Easter Bunny Picture

I went to the mall on Friday. Before going, I was thinking I might get Brennan's picture taken with the Easter Bunny. Once we got there, I got sidetracked and almost forgot all about it. We were getting ready to exit on the 2nd floor when I saw the Easter Bunny below. I decided we should at least go check it out.

Obviously I've never paid that much attention to the photos with the bunny or Santa before because I had NO IDEA how much they cost. I was looking at the sign when the cashier told me that there are six packages, but each of them is $21.99. I thought that sounded completely ridiculous; especially when the quality probably wouldn't be that great.

I almost turned back around and didn't do it, but decided to go for it anyways. :)

Brennan was asleep in his stroller. I felt bad having to unbuckle him and get him out just for a silly picture that mommy wanted. One of his socks fell off when I was getting him out, so I went ahead and took the other sock off too. He stayed asleep, but was getting hungry so we had a hard time getting a picture without his hands in his mouth. Check out his toes! He spreads them apart so far and they are so long!



Well worth my $21.99 plus tax I think! ;-)

Safe Arrival

We made it to the hotel on our first road trip with Brennan! He slept the whole way. Such a good baby! I took him out of his car seat to try to wake him up to eat, but he was still sleeping!

Friday's Fab Five

I feel like such a slacker since I haven't posted anything since last Friday. I will try my best to post some new pictures soon! Brennan wore blue jeans for the first time yesterday and I didn't even get a picture!

Today, instead of five fabulous things, I thought I'd pick five things that I am currently praying for and perhaps you'd pray for them too. Here's to power in numbers!

1. Healing - Brennan has a cold. :( I hate that there isn't much you can do for a baby with a cold. We are keeping him elevated, using a humidifier, using saline drops, and trying to suck snot out of his nose. He is still being a great baby most of the time, he is just super congested. The doctor said his chest is clear, so that's a praise, but I want him to be all better soon! As a side note, he slept 7.5 hours straight Wednesday night! Such a big boy!

2. Travel mercies - We will be taking our first road trip with Brennan this week. We are going to a wedding in Great Neck, NY. Hopefully all will go well. I've already started packing Brennan's bag to make sure I have everything we could possibly need.

3. Smooth move - Josh, Amanda, and Adah are getting ready to make a cross country move. Josh will be driving and Amanda and Adah will fly. I pray everything with the movers goes well on Monday and that traveling goes great too. I absolutely can't wait until you get here! I can't wait for you to meet Brennan!

4. Baby Mason - My cousin Beth's husband's nephew (did that make sense???) has recently been diagnosed with Usher Syndrome. I have done very little reading about it, but that little boy is certainly in my prayers. Pray for his parents as they look for the best options in dealing with this new diagnosis.

5. Cancer - On Wednesday, a teacher from school came by the house to drop off a present for Brennan from another teacher. Later that afternoon, I found out that the teacher who had given the gift (Patty) has just started chemo for treatment of Hodgkins Lymphoma. Patty worked with me during math everyday, so I know her well and pray for strength for her and that the chemo kicks the cancer's butt!

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

Friday's Fab Five

Here's a RaNdOm assortment of blessings from this week.

1. Tomorrow is the first day of spring! I am loving this spring-like weather. I know I mentioned it last week too, but it's worth mentioning again. I'm sure it won't last forever, but I am enjoying it while it's here. I love taking walks and I love being able to hear the birds chirp when I am up for Brennan's first feeding of the day! Bring on the sunshine!

2. Brennan went to visit my classroom on Wednesday! It was so nice to surprise the kids with a visit. They were very excited! It was nice to see all my co-workers too!I also met with my principal while I was at school and I am now officially a stay-at-home-mom. She recommended that I take a year without pay instead of resigning, just to keep my options open. I submitted my official letter yesterday, so I am not going back to work next school year. I'm sure there will be days that I miss it, but I am definitely looking forward to spending my days with my little man. I feel very blessed to be able to do so.

3. Brennan is still getting spoiled. We still get several presents in the mail each week. I don't have pictures to share of them, but this week he got an outfit from Baby Gap and an outfit from Carters. He got this awesome I LOVE MOM AND DAD onesie from Target (thanks, Val!!! I like it so much I think I'll buy him another one, oh wait I already did!). He also got 3 new books. There was also a regift of an ugly black crow (thanks, Laura), but that one was for mommy and is part of a long story.

