Flashback Friday!

Anybody recognize this baby?

Well I hope at least Shan does...because its Ethan. :)
I think it is so cool that Brinley and Ethan share a birthday!! I was also super excited that we happened to be visiting UT when he was born so we could meet him. I remember thinking, "He is such an adorable "little man". When did you get to meet him for the first time Britt?

Time to Catch Up with Les

"ARE YOU READY TO RUMBLE!!!!!"-er...I mean, read my catch up post? :)

What did you do last weekend?
Well last weekend, as in today and yesterday, weren't too exciting for the Brown family. I'll go ahead and tell you about what we did 2 weekends ago instead. We had just rounded up our month long visit in UT & needed to leave on Wed so that we could be back in KS by Fri night. (because Matt's boss is LAME & gave him some crap about needing to be "on call" it really ticked me off...anyway) I made a few too many trips to IKEA and yard sales while we were visiting and had to literally CRAM everything into the van!

This is a pic of us arriving in Denver, but what you can't see is that we have a whole other storage container on top of the van FULL of stuff, plus the jogging stroller! Our drive from Lehi to Denver was smooth, we left at about 2:30 am & got there about 10:30 am. I slept pretty well, but was still tired from staying up that late packing! So, we hung out with friends all day & planned on doing the same thing that night. Matt napped for a few hours in the afternoon, and we left Denver at about 10:00pm. (oh, and I managed to squeeze some new carpet remminants into the van too!) Everything was going according to plan until Matt realized that his nap wasn't going to cut it. We stopped at a rest stop for him to take a power nap & instead of just sitting there I decided to take a turn driving. (I'm not a huge fan of driving at night & it didn't take long for me to remember why) I had driven about an hour & was feeling SO SO sleepy! I knew that Matt was too tired too, so I stopped the first chance I got and looked for the nearest hotel. To make an already long story a little shorter...we ended up spending $80 bucks for all 6 of us to sleep in a room with 2 full beds & no crib! Good thing Pase was zonked & slept on the make-shift bed I made her on the floor! We left the next morning at 9:30 am feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the remaining 5 hours of our drive.

What's new with your kids? (list each kid)

Trinity-Is losing more teeth by the minute & is very excited to meet her new 1st grade teacher tomorrow, Mrs. Noe, at the back to school night. She is so super helpful & capable of doing so many "adult" things that I forget to treat her like the 6 year old little girl she really is. She is driven, determined, persistant, and persuasive...just like me...so we are either a great team, or arch enemies :) I love her to bits and will really miss having her around during the day time.

Brinley-Has really taken a 180 from the quiet "little girl" she was a year ago. She is so full of spunk and fire that is fully illuminated when she is in her comfort zone. She has a wild imagination and is always putting on shows for us where she is a dancer or singer (in full costume. Wig, hat, glasses, jewelry, etc.) I'll have to post a video sometime. She can always make me laugh & loves all the attention she gets. It will be interesting to see how she reacts around her peers when she starts Joy School next month.

Grayden-Is NOT my baby anymore! "I don't need any help" is his favorite thing to say & he often uses his fists rather than his words to remind everyone of that:( However, he is a lover at heart and is constantly looking Matt or I in the eye & saying, "Mom(or Dad)...I LOVE YOU!" I am going to see if he is interested in becoming potty trained after Matt has been on deployment for a while. All the books say its never a good time to start when a life changing event has occured recently. I'm pretty sure deployment falls in that category :)

Pasynne, Paysenn, Paisynn-My mistaken identity child...the poor thing will grow up with a story of how her name never had a consistant spelling. LOL She will be ONE on thursday & I really don't know where that year went! She really took off walking while we were in UT and is all over the place! Going from crawling to walking just opens up a whole new plethora of things for her to get into. Her favorite new discovery is the trash...in every room...GROSS.

Any fun summer plans coming up?

Nope :) Our only plans were to go to UT & we really had a fun time. I have SO many pics of things we did while we were there & I am really really REALLY going to try and update my own blog with them! One of the high lights was going to "Foam Day" with all the grandkids, but there were so many other things we all enjoyed. Parades, camping in the back yard, Trafalga, Pinata, game nights, swimming, & more.

Anything else you wanna share?
Nothing super exciting comes to mind?? Matt leaves on Tues Night (wed morning really, but 3:30am on Wed seems more like Tues night to me) & it hit me pretty hard today that he really is leaving :( I had a good cry with Matt (well, I was the only one crying) and spent some quality time together talking about how it would go by fast. I just don't know who it will be harder on, me or the kids?

