did help with the cupcakes. Although she had to wash her hands a total of five times. She really had a hard time with not licking her fingers then picking up the sprinkles again. It was very funny, and I'm not sure it has ever taken me so long to ice and sprinkle 24 cupcakes.



As for the week before Christmas, Nathan is done with school on Friday. His break begins Monday with a few dentist appointments. Poor Nathan, but they do need to get done. I plan to spend lots of time with Nathan in the next two weeks. Brenna and I have really missed him in the last few busy months. We are all looking forward to Christmas morning with an almost 4 year old. I still have a few things to finish up, but I am almost done with all my preparations. I am looking forward to the joy of the next few weeks.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

We decorated the tree last night. I'm so glad we were finally able to do that. We couldn't really wait much longer or we wouldn't have been able to have it up much time at all. Brenna loved it this year. She was jumping around in circles, laughing, and smiling a lot. Note to self, It is not a good idea to start decorating the Christmas tree 30 minutes before bedtime. Oh well, we had a good time.


Well, most may think that a three year old or a husband with mitten fingers is most likely to be the one to break the first ornament of the year. Most would be wrong. I was the first this year. I don't think I have broken one in my adult life. It was a little sad, but I think I will get over it.

After Brenna went to bed we had to rearrange a few ornaments due to Westin's tree fetish. This is truly his favorite time of the year. He is such a funny little cat. He spends hours laying under the tree, and he loves to drink the tree's water and eat it's needles.


Lastly, look at all that snow in Karnes City!


No, it didn't really snow that much. The elementary school had a winter festival and brought in some snow. Brenna loved playing in it even though it was pretty wet by the time we got there. She really wanted to make snow angels, but was coerced to just make some snowballs. What a great idea the PTO had with that one.

Even in Karnes City

Miracles do happen. It "snowed" today, if you can call it that. Pretty sure those who live up north would not. But for us, it snowed. This was Brenna's first experience with snow. That too makes me a little sad. Now she will think little spits of white from the sky will qualify as snow. Oh well, we take what we can get. It was magical for her. We played outside for a little while and I got to take a few pictures. If you look very closely, you might see a little white speck in one corner. Yep, that would be the snow. Please don't go blind trying to find it.

Santa Came to KC

Well, I have been prepping her for days now. "Brenna, are you excited to go see Santa? Do you think you can tell him a secret? Show Mommy how you can tell him a secret. Can you give him a hug? Will you smile so pretty for Santa?" You see, last year she had a "deer in headlights" moment and wouldn't give any expression at all. I was hoping for a better Santa picture this year. I guess I will see the result soon, but I'm not sure it is very promising.

We got into the studio and I could tell she was very excited. Santa just makes her so darn nervous. The writers of "A Christmas Story" really did their research. Our Santa was so sweet, but Brenna had the same reaction terror when she saw him. She is so excited before and after, but during, Santa is just plain scary. I think we may have one picture with a smile and one picture where she could be thinking about hugging Santa. I guess it will just have to do for the year.

Santa did ask her what she wanted for Christmas. Brenna doesn't really have a concept of what Santa does at Christmas. She has watched all the movies, but we haven't really installed the "Santa Concept" into her. So her response when Santa asked her what she wanted? A dolphin. Not sure where she came up with that one, but you know what I am searching for now.

Theology according to Brenna

Brenna loves her cubbie class at Awanas. Miss Beth is her teacher and Brenna loves her. She talks about Miss Beth all week and gets very excited to see her on Wednesday nights. Last week, Miss Beth was sick and Brenna had a rough Cubbie class. Luckily Miss Beth was back today.

I was informed that Brenna came up with an interesting new theory at their bible lesson time. Miss Beth was telling the kids about when Jesus parents couldn't find him. She was expressing how worried his parents must have been. She asked, "What do you think Jesus was doing then." Brenna confidently raised her hand. "Miss Beth I know. He went to Hobby Lobby."

Do you think we have been to Hobby Lobby too many times this week?

Grown up words and More Napping

Well the napping saga continues. On Friday, Brenna finally fell asleep. YEA! And yes, she had a book in her hands. That seems to the be best way to fall asleep these days. I happened to look at the monitor about 30 minutes later and notice Brenna pick up the book, turn a few pages, sit up, put the book with the rest of her books, and lay back down. Is there such a thing as sleep reading? Such a funny girl even in her sleep.

Brenna's vocabulary continues to grow. Here are a few example.

"Possibly, Avery stayed at home."
"My dream was marvelous."
"Lunch was scrumptious."

She is truly my little sponge!

Napping

As many of you know, Brenna has decided that napping isn't really for her anymore. Unfortunately I still need Brenna's nap time. So, we have come to an agreement. Brenna goes for rest time in her bed where she meets a pile of around 20 books that she can peruse at her quiet leisure. Most days, she stays awake talking to herself and "reading" each of her books. But on a few other days, there is no escaping to the sleep monster. It drags her under to that sweet dream land of childhood. It is a sneaky little monster that comes when you least expect and sometimes even before you can finish the book.

