Leslie and Brennan

Leslie, the wonderful friend that she is, brought supper for us Friday night. It was yummy lasagne, garlic bread, salad and an amazing red velvet cake. We talked her into holding the baby (for the first time, I think) and staying to visit. It was delightful.

It's True, I Promise!

I wanted to take a picture of Brennan with his quilt while sleeping in the bassinet. The first picture was the first take. It was a bit blurry, so I tried again. I snapped the picture just as his eyes did that newborn flutter and captured them open. Honest, he was sound asleep!

Brennan's Bath

I gave Brennan a bath while Haelley and Elizabeth watched. You can see Haelley chewing on Brennan's bulb syringe. You also see her with a Hitler mustache. She managed to rub soot from a candle onto her face while the bathing process made me oblivious. You would have thought, by the way, that I'd never bathed a newborn! I did a horribly nervous job. Elizabeth laughed at me, so she must not have been too worried. The last picture is the result of the bath. (He wore that outfit probably less than an hour because I, let's just say, diapered him poorly, allowing a little wet leak soon after. And I've had eleven children!)

Brennan in His Family

The second picture was one of several attempts to get a picture of Haelley kissing Brennan. She was always too quick for me, so I tried snapping one a bit ahead of the kiss and got the one you see here. I finally quit.

Brennan

Notice the hair in the last picture. I took this one to show how his hair sticks straight up. Very cute.

Brennan

I was able to return to Indiana this past weekend to see the new baby - my grandson, Brennan. My mom asked me to take pictures, so I did - lots of them.

Behind, Behind, Behind

It's January 16th (almost 1 AM on said day), and I still haven't finished posting about Christmas 2008. I really should be in bed which has seen little of me in the last three days. I am done catching up on the blogs I read, making me think of mine. It is so neglected of late.

Briefly, I might say that this week is the challenge I cannot likely beat. It is frustrating me so. I have a full week of school scheduled, just returned from a week's glorious trip late Monday, have two or three sick children, one of whom needs diligent and ongoing attention. The doctor is seeing us twice this week, the photographer once and the eye doctor will get a turn as well. Today's weekly shopping trip, after two weeks, is said to have been nearly six hours long. Ugh. School is planned for the weekend to make up lost time, though I wish I had had the insight to schedule us lightly this week. It is not reality, though, so I am chipping away at it as best I can.

Brennan Caleb Shearer is the name of the grandson I have so longed to meet. It is not God's will (as so many of us prayed for it to be) for me to get to see Little Boy in his first hours, but I am so happy and relieved at his coming. Haelley and I are friends now, I think, though her brother will have to wait for another visit to accomplish that with his Mammaw. We hold close wonderful memories of spending a week joined nearly all the time in some activity or another. Pictures of both grandchildren follow.

































Jason is one of my sickies this week. He is requiring breathing treatments again - both steroids and bronchodilator. This is certainly the worst I've ever heard him. He is making slow but steady progress, thankfully. I hope for a better night's rest for he and I both.

Christmas

Jason got a gajillion matchbox cars, two motorcycles and one airplane. He really likes anything that "goes." This is the larger motorcycle he got.












Nancy, aka Drama Queen, got this adorable homemade apron and hair snuggler from my sister. She was thrilled! Funny story is that I thought the hair snuggler was a child size table runner, so we used it on our Christmas table with a nice result. I found out later that the "table runner" really was a tool for binding one's hair up while cooking/baking.






















Josiah is a man of many extreme and funny faces. He is holding the Nebraska Pez dispenser that my parents sent.

Christmas

Looks like the rest of the Christmas pictures will have to wait for another day. Blogger is refusing to upload any more.

Christmas

Sorry about Jared's redeye. He got an airsoft gun and BB's. He was pretty happy.

























This is Joseph with another itunes gift card. I think he got $90 worth, birthday and Christmas combined. He was thrilled, however, because he can make lots of selections to put on is ipod shuffle.














Jacob was ecstatic over the prepaid phone that James got for him. He is sometimes left home without a phone because we don't have a land line, so his mother is happy too=)









Joshua got a coat for snowboarding. He hopes to go a couple of time while in Indiana in January/February.






James is pretty happy about that Bourne trilogy that Stacey bought for he and Joshua.

Christmas

Traditional Christmas breakfast is monkey bread. It is made with canned biscuits which I cannot find for Josiah's restrictions. Last year I made his with homemade biscuits with a rather dry result. This year I tried making a yeast roll dough. It was yummy. You can see that one in the background.

















My sister and brother-in-law sent a new game called Pictureka. We had fun playing it Christmas afternoon. We had some friend over in the evening and enjoyed it with them too.





















One food that John loves that I had never found before in a natural uncured state for Josiah's diet is ham. This year I happened to see a sign at Trader Joe's for uncured ham. Sure enough it was all natural and nitrate free. I spent a lot of money to buy one and surprised John at our afternoon meal. Thankfully, it was very, very good. The expense ended up justified because it stretched to make five meals. (Sorry about the turned picture. It is right side up in my picture folder, and I cannot make it turn there anyway for some reason. Don't know why it showed up here like you see it.)

















Another Christmas tradition (usually was on Christmas Eve) is to watch my all time favorite Christmas movie, Prancer. (It is the one with Sam Elliott as Jessica Rigg's father.) I thought we were going to be forced to skip this tradition this year because our VHS player quit working, but John decided to save the tradition and buy another.

Christmas

I like to have a puzzle out while we are not doing school during Christmas break. This year's puzzle proved a bit more challenging than I thought. It was finally finished today.














































We usually put candy canes on the tree which can be eaten when the tree is dismantled. You can plainly see that Jason ate a green one.
















This is just a bonus picture of sweet, sleeping Jason. I suppose he is cuddled in a Christmas throw.