Welcoming the Two's

Our little Brynny bear is officially a 2 year old. Though she is definitely nothing like your stereotypical two year old....yet :) We just love her to pieces! I dare you to hang out with her for more than two minutes and not become smitten yourself. It's impossible. Really. We love having her in our family. Brynlee's our monkey, always always perched on top of some piece of furniture, or in the process of climbing. She's our artist, generously willing to decorate our walls and couches with any pen or marker she can find...I guess we won't be buying that new couch i've been dying for, for oh sooo long! She's our singer, frequently found singing her favorites, "the temple song," "popcorn", "child god" and "the raindrop song," it can melt your heart. She's the best cuddle bug. Throw one of her favorite blankets over your shoulder and she's yours. She LOVES her big brother like nobody's business. He's her hero in every sense of the word. If she could be Carson when she grows up she would. There's never a dull moment with our little firecracker, and I would really love her to stop growing right about now! I think i'm in love with the early two's!!! But mostly i'm so in love with this two year old! So Happy Birthday to the best little girl ever, aka my shopping partner in training! We LOVE you!!!
Blowing out candles isn't a strong point for either of our kids. Luckily no one minded a few extra surprises on their slice of cake :)

Oh it was a looong day for this little princess...or both of them!

All In A Days Work

Last week Matt had been telling Carson all week that he would take him to work with him on Friday. Carson is Ecstatic at the thought of going to work with Matt....and that's an understatement. Well, Friday came and we all forgot until Friday afternoon when the trash trucks came around and Carson said, "Oh it must be Thursday. Trash day." I told him it was actually Friday, the trucks come a day late when there's a holiday.
Before long, Carson had Matt on the phone (I still didn't realize or mistake) and said, "Dad, how come you forgot to take me to work. Mom told me it's Friday." Matt felt SO bad. Then to throw some salt in the wound, when he hung up he said, "Mom, I think maybe dad forgot to take me because I didn't put my work clothes on." Oh, talking about melting my heart!

Well you can be darn sure that Matt didn't forget to take him today. Carson takes work very seriously....Our morning was filled with comments like these, "Oh look mom I found my cell phone. I'll bring it in my backpack." "Is this a good work shirt like Dads?" "My computer doesn't fit in my backpack, so i'll have to carry it." "Mom, me and dad will take our shakes to go." And when I jokingly begged Carson to spend the day with me, he said, "No mom, me and dad have to go to the office. We have A LOT of work to do."
To top it off, Carson packed their "Lunch" the night before in his lunch box. It was a lunch for champions including all of Carson's favorite snacks. And the best part is, he packed two of everything. Well three fruit snacks, cause who can't use an extra pack of chewy goodness.
With this cuteness i'm thinking I just might try to convince Matt he needs to take him more often. How can you turn down that cute face? I could get seriously used to errands with one kid. And we could teach Carson to be billable in no time!

The Obligatory Christmas Post

The Christmas season has come on gone way too fast! Really, i'm in withdrawls. And of course we had the most memorable and fantastic time, which was heightened by our kids ages and the magic they bring to the season. I have really wanted to take the time to document in detail all of the fun festivities that made our holidays so great, but as a result I've put it off for far too loooong. So instead I'll just post lots of pictures which is really what people prefer over my rambling anyways. Hope you all had a merry christmas, cause we sure did!!!

Annual Christmas Eve Party at the Browns including what has apparently become an annual and unforgetable rendition of the 12 days of Christmas. And the always entertaining nativity story. Now I know it's not supposed to be funny, but for some reason it always is, with the little twists the kids always seem to throw in.

Wyatt & Shelby read Carson "The Night Before Christmas" before he went to bed and it just about melted my heart. Carson ADORES his cousins!

That leads us to Christmas morning. The kids were ecstatic and we got all the joy we needed in watching them.

Our little nuggets are so fun and easy to please. No electronics, no super trendy clothes that i'm not nearly cool enough to pick out, just sheer bliss.

Living right by both Grandparents also results in a non-stop never ending party. Not to mention way more toys than we need. Now i'm putting off the cleaning out the closets and out with the old and in with the new routine!

We Loved the Holidays this year and Love any excuse for all the family to come together. So many fun memories!

