Our Blook

This blog started out as somewhat of a half hatched notion of a good way to share a few pictures when Braedyn was born. A lot of our friends and family were spread out across the world and we wanted to share our joy with them in someway. It's ended up being an ongoing photo journal of our lives and especially of Braedyn's life. It's also ended up being our main photo album as we don't print a lot of pictures to make albums with. And with all the time and effort we have invested in the blog it always seemed like duplicated effort to create a photo album. Well one thing that has been on my mind to do for quite some time is to figure out a way to print out the blog in a nice format so that we do have a way to keep it around to flip through. About a year ago a friend of mine, Ben Martens, at Microsoft showed me a book that he just had made of his blog. So I set out to write a little piece of software that would suck in every blog post and then format them all correctly so that I could print our blog as well. I made the mistake of telling Talisha about this idea about a year ago and she has been excited about it ever since. Well the first installment of our "Blook" is now completed (by the time this posts Talisha will have received it as a Christmas present). I sent off the entire first year of our blog to Lulu.com for publishing in a hardback, 8.5" x 11", full color book. It is 635 pages long with over 1200 pictures in it. And guess what, you too can buy a copy! Just go to http://www.lulu.com/content/5177449 and order yours today. I think you get a discount if you order 10 of them! Anyhow, it will be nice to see how this turns out. Unfortunately it's a bit expensive to experiment so I'm not sure how the formatting will look until I actually get the first copy, so I'm sure there will be some improvements made in the formatting module of my code for next year's installment.

Oddly enough the picture on the front of the book was taken in Hawaii in 2006, not Carpinteria, since Braedyn was only 7 months at the time. Apparently the beach way of life had a pull on us before we even knew Carp existed. Funny the twists and turns life takes!

 

Merry Christmas

Well another year has come and gone and we find ourselves enjoying the excitement of the Christmas season once again. This time through the eyes of a toddler with a first realization of what a big deal Christmas really is. Even though we've celebrated Christmas in a different state every year of his life, Braedyn has rolled with the punches and is just enjoying life. Our latest adventure has brought us to Carpinteria, California where we are amazed every day at how blessed we truly are. The weather and beaches here are great, the people and the friends we've come to know are amazing, the church we've found is beyond a blessing, work is good, and having fun outdoors hiking, surfing, biking, or just playing with friends and family is what we enjoy the most. We couldn't have asked for a more perfect situation here and we thank God daily for the blessings he's given to us.


The biggest bundle of blessings we have is out little ball of joy. Braedyn has also been loving the move we made. He's always seemed more in his element in the outdoors and this is the perfect place to do that. You'll find him playing on the beach, exploring tidepools, throwing rocks in the creek, running around the playground, swimming at the pool or following daddy around on a hike, when he's doing these things, nothing can ruin the day. He's also been involved in other activities since we moved here like Kindermusik and Art class where he has really come out of his shell and just loves singing and playing drums or guitar and cannot get enough of painting and drawing. The only thing he hasn't been able to do yet that he wants to is to go surfing with Daddy, he's working on the swimming part first.


It goes without saying that Talisha and I are happy about our decision to move here. We feel like this was something that was really meant to be and that we were brought here for a purpose. The chuch that we have gotten plugged into here in Carpinteria has really challenged and encouraged us in our faith. The people we have met through the church have made us feel really welcome and we are just blessed to have met some great friends already. Talisha has kept busy with hauling Braedyn around to his classes as well as working out and continuing to be involved in MOPS. Michael's work keeps him pretty busy although when the waves come in there may be some longer lunch breaks taken. Although it's an adjustment moving from big cities to a small town of 14,000, where you will run into someone you know no matter where you go, we've been enjoying the small, beach town feel and haven't had too many Mayberry moments.

So thanks so much to all our friends and family for tuning into our blog for another year! We wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays and we pray God's blessings on you in this season of Christ's birth. We can't wait to see each and everyone of you as soon as possible.