4. I love organizing stuff! Yesterday I cleaned out and reorganized Brennan's closet. It looks much better. I also went through my dresses and took out ones to donate to Goodwill. Nothing's better than a little spring cleaning! Hopefully today I can go through more of my clothes.

5. Now saving the best for last! The Dishmons will be here soon! The movers come one week from Monday to pack up their stuff in Monterey and after a visit in Texas, they will here! I cannot wait. This will probably show up on my Fab Five up until they get here! Here is where they'll be living and where Brennan and I will be spending a lot of our time!

So Big!

I thought Brennan looked extra grown up in his outfit today, so I decided we needed to have a photo shoot.

It got off to rough start after I took his binky away.


So, he got his binky back and was much more content.


I think he looks like he's in time-out in this one.


But he wasn't thinking he was in time-out, he was getting ready to spit up. Right before this picture, his binky flew out of his mouth along with a fountain of spit up. You can see that his outfit is wet now.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Our little leprechaun!

Brennan's Pictures

Here is the link and password to see the entire gallery of Brennan's pictures.

www.beckyandersonphotography.com/brennan

password: babybear

We highly recommend Becky Anderson to anyone in the area that needs pictures taken!

Power of Prayer

This week at church is our annual missions conference. Normally Kyle and I don't attend Sunday night services, but Kyle was asked to run the sound board last night, so we all decided to go. One of the missionaries our church supports, Rev. Tom Ward, was the speaker yesterday. I didn't hear this entire message last night because I was walking around with the baby, but at the end he gave some pointers on improving your prayer life and I thought I'd share.

He did an illustration with 10 volunteers. Each volunteer was given a sign to hold up representing a people group from around the world to show what percentage of the world is Christian, what percentage has a chance to be exposed to a Christian message, and what percentage has absolutely no exposure. He focused on that group; which represents 30% of the world.

The names of those groups making up the 30% form the acrostic THUMB: Tribal, Hindu, Unreligious, Muslim, and Buddhist. He then recommended that during our daily prayer time to hold up our left hand, start with our thumb, and recall the acrostic to help us to remember to pray for this unreached group of people.

He then encouraged us to hold up our right hand at prayer time and to always be praying for five unsaved people that we know and have contact with.

Neither of those things take up much time.

Both help give some focus and direction to your prayer time.

Just something to think about!

Friday's Fab Five

Happy Friday Everyone!

1. We "celebrated" Brennan's 1 month birthday yesterday! The first month went by so fast!

2. Praise the Lord for the beautiful weather we had at the beginning of the week. Brennan and I got to go for a walk 5 days in a row! Now we know that he loves his stroller. And mommy has been getting some much needed exercise.

3. This song has been stuck in my head constantly since Kyle put the CD in my car. Love it! (I couldn't embed the real video and the other videos weren't good, so just go and listen).

4. Now that I am staying at home with the baby and have more time on my hands (yeah right), I want to be better about sending people birthday cards. At the beginning of the month, I bought cards for everyone in my calendar who has a March birthday. I hope I can be as good about sending them out in the future too. Hopefully they'll bring some birthday cheer!

5. I am looking forward to a relaxing weekend. We have no plans, other than praying we can make it to church on time on Sunday with losing an hour of sleep!

Have a great weekend and don't forget to spring forward!

Dear Brennan,

What an incredible month! It has absolutely flown by! You are growing bigger and bigger each and every day. I think you're going to have big feet because you fill out the footies in your newborn-size sleepers now. You're still wearing mostly newborn clothes, but wear a few things that are 0-3 months. You are now wearing size 1 diapers and we like both Pampers and Huggies.

You really like your binky and have it in your mouth almost all the time when you're awake. When you are awake, you are almost always very content. You like listening to mommy read you books and you like music a lot too. You spend a lot of your wake time in your bouncy seat on top of the kitchen table. In fact, you sleep there a lot too! You are a good sleeper at night, sometimes going 5 hours between your feedings already! Mommy likes those nights! The best part of night time is that you go to sleep easily. You usually eat around 8 or 8:30, we read a Bible story, you get swaddled after that, I sing "Jesus Loves Me" to you, and then just lay you in your crib. You put yourself to sleep! The same happens after nighttime feedings too! You're a champ!

