2 Years Old, She Is!

Danee turned two on December 1st, It was a beautiful day for a party!





Danee really enjoyed her cupcake!




Each friend went home with their own horse.


Danee LOVES her wagon, and we have enjoyed many wagon rides in the past couple weeks!

14

Kaylee turned 14 on Sept. 15!

She celebrated her actual birthday by going to the Puyallup fair with her friends. Unsupervised fair time with friends... don't remind me that I let her go. Every thing turned out OK, she made it home safe and sound no tattoos!

Her birthday continued two days later on Friday night by having 5 friends over for a sleep over, the girls all came over after her first official school dance! The girls watched movies and ate junk food until they finally went to sleep at 4:40ish in the morning.




The family was finally able to celebrate our sweet Kaylee on Sunday, I made for her her favorite meal topped off with Red Velvet Cake!

I love you Kaylee and am looking forward to our 15th year together!

Out With The Old...

In SIX DAYS, Kaylee will be turning FOURTEEN!

We're not entirely sure HOW that happened, but apparently it's coming whether we want to admit it or not, so it was time to make a few changes around here.

For example, it has come to our attention that FOURTEEN year old girls do NOT like to have their rooms decorated with horsies.

Horsie wallpaper accent? GONE!!





Instead, they prefer a more elegant approach to domesticated dwelling.

It took two hard days of LABOR (for Labor Day weekend, of course) that included:

• Stripping Wallpaper
• Washing Walls
• Priming those same Walls
• Painting those primed Walls
• Building Furniture
• Unleashing Cindy's Inner Interior Design Diva

And the end result?











Kaylee is moving in as we type. She thinks she likes it there.



Correction: She LOVES it there!

A Dozen Years of Tyler!

(By Mike Brinkerhoff - from Keeping Up With The Brinkerhoffs) - if you don't see the pics, just click on over!

Last weekend, we celebrated Tyler's Twelfth Birthday!

To honor the occasion, here are a dozen random pictures of Tyler being Tyler.



And finally, here are a dozen things we love about Tyler:

1. He is a very funny kid - quick on the snappy comeback, and he can get Cindy into a giggle fit that just won't quit.
2. He has earned his nickname of "Favor Boy." When something needs to be done around here, Tyler will eagerly volunteer to do it... with most things, at least!!
3. He's always up for doing something! Whether it's going out to play frisbee or going to the store to run errands, if you shout out "Who wants to go with me..." Tyler will almost always be first to answer.
4. He and Kaylee have one of the best sibling relationships I've ever seen. LOVE watching them together.
5. He's not (t00) easily embarrassed. His school puts on very high quality plays every year, and Tyler has been involved in them for as long as he's been able to. Last year he played Charlie's dad in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and this year he's landed the part of Gaston in Beauty and the Beast!
6. He's very polite - often the first in the room to say thank you for a good dinner.
7. He loves helping in the kitchen. Favor Boy makes another appearance in the list... Even though his eagerness to help has backfired on him a few times...
8. He's so delightfully gullible! From trying Smoked Salmon on a Saltine Cracker with Chocolate Frosting, to trying home made Play-Doh, Cindy has had hours of fun tricking Tyler into doing and/or trying things that his common sense SHOULD tell him to avoid...and...
9. He's a VERY good sport! With all the times he discovers that he's been flim-flammed again around here, he typically laughs, shrugs it off, and starts plotting his comeback on whoever administered the flim-flammery.
10. When I took him to the Space Needle for his tenth birthday, he came up with an interpretive dance to a song we were listening to. Believe me, this kid can interpretive dance!
11. He is the epitome of a pre-teen boy... Four day weekend at dad's house with no shower?? Sure, if we don't gently remind him that he stinks!!
12. We just love the young man Tyler is growing into, and couldn't imagine life without him!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TYLER!!!

Happy (somewhat) Belated Birthday, Danee!

(By Mike Brinkerhoff - from Keeping Up With The Brinkerhoffs) - if you don't see the video, just click on over!

Danee turned 1 on December 1st. We had a little party with some friends and family, and I shot some video... I've been meaning to splice the footage together into a quick highlight reel ever since, and almost gave up on it since I'd waited so long. But then I realized that her actual DUE DATE was January 24, so I actually finished the video right on time! :)

She's an amazing baby, and even though she's been sick with a truly nasty cold for the last few days, she is absolute pure joy!

We love you Daneekins!!!

The First Present on The First Birthday

(By Mike Brinkerhoff - from Keeping Up With The Brinkerhoffs)

HOW TO OPEN YOUR FIRST BIRTHDAY PRESENT:

Step One:



Eat The Card.

---

Step Two:



Eat The Tissue. (It's SO crinkly and good and... AAAH!! IT'S STUCK TO MY TONGUE!!! GETITOFF GETITOFF GETITOFF GETITOFF!!)

---

Step Three:



Pull the present from the bag, and inspect it.

---

Step Four:



Hey!! It's the best ...one of these... I've ever seen!!

---

Step Five:



Pose for obligatory picture with the friends who gave the gift.

