Lights, Camera, TERROR!

From their very early ages, Andy, Kaylee and Tyler have written and produced several plays and movies. It's amazing to overhear the development over the course of a day - or if it's really epic, a weekend - and then be invited to view the final product when it's ready.

Recently, they started working on a horror movie called "I Know You're There."

I'm not sure if and/or when it'll reach completion, but they do SUCH a good job I just had to share a few production screen captures...


Kaylee looking from her window because something wicked that way comes...


Tyler proving that something wicked is in the kitchen.

Hidden Treasures

You may have heard that we recently became the new adoptive owners of a classic piano...

Well, during its deep cleaning, in addition to lots of 90 year old cobwebs and a petrified chicken's egg, there were some real treasures!



Barely visible beneath the dust, that's a Genuine Steel Nickel! It's pretty tarnished, but it looks like it's a 1944. Also found lurking beneath the dust was a steel penny that we can NOT make out the year on, and a 1901 Indian Head Penny!

Ellysa got right to work, cleaning them up...



And after a vigorous scrubbing, here are the treasures!



Also very cool, and very unexpected, was this last surprise...



Next time I need to impersonate a Junior Red Cross Member, I am fully equipped to do so!!

Table Talk

Making Monday Better: Self Love

Mondays can be rough - we get that.

So here to help, is our resident expert in Self Love, Daneekins.





Feel better?

Vital Stats

For the first time since February, Danee has gone long enough without being hospitalized to justify a Well-Baby Check Up!

We were very anxious to hear how she's doing after five weeks of NOT visiting the Mary Bridge Suites.

Here's how she stacks up:

Height: 31 Inches - 10th Percentile!

Weight: 19 Pounds - ummm.. -3rd Percentile! (yes, that is a NEGATIVE Three...)

Head: I don't have the actual measurement, but it's in the 25th percentile. As in a positive 25. As in, why does she need all that headspace??

Oh, there are MANY reasons... For one thing, she's super smart! Also, as soon as music starts playing, she does this bobble-head dance that just wouldn't be nearly as cute if her head size matched the rest of her body.

But the number one justification for a head that's 15% larger than her next largest measurement?

This kid is a HOT HEAD!!!

Here's a sequence of pictures that represents any given day at the Brinkerhoff household.

Danee doesn't get her way, and launches into a full force category five deluxe tantrum.



But she's such a good natured baby that she has a hard time keeping it up, and before long, that award winning smile starts to crack through the outer anger.



AAAAHH!! Then she realizes that she's giving in too easily, and tries to force the tear production back into high gear.



Finally, she realizes that being happy is more fun than being mad. Plus there are more cookies in happyville.

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!

Lazy Saturday Morning

Saturday Morning, Labor Day Weekend.

Two brothers are enjoying a delicious home-cooked breakfast.



One Hungry Hungry BabyGirl is also enjoying a delicious home-cooked breakfast. (not that that's a rarity, she pretty much ALWAYS enjoys a home-cooked breakfast!)



Another, nearly-fourteen year old girl would be having breakfast in "just a minute..."



Fresh Crepes with Homemade Raspberry/Blackberry jam - does it get any better??



No. No it does not.

A Stitch in Time

Sometimes you receive gifts that you love, but they are soon forgotten...

Some other times, you receive gifts that leave you wondering just what the heck that person was thinking!

Every GREAT once in a while, you receive a gift that is truly timeless!

We received one of those a few weeks ago, courtesy of my sister Linda.

Nearly a year and a half ago, Cindy and I were Sealed for Eternity in the Seattle Temple, and afterward, Linda told us that she would be making us a quilt to celebrate our "Mormon Wedding" as we've come to call it! :)

Little did we know, it would turn out to be such an awesome, incredibly cool and positively gorgeous example of hand-stitched quiltery!

We had peeked in on it during various stages of its production, but that didn't stop our jaws from dropping at the final reveal... in fact, it increased our sense of awe! The amount of hours that Linda and her husband Eric put in to this project was amazing!

