Brenden’s Spring Programs – Then and Now

This week was Brenden’s spring program at school, his second big performance so far in his young career. His school, Colleyville Christian School. is full of wonderful teachers and students who worked really hard and put together a great show as expected. Brenden’s class performed “Behold, Behold” and “Awesome God”. We are so thankful that all four of his grandparents and two of his great-grandparents got to attend. We took up most of a row.

Before it began, his teacher gave us his “Me Book”, a compilation of projects, pictures, and other memories of Brenden from throughout the school year plus a really sweet, personalized note from his lead teacher. I wish I could post it here somehow, as it’s a wonderful book that we’ll keep for years to come. I can only imagine how much work it took for his teachers to assemble these books for every student in the class.

Naturally, I had to record his performance. Sorry about the shaky camera work. I’m not the most experienced video guy, but at least I work for cheap!

Spring Program 2012 (Age 3.75)

Spring Program 2011 (Age 2.75)

For comparison, here is Brenden’s performance from last year. Note how much more coordinated and attentive Brenden is now compared to a year ago.

2012 Pictures

Here are a few other pictures of Brenden with his family from this year’s program.

Next spring, both boys will be old enough to participate in the program. They didn’t want to attempt a performance with Jonathan’s one-year-olds class. 🙂

Brenden Sings “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”

Brenden has really gotten good at learning songs recently and loves to sing. I managed to capture him singing his current favorite Christmas song, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”. Sorry about the poor lighting, but the audio is more important anyway. My parents once had a recording of me singing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” at age 4 or 5. When I listened to it as a teenager, I was amazed at how different my voice sounded back then. I figure Brenden will have the same reaction when he watches this video a decade or so from now.

Christmastime is Here

On Wednesday night, after the boys went to bed, Jenny and I scrambled to put up the Christmas tree and decorations as a surprise for the first day of December. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Jenny worked out 25 days of activities for us to do leading up to Christmas Day. Day 1 was the tree. Last year Jonathan was 10 months old when we put up the tree, so we used our 4 1/2 foot tree and set it on a small table. This year Brenden requested the big tree, a 7 1/2 foot beast that we used for our first Christmas in the house. I’m impressed that he remembered it. We did most of the decorating but left a few non-breakables for the the boys to hang on the tree the next day.

Thursday morning we let them come downstairs to see their surprise. Jenny made a video of it. There’s nothing like the joy and enthusiasm of children. (Note: the first part is dark because we didn’t think about lighting. The rest is much easier to see, and the audio is pretty good throughout. Listen for both boys.)

This is the Christmas Countdown that Jenny mentions in the video.

This should be a great month. We’re almost done with our shopping thanks to Jenny’s hard work in November. We’re spreading out our family Christmas celebrations throughout the month instead of trying to see everyone on Christmas Eve or Day. Jenny is almost done with her anatomy class. And for the first time, Brenden seems genuinely excited about Christmas.

Jonathan’s Toddler Bed

Jonathan, as young men his age generally do, has figured out how to escape from his crib. He first succeeded a couple of weeks ago at around 19 months old. He did it twice this week, so Jenny and I decided it was time to remove the front wall of his crib like we’d done with Brenden. Jonathan loves running at Brenden’s bunk bed full-speed and flopping onto it, so we figured he might do the same with his own once we converted it to a toddler bed. Here’s the video of his first encounter:

On his first night in the “new” bed, he pulled his blanket, pillow, and pacifiers off and carried them over to the door, where he eventually fell asleep for a while. Then around 9:30pm he suddenly woke up and got scared because he didn’t know where he was. Jenny put him back in the bed, which seemed to do the trick.

Summertime with the Box Boys

Today we went to Jenny’s parents house and spent most of the time in their beautiful backyard, which includes a crushed stone path, a table for six, a garden, lots of open grass, and huge pecan trees for shade. After lunch we stripped the boys down so they could play in the sprinklers. Then we busted out the Slip and Slide. When the water alone didn’t quite cut it, we added baby oil. Everybody had a blast. Then everybody took a nap.

Need a Workout?

Grab a blanket and a couple of toddlers!

The funniest part happens right before I start pulling. When Jonathan sees Brenden on the blanket and me holding one end, he walks over and flops facedown on the other end. He has figured out a stable position for blanket riding. =)