Friday, December 21, 2007



At McGrath's Brian has been unofficially designated as the blackboard artist... they even bought expensive chalk at Brian's suggestion. Here's some pictures of some recent ones. He finally got the Christmas one done (has to work on this on his own time, as in staying 'til 2:00am after a managing shift).
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The customers always comment about the pictures, often touching them and asking if they're stickers or something. It's been fun for Brian to practice his talent.
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The Christmas ones you can click on to see enlarged


Saturday, December 15, 2007

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Congratulations to my sister Kelly and family for the arrival of KENNA JANE RICHARDSON, Dec. 8th. 8 lb, 1 oz. Haven't seen any pictures yet, but I can't wait!

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Slideshow

blogger just added a new option: a photo slideshow. I'm giving it a try, so let me know what you think.

If you hold your mouse over the pictures you'll notice options to skip to the previous or next photo. If you click on the photo it will open the album. The pictures are shown larger and you can also view my other albums.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

My Very Own Chicken Little


This afternoon/evening Brennan and I went on a walk. It was starting to get a little dark outside by the time we headed home. Up ahead, far away clouds were turning gray in the evening sky. Suddenly, Brennan stopped and pointed to the clouds and cried, "OH NO! The Sky is Broken!" It was hilarious.

As I do this, Brennan is pointing at the picture and saying that same thing, adding "We need to fix it!"

Friday, November 2, 2007

Sugar Cookies


Brennan helped me make some sugar cookies. I got some great video-camera footage of him rolling some flour (w/ a little dough in it) at his station at the counter. He definately got plenty messy! All I could think when I saw him though, was "this is why 2 year-olds are worth it!"

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Happy Halloween!

Brennan had a busy halloween this year. We attended a "harvest party" at the Indoor Park yesterday where among other things, he made his Dada a lovely necklace of dyed raw pasta.

Today we went to a potluck held for/by the LDS families that live in our complex. (People jokingly call those of us who live in Camas Commons the "Camas Commons Branch") We immediately left for the ward's trunk-or-treating activity.

Here's the weird part: I gave Brennan several days with his costume to overcome his fear of it - new things make him nervous. Each experience with it began with great excitement, followed by an anxious "GET IT OFF ME!" cry for help within 2 minutes. When we got to the church building tonight, I put his costume on and he stayed in it for about and hour and a half!

After the parade of costumes inside we all met outside for the trunk-or-treating part and Brennan flipped out! He got in the car several times crying and begging to go home despite all my best efforts to explain that all he had to do was walk around and he'd get candy! Finally, after quite some time he did walk around, though was too scared to approach anyone at their cars. My parents who'd I'd convinced to come help me, gave Brennan most of his candy, and at the few other cars he walked past the people had to go to him and hand him the candy.

When trunk-or-treating ended we drove to McGrath's to say hi to Brian. Within a few minutes there Brennan finally went through his usual "overwhelmed by the costume" thing.

All in all it was a fun night. Due to his nervousness Brennan didn't get a whole lot of candy, which is great because now I don't have to worry about him (or me) living off of it for the next month.

By the way, as for my costume, I was a lion-tamer.



Pumpkin Patch

Last week we went to a local pumpkin patch/farm. We didn't actually go to the pumkin patch itself because, knowing Brennan, we figured the hayride there was out of the question. (He went with his friend and her family a few days later and turns out that he liked the ride once it got going. This kid is a conundrum.) Staying at the cornmaze/home base proved to be fun enough anyway. Brennan played in a corn box, had rubber duck races with Dada, cock-a-doodle-dooed with the roosters, and wandered around the hay maze.




Friday, October 12, 2007

Some Styles Never Go Away

Yesterday morning I went outside to carry the recycling to the curb. Brennan followed me out and ran around in the wet grass in the mean time. He joined me back inside to "help Mama" work on the bike, and as he settled down next to me I noticed his shoes were dirty with grass clippings and mud. I told Brennan he needed to take off his shoes because they were wet and dirty.

I little while later as I went to put those shoes away for him, I noticed the "grass clippings and mud" weren't exactly what I thought they were.... Can you tell what it is?

That's right, Brennan had managed to pick up a snake skin on his shoe. Yuck! You know, besides the grass, Brennan plays in the bushes too. I wonder how long he's been playing among snakes!

I guess this makes Brennan more fashionable than me... I've never owned a pair of snake-skin shoes!