Each little patch of colour had been individually cut, pieced together, and assembled into the greater patterns...

which is REALLY impressive... but the real amazement comes from the needlework itself!

Every stitch made by hand - Cindy promised (and delivered) a thorough hand massage to Linda during that stage of the process... And when it was done, we were honored to install it as the focal point of our bedroom!

WE LOVE IT!!!!

Thanks Linda and Eric - you guys are THE BEST!!!

A Sticky Situation at Puddle Jumpers

The kids made gum, yep real life sticky, minty, fruit flavored gum! It was really cool and fun, although the flavor didn't last long. The kids created their own flavors some were "Candy Kisses" and "Junk Yard", they all looked the same but I can attest that not all chewing gum is created equal. It was a blast and if you are interested in making some gum of your own you can buy the kit at Borders!

I think I will stick (get it - ha ha) to Extra or Juicy Fruit and if I'm feeling brave I may just pick up some Stripes!

Our Kiddos

Oh how WE LOVE them!!!

A Story of a Piano

Step 2 of piano restoration. Cleaning it!

Our family inherited a 1919 Brewster piano from the neighbors. They inherited it from some friends of theirs. I love the piano and have always wanted one but seeing how I don't actually play made it hard to justify buying one. So this Beaut was my answer to prayer so to speak.

Now rumor has it that the third owner ago had stashed money in it (lots of money). So when the piano tech told me that this piano had more then 90 years worth of dust needing to be cleaned out, I was hopeful we'd find something .... well we did! A inch of dust, several hair pins, a chicken egg (yeah seriously) and a 90 year old Cobb Webb. It was something to see and I have never been happier to pay someone to do the dirty work.

Oh we also found some other cool things but that's another post!

One Sleepy Girl

I got home from work today and Danee was being CRANKY!!!

Normally she's a very happy babygirl, so I figured she had to be either hungry or sleepy.

Got her in the high chair with a PB&J, and she happily started stuffing it in her mouth. Yay! The cranky problem is well on its way to being solved!

Uh-oh... a few minutes later, I looked over at her, and she was rubbing her PB&J covered fists in her eyes. I wondered why she was suddenly being naughty, making a mess before she was done eating... To convince her to stop, I gave her a fresh blackberry - ANY berry is Danee's favorite thing to eat!

She ate the blackberry, so I figured she would be good to finish her sandwich.

But then I looked at her again, and saw this:



Ummmm.... For some reason, I actually thought she was trying to trick me, so I kinda nudged her little hand - nothing. Except for a big sigh... She was out cold!

I got a wet washcloth and wiped her face and hands the best I could without waking her up, picked her up and took her down to her crib for a nap.

About half an hour later, Ellysa's boyfriend Dan came by looking for his swimsuit. Ellysa's working down at the pool, and a few of her friends were going to go swimming tonight. She had told Dan that his suit was probably in our laundry room. (somehow, this all made sense - Dan has been at our house more this summer than any of our actual kids, except for Daneekins!)

So Dan goes down to the laundry room to get his suit, and accidentally wakes up Danee. She doesn't sound very happy about it either. I run down and pick her up, and she goes limp on my shoulder, but does NOT want to be put back down.

So I come upstairs with her and figure I'll play a little Dr. Mario with her on my shoulder while she slowly wakes up.

It is only a LITTLE BIT distracting to play Dr. Mario while there's a warm snuggly babygirl snoring in your ear.

Yep, she was back to sleep. After about ten minutes of playing, she adjusted herself off my shoulder and into my lap, without waking at all. Finally I figured she might be more comfortable on the couch with a blanket.

And there she still lies.



I REALLY hope she either stays out for the rest of the night, or wakes up soon, because I would love to get a good night's sleep myself tonight!

Two Fisted Fruit Lovin' BabyGirl

Last week Cindy took Kaylee and Danee on a quick trip to the Tri-Cities to visit grandparents... and on the way back, they hit up the produce stand for some peaches... and other stuffs...

For example, Danee was VERY grabby, so Cindy decided to give her a couple hand-sized pieces of fruit to occupy herself. One Pluot and one Apricot later, she was a happy girl!



