Cabo

We took our first Real, non-family reunion vacation with just the five of us. It was a week in Cabo, and it was magical. We thought we were partly crazy, but desperate for a warm, relaxing vacation, of any sort. Someone gave us a free hotel suite for the week, so it was really a no brainer of whether or not we would go. We just went with no expectations since we traveled with three youngsters, but they did amazing and we all had a BLAST!!!! Cabo 2012 is already in talks.
We swam everyday, enjoyed Pina Coladas by the Pool, explored a few different hotel pools, took a couple boating excursions, and played hard all day. Carson's favorite activity was a pirate boat excursion where we saw real pirates perform a show.
Our little Sabey Baby was a dream. She napped in her Phil & Ted's stroller e.v.e.r.y.d.a.y. while we enjoyed doing whatever the heck we wanted. The stroller was a pre-trip purchase that was well worth the money spent. It was truly a life saver. (Phil & Ted's if you need a company spokeswoman, call me. I'm in love with your product.)





Cabo, I fell in love with you, and so did my kids. I've caught them on numerous occasions playing "Cabo". Thanks for the memories. Hopefully we'll be back sooner than later to create some more.

Burn the Floor

I'd heard that the Broadway show "Burn the Floor" was amazing. That combined with the fact that I wish I was a professional dancer and secretly think that someday I still will be, resulted in a spontaneous girls night with my friend Brooke. We bought tickets via craigslist on the day of the show and headed down to watch some darn good dancing. Special guests included the cute married couple from So You Think You Can Dance.And Mary Murphy. She was kind of a funny little thing. But really some amazing dancing!!!

A Time of Thanks

We're a crazy bunch. Truly. But we sure do have lots to be grateful for!!!!!
A dad who loves to spend time with the young ones.
Our little soccer man who scored his first 3 goals ever this last soccer season. It was a big deal. And I may have shed a few tears. I'm just glad I wore sunglasses. Coach Tom has been his coach the last two seasons and we love him.
Again, a handsome husband, who also kind of likes to spend time with his wife. Lucky me.
Lastly our two beautiful little girls...especially our little Saylor Grace. Such a perfect addition to our crazy bunch.

Underwear Bandit....

Have you ever been enjoying a nice afternoon and seen a darn cute little lurker peeking over your fence? If your our neighbors, I think the answer just might be a big fat yes. So, if you were looking for privacy, my sincerest apologies. What can I say, the guy is curious and prefers to spend his spare time doing the underpants dance.
Where does this peculiar little fellow come from? Not sure, but he is a clever one. Just maybe someday you'll be lucky enough to witness the underpants dance, but as his mother, I hope not.
I'm just glad he sleeps with extra coverage. You never know if the roof will spring a leak in the middle of the night. It's been known to happen.
Oh Carson you do make me laugh!!! Or cry :)

Halloween

Halloween was a good time all around this year. Three little pumpkins, three dang ADORABLE pumkings, super excited about any and all holiday festivites will always make for fun.
The down side was that Halloween fell on a Sunday this year, so we opted not to go trick-or-treating, but on the upside, we had so many other gazillion halloween activities that Carson and Brynlee could care less about going out the night of. They were tickled to sit at the door and pass out candy while reveling in their already filled up pumpkins from two nights of trunk-or-treating.

It all began when Brynlee had a cookie decorating halloween party with her joy school buddies. Cutest group of little kiddos!
and Carson's school had an amazing halloween carnival that we went to with Finn & Milla. The simple Elementary carnivals that i remember from my school days are no more....these guys don't mess around, and the kids LOVED it. They had tons of crafts, COTTON CANDY (one the the top 10 loves of my life) games, and full on real carnival rides. It was big time.
Next up was two nights of ward trunk-or-treats.
One night with both grandmas & grandpas, while matt & I went to a couple halloween parties.
and the next night with friends at our ward party.
The ward party was crazy & fun. Brynlee now knows exactly what a cake walk is, but no cake was won despite all my efforts.
So what we can sum up from our October is that we all tons of fun and really ate WAY too much candy!!!!! So finally today I paid the kids $3 to turn over their buckets. Not too bad a deal. I have woken up for the last time this morning with Brynlee waving a candy bar in my face asking if she can have it for breakfast. The candy is now safely stashed away for my personal consumption since clearly I need more junk in my life. It's called my sanity stash. Maybe someday I won't look toward chocolate as a sanity maintaner....nope, probably not!

