Brendan's 2 year birthday party

Again...my apologies for being such a slacker on blogging. BUT now that my last show in a string of six shows is FINALLY OVER I now have time to do other Mommy things besides just being Mommy. So now I can finally blog again! Yay!

Brendan is TWO now! I can't believe it! We had a birthday party for him...it was super fun! :)Uncle Kirk and Uncle Kasey came over for the party! Like good uncles they blew up all the balloons that covered the floor for Brendan to play with!

Lamar and Brendan made the noodles to go with my spaghetti sauce and all Brendan wanted to do for the first half hour was sit by the stove and stir the noodles! It was fun! :)

Here's the crew that was there in time for the spaghetti! Yay for Shan that I didn't screw it up! :) It was GOOD! :) Uncle Kasey, Uncle Kirk, Grandma Karen, Cheyenne, Daddy, Brendan! It was a fun party! :) Buffie and her boy AJ came just in time for the cake and presents! :) Here was the cake before we ate it! :) PERFECT for our little airplane/car obsessed little toddler! :)

It was all I could do to get his new truck out of the box!!! It was screwed in in many places!His new favorite position playing with his new truck! That boy is always on the floor playing with it!Grandma Karen and Brendan...he is SUCH a cutie...look at that SMILE!!! :) I'm in love. :)

Auntie Buffie and Brendan...she makes him laugh...and all of us for that matter!!!

Cheyenne and Brendan! He LOVES this little girl! They're buddies! :)Here is me and Buffie! I love this lady!

There were a ton of other pictures, but blogspot drives me CRAZY uploading photos and trying to post them ....it takes so stinkin' long.

Easter! First egg hunt

This was Brendan's first Easter Egg Hunt! He actually caught on quite quickly...and then we had to do it again and again and again and again! :) LOL!

Here are some more!...

Disneyland last January...

Okay...since I'm so late...here are the pictures from when we went to Disneyland last January. :) LOL. Better late than never, right? We met Lightnight McQueen and Mader!I love this picture of Brendan and his daddy. What is that face?!?! LOL! This is Daddy and Brendan on one of the rides. I think it's a sweet picture...I love how he holds onto us! :) Here's Mommy and Brendan on the caterpillar ride at CA Adventure...he was having fun! This one cracks me up...cute of Lamar...Brendan was growling and doin' his best underbite!

LOL! He was mad the ride was taking so long...WHY we go to Disneyland...this adorable HUGE smile was accompanied by the BIGGEST loudest belly laughs I think I've ever heard out of our little dude. :)Cheyenne wasn't so much a fan of the tummy tickling! LOL!Cheyenne had fun with us! :) We loved taking her! :)

Some more tummy tickling going on...lol! Again with the belly laughs! :) He LOVES those planes! :)
Brendan LOVES his aunt Cheyenne! :) She chased him all over Disneyland, the two of them just a giggling away! :) Another chase... Cheyenne and Shannon on a ride! We saw the Pixar Parade this time over at CA Adventure! It was cool 'cause the Lightning McQueen car we saw earlier drove past us. Brendan loved it! :)
On the teacups again! A family favorite! :) (Cook AND Winkel!)
Shan and Chey gettin' dizzy too! :) We went back to Toon Town (it's Brendan's favorite place) in Disneyland and saw Mickey again! :) Brendan playing in his favorite place at Disneyland...TOON TOWN! :) Look how happy he is...makes going back there tempting to do every day. :) Gotta love season passes! Too bad our schedules don't allow us to go out of town as much as we'd like! :( Or we'd be here all the time. We loved it!

More....BRENDAN! :)

Here are some pictures from this weekend...Brendan is getting so big! :)

Reading Nemo with Mommy in his favorite Nemo outfit. LOL! He wore this his first Halloween almost two years ago...it barely fits...it's SO funny that he loves it so much. LOL!


I think he has the sweetest little face! Such a perfect combo of Lamar and I! ;)

Here are two short videos of one of his favorite games right now...methinks he might like volleyball...being so tall and all. He's already started having us play it with him...here he is 'tipping' the ball (we need to buy a volleyball-all we have is a soccerball and basketball) over the 'net' as Daddy aims it at him. I am just surprised he already likes doing this at 19 months and has the hand eye coordination for it. (And the heighth to almost see over the couch already!) And the attention span! He can do this for a looooong time, giggling away. :)

The view from the other side of the couch...I love his little fingers/hands sticking up! LOL

More Easter stuffs in the next post. Too tired tonight. :)

