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12 novembre Introducing Daisy! by: Katrina She's finally here! Daisy Elizabeth was born on November 9th at about 5am, and weighed in at 7 pounds 14 ounces, 20 1/4 inches long. She came rather quickly once she finally decided to come, as my water broke at 2:30 in the morning, and she was here before 5. She is doing great - healthy, sleeping and eating a lot. She has a bit less hair than our other 2, seems to have a smaller face/head, but is looking more like her brother and sister as the days go by. Logan and Taya are anxious to see her when they get up in the morning, curious about the whole process, and seem to be enamored with her. They probably wish she would hop up and start playing with them already. We are thankful to have had another healthy baby and good birth experience. She's our only one that was completely born and made in the USA. :) Enjoy the pictures!  06 novembre Still waiting... by: Katrina Three days past the due date and we are still waiting for the arrival of baby #3, trying to be patient. My babies have all been late! We are ready to meet you, baby! I haven't gotten the usual load of comments about whether people think I'm carrying a boy or girl, etc. Any bets on when this baby will finally arrive? This is the first pregnancy that I have had gestational diabetes. So I've been on a special diet for the past 2 1/2 months and have been exercising 5 times a week up until the last week or so. So I haven't gained any weight since August and am feeling pretty good, which is a bonus. I'm just ready to eat some cake and ice cream and meet this little one! Maybe they can sense that we haven't decided 100% on the names yet. :) My mom has been here for a week almost, and is anxiously awaiting meeting grandchild #3. Family and friends keep calling and sending messages asking if the baby has arrived YET. Sorry folks, no news yet. We will let you know and pray all goes smoothly when the time finally comes. 26 ottobre Taya is Two! by: Katrina We now have a two-year old in the house again, and it is not so terrible. :) We celebrated on the actual birthday with just family, and then this weekend we had a party involving some of Taya's friends, as well as some of our own. We spent Friday evening and most of Saturday making the cake and goodies. We decided to make a lot of Halloween/Fall treats and had fun experimenting with new things. Taya's cake was 3 big flowers, made up of 8 different cupcakes each. Her party started at the Pumpkin Patch a few miles north of our house. The kids played around in the hay bales, then one group went on a hayride, while others went inside the 11 acre corn maze. We had a group of 5 working together and it took us 20 minutes to get out. Then we watched pumpkins being launched a couple miles out and picked some pumpkins for carving. Then the party moved to our house where we enjoyed hot cider, chili, Halloween snackage and of course the birthday cake. Taya got a couple of new dolls, which she loves right now, some stuffed animals, a new book, and a stacking toy. A good time was had by all. Taya is a joy and her verbal skills are exploding. I just finished reading Brown Bear Brown Bear to her, and she sang much of it right along with me. She loves books, playing with dolls, and playing with pretend food. Speaking of food, she can eat more than I can, especially while I'm on this diet for gestational diabetes. She likes to spin and dance, and is already starting to ask "why?" (isn't that supposed to start around age 3?). She is starting to enjoy talking on the phone and is becoming more social like her brother. She enjoys Sunday School and Wednesday morning playgroup when I go to my study. We're hoping she's not too jealous when her new sibling comes along, but that she will love him or her and be a big help to mommy and daddy.  07 ottobre WOW by: Katrina WOW stands for Women on Wednesdays and is a study group I've had the pleasure of being involved with for the past few weeks. I've been looking forward to joining a group like this for years, and I finally can now. Logan is in preschool during the morning, and Taya goes to childcare at the church while I get to spend time with just the ladies. It's a varied group ranging from single gals, to moms, to grandmas. We're going through a book called "Calm My Anxious Heart" by Linda Dillow, which I highly recommend. We sit at round tables together, and each week a different table brings a spread of yummy snacks to share with the whole room. I'm looking forward to being able to eat the sweeter things on the table in a month or so after gestational diabetes is behind me! Besides eating yummy snacks and sipping tea or coffee, we listen to a speaker, spend some time in worship, have small group discussion, and a time of prayer. It's been really, really good. It only runs for 9 weeks, and then I'll join again in the spring. 