And just because I'm obsessed with my little guy, here's some more pictures:

We had some indoor picnics a few days ago, which Brennan quite enjoyed.


I caught him playing in his closet... what a goof-ball! (Yes the floor of his closet is our "storage room." As far as he's concerned though, plastic bins make a good chair.)

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Nice Days

This is from about a month ago. It was a nice day outside, so Brennan and I sat outback and played. He was so silly. He plays ring-around-the-rosies with the trees and wrestled his teddy bear. I sure love Brennan!


Saturday, September 29, 2007

Neighborhood Cat Lady

Kinda funny story...

About a week ago an unfamiliar cat showed up at our doorstep. For days this cat hung around, even running into our legs trying to run inside when we opened our door. A few days ago the cat actually made it inside, which Brennan thought was just GREAT! He laughed and laughed at the cat as it hid under his bed upstairs. While the cat snuggled with me inside, I was able to read it's tag with a name ("Scribbles") and phone number. I at least knew she had a home. After another day or two with our doorstep visitor, I began to really worry about whether or not she really did have a home anymore. I called the phone number, and the family called back and talked to Brian. Apparently, The family lives just a few rows away from us in our townhouse-complex, but they hadn't seen Scribbles for a few days... they were also new to the neighborhood. Scribbles seems to have just been confused on which house was hers.

That night at about 1:00am, Brian and I were about to go to bed (we stay up crazy late), when we heard a cat's collar outside our door. Feeling bad that Scribbles apparently wasn't back at her real home, I opened the door and to my surprise, a completely different, again unfamiliar, cat ran past me and up our stairs. Once I got this one outside I started laughing. "Brian, I think I've become the neighborhood cat lady!" Considering the fact that this has never happened before, what are the odds that I'd get 2 strange cats in my house within the same week?

Sunday, September 2, 2007

Ultrasound


We're so excited for our next little munchkin! Doesn't he already look so cute? In the 2nd picture he's biting his lower lip, upper lip is protruding out.
Due date: January 14th, 2008
Gender: Boy
He's already an active little kid, and as experience has shown with Brennan, it's just the beginning of such busyness.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Templeman Camping Trip


We had a really fun time on the Templeman Family Camping Trip... so much fun that we forgot to take a group picture. Oh well. The trip involved Mom & Dad, Kelly & kids, Jenny & kids, me & family, Shannon, Devon, & Uncle Matt.

Brennan and his cousin Justin loved to cover themselves (and everyone else) in the dirt.


The campground was situated on the beautiful Burney Falls in California and next to Britton lake.

Brennan is NOT a water-kid, however with the influence of his swimming cousins he did venture into the water as far as his knees a few times. It was actually easier to watch Brennan at the lake than at the campsite... in the former he'd run all over the place, but at the latter he'd stay put throwing sand into the water.


Saturday, August 4, 2007

We got back from Idaho a few days ago... had a really great time there. Brennan LOVED his uncles! He called both Greg and Adam "Uncle Greg" because for some reason he just could not remember Adam's name. Whenever they weren't around Brennan would call "Uncles, where are you?" He also loved seeing both his Grandmas and Grandpas Stevenson, and Aunt Shannon of course. Brennan loves family!

We kept him and ourselves busy with lots of activities, while also making sure to spend time just relaxing. After all, isn't that what vacations are for?

Besides going simply for a vacation, we also took the opportunity to announce to the Idaho family mem
bers that we're expecting our second child. We're very excited about it. I'm now almost 17 weeks along... due January 16, 2008. Pretty cool.


Brennan still loves to wrestle with big stuffed animals. In this case he also loves Winnie the Pooh, so he'd sing the theme song as he pinned the poor bear.

Notice Brennan's face... he thinks he's being so funny 'cause he was imitating Grandma and Mama sitting at the side of the playground.

Surprisingly, Brennan wasn't too scared to be in the petting area of the Idaho Falls Zoo.




Watch Brennan's reaction at the end when he touches the goat's horns.

Ahhhh, there's lions at this place!
Just thought this one was cute.

Brennan's too distracted by the geysers to smile for the camera. He LOVED the geysers though. He'd spot every one of them from the car by their steam and proclaim "geyser!" and "hot!" over and over until spotting the next one.

Playing at a park at 8:30 in the morning on the way home. Yes, we'd been in the car long enough to need a break by that time.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Michael and Tracey (who's apparently pregnant) walking out of the house.