Lovlies

When times get tough, take matters into your own hand. Carson wants more toys and learned (at least this day) that mom is not his sugar mama, and attempted to take care of business...

Sign reads "Money for music" We live on a low traffic street, so his sugar mama turned out to be the only customer looking for some good tunes.

Other than scraping by, everyone is alive, well, and adorable as ever. And even better, after 4 months of life, Saylor is finally starting to realize that life isn't all that bad and she doesn't need to yell over everything. Not that it made her any less cute, just maybe a touch less obnoxious to others who don't think her every movement is the cutest thing ever.

Precious

Oh my goodness have you EVER seen anything cuter??? I think not. So in LOVE with my little thumb sucker!!!
saylor @ 4 months old

Julian

We played Hookie from school and headed on up to Julian to pick us some apples!!! Such a fun time. You can eat all you want while you pick and they have all sorts of different kinds. Kids loved it, I loved it, Saylor barely tolerated the whole thing, but we will be back next fall for sure!!!!

Saylor Grace

Saylor Grace made her grand entrance into the Brown Family June 15, 2010. She's been my naughtiest baby of the bunch, but I am seriously obsessed with her, and she is the cutest thing that you will ever meet. I think the loud babies have to be extra cute, and then it doesn't bother you when they yell endlessly...and it works! Here I am in all my pregnancy glory about a week before delivery!!!!
and one last look with the buddha belly and a little moment with Carson the morning we went in. I'm all about inducing and so is my Dr. so I consider us a pretty good team. Checked in the hospital around 8:30 am, they gave me my epidurral around 9:30- more appropriately referred to as heaven in a IV- and popped the little lady out just after 2:00. Sounds all so simple and smooth right- that's what Matt thinks, and can't figure out why I don't want a bunch more. Actually our naughty and adorable Saylor Grace has yelled enough that I think he's finally brought his numbers down to my level. Either way the delivery went well, except for right before delivering, I felt more pressure than I wanted to and begged for an epidurral booster. I want to be numb beyond any numbness, no inclination for a natural birth in this lifetime. So once that was all in place it was pretty smooth sailing.
She was such a little chunker too. 8 lbs. 2 oz. my biggest by Far!!!! So much for dreams of a 6 pounder.
and here's the first family of 5 in the hospital pic. Please excuse the fat face, it happens!!!

Around 1 week.
Saylor at 4 weeks
Here's Saylor at 5 weeks old with one of her future best buddies...Gordon. Little G is only 2 weeks older than Saylor and a true gentleman :)
Her chubby little smile is the BEST!!!! Saylor at 2 months.
And one of the most recent. The blue eyed beauty at 3 months old!!!!

Movin' on Up

Preschool was a good time for Carson. He made a couple new best buddies, loved his teacher Miss Debbie, and crafted his little heart out.
and crafted.....
and crafted. So many crafts, that I was left with only one option. Take a picture, so we can look back on them with fondness, and then sneak them into the trash when Carson isn't looking, cause there's no way in heck he would approve of the disposal of anything. Just look at his room.
Here's most the kids in his class, performing for Mothers day.

But with the end of preschool, it was time to move on up & begin the beginning of many many years in school. Kind of a scary concept. No tears were shed, almost. Maybe they're we're just a couple when he had to walk the last steps into his classroom and he turned and waved. He was SO SO nervous, and is such a cute little guy, but I think I might have even been more nervous for him. All I could think about was whether or not I raised him the best I could up to this point, since there's going to be so many new influences throughout his day, and not all good. Have I given him confidence, and a good base? And most importantly have I really enjoyed and soaked up the time i've had with him? Not sure that I have. It will forever be my goal to not have regrets when it comes to raising my kids and spending time with them.

We started the first big day of school with Carson's breakfast of choice- german pancakes.
And naturally, Carson looked like a stud.
And here we are, nearly 2 months into school and he's loving it. and so am I!!! He gets to ride the bus because we're being shipped to a school different than the one we're supposed to go to because of overcrowding. But he loves the bus, and I love the extra hr. I get. It's a win win.