June so far

Phebe is now 4 months old. She can roll over from her tummy to her back. She's actually been doing it for almost a month, but I didn't really think it counted because she would flip off her tummy as soon as I'd put her down for tummy time. It was really more like rebelling than rolling. Anyway, we make her work for it more now and she still does it pretty quickly. I guess she just knows what she wants! Here she hanging out on her tummy for more than a few seconds, which was a first.



She has also discovered that her toes can go in her mouth. Babies' flexibility will never cease to baffle me. She loves playing with the toys that hang down on this play mat.


We just started putting her in the exer-saucer (a great find on ksl.com for only $30!) this week. She's warming up to it. One of the many stations on it makes animal sounds and plays music. Every time we put her in there, without fail, we'll hear "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" suddenly interrupted by a lion roaring.



And here's a cute picture from Father's Day. I don't know if there's a dad out there who loves his baby more than Ben loves Phebe.

May Flowers

May 8 was Ben's birthday. We invited our dear friends, the Baldwin's, over for dinner and cake. A great time was had by all. Ben requested brinner (breakfast for dinner), so we had French toast and home-canned peaches. Yum.


Phebe and Anna checked each other out for awhile.


A few days later we celebrated Mother's Day. These are my favorite pictures from our photo shoot.

April Showers

April was a little rough for us, but we finally made it through OK. Phebe got a cold virus that gave her a really high fever, so we had to take her to the ER (in the middle of the night, of course). It wasn't too scary, but it wasn't that fun either. It turned out to be a fluke, but I'm glad we went to make sure. I was especially thankful we live in an area with a terrific children's hospital. They took such good care of her for the few hours we were there. This is a picture of her a couple days later, looking just fine. She has the biggest eyes! They're always wide open, taking everything in.


Phebe will almost always fall asleep when she's nursing, especially when it's her bedtime feeding. One night we finished up and her hands were cutely clasped together like this. She looked like a little angel. Don't worry--her stinky diaper quickly brought out heads out of the clouds. But it was sure heartwarming to watch her sleep this way.


Sometimes we can get her to laugh in her sleep when she's like this. She smiles really big and starts chuckling to herself. If one of us laughs a little, she'll start giggling too. Getting her to giggle has actually become one of our favorite pastimes.

Getting caught up

We're working on getting caught up... Meanwhile, please be satiated with the posts below. And stay tuned, if you dare. :)

Confessions in Nerdiness: Star Wars Edition

We live in a rural-y area. We have chickens, our neighbors have ducks, horses, cows, donkeys, goats, llamas and who knows what else. Lately, just at night, we've been hearing an unidentified animal. And that's all you need to know to understand the following exchange that took place the other day.

Ben: Have you heard that weird animal? It sounds like that one thing from Star Wars.
Megan: What, you mean a tauntaun?
Ben: Uh...
Megan: The one Han Solo cut open to save Luke Skywalker from freezing to death on the ice planet Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back?
Ben: Uh... yeah. Right.

Bonus: Sometimes when I walk into a building with automatic doors, I pretend to push them open with the Force. But only when nobody else is there.

Go ahead, make fun of me if you want--just be sure to include your own nerdy confession in the comments (Star Wars related or otherwise. I am no respecter of nerds.).

Family History

Here are the long awaited pictures of Phebe in her blessing dress. This is the same dress I wore when my father blessed me. I love that the tights are baggy on her. Oh, to have the same problem! The last one is my favorite.







Phebe is named after my great grandmother, Phebe Dorothy Bayles, and shares her name with my youngest sister, Emma Phebe. Grandma Phebe was born in Parowan, Utah in 1903. She met my great grandfather, Homer Brenner, when she was visiting a sister in California. They raised my grandfather, Harry, and great aunt, Marie, there. I remember visiting them in Santa Paula and make hollyhock ladies with Grandma Phebe. Grandpa Homer liked to mix his own breakfast cereal out of 3 or 4 different kinds and called it "Weirdo Cereal." It seemed like they had one of every kind of fruit tree in their yard. Sometimes when we visited we'd all walk to the Thrifty and get an ice cream cone. It was always so fun to visit them. Grandpa Homer passed away when I was about 10, and Grandma Phebe when I was about 11. I was very lucky to have them in my life. Not many people get to spend so much time with their great grandparents.

When we were coming up with names to add the list, this one was always at the top. I asked my grandpa why his mom's name was spelled differently (usually it's spelled Phoebe) and he said "That's just how it was. I never heard no 'O' in Phebe!"

So there's a little bit of Brenner-Tolman family history for you.