are riding bikes here in the living room together! Together! Both of them! Wow, has time moved fast!
Thinking positive thoughts for you Aimee!

This is a picture of the shampoo I use- Pert Plus Deep Down formula. They’ve taken a liking to Dove’s “everyone is beautiful” campaign and have started printing positive statements across the top of their bottles.

Only mine says “You’re Gorgeous”. Apparently I have no surface beauty. ROFLMAO.
Only one other glitch in an otherwise pretty great week… my experiment on demonstrating steam power… well… the teapot’s steam melted my pinwheel. Waah! 😉 We’ve had an awesome time finding Youtube videos on steam shovels and steamboats however!
Other recent Bren-bits & Andy-dotes…
12/1 Andy says “Boo!” as he pops around a corner to find you. 🙂 He also has 12 teeth!
12/3 Home scale says Brendan weighs 49.8
Clicknkids asks Bren to pick the LAST sound heard in a word. I’ve been trying to teach Bren first, middle and last all day. Very frustrating.
Brendan woke up early a couple days ago and apparently Fed Ex came to the door. He unlocked the door, opened it and accepted a package all on his own. He was SO EXCITED. He came racing in to the bedroom and shouted, “Mama! I got a LIBERARRY (delivery)! A mail LIBERARRY!!!” Oh boy. I really would have liked to have seen the look on the person’s face when no adult appeared though.
12/5 Andy says “more bite”!!!
12/6 Bren invented a curiously good sandwich this morning- strawberry jam, whipped cream and crushed graham crackers on bread. YUM!! All his idea to do.
12/7 Andy said very clearly “more banana” while pointing to the bananas!!!
12/9 I asked Andy where his “button” is… he pointed to the middle of his chest and said “buh!” So, of course, that progressed to pinning Brendan down on the ground so Andy could find his belly button and give it a good tickle… and he said very clearly “belly button”!!! So cute!!!
12/12 Andy sticks fingers in tickly places and “boops” everyone just like us. He is loving his baby keyboard pounder game. He plays it 2 fisted- with a mouse in each hand (Bren’s small kid’s mouse and the adult one, both work at the same time). Bren fascinated by idea of decorating a Christmas tree all by himself and going up in the tower of the americas. He thought he’d find friends up there. I had to tell him that you go up there to look at all the tiny houses below you. LOL.
12/14 Bren: Will you take this MONSTER (Andy)?!!! He’s taking my computer and my chair!!!!
12/15 Andy rolled a car across the floor as he crawled, playing with it like a true little boy.
12/17 Andy just clearly told me “thank you” after giving him a cracker!! And later that night he said “You’re welcome!” as well!!!
Scene: Garage, Andy is playing with empty soda cans in the recycle box & Bren is 3 rungs up the ladder- both as they always do.
Bren: “Uh oh, Andy took out all the cans! Dad has to pick up all the cans, but look out! If he touches Andy he loses a can!”
12/18 Andy will tell me in gobbledy gook and by grabbing his diaper that he has a wet diaper now. He also says Dad, but the last d is almost not there- more of a “Dah”.
Brendan met a friend at the HS Christmas party. Two peas in a pod they are. His name is Justin and his mom is Keri. We’re planning on going to the zoo together in January. Bren is 2 months younger than him.
12/20 Bren has 2 Christmas songs he really likes this year- Frosty the Snowman and Feliz Navidad.
12/30 Andy learned to recycle over xmas, and said WOW today. He can also turn a dial on a toy, climb up onto a tall bed and is working on doorknobs- aiyeee!
Also, Smurfs came on Boomerang, and Bren said I like Smurfs, it was on TV a hundred years ago. “Ten-teen is 1-0-0.”
12/31 Andy will bring me an item if Daddy says “Bring it to Mommy”. He then mumbles “Here you go”.
1/7 Andy watches closely when I brush my teeth. He brushes, spits, taps his toothbrush on the edge of the sink and even wipes his mouth on the towel when we’re all done. All one his own!
1/9 Bren is trying to teach Andy how to play Hide N Seek. Haha. Andy just stands ther so Bren has to run off to count. He’s now telling him to count to 10. 😉
I am about ready to trade in Andy if he doesn’t stop pushing the computer reset buttons and turning the XBox on and off! Urgh!
Brendan is doing very well on his reading. He recognizes that words with double letters (like inn, mitt & Ann) are sounded out like they just have one of them. He has also learned to read 3 letter word with s added to the end of them. His issue is still recognizing what is a b and what is a d. We’re moving on to our next unit- flying!
1/12- Bren has completed 25% of the ClicknKids online phonics game!!
1/13- Andy pointed to the calendar and Darrell told him “That’s a calendar. Can you say calendar?” And he did! 🙂
Brendan saw the kit I bought to make a castle cake for his birthday and he is excited. He talks about it a lot.
1/14- Andy is repeating a lot of neat things… today he said “close the door” and “You need a diaper”. 🙂
1/16- Andy is a screech-monster… but he knows 5 body parts now- belly button, eyes, nose, mouth and hair! 🙂 Bren is being very helpful and is doing great with Kindergarten! He has learned to add an s to his words so he is now reading 4 letter words!
1/18- I asked Brendan what day today was and he replied (looking at his calendar) “Friday, January 18”. Yay!!! He also counts beyond 30 now.
1/24- Andy is so darling. When you ask him a question he answers with “Yeeeah!” 🙂 And I think Brendan is secretly
enjoying his Hooked on Phonics now. He’s hooked on stories! He asks for it over his “space game” phonics.