---

Step Six:



PLAY TIME!!!

---

Step Seven:



Do the "Right Thing" and "Share" your new toy with your friends...

Happy Birthday Kaylee!!!

Today is Kaylee's 13th birthday... she and I are celebrating together. Just the two of us!

She has no idea what we are doing, details and pictures tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Susan!!!

We love you and are so grateful for the joy and laughter you bring into our lives...

Here is a little video ....



HAPPY BIRTHDAY SUSAN!!!

An Evening With Chuck E.

Last Thursday, our honorary Brinkerhoff - Romeo - was celebrating his 8th birthday! And Thursdays are the nights that he's an honorary Brinkerhoff, so we decided to do something fun with him...



While Cindy and the kids placed our order, Danee and I found a relatively quiet place to hang out...



Relatively quiet, that is, until "The Show" began, at which point they cranked the volume way up to eleven, and all the kids in the room started screaming. Danee woke up and was just a little shocked and overstimulated, maybe even a little scared. Luckily, her mommy was there to protect her and make everything okay!



After "The Show" ended, our Pizza finally arrived (more than 45 minutes to make 2 pizzas??) so the kids quickly scarfed down just enough food to carry them through the next wave of ticket-hunting...





And then they were back off on their Ticket Quest! Both Andy and Kaylee had decided to give all their tickets to Romeo so he could get some extra birthday presents... And they did a great job of helping him along! Kaylee hit the jackpot TWICE on this "hit the button while the spinning light is in the magic ticket zone" game...



...and Andy spent most of the evening playing Skee-Ball, which he said was "a ticket machine!"



At final count, Li'l Ro had accumulated over 1,200 tickets...



...and made off with more loot than he could carry, so Kaylee was happy to offer the assist...



Good times were had by all, except maybe poor little Danee, who was officially overstimulated, which meant that she woke up at 2:30 AM, breaking a streak of more than two weeks of sleeping all night! (don't cry for us though, she's started a new streak by now!)

Ellysa Has Successfully Turned 16!

As I pulled into the driveway after work this evening, I saw the door of Ellysa's new car close... And as I was walking in to the house, I heard its engine start up... And I chuckled to myself, because I remember doing the same exact thing! Sitting in my car, starting the engine, dreaming of the day I would get my license and be able to actually drive it... Tomorrow after school, she'll take the test for her permit, and then after dinner I'll be giving her her first lesson on the finer points of driving with a clutch!

But first, she just wanted to soak up the ambiance of her little blue Mazda.



I came inside, and saw that in today's non-Ellysa related news, we had received a wonderful gift basket of baby goods as a gift from the company I work for!



Very cool stuff, and I LOVE duckies, so it's a great bunch of clothes and stuffed things!

We went out to dinner tonight, so Daneekins had her very first babysitter... The honors went to a really good friend from church named Jennifer. Jennifer is now the proud owner of our chickens, as well. She's been wanting to get some hens for years, and with all that's been going on around here, the girls were being quite neglected. So now she's spoiling them rotten, and for a couple hours tonight, she did the same for out sweet tiny girl.



She thoroughly enjoyed her time with the little angel, and we were so glad to be able to go out to dinner in full confidence that she was still being surrounded by love!

Then it was off to the Sakura Japanese Steak House, for food, presents, relatives and fun! Cindy's brother and his family joined us, and the evening also served as a trade-off point for her mom, who likes to split her visits between our two families.











When we got back home, I went to get some milk for breakfast in the morning, and also to fill up the van for Cindy. I made it about 50 feet, when the van sputtered and came to a halt. Wow. Completely out of gas! Just minutes earlier, it had delivered us home from our evening, with a baby who was ready to be fed! I couldn't believe how blessed I was - and though I don't even remember the last time I ran out of gas, and it's never a good thing, I'd much rather have it happen right outside my house - to have first, gotten my family home safe and sound, and then, still be right in front of our house, so I could easily run to the garage and grab the gas can.

Now there is milk for tomorrow's breakfast, the van has a nice, full tank, Danee has a nice full tummy, and I've got to get to bed.

One last thing though...

Remember the camera I got in my "Bag o' Crap" that arrived on New Year's Eve? The cable I ordered for it arrived today, and once it was plugged in long enough to put some juice in the battery, it works great! In fact, every picture in this post was taken with that camera! Not bad for a buck!!

A Very Sweet Sixteen!

Ellysa got up this morning, and immediately started doing her Happy Dance...



But why?? Why would a girl who's turning 16 on Monday be doing her Happy Dance on Saturday Morning??

Well...

Her parents got her a pretty cool birthday present... and since her stepdad doesn't get to be home during the week until after dark, the photo op was WAY better to do it now... Ya know, because visibility really matters when your present is sitting in the front yard!





(nothing happens in our yard without Kitty walking on it)





It's a 5-Speed, so we had to explain that you gotta push the clutch in to start it...





And it started right up!



A quick hug from Grandma, who is up visiting this week...



And then I got to give her her first ride around the block in her NEW CAR!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ELLYSA!!