Some photographic catching up

Yet again, I have let the blog get away from me...Time has been at a premium in the last few months, with the usual things: kids, dogs, the house, my class...My class will be off that list in a few days, as I submitted my final test last week, and should have the results by next week! Then I may begin my job search!

In the meantime, here are some pictures of the kids from the past week or so.

Brennan at the new playground behind our house. He calls it 'The blue one' because of the daunting blue slide. He has braved the slide a few times already though.


Brennan 'nursing' his puppy toy. He has renamed it "Sister Dog" and has been role playing with it quite a bit lately.
Keira all bundled up and ready to go for a stroll.



This is one of the 2 options for Brennan's Halloween costume. He alternates between wanting to be a fireman or a spider at any given moment. We figure he'll decide right before we go out.

Pajama heads.

"We carvin' a pumpkin Mommy!"

K working very hard on sitting up. She's getting there!

Already best buds. ♥

Police cars, tongues, and firetrucks, oh my!

So Brennan has this thing about his tongue. If he gets shy, nervous, or thinks he might be in trouble for doing something naughty, he sticks his tongue out and down until it's touching his chin. He apparently can't speak while doing this, or chooses to do it when he doesn't want to speak, because he suddenly becomes a tongue dangling mute boy.

Case in point: Recently Target hosted a 'Neighborhood' night, where they had local firemen and policemen bring their emergency vehicles down for kids to check out. We took Brennan, knowing he would love it. We were right.

He met with a nice policewoman first, and she let him sit in her car. (Although she wouldn't run the lights, to my disappointment!) He kept whispering "Cool. This is cool." but only loud enough that his Daddy could hear him. When the officer asked him questions about his favorite cars the tongue came out, and the whispering stopped. Then we went over to see the fire trucks--excuse me, fire ENGINES. (The firemen nicely corrected me, although poor Brennan was a little confused. He kept waiting for them to show him the engine, but he only got to see a big red truck!) They gave him a special sticker badge, (out came the tongue again) and then outfitted him with a kid-sized firefighter helmet and took him to sit in the truck. There were more whisperings and barely perceptible head nods from our suddenly shy boy while the fireman told him all about what firemen do. They even offered to let him wear their boots and suspenders....but nope, just nervous tongue dangling from Brennan.

The most speaking he did there was while in the back....he pointed at me out the window and told the fireman "That's my mommy!" in a slightly louder whisper.
Once it was over, he whispered a very quiet "Sank you..." to the firemen,


and then promptly stuck his tongue out, again. Of course, as we drove away, he screamed "Bye bye fire guys" at the top of his lungs, and then proceeded to talk about "my firetruck" all the way home.

No lack of personalities here!

The faces the kids make crack me up on a daily basis. Keira is just starting to be more expressive, and its really fun to watch her everchanging face. Brennan is, of course, a total ham, in addition to being a little smarty-pants.











Yesterday Eric tookBrennan 1 block over to the neighbor's for a get-together while I stayed behind to feed and change Keira before meeting up with them. Once they arrived our friend Niki asked Brennan "Where is your little sister?" Brennan yelled "I'll go get her!" and took off running at full speed for home (Eric hot on his heels, of course.) He came banging through the front door and yelled at me "I need my sister! I neeeeeeeed my sister!"

Poor Eric came panting through the door a minute or so later, and Brennan got the requisite 'no running away' talk--all the while both Eric and I were trying not to laugh. This parenting gig certainly has its challenges--but I never expected that the most frequent challenge would be suppressing giggles while disciplining!

And up they grew...

Just a little photographic record-keeping of the kids....they grow too fast, and I'm realizing how much I just want time to stop.

Miss Keira is growing VERY fast--she already weighs over 16 pounds, at 5 weeks old. She has begun smiling real smiles in the last week--big, beautiful happy smiles. (However, she doesn't like the camera as much as she likes us, so she won't smile for it yet!)

Brennan is amazing us daily with his ideas and thoughts. He is very expressive and plays pretend very well. He has recently taken to telling us long drawn out stories and I am always impressed with his depth of understanding. We often have to remind ourselves that he is only 2 years old.

Time keeps on ticking, whether I want it to or not.....but I'm holding this part dear for as long as I can.

PERSPECTIVE

Someone reminded me of this poem recently, and I have found myself re-reading it a few times a day. I love having my sweet little girl, snuggling with her and spending time smelling her new-baby smell and looking at her chubby little toes...however, with school deadlines looming, a high-energy 2 year old boy racing about, and a house that is suddenly seeming too big to maintain successfully, I really need the perspective that this poem provides. I read it, and I breathe. (And I wait for my super-hero of a husband to come home and save me from the chaos. Which he does, every single day. He's a trooper.♥)


Mother, O Mother, come shake out your cloth,
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing, make up the bed,
Sew on a button and butter the bread.

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I've grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue,
Lullabye, rockabye, lullabye loo.
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo

The shopping's not done and there's nothing for stew
And out in the yard there's a hullabaloo
But I'm playing Kanga and this is my Roo
Look! Aren't his eyes the most wonderful hue?
Lullabye, rockaby lullabye loo.

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow
But children grow up as I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep!
I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

- Ruth Hulbert Hamilton

Introducing......Miss Keira Brooke!

Keira Brooke Sydnes entered the world on Friday morning, June 19, at 6:54 a.m., weighing a whopping 11 pounds, 4 oz! She is 21.5 inches long and has a full head of dark hair. She is a wonderful addition to the family.

A visit to the Air Station

Brennan has been fairly obsessed with the fact that Daddy works on helicopters lately, telling anyone who will listen that "Daddy at work, he work a'copter, a'copter orange." Whenever a helo flies overhead (which happens fairly often, living in Coast Guard housing) he races outside and yells "Hi Daddy a'copter!" For the past two months he has been strongly attached to wearing one of his dad's hats that depicts the CG helicopters, even though the hat is way too big and makes his ears stick out. On a recent Sunday, Eric was at work standing duty, so we drove up so Brennan could see the "a'copters" and where Daddy works--all while proudly wearing his helicopter hat.

Posing with the helo.

Wearing Daddy's helmet and gloves.

Daddy 'rescuing' Brennan with the rescue strop. (Brennan was too scared to get into the basket!)

They took a spin on the tarmac in the mule.
Brennan loved it, but it terrified his poor mama!

And this is where we recently found him hanging out--inside the diaper storage ottoman!
Note the insane mess behind him--he is a little hurricane lately. It takes him approximately 5.9 seconds to turn a pleasantly tidy room into total chaos and clutter.

And me. Yep, I'm still pregnant. Hopefully this is my last belly picture!

If the baby doesn't come on her own in the next week, I will be induced on the 24th of June. C'mon baby!