Congrats, Master Mark!

Our family celebrated a very special day this weekend- Mark's graduation! We are so proud of him for all of his hard work and dedication. He truly is an inspiration and example to me...he has worked hard to balance a full-time school schedule, full-time work schedule, internship, church calling, and being a great dad and husband. Yay for Mark! :)

For those of you who do not know, Mark graduated from the University of Arizona with a Master's Degree in Public Health, emphasis in Policy and Management. He plans to begin an MBA program this next fall and is busy finishing those applications up. He's a busy man...but hopefully in another two years we will be settling into a nice, enjoyable career for him.

Unfortunately, Joseph had a very unusually bad day on Friday and was very much not himself...as he screamed through the entire ceremony. So, sadly, I missed seeing Mark getting hooded and wasn't able to get many pictures...but here are a few we got at the end. Mark's dad took some so once we get them I will post more.

So, like I said, Joseph screamed through the entire ceremony...until he saw his daddy...then it was all calm and smiles. :)

Joseph loved daddy's leis and was very entertained by them...

Hip-hip-hooray for Mark! Congratulations!!! We love you! :)

5 months and a Few New Tricks

Again, despite being a little late, here's Joseph's 5 month pictures.

While last time Joseph went after the bucket, he found a new toy this time.

Over the past few weeks, Joseph has been learning a few new tricks.  The first one is a follow up from the jumper he got during Thanksgiving.  Over the past few weeks, Joseph has become quite the pro at his jumper.  With his progress, Joseph wanted to show off a little.  So here's his video.

 Also, earlier this week, I taught Joseph how to click his tongue.  It was really fun watching him learn how to do it.  I started doing it and Joseph started trying to copy me.  After a few tries, he started doing it.  Now, he does it pretty regularly.  His another video of Joseph showing off his tongue clicking.

Thanksgiving 2011

Happy Thanksgiving!  Better late than never right?  Anyways, this year for Thanksgiving, we went up to Phoenix and visited my parents.  Although I don't have any pictures, we were lucky to be able to catch my mom between her flights so that Joseph could see her and Grandpa Jack.  Even though it was short, it was a lot of fun and Joseph was much more interactive than last time and enjoyed hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa.

So, the next day was Thanksgiving and we spent it at my dad's house.  Here's a picture of the three of us.  One of my favorite parts of the picture is Joseph's shirt, it says mommy's little turkey. 

It was an awesome Thanksgiving dinner.  Much smaller than some of the previous dinners, but mom made some amazing food.  Here's a picture of our little group, minus mom who's taking the picture.

After our meal, harkening back to our English roots,  we held our annual Brems Family Croquet Tournament.

It was a lot of fun and we had three generations playing (at least for part of the time).  Although, the two newest members of the Brems family occupied themselves in other ways.  Alex found his sister's tricycle and used it as a walker to go around the course.

Joseph and Jodie found some swings nearby.

Joseph definitely loves swinging. 

After the tournament, which I'm proud to say that I won this year, Joseph got to spend some time with his uncle John.

Before John left to go back to Tucson, we got a picture with Dad.

On our trip back home, Joseph had kind of a tough time in the car, so we had to take several stops.  One of the stops we took was at the Mesa Temple to see the Christmas lights.  Joseph really enjoyed seeing all the bright lights and colors.

He seemed to especially enjoy the orange ones, which seems to be turning out to be his favorite color for the time being.

In switching topics a little, Joseph got a jumper for his 5th month birthday- he has absolutely been loving it since the first time he tried it out.

 He seemed to be a natural and know exactly what to do.  It was so much fun watching him being able to interact with and move about his immediate environment.

 When we got it set up at home, it was the exact same reaction and he's been getting really good about walking around too.

Another toy that Joseph got recently was a walker, from a family in our ward.  It has been working out really well to keep him with us but without halving to hold him all the time.

Another toy that Joseph has inherited was an empty DVD case.  We've been working on cleaning up and baby-proofing our movie collection.  Unexpectedly, Joseph was completely enthralled by this empty case that it has been added to his toy collection.

 To finish up our Thanksgiving post, here are some recent pictures of Joseph.  Here is Joseph beginning to discover that he has feet and, more importantly, that he can play with them.

Here's a picture of Joseph's pouting face.  From the day he was born, he has been a master of using his lower lip.  Over the past few months, the expression has only gotten more intense, even though it is rarely used any more.  Anyway, he better watch out how much he uses his pouting face with Santa Clause coming so soon.

Lastly, two pictures of our poi boy.  I really enjoyed this picture because you can see his peach fuzz starting to grow in.

Lastly, how much does this little boy love his poi? Enough to get a poi mustache nearly every time he eats it.

Hope that you all had a great Thanksgiving.