Of course, she didn't just want to hold them, she wanted to DEVOUR THEM!!



I've never known a baby to be SO into fruits and veggies... Seriously, if you want to make Danee happy, just give her some strawberries, blueberries, cantaloupe, honeydew, or now, Pluots and Apricots!



Meanwhile, her big sister was loading up on slightly more processed fruit products...



Happy girls, all the way home!

The Box Was Awesome!

Way back in March, I won a coveted "BOX o' AWESOME" from my niece Heidi's blog!!

Because she knows that waiting and anticipating are two of the best parts of winning something, she held off sending it until a couple weeks ago - so I had plenty of time to ponder the awesome that would be within the box.

The day it arrived, I didn't even notice it. I have most of my orders for work sent to the house, because there's not always somebody at the office to receive them. I came home from work, and saw a pile of boxes, and since I was expecting some deliveries I didn't even suspect that one of them contained AWESOME.

The next morning I decided to go through the boxes and make sure I had all the parts I needed for the various projects I was working on....

First box: 2 Laptop DVDRW drives. Woo.

Second box: 2 Laptop Wi-Fi cards. Woo, and also Hoo.

Third box: Wait, that's a hand-written label!



And it's from Cheney... I definitely didn't order anything from Cheney... In fact, the only people I know who live in Cheney just may have SENT ME A BOX o' AWESOME!!!

Sure enough, upon breaking the seal, the Awesome was practically bursting from the box!



I carefully removed the Awesome, piece by piece, savoring the moment. Because Heidi loves me, she knows that I love peanut butter... so the box took that as its theme - I got Peanut Butter Crunch (one of the world's finest cereals), Brownies topped with Peanut Butter Fudge and Marshmallows, Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffles, a Giant Reese's Bar, some Homemade Peanut Butter Hot Fudge Sauce, and my personal favorite, homemade Kettle Corn that had been drizzled with a Peanut Butter and Chocolate Ribbon, which was gone in about 20 minutes - I had to laugh because Heidi had been concerned that it wouldn't be any good after shipping... Whatever. The whole box could have been nothing but that and I would have been happy thrilled!! :)



The Awesome was rounded off with a Rocket Balloon Launcher (which makes AWESOMELY obnoxious noises), and three Classic Sesame Street Washcloths. Since I give Danee her bath most nights, those are very cool to have!

Thank you SO MUCH, Heidi!! Love you guys - you need to come over soon so we can enjoy some Hot Fudge Sundaes with that Awesome Sauce!! I'll even make up some homemade Peanut Butter Ice Cream to go with it!

Music Monday - Kids Pop!

See?? I still do music stuff when I get the chance!

I've never claimed to have very sophisticated taste in music - I simply demand that it be GOOD.

Now, "Good" of course is a somewhat subjective term, but to me, it's just something I can typically recognize from any given 3 to 5 second snippet of a song. It's got to have a strong melody, and the chords have to progress nicely throughout each section of the song. (verse, chorus, bridge, etc) I absolutely can't stand songs where they just sit on one chord - or loop through the same set of chords - for the entire song. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me! Also, the recording quality has to be good for its time. Meaning, a classic Motown hit doesn't need to (and really shouldn't) sound like it was made in 2010, but anything recorded in the last 40 years had better have nice clear highs and a solid low end. And finally, I just have to like it. :)

So - now that I've established my personal criteria for good music, AND admitted that I'm not very highbrow about it, it shouldn't be a big surprise that I'm a sucker for the kids bands. From Musical Youth in the early '80s, Hanson in the '90s and the Jonas Brothers, Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato today, the kids almost always seem to "get it" on all the main points. Now, it's rare (if ever) that they can pull it off for a whole album, but you're almost always guaranteed to get three or four good solid singles out of them before they start to grow up and decide that they need "credibility." (Miley Cyrus' latest effort, "Can't Be Tamed" is smack in the middle of this category.)