Shan

Gratitude

No pictures tonight...just wanted to blab for a sec. I just got off the phone with one of my best friends in life whose mother is going through a really really hard time right now-she lost her husband/my friend's dad two years ago to cancer, and now she finally found someone else she wanted to spend her life with: he just found out he has cancer yesterday. And not a good kind to have, if you had your druthers. She just happens to be in town with her son/my friend here in Vegas now, and I'm so glad he could be there for her. She needs him right now. They are consumed by "the heavy" right now and I have internalized their pain in the past few days. I know what it's like COMPLETELY to watch someone I love go through cancer multiple times. I've lived where they are right now. I know what it's like to watch the other people I love live in 'the heavy' and suffer emotionally while our loved one suffers physically. It's hell on earth. I feel for them so much and feel this never ending need to continue to pray for their hearts to feel peace through this horrible time for them.

I am so grateful though, that I had the opportunity at a young age to suffer and age and gain the perspective I have now at a young 31 years. The understanding I have of the 'secrets of the universe' (as my friend terms my knowledge...lol!) I would've never come to without the gospel and without going through those trials. :) (And I've only scratched the surface of what God wants me to know.) My faith is stronger, my logic is stronger, my ability to deal with trials is stronger, my relationship with God is stronger, etc. It makes me SO GRATEFUL for every one of my trials, no matter how difficult it was to get through, for so many reasons. I have so much compassion-it is one of my greatest gifts from God. I was born with an unusual amount of compassion anyhow (like the kid in "Sixth Sense"...i've always been a little freaky compassionate. LOL) but with those trials I'm ridiculously compassionate now. I have a bit more of an understanding of how Christ sees all of us. I see my fellow men with so much love and compassion. And I do tend to internalize their pain and cry with them. When I start to think how weird I must be or seem for that I remember my favorite story in the New Testament. When Christ came upon Mary and Martha and Lazarus after he died, and they were sobbing and in so much emotional pain, what did He do? "Jesus wept." He knew darn well He could and would raise Lazarus from the dead and 'fix' their problem, but His compassion overtook Him and He cried with them first. So I suppose I'm in good company? lol

Thank goodness I went through what I did or I wouldn't be blessed with such a gift that comes with such heavy responsibility! People open up all the time to me...almost every day...even at the dog groomers today the lady behind the desk cried to me about when she lost her son years ago...dunno...I have come to realize I have a sign on my forehead (that my mother wears too) that says 'Even if I don't know you... I love you, talk to me, I'll listen.' I like my little sign. :) I hope it never fades away. Even though I feel physical pain at times from internalizing other people's hurt I love being compassionate. I made a lady at the dog groomers today feel loved and that makes me happy. My friend knows I am one of the few he can talk to about his heart's pain (and he does) and that makes me happy. Thanks to Heavenly Father I have a unique ability to listen, to sympathize, to comfort, to maybe bring a little peace now to my friend that now kneels in the midst of where I was years ago. I have such a deep understanding of the plan of salvation and a peace about death that most never have. And there's still SO much more to learn...I'm in awe of God's greatness and wisdom. I'm so grateful for the little wisdom He blessed me with! (I'm amazed sometimes at the depth of my testimony...concepts that seem simple to me seem too deep for others at times and I wonder why I've been so blessed with understanding.) I'm so grateful for the gospel and for my one on one relationship with God...for Him declaring things to my heart that I know are true and will never be without. How lucky I am. I wish I could copy and paste my spiritual heart to my friend so that he could know too.

Recording Session photos

Just for fun...since we've had SUCH A BLAST at the studio playing and jammin' 'til all hours of the night lately. TOO MUCH FUN! If I'm not gonna be at home hanging with my two men-big and lil- that I love most in the world, this is a great place to be with some of my best friends. We have way too much fun together and I feel like the luckiest girl on the planet. :)

Here's me sangin'. LOL. We just had to take a photo of Mariah Carey's old mic that I was recording with...it ROCKED!

Our drummer, Kirk, is an early bird, NOT a night owl...so we have several pictures of him sleeping at 2am. Not really...lol...but reenacted it for ya. :)Kasey, my electric guitarist, hangin' out by the board...such a cool dude. :) One of my best friends. :)Mark-my other guitarist/backup vocalist that rocks...coming out of the A room (where he used to work) after messin' with the $15K Neuman mic....waaaaaay too much fun recording on that thing! :) Mark also helped engineer the demo too...he's a multi-talented dude and SOOO cool!Our sound engineer Rob and Mark messin' with the equipment-my view in the studio-hung out there many an hr. Rob is a genius. AND he also just happened to be the chief sound engineer on the "Killers" last album!!!! We lucked out that he made himself available for us, thanks to our vocal producer Jeffrey. :) Yay! Rob's amazing. :)
More pictures later! I have a ton we took for our demo press packet, but I'm too tired tonight. :) I've never been happier in my life to be SO blessed with an AMAZING hubby and baby/family, and have a creative/performing outlet that is so fun, and ESPECIALLY 'cause the guys are the closest friends I've had in a long time. They are the most positive, sweet, TALENTED, happy, fun, good, hilarious, amazing people and I feel incredibly lucky to be working with them. My heart is VERY HAPPY right now. :) More later! Night!