30 settembre projects galore by: Katrina We have approximately 5 weeks until baby #3 arrives! We're very excited to meet this new little one. It appears that we are both suffering a bit from the "nesting" syndrome, although Andy would call it something else of course, as we are now attempting to conquer all possible projects all at once. Our biggest challenge is our garage. It started out with a nice thought to get rid of some things (which we did) and then organize it better so that we could hopefully fit both of our vehicles in for winter. This weekend I bought some nice shelving units for the garage at a garage sale, as well as a new dresser, desk and chair - all for $45! And then somehow our innocent project turned into more. We need to sand down and oil the desk, refurbish the chair with new fabric, clear out sections of the garage at a time as Andy now wants to paint the whole thing (!), and then organize it. We can do it! Oh and on top of our massive garage and furniture redo, I am also trying to tackle our guest room, which is supposed to be the new baby's room, but has become an explosive mess as I try to organize boxes of miscellaneous junk. Good times! We'll keep you posted on how much of these projects actually get accomplished before the new baby comes! 01 settembre Logan in Pre-k?!?! by: Katrina So it looks like we've only been updating our blog once a month. Oops. We should try to do better on that I suppose. I have friends that blog almost daily and that is just way, way, way too much for me, but twice a month is perhaps doable. Yesterday was Logan's first day of preschool. Yikes! I'm still wavering on whether or not it is the right decision or not, even though I've been told that Andy and I should pray about it and then be thoroughly convinced of what we are to do. Many of my friends and family think we should keep him home and enjoy him while we can. They argue that the day will come quickly enough where we have to rush our kids off to school, so why start now if we don't have to. And some even say that boys aren't ready for school as young as Logan is. My heartstrings are definitely pulling on my desire to keep him home with me - I love my son! He's so smart, funny, cute, and helpful. On the other hand, we got into a program where Logan can go for free, he loves learning (of course I can teach him at home just as well), and socially it may benefit him to be in a classroom environment a bit before kindergarten. He has done Vacation Bible School, and does Sunday school every Sunday, so those also prepare him I suppose. Logan is trying to understand why this new school won't be like VBS or Sunday school. If only we could afford to send him to a Christian school, I would love that. The first day was a little hard for him, but today he was pretty excited. So, we will be sending him for a little while at least. Then maybe we'll pull him out when it gets closer to November and grandma's are coming, and the new baby will make it harder to get everyone out the door in the morning. We shall see... 21 luglio Road Trip + Expecting again! by: Katrina We've safely made it back from our 2 week + road trip to Iowa and Michigan. We saw a lot of family and friends in a little amount of time. We surprised our family by showing up with a baby bump! I am 5 1/2 months pregnant now, and the family was very happy for us. We won't find out the gender again until the birthday, because we like it that way, and as always we keep the names under wraps too, although they're not yet determined. We're excited to have a 3rd, since we think our first 2 are pretty darn adorable. Our Chinese friends might wonder why in the world we would have more children since we've been told we already have the perfect family with one boy and one girl, but we think our kids are a blessing and are eager to add one more. Roadtripping while pregnant isn't super fun, but we did stop a lot - for my sake and the kid's. Iowa was a good half-way point to Michigan. We used our smaller car since it will be the last roadtrip we'll be able to do with the whole family for awhile until some kids are out of their carseats. We were in Iowa for 3 days and got to see my old church switch to a new building, play croquet, walk a bit, and play games with the family. We stayed with my parents, and my sister was back on break from Russia. We also saw my aunt, cousins, cousin's kids, and some good friends. Then we drove to Michigan to have a reunion of sorts with the Brennan side. We scheduled the whole trip in time to see Andy's brother and sister-in-law one more time before they move to Ecuador for 5 years!! Check out their blogspot at www.brennanblogs.blogspot.com. They'll be coming back at some point, so hopefully we won't go 5 years without seeing them, but it's going to be a long time anyway. They're trying to recruit us to move there with them, so who know's what the future holds... Andy's mom also flew in from Phoenix, and we stayed with Andy's grandma who had never met Taya or our little nephew Phinehas. We also saw aunts, uncles, cousins, grandpas, parent's cousins, and other extended family members. We played croquet and Settlers of Catan a few times, and tried our best to shoot the woodchucks in the backyard. We never really got a clean hit as far as we know and Logan said "maybe the woodchuck doesn't want to be shooted." :) Then we headed back to Iowa for a few more days and on the way saw some old Phoenix friends from our newly married class, who now live in Michigan. They have 2 beautiful children and it was great to reconnect with them after 4 years of not seeing them. The rest of our time in Iowa was nice and relaxing. I of course visited my old DQ where I used to work, and we played frisbee golf with family. We had a great time and are so glad we had the chance to do a fun roadtrip with our kids. They might not have thought it was fun while strapped to their carseats for hours on end, but I think they enjoyed the rest of it. 04 giugno Our yard by: Katrina We've finished most of the indoor projects we had planned for now, and since the weather has warmed we've recently moved our attention