Brenner's 11 Months

My oh my!  11 MONTHS!  We are getting so excited to start celebrating Brenner's 1st birthday.

Brenner is crawling!  He started crawling about a week before he turned 11 months.  It didn't take him long to figure out how to get around at supersonic speed.  He's so fast!

Watch out!  It's Brenner the tornado!  He makes such a mess.  His favorite thing to do is pull all the puzzles off the shelves.  Then mommy puts them all back together and 5 seconds later, he pulls them back down.  Why do I try??

He's still a great eater.  However, there is one food that I have tried with him several times.  And he makes a disgusted face each time.  And you'll never believe what it is...  potatoes!  I don't know why, but he's just not a big fan of mashed potatoes.  They're lightly seasoned, and I even add milk and butter, but he just doesn't seem to like it.  We'll keep trying.  Other than that, he's a fabulous eater.

There's a game he likes to play in his highchair.  It's called, "Let's feed the imaginary dog game."  We no longer have Avery, our sweet and adorable schnauzer (tear, tear), but Brenner feels the need to toss all of his food overboard as if a hungry dog will lap it up.  He takes a bite and then throws food off his tray.  Takes another 2 bites, then throws a bite onto the floor.  Etc...Etc... It's a game every baby plays, and it cracks me up.  I have learned to leave the vacuum cleaner in the middle of the dining room because I'm constantly vacuuming up the mess.

Love you Brenner!  Can't wait for your first birthday!

Sequoia National Park

We had our first California adventure!  And what an adventure it was.  Sequoia National Park is about 70 miles away.  What an easy drive.  So, we got there 1 hour later, and I thought, wow!  This is nice.  Let's get out and play.  And then it took another hour to drive up the mountain.  Seriously.  Not only are you driving no faster than 20 mph, but they were working on the roads.  So, you had to stop, at one point, and let the oncoming traffic complete their route, and then it was your turn up the one lane road.  We went over 6,000 feet.  The temperature dropped from 104 degrees when we first arrived, to 84 degrees.  Emmy kept saying, "We're going up a mountain!"  We couldn't wait to get out of the car and see what the Sequoias offered.  We stopped at Crescent Meadow.  Brenner rode in a backpack carrier on Wade's back.  And Emmy hiked alongside us. 

It was green.  It was so, so green.  The trees were unreal.  They truly are the world's largest trees.  That's a fact Jack.  Brenner loved it.  He was all smiles throughout our little trek.  Emmy had fun running on the dirt trail.  Some of it was paved, which was nice.  There were so many people there, but once you get out and on a trail, everyone just spreads out.  It didn't seem overcrowded at all.  As we were walking, we saw a small group gathered, looking out at the meadow.  We looked out, and sure enough, there was a small, black bear.  A lady was telling us that they only have black bears there, but some are brown, and even blonde.  This bear was brown.  And we got a great view of it.  Emmy even got to see it.  Pretty amazing, to say the least.

We bought an annual pass that gets us into all the National Parks.  So, little black bear, we will be back to see you soon.   

Can you see the bear?

Under the tree we go