Are Your Children Safe?

For last Friday's CHS Football game, the pep band again had a theme to dress up for. You may recall last time, when the theme was Superheroes, and Ellysa dressed up as the Defender of Childhood Innocence!

Well this time the theme was Decades. Two years ago, Ellysa used this theme as an excuse to go as an '80s hair band rocker chick.

This year, she again chose the '80s as her decade, but skipped the corporate hair band machine, and went right to the angst of the DIY punk!



A couple weeks ago, she was defending childhood innocence. This time around, she's tracking down that innocence, shoving a safety pin through its nostrils, and setting its hair on fire.



And all the while...



...with a smile on her face!

Sunday Funnies (For Real?)

Another Milestone!

Danee is 22 months old now. While her ACTUAL second birthday is still two months away, and her ADJUSTED two-year-old phase won't start until late January, she is 100% in the terrible two's.

When they get to this age, the milestones don't come as fast and furious as they used to, but when she does accomplish exciting new things, I still try to remember to document them here so that we'll have that wonderful record to look back on when she's older...

Last night at dinner, when she decided that she was done, and announced it by way of turning her plate upside down and tossing whatever food was left onto the floor, she got to work accomplishing her new goal...









Oh boy.. the era of Danee's clothes staying on all by themselves is coming to an end, and the era of free range nakey baby is dawning...

I'll go alert the neighbors!

Church Callings....

I received a new calling at church about a month and a half ago, as a Sunday School teacher. I was really pretty nervous about it. I mean ME a teacher of the scriptures? I accepted the challenge and as luck would have it, I LOVE IT! I love the teens (15 year olds) I meet with each Sunday and I am learning SO much!

Here is a sampling of last week's lesson.

Just Another Day in the Neighborhood!

With Danee....

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!

When the Old and New Collide!

The 2010/11 Soccer season has begun!



Our first game of the year was against "The Fury", the funny thing is that this team used to be called "The Storm" when Kaylee played for them. The last season Kaylee played with this team they were "The Barracuda's". We have known almost every girl on the opposing team since kindergarten! It was so fun to see all the girls grown up, and they had a blast playing each other.



My favorite moment from the game was at the end when the team does their cheer for the opposing team. Our girls couldn't remember what the new name was and had to double check with the coach, one of Kaylee's team mates yells out "it's The Fury, ya know like balls of fury"... I had to walk away :) I love this age.

Are Your Children Safe?

Do you think kids of today are growing up to fast? Exposed to adult themes to early in life? Do you wish you could keep children innocent longer?

Never Fear! The Protector of Childhood Innocence is here!!!






Curtis High Schools Pep Band has alot of fun supporting their team, for the first home game of the season they decided to be super heros. Our Ellysa was more than happy to play along!
I mean who wouldn't want an excuse to wear their "Under-Roo's to school?

Ugly Dolls

The last week of summer vacation was weird around here. My own children started school a few days before my daycare kids went back to school and then my own kids had the Friday off before labor day. I also had one family that is military and were preparing to move to Guam..so... they didn't start school at all.

This left me with two babies and a handful of school aged kiddos to entertain for a day. I decided to use up some of my scrap fabric I had lying around and make Ugly Dolls... or Monster Dolls if you will.






Each child did all their own hand sewing ( I used the machine for the outside seams), the kids all worked really hard and their dolls were indeed UGLY! :)

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!