Anyway, last week Cindy, Kaylee and Danee all went over to the Tri-Cities to visit grandparents, leaving Ellysa and me home alone. Not surprisingly, Ellysa opted to spend the majority of her time at her boyfriend Dan's house, leaving me all by my lonesome. I did some basic housekeeping, ate some food, and then decided to get caught up on the latest music. I mainly do that through a service called "Promo Only" that I got hooked up with back in the '90s when I was producing the Friday Night PartyZone on C-89.5 FM. So with the house to myself, I loaded up the August CD, cranked up the volume, and turned on the Wii for some quality time with Dr. Mario.

Each Promo Only CD has 20-23 songs, and for the past few years, there are usually only 3 or 4 that really stand out to my ears... But this month's disc is LOADED with catchy, quality tunes! One in particular jumped out at me, to the point that I ran over to the computer to see what it was. The band was "Burnham" and the song was "Catch Me If You Can." Great sing-a-long power pop, which is one of my favorite styles! From listening to it, I assumed the singer was a girl... but then I noticed the last line in the chorus goes "You probably still think that I'm your man, but girl catch me if you can."

Huh? Wait... If that says what it sounded like it said, then this isn't very likely to be a Power Pop Chick Band, this must be a Power Pop Kids Band...? Really?? So I hit up the YouTube and did a little research - and sure enough, it's the Burnham brothers, with the youngest right up front with pre-growth-spurt chubby cheeks and everything. They look like they're having a blast, and I still loved the song!



Having solved the mystery of Burnham, I resumed the August disc of new releases, and just a few minutes later, I was off the couch again, looking to check on another song... And it was the latest from Hanson - I'd noticed it on the track listing, and kind of laughed, not expecting it to be anything to get excited about... but this song was GREAT! Fresh sounding, soulful, not at all like everything else out there... I'm not sure why, but I decided to look it up on YouTube as well, and was very pleasantly blown away by what I found... A direct, move-for-move tribute to one of my favorite movie musical numbers EVER: The Ray Charles "Shake A Tail Feather" number from The Blues Brothers! And the Hanson boys obviously have a strong love - even a reverence - for the original...

So as much as I like the kids bands while they're new and fresh, the sad fact is that they usually don't age well. It's very nice to see that Hanson has turned out what may be their best work ever, more than a decade after their last significant chart appearance!

As if that wasn't enough, a little more research informed me that Taylor Hanson, the keyboardist and lead singer, formed a Power Pop SuperGroup last year with the guitarist from Smashing Pumpkins, the drummer from Cheap Trick, and the bassist from Fountains of Wayne... And they're AWESOME!!! I was going to embed the video here, but it's disabled - so you have to actually go there to check them out. (click here!)

That's it for this week - I've got lots of great new music to get me through the next seven days, and beyond!

Morning Makes Everything Better!

Yesterday, I relieved some of my stress from this hospital stay by writing a very satisfying rant here...

Since I'd already done that, there wasn't much left for Cindy to do, so she decided to take a different - some may say a more direct approach - she called the hospital administrator's office.

There she spoke to a very nice person known as the "Patient's Advocate."

Who knew such a mythical being existed?? It seems rather hard to believe, that the all powerful organization would allow what is essentially a mole from the very little people they like to push around, right there in their own offices... maybe it's just a PR stunt??

Anyway, Cindy had about a 30 minute conversation with Ms. Advocate, who listened carefully and assured her that our concerns would be addressed.

No kidding.

Before I knew that any of this had happened, a new doctor came in to talk to me, to make sure that things were going okay. While he was in there, Cindy called me to say that she had just spoken with Ms. Advocate. New Dr. appeared rather interested and/or concerned from the side of the conversation he overheard, so when I got off the phone, I essentially recited my rant from the blog. He immediately left to organize a meeting with the rest of the staff and get things straightened out.

A few minutes later, the head charge-nurse came in. She also said she is part of the nurse management team, and that they were having an all-team meeting this morning at 8, and every one of our concerns would be addressed.

Last night's care was outstanding, and with the proper medication, Danee slept very well all night long. And with Danee sleeping well, Daddy actually got some sleep too!