to our back yard. It is a scary sight. We usually describe it as "swampy." The birds like to gather near our pond. We aren't supposed to have swamps or ponds in our backyard of course - we just have really bad drainage. No one in our neighborhood has basements because the water level is so high, but our backyard must have the highest water level of all, though our neighbors yards are just fine. The already high water level, combined with our lack of good drainage and a couple of broken sprinkler heads produce the swampiness. Thankfully, one of Andy's awesome coworkers is coming this weekend to help work on the sprinkler issue. Then the following weekend our forever friends the Kellars (who hosted us for our 2 months of homelessness) are coming to help with the drainage issue. So, hopefully we will soon have a lot less swamp in our backyard, making it possible for Logan to run and play in our backyard without galoshes! In addition, now that we have a house, I am pretending I know a good deal about gardening (though in fact I know nothing), and have planted blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, squash, tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers! I hope that at least some of it grows. The veggies are actually not in the ground yet, but in plastic planters, as the area of the yard where they were to be planted is too muddy and any holes dug instantly begin to fill with water... 22 maggio Season Finale by: Katrina Brennan Recently, we've watched the season finale of 2 of our favorite shows - Lost and Heroes which we will dearly miss. We've also completed our spring season of visitors. We have nobody on the list to hurry up and wash the bed sheets for (don't worry, we still washed them), no menus to plan, and virtually nothing on our June schedules. It will be a nice time to slow down and enjoy some of our own family time, and check some more things off of the endless homeowner's to-do list. We did love having people here though. We explored several new hiking/walking areas, and took trips to Colorado Springs and Boulder. Andy surprised me with an overnight stay in Boulder to celebrate our anniversary while my family watched the kid's back at our house. We're liking Fort Collins more now that the weather is warm and we can spend more time outdoors. I'm getting some help with attempts at gardening. This past week we planted strawberries and blueberries, as well as attacked some vicious weeds that are thriving 10x more than our real grass. Who's idea was it to actually buy a house anyway? 17 aprile Full Houseby: Andy April marks the fourth of our five stints of visitors this new year. We had the pleasure of hosting my brother and his wife and son for 10 days. (Prior to that my mom was in town, one of Katrina's high school friends, and before that my dad and sister-in-law.) The weather was the confusing combination of temps that we're getting used to, but we managed to get out to Estes Park and do some other local hiking and biking. The jaunt to the "Devil's Backbone" (Loveland) was well worth the short drive. It was a brief three mile hike with limited incline, so it was perfect for Logan. The sky was flawless and we were thrilled to see several raven near the trail and nesting in the rock. We took Subway to the trail head and picnicked there before starting. It really was the perfect day. We're looking forward to exploring other trails in the vicinity. It was great to be with family again and to meet my new
nephew, Phin, for the first time. He's a
cutie and a people pleaser. He decided
to roll over for the first time while he was here - nice of him. There were a couple of theme songs that were
stuck in our heads during their visit. One
is loaded in the player above and the other is by Flo Rider... "Apple
bottom jeans, boots with the furrr..." (you know the one - but we decided
not to post it in order to keep our site family friendly :) Here's a link to their blogsite that has a cute video of our time with Noah, Cate and Phin. www.brennanblogs.blogspot.com 20 marzo March Loganisms Here are a couple of recent conversations we've had with Logan: One Setting: Breakfast Andy: Logan, do you want some of my coffee? Logan: No thanks, it tastes gross. Andy: What does it taste like? Logan: It tastes like weed. Two Setting: Dinner Grandma B: Wow, this is good orange juice. Andy: Yeah. Grandma B: I don't drink a lot of juice. I don't buy drinks very much anymore. Andy: You just drink coffee and water? Grandma B: Yep. Logan: Do you buy toys? Grandma B: No, <chuckle> I'm too old to play with toys. Logan: <in earnest> I can teach you how to play with toys. Grandma B/Andy: <chuckle> 06 marzo This silly economyby: Katrina Brennan
As we all know (a phrase we loved to hate in China), the economy is not looking good right now. It hasn't left us completely unscathed, but we have many blessings we thank the Lord for often. Andy's work has taken a big hit with this economic slump. Everybody took a paycut, they switched to a 4-day (10 hour days) work week to save money on utilities, they turned the heat down in the building, and the hardest of all - 25% of the office staff were let go. We're so thankful Andy still has a job when so many others don't. We're finding ourselves in a place where we are forced to trust in the Lord, as we prayed for at the beginning of our marriage. Over our nearly eight years together we've had many, many opportunities to fall to our knees and look to Him to sustain, guide, and provide for us, and He always has.