My apologies...

Okay...so here's my long laundry list of lame excuses of why I haven't been blogging the past four months. Our computer died. And our other computer died. Then we couldn't find our camera. I've been so busy I'm lucky to spend time with Lamar, let alone spend time blogging. I have spent my late hours at night in recording sessions/rehearsals and have had no time to catch up. Lame lame lame...I know. PLUS the overwhelming task of trying to catch up on pictures since Halloween is just not cool. SO I'm going to start from tonight/last night and catch up slowly, if at all...'cause if I let myself get too overwhelmed I won't do it. :)

Brendan just turned 18 months old last week! He's HUGE...wearing 3T/4T clothes already...and is SO STINKIN' FUN and cute!!!! He's talking up a storm now, saying "Yes, please" ("yeh-pees") "Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!" "Uh-oh", "Mama", "Dada", "Bubbles" (Nemo character stuffed animal that is his all time favorite...only my kid would pick the most neurotic Disney character ever created to be attached to! LOL!) "Dory" ("Deh"), "Thank You"("Day Doo"), "Car Car", "YES!", "Turkey"("Kurkee"), "Go", "Outside"("Owsigh") (last weekend he said an entire sentence "I gonna go outside" before walking out my friend's door!) "Bath" ("Bat"), "Here ya go" ("Hee-go), "Come on", "Hide" ("Hyb"), "YAY!", "HI!" ("HIYEE!"), "Brendan" ("Breh-bee"...my FAVORITE!), "Grandpa" ("Gapa"), "Grandma" ("Gama"), "Penguin"("Paygin"), "Tap Dance" ("Ta-das"), "Play" ("pay"), "Keys", "Phone" ("bone") "Laundry" ("ahndee" and when he 'helps' me with laundry he'll pass me clothes from the floor and say "here, peez"!), and many many others. I'll try to catch them on video since they're so stinkin' cute. Especially 'yes please'. It makes us giggle every time he says it in his cute little voice. :)

Okay...some pictures from tonight...

He LOVES this little firetruck! :) He can't figure out how to move it forward yet, so he'll just push his legs so it'll go backwards everywhere. So funny!

He LOVES tackling Mommy and Daddy! Especially when he's holding Dory and Bubbles from "Nemo"! This is pouncing on Daddy while Daddy was trying to talk to his brother Aaron on his birthday...look at how long he is! Considering Daddy is 6'2"! LOL! He's HUGE! :) That's Bubbles-his FILTHY yellow stuffed fish (that I canNOT get clean )that he's laying on too. :) He takes that thing everywhere with him. It's so gross. LOL!

This was a video from when my family was in town a couple of weekends ago...he has discovered the remote on my keychain honks the car horn and it's his new favorite game. "Car car go beep"! Here is a snippit of him playing with momma's keys...

Here are the two little guys giggling 'flying' together...both start giggling before we even lift them up 'cause they know the tickle torture with moms' toes is about to happen. It's so fun! :) I LOVE big belly baby laughs!

Some cute pictures of the little cousins...Brendan and Brody!

Brendan's big blue eyes...he was wanting to look at the pictures on the camera I'd already taken...likes to see himself in pictures...giggles his head off and points at himself and says "Brehbee!!"

Nice Brendan...such a little boy...hanging out with the cous...

Then, while I was trying to take a picture of just Brody, Brendan really wanted his picture taken again, so stepped right in front of the camera right as I took the picture...:) They had so much fun together!

Giving everybody "Bumps" (knuckle bumps instead of high fives)...so cute! Thanks aunt Rie Rie for teaching us that! :)

That's all for tonight. I have a ton of catching up to do...my apologies...be patient with me! :) I'm slightly overwhelmed. LOL

Thanks for reading!

Our Yoda

My favorite dog in the world died in my arms tonight. It broke my heart into pieces. I loved her SO MUCH and haven't been able to be the mom I wanted to be to her since I had a real baby. I was only able to hold her for about two minutes before she passed away in my arms. It was almost as if she had waited to die 'til I could hold her. She snuggled up in my arms and just quit breathing. Heart failure. It was so sad. Bawled like a baby in the vet's office all by myself, holding her little body. I'm so glad she's not in pain anymore and went home to God. But man am I going to miss that spunky little feisty ball of personality. She was mine-I picked her out from an entire litter of maltese and she was my favorite. So funny.