I have not forgotten you, dear blog! 😉
Bren is doing great! He is almost halfway through his Kindergarten Hooked on Phonics and is 30% done with the clicknkids phonics online game! We start a new FIAR unit on “Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel”/steam power on Wednesday. We’re going to experiment with the states of water- frozen solid, liquid and steam gas and see how steam from a teapot turns a pinwheel. Then we’ll read about steam engines and steamboats and then read about fiction with steam power too- such as Thomas the Tank Engine and John Henry who has the famous contest with the steam powered logging drill.
I can’t wait to buy his Math-U-See program but for now he’s doing the math included in the FIAR manual- which is great too.
Andy has sprouted 2 more teeth and is starting to understand not to screech when he wants something but to use words. “More” and “bite” are effective and I’m working on “up”. He still loves to eat anything with a spoon. He is much better at eating off of a plate or from a bowl than Bren. Bren would fling his to the floor.
We are loving DH’s 4 day weekend and I am happy that we get to go to Park Day tomorrow. Yesterday we attacked the Sego palm in our front yard and it looks much better. Our broccoli in the garden looks great too. They love cold weather but grow slowly.


Ruh Roh! We got caught!
I’ve learned that you can hide a can of creamed corn in cornbread! And that you can cook that cornbread on top of chili in a crockpot! LOL.
I just bought a book called Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld. It’s all about hiding pureed fruits and veggies in things. The cornbread wasn’t from the book but I’m going to try some of them out this week. The weirdest by far is pureed steamed spinach in brownies. The tip was that you can’t eat them hot. The flavor of the spinach only goes away when it is cold. I dunno…lol… I hate cooked spinach but some day I’ll try it. This week I am going to try sweet potatoes in spaghetti and pureed cherries mixed with strawberry jelly for a topping for oatmeal bars. The recipe called for blueberry jelly and spinach but Bren eats strawberry jelly so I thought I’d better try adding something red that he won’t eat. And it seems best to start with a fruit here. LOL
Also in the line-up are oatmeal raisin cookies with zucchini (makes sense- I love zucchini bread) but the zucchini at the store looked awful! Carrot muffins make sense too but she also puts cauliflower in hers. Haha.
The author uses these purees in her recipes:
avocado
beets
broccoli
butternut squash
carrots
cauliflower
peas
red bell pepper
spinach
sweet potato
zucchini/ summer squash
apples
bananas
different berries
cantaloupe
cherries
pineapple
prunes
She advises you to start off making large batches and them freezing them in 1/2 cup portions. Me? I just buy babyfood where I can. Why go to all the work? My time is worth more than 25 to 44 cents, lol.
She also uses flax seed and whole grains here and there which is good. And I spotted pureed navy beans and canned pumpkin. She also has a couple recipes for pureed meat for kids who don’t like meat. No baby food meat for me! :yuck:
Anyway, that’s my current food experimentation- along with new crockpot recipes because that works WONDERFULLY with homeschooling. I have much more free time in the morning than trying to school and make dinner both while Andy naps.

Kindergarten started today and Andy doesn’t like it when I “play with” Brendan!!! Time for his nap!! Cuz if I hear one more squeally cry my head will ‘splode and Andy’s head will be flying across the room. Other than that- it’s all good!
We’re “rowing” Madeline & studying Paris & briefly the digestive system (she gets her appendix out) this week plus phonics and a bit of fun math. We made a cute Madeline doll today and found Paris and France on a world map.
We’re also putting together a desk and shelves for each of them. Andy is getting his own (albeit old) computer. Maybe he’ll be happy with a few baby games!
Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech! Time to go!
Happy 2008!!