I don't want to end on a "downer" so I guess I'll end by telling you about Matt's surprise going away gift to me. He completely surprised me by getting a super duper new camera lens for my Nikon!! It hasn't come yet, but it should be here ANY DAY & I can't wait!!! Right now my camera just has the one lens it came with, which is a 18-55M, and the new one is a 18-200M!! I am so excited...I'm gonna feel like a proffesional. Hahaha

Catch up with Shan

Okay ladies here's my catch up.

What did you do last weekend?

Oh man last weekend was crazy busy for us. Saturday was Madelyn’s birthday party. It was a ton of work but turned out great. We were up late Friday getting all of the last minute stuff done and then up early on Saturday for my nephew’s baptism. Then after his baptism we had our party. We didn’t reserve a park because we didn’t want to pay $35 so we took our chances at finding a park. And wouldn’t you know it that all but one park was taken. It was not my favorite park but it worked out. We were just a little crazy in the beginning trying to get everything set up. I’ll be posting all about her party on my blog so you can read about it there. But here's a fun picture...

 

My SIL made this photo booth and I think it turned out great! I actually think this was my favorite part and wish I would have spent more time over here and got more people to take their pictures. 

Then Saturday night Ethan woke up crying cuz he had to go potty so I took him to the bathroom thinking why is he crying about going potty…and then he threw up everywhere. And then I got sick. So Sunday was spent just sitting around watching lots of movies. But we are all better now.

What's new with your kids? (list each kid)

Ethan-What’s new with Ethan…well he starts pre-school in Sept. I’m so excited for him. A little nervous and not looking forward to all of the driving that I’ll be doing. The school is actually close but it’s 2 days a week and no one in my neighborhood is going to this school so I don’t get to carpool. So I’ll be taking him and picking him up every Tuesday and Thursday. But I know it will be worth it. He is so excited to start school. I hope that he does well.

Madelyn-Well my little peanut turned one and I can’t believe it’s been a year already. She has grown so much and especially the last month or so. She seems so much taller to me. Her babyness is almost gone and soon she’ll be walking. It’s a love hate thing cuz I’m excited for her to grow up but that means I no longer have my sweet baby. Jared doesn’t getting it. He always thinks I’m crazy when I say I’m sad our kids are growing up.

Any fun summer plans coming up?

Can you believe that it’s August already? School is only a few weeks away. CRAZY! The summer has flown by for us. We have a busy Sept. though. Jared will be running in the red rock relay, I’m going to Time Out For Women (so excited btw) and then we’ll be spending a weekend in St. George with Jared’s parents. 3 out of the 4 weekends in Sept are already booked.

Anything else you wanna share?

Well…I really want to get my stupid house decorated. But why does it have to cost so much money? I really want to get my gallery wall up in my front room but frames are expensive. At least nice ones. So now I’m on the hunt for either cheap ones from walmart, clearance ones or maybe I’ll start checking the D.I. for some. I also need to finish my kids rooms. I only have one wall done LOL! I’m terrible about decorating my house. 


Oh I almost forgot! We are going to Disneyland!!! Yeah! Jared's family is going again in Dec. but we really don't have any extra money. And last time we were able to go because I was babysitting my neighbor's kids and earning some extra money.  So I pretty much gave up on the idea of us going. But then one day Jared called me from work and said do you want to go to Disneyland? Of course I do! But how? Well we are just putting it on the credit card and paying it off with our tax return. Ha! I'm good with that if he is :) So Disneyland here we come. Ethan is so excited. He keeps asking me when we are going. I told him not until there is snow on the ground. So every other day he asks me if there is snow on the ground. Silly boy!

Flashback Friday: Rose Parade

OK - I'm going to ignore the fact that NEITHER of you did my "let's catch up" game, or even commented about it, and post a friendly flashback friday! :) hehe jk

I know out of the three of us, I'm the only one in this photo, but I know it'll bring back memories for you guys too! Flashback with me to New Years Day 1998. Rose Parade!!! Wasn't that fun?! Hot, long, tiring, but super fun.



Remember after we finished all we wanted was a drink of water, but instead we got shuffled into a line to get In & Out burgers and Dr. Peppers? Weird!!! Why didn't they give us water?!!

Anyway - what memories do you have of that morning??

OH MY HECK!! I just realized - this photo was taken backstage at Disneyland the day AFTER the Rose Parade!! I was wondering why none of us had our hair and make up done. HAHAH!! That's funny. Ok - so my memory was of the Rose Parade, but this was before our performance at Disneyland. FUNNY!!!!

Love ya ladies!