In other news, we are really enjoying having our whole family back together and the kids still run to Andy when he gets home from work. We are having a fun streak of visitors for the next couple months. My high school friend that I haven't seen in years visited last weekend. Next weekeend Andy's mom will be with us for her Spring Break. Then a couple weeks later Andy's brother and sister, and our dear first nephew are coming. We're so excited to meet him! Then comes my sister from Russia, my parents, and then hopefully another visit from a friend. We're glad to have a spare bedroom and we welcome you to come use it too!
We're still spending time tackling projects on the house (although we're focusing on the free to very-low cost ones for now!), enjoying watching LOST with friends, and visiting church after church to find one we can call home. At 16 months old, Taya has decided it is finally time to start walking. She's still learning new signs as well as new words. She gets really frustrated when she wants food because when she does she wants it NOW!!!!, but other than that is a cheery, smiley, explorative, fun one-year old. Logan is learning to write his numbers and letters and we're starting to look into preschools for next year. He still loves cars, books, and singing or rocking on his guitar. He likes to pretend he can speak Chinese and tell you how to say things in Chinese. He's also sometimes the little preacher and will tell us about worshipping God, the Bible stories he's learning at Sunday school, and how God loves us. :) 09 febbraio Playing single mom for 2 more daysby: Katrina Brennan
I've been playing the role of a single mom for the past few weeks while Andy's at work in Thailand. I know some mom's do this all the time, and other wives have husbands who travel all the time and I feel for them because it's tough! Yesterday I had the flu and could hardly walk. Fortunately my sweet Logan helped get me water, Taya snacks, turn lights and fans on and off, etc. He was proud to be a good little helper.
Andy comes back from Thailand in 2 days and we'll be very excited to have him back. I went to Phoenix again while he was gone to spend some time with my mom, mother-in-law, grandma, and a bunch of amazing friends. We went to the zoo, played at parks, rode on little kid trains, and mostly enjoyed the 70 degree weather. Unfortunately, we had to watch the Cardinals lose in the Superbowl, but hey, they made it really far and played really well!
We're slowly but surely making our new house our own. Someone told me a while back that I'd probably be working on it full-force until July, and I kind of inwardly laughed at that thinking "yeah right." But no, it's probably true - painting, installing new light fixtures and hardware, unpacking, organizing, getting rid of things, finding things... it's going to be a long process. But the downstairs is done so we don't have craziness all around us. We picked fun paint colors like - Edamame, Crabby Apple, and Java to name a few.
We enjoyed having family around just before Andy left for Thailand. My sister came for about a week before heading back to Russia, and Andy's dad came for a couple weeks before heading back to Vietnam. My brother is in Germany, and my brother and sister-in-law (and nephew) are heading to Ecuador soon. We feel so boring now! Where shall we go? 20 gennaio Oceans Apartby: Andy
The Brennans are now separated by the Pacific Ocean. Kat and the kids are wintering in Phoenix and I am back in Chiang Mai, Thailand for our annual conference. This is my sixth time here so there are many familiar things that I’m returning to: cheap movies at Central Mall, roti (banana and otherwise), pad thai (pending), an abundance of used book stores (I’ve picked up some Isaac Asimov), and balmy, pleasant weather (although it’s a bit chilly in the conference room I’m typing this in right now). A few of my favorite vendors have vanished, but otherwise things are pretty much the same. The fam will be in Phoenix until the 6th and I’ll be here until the 11th.
It’s certainly hard to be apart during this month, but easy email access and Skype see us through. 29 dicembre Update ComingTo all our faithful visitors:
Sorry for the delay in posting! We purchased a new house in November and have been working feverishly on it ever since. Soon we'll have internet at home and will be able to give some more time here... and hopefully post some new photos.
Stay tuned.
Andy 04 ottobre Ft. Collins or Bustby: Andy Brennan
Five days after having all of our belongings packed and loaded into a company-sponsored moving truck, we arrived – wearily - in Fort Collins, Colorado. Along the way we were graciously hosted by the Bodells (Hesperia), the Bells (Colfax) and the Sims (relatives in Salt Lake City). It was nice not having to drive non-stop or stay in a hotel, and it was great spending time with old friends. All in all, it was a safe and smooth journey.