Ed wearing an OSU baseball helmet (Go Beavs, back to back world series champs) after dancing to the OSU fight chant.

Ed & Tanya posing for their camera crew.


Last week the Extreme Makeover Home Edition show came to Corvallis. As they built the house for the deserving Byer family, us spectators were allowed to watch from the side-lines. My sister Devon and I tried to sign-up to volunteer several times, but alas the list fills up too fast. Anyway, I watched on Thursday and saw nothing but the local volunteers pushing dirt around out front.

On friday I went back to watch... but this time I took Brennan. Dhun dhun dhun! See, Brennan is obsessed with buses. The whole way over to the shuttle (school bus) he repeated "ride the bus, ride the bus..." Once arriving he charged up the stairs and half way down the aisle excitedly, until suddenly stopping, turning, and tearfully exclaiming "all done! Off bus!" He calmed down enough that we rode it anyway, but he whimpered the whole time reminding me he was "all done." Come time to ride it back to the parking lot, almost the same scene except without the initial excited part.

The good part was that I got to watch 3 takes of recording the "I got the keys!" moment. Ty wasn't there either day I watched, but at least on friday I saw the designers from afar, and watched them move in the first loads of furniture. Very exciting. Brennan was very good and stood right under me, or made me hold him, while I took pictures and such.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Last week to escape the heat one day we took a rather big family trip to the Oregon Coast Aquarium and the beach. Brian, Brennan and I went, as well as both my parents, (my dad coincidentally ended up with the afternoon off from work) and 3 of Brennan's cousins who are visiting G'ma & G'pa Templeman for a few weeks. We had a lot of fun. Brennan especially liked the seals and going through the fish & shark tunnels. Walking over the windows didn't make him as uncomfortable as it makes most adults. The beach was really fun too. Brian and my Dad flew their fancy kites, and even cousin Hannah took a turn and did a great job. Brennan got nice and messy as you'll see, but he had an absolute BLAST rolling around in the sand with Hannah and Brynne.

For FHE recently we went on a walk to a nearby park. Brennan is a quick walker (actually, runner) so walks can be a good source of exercise in the end. Brennan's also good about holding hands.

Had to put in this one of Brennan w/ his aunt Devon. He loves helping people on the computer (which he's doing right now, pointing out Devon on the screen) and loves is aunt Devon!

Dada and Brennan. Aren't they cute?!?

It's been almost a year, but Brennan still loves to wear his halloween costume around.

Friday, June 8, 2007

Summer's Coming

Our little baseball star to be. Brennan took a shot at tee-ball at Grandma and Grandpa's house.


Life's going pretty good for us. Brian has one more week of school before his term ends, and I have one more week of freedom before my term starts. Brennan has always been a chatterbox but he's learning more and getting better pronunciation every day. I love discovering all the concepts he understands. You can see him beginning to get "if-then" concepts. The other day I told him "when you're all done crying then you can get down." He promptly stopped crying, told me "all done crying" and got down. He never gets down until I tell him directly that he may, but he understood his requirements. I was impressed.
My parents got a kitten recently and Brennan and I love to go over and visit her. Brennan is a nut about her though! The whole car trip there he repeats "Kitty. Grandma's house." Once there Brennan goes crazy jumping and chasing the poor thing as he shrieks and laughs. Abby, the kitten, can be pretty wild, but with Brennan she's met her match. Unfortunately non of the rest of us can stand the volume level when they're together. You really have to see it to believe it. Brennan gets so hyper!

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Trip to Grants Pass


Brennan LOVED the top bunk

After spilling water all over himself, Brennan was stripped to the diaper. So no, he's not actually naked.


The three busy rascals: John, Brennan, & Justin

Brennan and I just got back from Grants Pass where we visited my sister Jenny and her children. We had a lot of fun. Brennan spent lots of time playing outside with John and Justin getting nice and grubby. By the end of each day he was totally EXHAUSTED! I think he's going to sleep for the next week straight.
About a week before we left my friend Angie called to see if Brennan and I wanted to accompany her and her two children on a trip to Grants Pass. It was a total coincidence that I was already going by Jenny's invitation the same weekend! So, I carpooled with Angie. Her daughter Clara is Brennan's age and they are the best of friends. (Brennan learned to say "Clara" about the same time he finally learned to say "Mama.") They had fun together in the car for the 3 hour commutes, and were surprisingly good for us Moms.
It sure is nice to be home though. I really missed Brian those 4 days.