Friday Funny! (so what if it's saturday)

(By Mike Brinkerhoff - from Keeping Up With The Brinkerhoffs

Cindy and I had a Southwest flight attendant who sang the last part of the safety announcements, but this is approximately a million times cooler!!



And no, I've never gotten anything like that on United, or any other airline!

Kaylee's Birthday At The Fair

(By Mike Brinkerhoff - from Keeping Up With The Brinkerhoffs

Way back on September 15th, Our beloved Kaylee turned 13! Cindy took her out for a special "Mommy Day" and they went to the Puyallup Fair... At the time, Cindy promised pictures would follow shortly, and I'm happy to fulfill that order now.

KAYLEE & CINDY DO THE PUYALLUP:


Howdy, Y'all!


Squish, Squeeze, Squirt...


Soaring above the crowds...


Inside Weird Al's Brain in 3-D


Petting a goat shortly after winning a monkey who as of now, remains nameless.


Yes, Kaylee got to meet 50 Foot Weird Al, face to shin!


She also got to meet a tasty, tasty elephant ear...


And then it was home for Birthday Cake made by her loving stepdad... Who would not accept defeat, so when one corner of the cake stuck in the pan, ALL corners were lopped off! And when there weren't 13 individual candles, four candles were arranged as they would be on a pair of dice, showing a one and a three - Brilliant!

Happy Birthday to YOU, Kaylee! We Love You!!!

-mikey 'n' mommy

Ahem...

She has all of these:



And yet WHAT does she play with?



See that?





NO, we do NOT endorse, support, or agree with a baby's right to bear arms.

So maybe she just likes that it matches her outfit???

Danee's Big Girl Chair Is...

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

Last week I put up pictures of Danee sitting at the Big Table with the family, eating noodles, and basically being a Real Big Girl.

My cousin Amy (who does EXCELLENT photography, and in fact will be shooting our family's next set of pics) raised three important questions:

• Where did we get that wonderful seat?
• Who makes it?
• How big of a baby can it support?

Well, two of those are answered on the box it came in...

And as for the third question, we got it at Babies R Us, and even had a coupon for it! (Bonus!)

Thanks for asking Amy! It sounds like Branson will PROBABLY still fit in it...

Homecoming....

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

Last weekend was Homecoming at Ellysa's High School. She plays in the PEP band again this year and had a great time watching her team WIN the big game Friday night.

Saturday was spent getting her hair and nails done and the end result.....

BEAUTIFUL!

Peter, Ellysa's date had a water polo tournament in Oregon all weekend and wasn't able to make it back in time to pick her up at the house (he barely made it in time before they closed the doors, poor kid got ready in the car on the way back into town, still managed to bring a very pretty corsage)

SO... Ellysa and several girl Friends all met at our house and went out to dinner together.

They were all lovely too!

Sunday Funnies

A Seat At The Big Table

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

So now that Danee is Ten Months Old, there were some changes that had to be made... You already saw one the other day - all the gates we're climbing over every day. But another change is that she was just plain too big to eat in her Bumbo anymore. She routinely *almost* tipped it over, and had also learned that she could scoot herself around the table in it, and was rescued on several occasions from nearly going over the edge.

So now, our little big girl sits at the big table, with the rest of her family!



And for her first time, we let her have some of our dinner too - she thought noodles were fun stuff!



Despite the fun of the noodles, not much of them ended up in her mouth... mostly they wound up in her lap, or on the floor. So she finished her first visit to the Big Table with one of her yummy rice crackers!





Already, she's discovering that she likes foods that don't come in jars with baby faces on them... Enchilada, scrambled eggs, scones and more!

Mealtime will never be the same again!

Check Up!

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

Danee is growing beautifully, Wednesday was her latest check up. She is 10 moths old already!
I can hardly believe it,this babe of ours has come a long way from that 3lb, 4oz baby.

Here are her new stats:

15lbs. 11 oz.

26" long (she has finally doubled her length)

17.5 " Head - she is like a bobble head doll. I am sure her body will grow into it.

It is worth mentioning that Danee loves the tissue paper on the examination bed. She went crazy! By the time we left, she had eaten, ripped and wrapped her self in it like a burrito.
The Dr. commented "boy she is a busy one".... should I be concerned?

Work and Play Collide

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

Long before I started righting the wrongs of the geek squad for a living, I spent a good 15-20 years where every penny I earned came from something to do with music. I've written about that before, (click here, then here to refresh) and after all those years, it stopped being so fun. Music became work. I switched to my "other skill" and did computers.

Over time, I started dipping my toes back into the "music as an income source" pool, with an occasional DJ gig here and there. Then about a year ago, Cindy and I officially re-launched the DJ Business, and 2009 has been a very full year, and I've thoroughly enjoyed it again!