This morning when Danee woke up, she had her oxygen canula off her nose, blowing in her eyes... but the monitor wasn't beeping... in fact, it read 97% and holding!

She has been SO good this morning!! Ate a nice pancake breakfast, had a bottle, another breathing treatment, some TV Time, and LOTS of laughing, dancing, and getting into everything that's supposed to be out of her reach.

Just this moment, Mommy and Tyler walked in, and Danee did a Happy Dance by which all future Happy Dances will be judged - easily the best sight I've seen all week!!

Now we just have to wait for the doctors to agree that she's doing better so they can send us home. It's gotta happen soon, as now that she's feeling better, Cabin Fever is starting to set in...

As If Being Stuck In The Hospital Wasn't Bad Enough...

Cindy pointed out earlier that we're back in the hospital.

This is the 4th time this year.

Over these many visits, we've learned some things. Among other things, we've learned how things are designed to work. That has taught us to recognize when things are going horribly wrong.

I'm so mad about the way things have gone this go-round, that I've got to rant - to get it out of my system before I go back to spend another night.

RANT: ON!

When Cindy checked in with Danee on Sunday afternoon, in addition to the Albuterol nebulizer treatment, the ER doctor also administered a liquid oral steroid to help beef up Danee's lung performance. This was to be repeated roughly every 24 hours.

Monday afternoon, Danee was doing GREAT!! Happy, energetic, no supplemental oxygen, it looked like an easy overnight followed by a morning dismissal! Yee-Haw!

In the midst of this stellar performance, the nurse brought in the day's dosage of steroids. For some reason, she brought it in tablet form, which was crushed and put into some pudding.

Danee's no fool. She's been in da joint enough times to know that any foodstuffs that are soft and squishy are not to be trusted. She flat-out refused, and didn't take a single granule of her medicine. So the nurse said she'd order up a liquid, and we would continue down the happy path we were on. (FYI, I missed all of this - it was during my work time, when Cindy and Tyler were at the hospital)

I returned to relieve Cindy around 8:00 Monday night, and by that time the liquid medicine hadn't shown up yet. Unfortunately, she forgot to tell me that we were waiting on it. Danee was still super cute happy girl, ticking away the hours until she got to go home.

Cindy and Ty left around 8:30 - Danee and I settled in with a nice warm bottle and some quality Disney Channel to escort her off to dreamland. She chugged the bottle and started drifting off in my arms.

*BLURP*

And then she puked. Great. I didn't pack an extra shirt. Oh well, it's not TOO bad... I got her into some clean clothes and into bed, then rinsed my shirt in the sink. Almost immediately the alarm was going off that she didn't have enough oxygen in her blood.

Our night time staff was VERY supportive of sending us home in the morning, and if they had to put her on oxygen, that wouldn't happen. So every time the alarm would go off, we were poking, prodding and adjusting Danee so she'd take a big deep breath and silence the dinging. End result: Neither of us got any sleep. I finally lost the battle around 3am, and at 4, they put Danee on Oxygen. *Sigh* - another day.

It wasn't until Cindy showed up at around 10:30 this morning that I learned she had missed a (crucial) dose of her steroids. When we brought this up to the morning nurse, she looked in the computer and said, "No, it was given to her at 4:36 yesterday."

"No, she didn't touch that one, they were supposed to send in a liquid dose, but it never came."

"No, there's no order for a liquid dose, but she was given a dose at 4:36."

"No, she didn't TOUCH that one."

"She must have, because it says right here that it was administered at 4:36 yesterday afternoon."

*holding back urge to freakin' pummel this thick headed woman*

"No. She. Refused. That. Dose. Completely... And. There. Never. Was. Another. Dose. Offered."

(I swear I am not making this up)

"Well it says here that she got one at 4:36, so she didn't miss a dose."

At this point we realized there would be no reasoning with the steroid nazi, so we went to work on getting the NEXT dose here, in liquid form, ASAP. Which turned out to be about 5 hours later.

**INTERMISSION**

That was just the first of our oh-so-frustrating moments today. Stay tuned for more. The last one will make your jaw drop...

