Thursday, December 17, 2009

Christmas and food and pumpking pancakes

I'm excited!! Tonight, we're celebrating Christmas as a family. I'm making breakfast for dinner (well, not really. I made pumpkin pancakes a little bit ago so all I have to do is defrost them and nuke them). But I am going to make cinnamon rolls and cook up some bacon and eggs, yum yum! Seriously, I have recently gotten a love for cooking. I have always tried to cook one new dish a week, lately I've been trying new dishes left and right (and thankfully, no bombers yet). Really, so far in our married life, I've only bombed two dishes. One was Rachael Ray's turkey burgers (I'm not a Rachael Ray fan) and a chicken dish I attempted in our crock pot (the chicken disinegrated and only black ashes were left by the time I got home from work, ha!).

But back to Christmas tonight. . . Jon and I are both excited to see what Brennan does with a wrapped present. He probably wont have any idea what to do with it, but maybe he'll get the hang of it! We decided to celebrate tonight because I have a feeling we're going to be busily packing tomorrow night (uhh, haven't started yet) and we leave early Saturday morning.

Two other food related items for you:
1) I have recently developed a LOVE for Chipotle, can I hear an amen?? For some reason, I always thought I didn't like that restaurant, but hello, yes I do!!!
2) I have tried MANY dishes from this woman's website: Pioneer Woman and ALL of them have been fantastic (in fact, for Thanksgiving, I brought all new dishes to dinner (not recommended) and they were from her site- so good!). And I love her blog and personality, so check her out! But don't start reading her love story because you will get sucked in and it will eat up an entire nap (but it really is great :)

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

B-Man at 9 months



I was thinking the other day that I want to write a list of quirky Brennan-ism's that he has at this age so I can remember them.

- When he's upset, he sucks him thumb and goes "ummgh ummggh umggh" trying to soothe himself. It makes us laugh every single time. I'll try to get footage of it sometime if I can- because it's really hard to explain.
-He has a nursery full of toys but always chooses to play with a box of diaper rash creams and other random things. Sorting through that bin and chewing on everything will keep him occupied for a long time!
-He HATES getting his diaper changed. We try to keep him occupied with a toy in his hands, but sometimes he rolls over and crawls away in the middle of it. I've likened it to wrestling a greased pig.
-He'll eat anything but peas. When I try to give him peas, he has a meltdown and I usually have to take him out of highchair just to soothe him! I don't give him peas much. :)
-I swear he knows when Jon's about to come home from work because he stands at the baby gate and says "dadadadaddadada" every day right about 5:00.
-He loves when we jump out and say "boo". Usually he laughs so hard he falls over.
-He also loves the computer and any cord, which is why I need to wrap this bad boy up. Why do I not post during his naps???

We're homeward bound in T- 3 days!

Monday, December 14, 2009

Thoughts from my crazy head this morning:

You.are.rich.

Whether you have student loans, or you don't. Whether you live paycheck to paycheck or have lots in savings. Whether your home is worth half the amount it was when you bought it (welcome to our life) or it's worth more than you bought it for. Whether you think you are, or you don't. You are rich. Simply because you live in the United States of America. You get to eat three meals a day and have clean water and a roof over your head.

1 Tim 6:17-18: "Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share"

It's the season of giving because Christ gave to us. If you think you'll be generous in xxx number of years or when xxx moves out of the house or when xxx money gets saved in your bank account or when you pay of xxx loan, or when you buy that house with xxx amount of cash, you wont. Be generous now. When it's hard (or maybe it's not). Because there will always be something to strive for financially, and there will always be excuses. Be generous. Be generous with your time, your talents, your money, your heart.

***My thoughts from this year's Big Give. This is me preaching to myself!

Thursday, December 10, 2009


My mom gave me one of my little brothers (Steve) baby outfits. This was his 16 years ago- holy cow I can't believe he's 16!!
Mom- hope you enjoy the video. I had thee hardest time trying to get him to sit still for a photo so I figured video would be better.


Wednesday, December 9, 2009

A short and funny story

Yesterday, B and I were eating lunch. I was having quesadillas and salsa, he was eating some homemade sweet potato/pumpkin/squash puree. I was just eating away and spooning him his food. . . when I suddenly realized I had fed him a spoonful of salsa!! Whoops! He and I both realized it wasn't the normal baby food at the same time and he kind of gagged a bit and then swallowed, ha!

Monday, December 7, 2009

Updates****
I believe $750.00 has been raised towards Samuel's education. THANK YOU to everyone who gave!! He is so far behind in school that they were worried he'd not do well in a class environment. Right now he's getting tutoring and we hope he'll be able to attend school soon. I'll try to keep you updated!

Check out Jon's blog for his and Andrew's latest videos for theMet's Big Give series. There were three awesome videos from yesterday that I think he's going to be posting later on today.

My child is currently attempting to eat computer cords, adios!!

Chaeli

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Connor and Brennan
Well, our baby boy had his 9 month well child check up and he's a healthy little boy! He's 50% for height, weight and head circumference. yay!! (I was blessed, his head was only in the 13% percentile when born!!!) He feels incredibly heavy to me but apparently I'm just a wimp and need to start lifting weights. He's 20 lbs, and lugging him around gets me tired FAST!

We had our first visit from the great north last night- my cousin Connor! He was down visiting Dallas Theological Seminary and a friend of his that lives in Houston. He was great with Brennan and B loved him because he had technology (see above camera of Brennan eating his camera).

TheMet is going through a series called The Big Give right now. It's focus is on giving towards those in need (time, talent, treasures) during this holiday season- rather than focusing on presents and ourselves. The entire church went on a bean and rice diet for this week- the goal being to use the money that would have been spent on groceries towards the Big Give and so we as a church could relate to the diet many many people eat. Let me tell you- it was hard for me- I HATE beans! But we did- we did it all week long except Friday night when Con man was here.

Tonight were headed to an interesting excursion in our neighborhood, I'll definitely post photos of it! Got to run!

And P.S. A huge CONGRATS to my sister Meaghan who took the LSAT this morning and to my brother Andy who closed on his first house/mansion yesterday!