Kindermusic Santa Barbara

Well another Kindermusic semester is over. Braedyn really had a lot of fun this year with Miss Kathy as the instructor. He got a lot more involved in the class than he has in the past and had a lot of favorite songs and instruments. He knows pretty much all the words to all of his Kindermusic songs now, and pretty much all the other music he listens to as well. He amazed me the other day by singing a reggae song of a local reggae band out of the blue. The music is on his Zune player and he's just picked up the words. We don't even know the words, so now we just ask Braedyn what the song says...

 
 

Couch Fort

A favorite activity at night before bath time around here is to take all the pillows we can find and build a big fort on the couch.

 
 

Spaghetti Kisses

Enjoying some spaghetti with Mommy!

 

Finger painting

We have a lot of fun painting pretty much every night after dinner. Finger painting has been the art of choice lately.

 

Carpinteria Parade

Carpinteria held its annual holiday parade last weekend and we rode our bikes downtown with the rest of Carpinteria to watch. It was a fun little parade and we were able to get right up front. It was a little slow moving so we ended up going into the bakery for some Christmas cookies to help us wait it out and then eventually ended up leaving a little early. It was a nice day though so we headed down to the beach for a while to sip coffee and chase birds around and then rode by to see the Seals.

 
 
 

Artwork

Art class is almost over for this year, but Braedyn has enjoyed every minute of it. He asks to paint pretty much every night after dinner and so we've amassed quite the supply of paints and brushes and the like. Here is another sampling of some of his latest pieces.

 
 
 
 

Sledding

Sledding you ask? yep, that's right, it snowed over a 100 square foot area on top of a hill at the Santa Barbara zoo this weekend. It was the annual Snow Leopard festival at the zoo where they give all of the animals a taste of some snow in their areas, and they offer a nice little man made sledding hill. It wasn't quite at the same scale as sledding on Snoqualmie pass in Washington, or the hills around Boulder, but Braedyn had a lot of fun and you sure can't beat taking your kid sledding while wearing shorts and flip flops!

Christmas Cookies

Well it's become a mini tradition, but it is one of Braedyn's favorites.... baking Christmas cookies. This year he has really been enjoying "helping" mommy & daddy cook them. His notion of helping is to sample each of the ingredients as they go in the bowl, especially the sugar and flour. He did help hold the mixer and then did most of the sprinkles once we had frosting on them. If you try one, don't worry about all the little finger lines of missing frosting, his hands were pretty clean!

Beach

The beach parks in Carp this time of year are just amazing. The sun is still shining, the weather is still warm and the sand is still there, but none of the people are. We've been heading down quite a bit to go play during the day.

Kinderkirk

On Saturday morning we headed down to the Kinderkirk Christmas festival and pancake breakfast. They had some fun bouncy castles and christmas tree ornaments to decorate. We also got to eat the favorite meal of pancakes which is always a hit. This is the pre-school that we will be sending Braedyn to starting in the new year sometime. It's just a short bike ride from home and work so should be nice. Braedyn has loved it each time we have visited because they have a really neat outdoor play area and he just loves playing with other kids.

Holiday Parade

We headed in to Santa Barbara for the holiday parade. There were lots of fun things to see. Braedyn really enjoyed all of the marching bands and firetrucks with loud horns and flashing lights.

Decorating

We've been getting the house all decorated up. This week we headed down to the local boy scout troop Christmas tree patch and let Braedyn pick out our tree. We then strapped it to the top of the Prius and drove home and got it all setup. Over the next few nights we proceeded to deck it with lights and ornaments. Braedyn really got into hanging ornaments and choosing where to hang lights in the house this year. He even helped setup the nativity set and went so far as to take all of the characters in the nativity set to use the bathroom, all of them just had to pee except for the angel that needed help wiping.....

Kinder Music Pictures

Kinder Music had a benefit photography session that Braedyn had his pictures taken at.