Need computer repair? Don't Stall! Call Tech Services 4 All!

Wow. Shameless. Truly shameless. But since I can't work during all this crap, I gotta do something!!

**END INTERMISSION**

Hi, welcome back. Is your computer running smoothly? So another super neat thing happened between yesterday and today, that's causing us to refer to much of yesterday as the black hole. Or the day that time forgot. I dunno, we're still working on a good name for it. But yesterday morning, Danee's lungs were, according to the doctors, not sounding asthmatic, but were instead sounding plugged. I mentioned that the first two times we stayed at their fine establishment, that was the exact problem, and that it was fully cured by nebulizer treatments of a 3% saline solution. (as opposed to the .9% that is a standard saline, which matches our tears) The docs agreed that it was an excellent idea, and almost immediately, I had Danee in my lap with the nebulizer mask on, and she was coughing loose the gunk in her lungs.

It felt good to know that things were moving in the right direction! And a few hours later, she was feeling so much better that we were all kinds of excited!

Guess what? That dose of 3% Saline never got recorded in the computer. If you made it through part one of this rant, you know that the computer is the end-all answer to everything in MultiCare land. (MultiCare is the nearly sole proprietor of health services in Pierce and South King Counties, and owns the hospital we're in.)

That meant that this morning, when the same EXACT situation was being reported in her lungs, and I again suggested the good old 3% treatment, absolutely nothing happened. Because it wasn't in her chart. It hadn't been done this go-round. There were no orders for it. All this from the same nurse who still swears that Danee got her Monday afternoon steroid.

I requested this treatment between 7 and 8 in the morning. It was finally administered at 3 in the afternoon. I'm glad nobody rushed into anything on our baby's behalf.

By this time, even though Danee had been drinking plenty of fluids and peeing plenty of wet diapers, we all agreed that an I.V. would be the best way of administering her remaining medications, so it wouldn't depend on getting past the very powerful rejection mechanism that is her mouth.

The I.V. was inserted while I was out of the room, but when I came back it looked good. Hadn't been hooked up to anything yet, but it looked like a good clean install. We've seen some bad ones, so we know these things now.

An hour or so later, I went to sit in the chair / couch / bed thing where I've lived the last couple days, and saw something between the seat cushion and the arm of the chair.

When I pulled it out, my jaw dropped, and I very well may have shot blood from my eyes.

It was another I.V. needle. Thankfully, it was brand new and still in its sterile packaging.

But that sterile packaging was meant to be opened quickly and easily, and our baby is a MASTER at opening things that she isn't supposed to get into. If she had found that instead of me or Cindy, she would have VERY easily started playing doctor on herself with it.

We showed it to our nurse, who didn't seem particularly concerned, just took it, dropped it in the hazardous materials bin, and left the room again.

So by 6:00 Tuesday evening, Danee's lungs sound as bad as they did when she got there Sunday afternoon. A missed dose of medicine could very well have prevented her returning to that state - maybe not, but missing it certainly didn't help... There's no end in sight to our stay at the Mary Bridge Suites... Puddle Jumpers has managed to stay open through the VERY appreciated help of assistants, friends, and our awesome daughter Ellysa... Tech Services 4 All operated on a skeleton basis Monday, but did nothing today... and did I mention that there's no end in sight yet?

At least Wednesday promises to bring the results from the Cystic Fibrosis test that was administered today. We're all praying very hard for a negative result. We would appreciate you joining us in this effort, and in praying for a quick and full recovery of our sweet little babygirl.

Thanks for reading... and if you ever need pediatric care, I hope you are fortunate enough to go to a non-MultiCare facility.

Round and Round we go!

Danee is sick again. Back at the Suites she is. We thought this would be just another visit like all the rest... then they started throwing around words like Cystic Fibrosis and Lung infection. The poor baby girl is NOT well. Today she was tested for both and we should know more tomorrow. Please pray for her to feel better and for us to get our answers so we can know what we are supposed to do. Until then she enjoys a great view and some clean straight 02 (Oxygen)