A lot has happened since we’ve arrived. We’ve taken care of a lot of business including motor vehicle, voter reg., and placing an offer on a house. Plus, we were able to get the new office almost completely up and running (which is very nice, btw). The house that we’re interested in has been foreclosed on and the bank has accepted our offer! Now we’re in the process of working out the details, but it looks positive. We might be in there by late November.
Since we’ve arrived we’ve been staying with our friends, the Kellars. They have graciously opened up their basement to us and although it’s a little far from the office, we really couldn’t ask for a better situation. Mindy (Mrs. Kellar) is able to stay home with the two Kellar kids (Abby and Jackson), who are the perfect age for Logan to roll with.
We miss our California friends (and of course our Phx/China/Iowa friends still) and will soon be missing the moderate weather (it usually snows here by the first week of October), but we’re also excited about this new chapter and adventure in faith.
Thanks for reading!
31 agosto Taya's modeling debutby: Katrina Brennan Throughout the months of Taya’s short life so far we’ve received numerous compliments on our baby (beautiful eyes, like an angel, a little Gerber baby). We received a lot of compliments for Logan too, but a lot of those were in Chinese – hen ke ai (very cute), piao liang! (beautiful), and hao kan ( good-looking). Once when I was in an airport a former representative for child models suggested I look into it for Taya and she told me some things to look for. Now, I know that all parents think their children are the most beautiful, perfect children of all (and they are!), but we decided we’d check into it. An agency decided to represent her (and Logan). Taya was the first to get a job. She auditioned with lots of other babies for a print job with a French clothing company, and she was one of the few selected for the job (I think for their catalogue). The photo shoot was out in Malibu and was a lot of fun. We were at a beautiful house right on the ocean. Taya did a great job. All the French workers said she was perfect and jokingly asked if I trained her. She was photographed for about 20 minutes with another adult model. Hopefully I’ll be able to see a copy of the results some day. Plus, she got paid $150 an hour for 2 hours, minus the agency fee that can go toward her college tuition. I don’t know if she or Logan will get any other jobs before we leave LA, but it was fun to experience and may be an option in Colorado as well, as there are agencies in nearby Denver. 23 agosto August Adventuresby: Andy Brennan
There is certainly much that could be said about recent Brennan happenings, especially in regard to our house hunt. However, rather than journal about each dip and hill on this coaster, we'll just wait for the final resolution. Suffice it to say, we've withdrawn ourselves from one contract and are actively pursuing a single-family home about five miles from where I'll be working.
In other news, I think an anecdote from this morning will do to fill up this post.
Scene: breakfast table over waffles with peanut butter and honey.
Taya starts to wimper from the other room and crawls to us for some attention. I pick her up and hold her on my lap; this seems to calm her down. Shortly thereafter the waffle iron beeps and I stand up to see to it, placing Taya back on the floor. As I'm moving between the table and counter Logan notices something. "Oh, you have some peanut butter on you." My brief search of the possible regions turns nothing up until I turn my attention to the leg that Taya was sitting on. "That's not peanut butter!" Those shorts needed to be washed anyway...
23 luglio long walkby: Katrina (and Logan)
Our best friends here in SoCal are the Bodells whom we met when we first journeyed to China (we had to bid farewell to the Felts who are headed back to China). They have two pretty adorable girls and we've spent a lot of time at their house over the past year (recently jamming together on Rock Band). Today Logan wanted to go back again to play with the girls. I told him we couldn't because we don't have a car. That didn't stop Logan who strongly pleaded that we just take the stroller and head over there. He was not sympathetic to the fact that they are an hour's drive from here. He's not the one doing the pushing. See you in 4 or 5 days Bodells!
In other news, we now have a computer! Our trusty laptop that saw us through a good 5 years of travel went dead after suggesting we install new Microsoft updates (thanks a lot Microsoft). So, on our recent trip to Phoenix, my awesome brother gave us his old computer and his sweet 6-piece speaker set! I love our family!
Hopefully we'll get our photo software on here soon so we can upload photos from the last month. Next week we're headed to Ft. Collins to seek out our new house. Pray we'll find a good home in a good location, at a good price, that has plenty of space to host visitors, and then warmly welcome you to come visit us in Colorado! |
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