Halloween

Well, we survived our first "trick or treat" halloween. Don't call us bad parents for not taking her out before. It just doesn't seem that important to me. We have always just been busy the other years. This year we decided to pack the car and head to SA to spend the afternoon and evening with Aaron, Liz, Tanner, and Avery. What a fun day it was. Brenna loved this new found reason dress up and knock on doors. The funniest part of the evening was Brenna at each door. First she made sure that every kid there was given their candy. Then when all the other kids left she said, "Do you have a dog?" If the answer was "Yes." She followed with, "Can I see him?" I should have guessed that the status of the neighborhood pets would be more important to her than the candy she was getting.

Fairy Brenna.

Fairy Avery

Pirate Tanner. (who, in this picture, looks just like his Daddy did at age 3.5)

Crazy Banana Brother

Kids not sure about Aaron


Love this picture of my niece and Aaron.

Brenna is on a mission.

Brenna's first Trick or Treat house. ( She is probably engaging in the first of many dog conversations here.)


It would be a little scary to open my door to this picture. A whole bunch of candy crazed kids. Aaaa!

We all had a great time and were very tired at the end of the evening. Brenna slept the whole way home, while I Nathan and I fought to stay awake. Next up, Thanksgiving.

Brenna

How is it that someone so little can have me out of my mind almost daily? My sweet little girl has a will of iron. There are so many days that I wonder how I am supposed to raise her to be well adjusted in this world. I find it humorous that she is so much of me and so much of Nathan put together, although that would make sense. There are so many times during the day when I want to pull my hair out and just start over. Am I using the right discipline techniques? Would something else work better? She brings me to my knees daily asking my heavenly Father to please guide me because I don't want to mess up his precious little gift to Nathan and I. Even with all my mistakes, I pray that she will grow up knowing that she has a Mommy and Daddy that love her dearly and she has a Heavenly Father that never leaves her side.

So here is a funny little story. I put Brenna in time out for something the other day. Don't remember now, but it probably had to do with listening and obeying. Wow that is a hard concept to learn. It's just a little ironic that I am still learning that one while I am also trying to teach it. Anyways, I moved to the kitchen and hear Brenna singing a song about why she is in time out. Talk about some silent laughter. So apparently that was not very effective. She did give me a good little laugh.

Speaking of laughter. While I am pulling out my hair daily, I am also laughing daily. She has such a since of humor. Nathan always said he wanted her to have my looks and his sense of humor. (Not sure what that says about my sense of humor. Maybe we should have a talk about that one.) I love to hear her laugh. Her laughter often brings my own laughter bubbling to the surface. Whether she is "waddle, waddle, waddling" from the bathroom or cracking herself up over a movie, I love to see and hear she humor developing.

I am blessed. I pray that someday God will grant Nathan and I a second special treasure. If not, I will constantly remind myself that I have a precious treasure. When I am saddened by what feels like a dream fading, I can hold my little Brenna bear and know she is an answered prayer. God is faithful. He will always answer my prayers. I will listen and obey.

Wow

Canyon: Came and Went





Houston Quilt Show: Been there, done that.




We have been very busy girls, but we are home now for a little while. We are all looking forward to our visit with Nonni and G-Daddy here. Brenna has been talking about it for days now. Not sure what we are going to do, but I know it will be great to visit with them.

I have many stories and lots of pictures, but I am too tired to tell it all. I think the recap would be too boring for most. Maybe I will get to some of the stories eventually. I will try to stay on top of things now that I am home for awhile.

Canyon Here We Come

Nathan made the mistake a few days ago of reminding Brenna that we were going on an airplane this week to see Krissy. As any of you with young children know, that is a big mistake.
Brenna: "Mommy are we going on the plane now." (That was Sunday. The trip is Thrusday.)
Me: "No, we have 4 more days."

Five minutes later.
Brenna: "Is it four days now?"
Repeat a million times.

By Monday, I was ready to kill Nathan. Instead I decided to make Brenna a calendar to help her see when we were going on the plane.


Brenna has a brilliant Mommy. Now every time she asks when we are going on the airplane we look at the calendar and she tells me. Sometimes I am just so smart.

Anyways, we are both very excited about our trip tomorrow. Hopefully the flight will be fine and we will have a wonderful time in the cooler weather. Thank goodness Oma is ahead of me in dressing my child. She has already provided Brenna with the only warmer clothes she owns right now. Thanks Oma and Pepere.

Off Week

In honor of our football off week, I thought I would post the pictures of Brenna's new Badger shirt. Last Friday, I wore one of my Badger shirts and Brenna again informed me that she wanted on too, "Just like Mommy's." Well, I can only resist that request so many times. I took her to Walmart in Beeville and bought a white T-shirt and some fabric. I decided to make one since I couldn't find one to buy. I made a mighty fine shirt if I do say so myself. She was quite cute in her little shirt and hair bows.

It took me longer than nap time to figure out how to make this shirt, so I decided to play a movie for Brenna while I finished sewing the shirt. Brenna kept looking over at my work and exclaiming, "Is my Badger shirt done yet, Mommy." When I finally said yes, the smile on her face made all the trouble completely worth while. She loved wearing her Badger shirt to the game last week. I guess it is all the little things that count for her.

Before the game, I took her outside to snap some shots of her new Badger look. I hope you enjoy the pictures. I couldn't narrow them down very well, so there are quite a few.

That tongue cracks me up. I used to make fun of Aaron when he was writing or doing anything with a lot of concentration. His little tongue would stick out just like Brenna's. I guess she is a little like her uncle, but I think she is just being funny here.


Not sure what that pose was for, but I thought it was cute.


Such a funny little girl.