The pic at the top was from last Saturday, when I DJ'd a "Neon Dance". Black lights were everywhere, neon glowing paint was all over clothing, faces and arms... and a good time was had by all!



Our own Ellysa held a special position of honor, when she got to put on a sumo suit and dance with lucky non-sumo people while "Kung-Fu Fighting" played.



That was fun, but then it was off to the wrestling mat, where she was promptly dropped flat on her back!



Luckily that rubberized hair helmet protected her head!

To top the night off, Andy (in his neon yellow shirt) wowed the crowd with his amazing breakdancing skillz. I kept trying to get a good picture of him, but that dude's 'fro kept getting in the way!



It's nice to finally have balance where I can make some money off my musical skills, but keep it light enough that it doesn't become overbearing. It's gotta be fun, right??

Babe On The Move

Danee has begun to crawl... well, scoot is more like it. She is fast, and gaining speed each day. She suddenly goes from one room to the next in mere seconds, and is into everything - usually gross things or dangerous things, but mostly she likes to steal everyone's shoes and bite them - ugh!



Believe me we have a long way to go with getting this place Danee proofed, but Mike started last night with baby gates. We now have her restricted to one room, with a secondary back up (at the stairs) for the day that she outsmarts us, which I'm sure will come sooner than we think!Don't worry, she is still happy... I don't think it has sunk in yet!

Sunday Funnies

Friday Funny - Swine Flu Edition

We're all hearing about how bad Swine Flu is, and how fast it's spreading. In the interest of helping us all stay healthy, here's a quick and easy way to help us all out.

Each day when you wake up, look in the mirror.

If you look like this,

STAY HOME!!

Baby In A Basket

Yesterday Cindy and I were in the kitchen while Danee was playing in the living room, jabbering to herself in her adorable baby voice. After a while, we noticed that her voice was sounding slightly different. Not really muffled, but different. Peek in to the living room, and what do we see?



That pink basket is where her toys in the living room "live". I put "live" in quotes because it's really only in theory, or after bedtime that they live in there. As soon as Danee wakes up, and gets on the floor, she goes right to the basket, flips it over, and spreads the contents as far and wide as her little arms and legs can get them.

And this time, she'd decided to see how they feel, by putting herself in the basket... She didn't really seem to mind. When she heard us laughing, she giggled and kicked her feet.



She really didn't seem to have any desire to get out of her box, so Cindy reached down and peeked under...



...and was greeted with that smile... that amazingly rewarding smile that Danee blesses us with on a regular basis!

Today she's not feeling very well, has been very cranky and somewhat pukey, so it's nice to look back at yesterday to remember just why it is that she has us so wrapped around her chubby little finger!

Sunday Funnies

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.

Kidz White Board Art - Corporate Propaganda Edition

(hey facebook readers, the 'book pretty much always screws up my post formatting when they import, so just head over to www.thebrinkerhoffs.com and read this in its native form!)

Wow, I can't believe how bad I've been about posting new things!! There are at least two things per day that I think, "Okay, now THAT HAS to go on the blog!"

...and then it doesn't.

Starting and Running my own one-man business has been the hardest, most time-consuming thing I've ever done, and even though it's only a few months old, it's also already been the most rewarding. Things are coming along nicely, and there's some big news brewing on the Tech Services 4 All front... stay tuned, eventually it WILL make it to the blog!

But first, the reason for this post... Remember the white board that the kids love to doodle on?

Well last night, Andy Andrew Drew put up a little corporate propaganda for the ol' Family Business, and it was so good, such an Epic Win, that I just had to share it here...



YES!!! STICK IT TO THE SQUAD!!!

Sunday Funnies

Shine Like The Floor

Last weekend, it was time for our kitchen floor's annual refinishing...

We've got a great friend here in town who owns a flooring company, and for the second time he applied a commercial grade coating to our high traffic kitchen, and the results were stunning!



If you live in the greater Tacoma area and have any flooring needs, we completely recommend Floor Art!

A Day of Labor

Remember all the times I said I am terrible at taking "Before" pictures??

I still am... But not QUITE as bad as I usually am...

I didn't get any pictures of the disaster zone that was our roof before I cleaned it all off, and I didn't get a picture of our hedges after our neighbor trimmed his side and ours was a good 3 feet higher...

But I DID get one of the hedges after I'd almost finished trimming our side!



Though it looks like I'm almost done there, I actually had lots more to go... The hedges morph into other trees and bushes that were up against our roof, so I did an epic trim on everything growing on that side of our yard.

Now here's something unusual: An "almost before" pic of the mess in the driveway from all the clippings... It's an "almost before" because trust me, by the time I was actually done, you couldn't even see the driveway!

Sunday Funnies