You're great in your car seat and the stroller. The weather has been warm lately, so we've gotten to take lots of walks! You also love your Snugli carrier and always fall right to sleep in it. You've been out to eat several times, gone to both casinos, and mommy and daddy even had a dinner date without you while Ga-Ga and Auntie Lauren were here visiting.

It has been so much fun this past month! You have brought more joy to my life than I could've ever imagined! I can't wait to see what the next month brings!

Love,
Mommy

1 month!

I can't believe my baby boy is already one month old! We decided to do our photo shoot with the giraffe first thing this morning since he was wide awake. I hadn't even brushed his hair yet, so it's a little messy! I can definitely tell he is growing!

Brennan back at 1 week


Brennan today at one month


This one is right before he fell over! Oops!


And a close up!

Introducing a Bottle

Brennan's pediatrician advised us to start introducing him to a bottle between 3 and 4 weeks. Tonight was the night! I pumped a little yesterday and today and then after dinner Kyle gave him his first bottle. He did really well. (Both and Kyle and Brennan!) He was a messy eater, but I was impressed with his first bottle-feeding! He ate the entire 3 oz that was in the bottle!

Big Boy Bath!

Brennan got his first big boy bath tonight. He was such a trooper. He just looked all around.

Friday's Fab Five

Yet again I feel like this week has flown by. I am in shock that in less than a week Brennan will be 1 month old! INSANE! I hope this post finds you ending a fabulous week and getting ready to start a fabulous weekend!

1. Mom and sister-
My mom and sister were here Thursday-Wednesday. It was so much fun! They spoiled Brennan, which was exactly what they were supposed to do. Them being here gave me time to do laundry and get other things done around the house. I even took one nap while they were here and I haven't been good about taking naps at all! Them visiting also got us out of the house. Brennan has now been out to eat several times and has experienced both of the casinos! (You might like this story about our trip to Foxwoods!) It also gave me a chance to use my Snugli carrier and Brennan loves it! I think I still want an Ergo at some point, but the Snugli works great for now.

2. Bible reading-
I am extremely happy to say that my Bible reading is still going strong. Members of our church are participating in reading the Bible in a year. I am exactly up-to-date and feel pretty proud of myself for sticking to it even after having a baby! Today I finished the book of Numbers and am getting towards the end of the Mark. I really like starting my day with reading the Word.

3. Pandora-
My loving husband got off work early on Monday. He decided to take a trip to Lowe's to get some things for around the house. That's not the only stop he made though. He also bought me 3 new Pandora charms! He was even nice enough to put them on my bracelet for me. I found the box in the garbage, so I knew something was up. He bought me more blue charms and said that the bracelet can be my Brennan bracelet, since it alternates now between silver and blues.

4. Praying-
Speaking of my red-hot, smokin' husband, last week's posts over at Today's Housewife have me thinking of ways I can be praying for him. The ladies over there had some great ideas:

• Praying From Head to Toe
• Ephesians 6:10-20
• Daily Prayer

5. American Idol-

I am an American Idol fan. I have been since the end of season one when I started watching episodes with my friend Laura. I wasn't sure I was going to get into it this season, but I am now liking it. Now that we have a DVR, I usually record it and start it late so I can fast forward or watch it the next day. I don't think this is my favorite season, but I do have people I really like.

• Crystal Bowersox
• Lily Scott
• Siobhan Magnus (she is starting to grow on me after this week)
• Lee Dewyze
• Casey James
• Alex Lambert

Family

Mr. Brennan is pretty popular around here! While my mom and sis were visiting, my Aunt, Uncle, cousin, and Luke came by too.

My Uncle Billy


The whole fam (minus Kyle who was taking the picture)

Peek-a-Booby

So...
today I took my mom and sister to Foxwoods casino. My mom had been before, but wanted my sis to see it too. We ate lunch at California Pizza Kitchen and while there I fed Brennan. It was a little crowded to feed him at the booth though, so once I got done eating, I decided to go out into the main area and use my "hooter hider" there to feed him. In the middle of feeding him, this cute little old lady came up and said, "Whatcha got under there?" I thought she was being facetious and told her it was a baby.

Well, I think she thought I just had my baby covered up with a blanket, so she peeked over the top of it only to realize I was nursing the baby!!!

She was so embarrassed! It actually didn't embarrass me at all. I guess I've lost all sense of modesty now! I just thought the lady was cute and her reaction was precious. I told her it was completely fine and she smiled at me and said, "God bless."

Pretty much hilarious I think!