My favorite thing was how she'd play with ya, her "Rugga Rugga Rugga" voice. You'd pretend to grab her front paws and she'd hunker down, tail a waggin' and play growl with ya, and gently 'bite' ya to play. And how she'd snuggle up to me in bed...her little warm body. Or how she'd grab your shirt with her teeth and pull on it if she didn't think you were giving her enough attention. Or how she'd let you hold her like a baby on her back and would STRETCH her arms straight up in the air when you tickled her arm pits. Or how when my mom would breathe on her face she'd turn away as if she didn't like the smell of my mom's breath. She was so stinkin' funny. Or how she'd lick my hand as I was laying in bed and she wanted me to get up. Or how she'd put her little paws on the bed and stare at me 'til I'd open my eyes. And how she liked to do tug of war with socks. And how when I'd come home from work I'd yell "Gi-irls!!!" and she and Macy would come running down, thundering their little paws on the stairs to come see mom. I feel horrible that they've had to live in their 'nursing room' corner of our downstairs since they lost their bladder control/potty training abilities due to old age. I hope she was still happy. :( I'm going to hold a lot of guilt over that for a long time. I hope she knows I still loved her, even though she couldn't sleep with us anymore. I gave Brendan so much of my attention.....I really pray she knew how much she meant to me. I hope God will tell her for me, since I didn't get a chance to before she died. I only had two minutes. :( :( :(

I have loved Yoda since before I loved Lamar, Brendan, any of my friends in high school or college too for that matter. I have loved that dog since I was a young teenager. She and Macy were my 'babies' for years. I treated them like human children. And I LOVED her! I am SO GLAD I was the one holding her when she died. The vets tried to revive her, but she was gone, even though her heart was barely beating. She laid in my arms and died, HOPEFULLY knowing how LOVED she was and how much I was going to miss her. I bawled my eyes out like a baby tonight several times. It was a rough night. Luckily she's in a better place and hopefully knows I love her. I truly believe we'll get to be reunited with our pets in Heaven, so God be with ya 'til we meet again baby girl!!! I love you so so so so SO much!!!!! :(

More drum playing, on a practice set

This cracks me up. Today after band practice Brendan stole this other little boy's drum sticks and went to TOWN on this drum set in the other room. He was in there for a half hour pounding away. I was amazed at 14 months old he had the attention span. I really wish I would've captured on film him throwing his head back and LAUGHING in total bliss at being able to play the drums. His first time in that little room he was GIDDY! I caught the tail end. It was soooo cute. He loves to play! :D It makes me laugh how at the end of the video he gets mad that little Erik is playing the drums with him. He wanted them all to himself! I had to turn off the camera and try to teach him how to share, since Erik wanted his sticks back. LOL! Erik is only 3 even though he wears 5 year old clothing. He's like Brendan...HUGE! They are instant buddies, and both LOVE the drums. It's so cute to watch the two of them! :D

Brendan is a rhythm lovin' baby!

Sooo....I lost my camera charger, so I couldn't take any pictures or videos for over a month. We finally just sucked it up and went back to Best Buy and bought a new charger and new battery as a spare. :)

This is little man tonight tap dancing with Mommy. He's almost 14 months old and loves to tap dance with Mom. It's so stinkin' cute! :D

He also found my African percussion instruments yesterday and hasn't put them down since. He loves drumming with them! LOL

More coming soon! :D

This weekend with Brendan!

So, I was filming Brendan playing and snapped my fingers to get Lamar's attention, thinking Brendan wouldn't break his focus, and suddenly I realized Brendan was watching my fingers trying to snap too! New discovery! Isn't he too young to figure that out so fast? LOL

He tackled Mommy! Literally!

He's walking everywhere!!!

He giggles every time at the end of this one, when I kiss him. He gets so tickled by that! LOL!

Brendan for the first time last night let us put our hat on him and he liked it! It was fun to see him suddenly like the hat!

He loves to wrestle with anything and everything now...last night it was bear. He tackles everything and hugs it. LOL!

Where's Brendan? He's reminding us more and more of "Boo" (little baby character on 'Monsters Inc')...it's so fun!

Brendan also just learned how to color! Well...sorta...he still tries to eat the crayons. I have to watch him like a hawk!

Brendan LOVES to lay on Mommy while Mommy kisses his double chin! I love love love these times! :D