The Good, The Bad, & The Snow

The week before Christmas, we took a little last minute trip to Utah just because. Now don't I sound super spontaneous? I'm sure Matt has a slight chuckle under his breath reading of my self proclaimed spontaneous habits, as he has countless memories of me telling him "I can't be so spontaneous with 2 kids!!"....but anytime spontaneouty involves traveling with the family, i'm in. Plus we're always up for some good times in Utah. We especially love visiting family and staying with my Grandma who is the best host and has the most AMAZING kid's play loft ever. My kids would move in if given the chance.  Then there's always a day spent reminising of our college days as we walk through the BYU bookstore, always amazed at how young they are admitting students these days (really, I swear I was so much older than that when I went to school. Except for the fact that visitor parking attendant no longer double checks to make sure we're not students. I'll attribute that to the rugrats in the back seat, and still pretend I look 20.) This trip of course was also meant to squeeze in a little snowboarding for Matt, so he was hoping for snow. And Snow it did!!!! It snowed everyday we were there TONS. Seriously! We really brought the snow with us. I think Matt was saying lots of secret prayers for extra snow, he loves it! Apparently there was no snow before we got there, so the snowboarding conditions weren't the best, limiting the boys to only one day on the mountain in blizzard like conditions- I'm pretty sure that was to Blake and Weston's benefit after they both got frostbite!  I think Blake's toe is still numb, but really what's one toe among 10!  Fortunately the snowman building conditions on the other hand were phenomenal!
So in true tourist fashion we bundled up in thousands of layers (the california way for those of us lacking "real" snow clothes), and built the best snowman ever.  That's right, we know how to do more than just beach it.  Carson LOVED the snow!  Our snow man rightfully named "Carson Brown"  (think xmas song "winter wonderland", Carson is sure they say his name in it), turned into a serious project.  Matt, Blake and I were much more into than the kids.
"Carson Brown" added a little extra christmas decor to my grandparents house clearly making it the most festive house on the block!  But mostly made for a lot of fun!
Another perk of visiting Utah was seeing my good friend Becky who was due with her first baby boy the day we got there.  But did he decide to come so I could meet him?  of course not! He came a week late arriving the day after we got home.  Such a bummer.  But, Becky did look gorgeous and baby Holland did come eventually and is DANG cute!!!  Now if I could just meet him.  All in all we LOVED our time in Utah!
The next chapter of our story takes us to "the bad" aka a wretched vegas/california snow storm in areas that aren't used to so much snow and therefore not really equipped to handle it.  Below is the I-15 just outside of Vegas.  Ugh!  Our only route home ended up being closed down in three different areas from Vegas to Barstow/Victorville, forcing us back to Vegas to find a hotel for the night!
A detour of these sorts would have been welcomed if I was just with Matt, but with 2 kiddos and one hotel room....not so much.  Especially when Brynlee woke up at 5 in the morning saying "mom, I see you.  Hello.  Get me out." We did stay in the "New York New York" on the 31st floor, which was totally fun and a great view, but again, with 2 kids, not so much.  Those darn slot machines are made to appeal to the child in us.  Bright lights, fun noises, money clanking, who wouldn't want in on the action?  Well Carson & Brynlee sure did.  We must have been yelled at 20 times walking through casinos because our kids were getting too close to the slots- and maybe they pulled it a few times too.  We did our best!
The kids single handedly destroyed our hotel in a record time....and quite frankly it got to a point where we didn't even care anymore.  We were all a little stir crazy.
The roads didn't open until the next day at 1pm and we made it home from Vegas in a record setting 7 1/2 hours.   That was a looooooong two days of traveling, but I think i've officially gotten to the point where it's crossed over from a long couple days to a funny story.    Not quite the end of trip adventure we were hoping for, but nonetheless an adventure.  And i'm looking forward to next one.  I'll just be packing leashes for the kids!

Gear Up!

One of the many inevitable conversations in a little girls life happened on our ride to church today. As eaves droppers in the front seat, all we could do was laugh.

Brynlee: "I'm da mommy and bruder, you are daddy. Okay."
Carson: "Um, Okay."

Oh Carson, gear up for YEARS of playing "house." and so it begins!
Do you think that since she's ready to tackle the role of mom she can take on potty training? I'm thinking since her new OBSESSION with wearing her birthday suit (stripping down about 8 times a day) we just might need to put that in her cards.

So Thankful...

Sometimes I'm a little bit of a stress case.....but lately i've been feeling a LOT more like a perma-stresser in lieu of the financial and economic crazyness. Apparently i'm a tradional non-risk taking kind of gal. Who knew?
Anyhow, I think now in the season of thanks and giving, is a good time to reflect on how blessed I really am, and a good way to divert my mind from the less important stress causers, that will pass :)

*I'm thankful for two healthy beautiful kids, who keep me on my toes, but also seem to keep me in shape.
*I'm thankful for a Husband/Dad who the kids worship and comes home with just the right amount of energy to keep the kids laughing until bedtime....cause heaven knows mine is about expired at that time! Really there is NO better dad! The above picture is where the kids sit EVERY day to watch dad leave for work. *I'm thankful for black friday and all the other days of shopping that keep me sane...even if it's just window shopping. It's therapeutic.
*I'm thankful for grandmas & grandpas that live so close. We love seeing them so often and LOVE getting together on the holidays!
*I'm thankful for good food- really who isn't. But especially all the extra baking this time of year. I love it! *While i'm on the subject. I'm thankful for Costco. The hot dog combo and samples really made my day today!

*I'm thankful for where we live and our home.

*I'm eternal thankful for my little 4 person family! It really can't get better than this.

*I'm grateful for soon to be 4 yr. olds. I think this is going to be Carsons shining year. He's been such a little gem lately!

*I'm thankful for naps/quiet time that gives me about 2 hrs. a day to do ANYTHING I want. Mostly it's my "lazy time." and it's a sacred time!
*I'm thankful for a gazillion other things, but no joke, just as I wrote that last one, Brynlee woke up prematurely and she's not a happy camper. So that'll have to cover it for now!

Not quite the book!

Being one of "those" Twilight fanatics, I was uber excited about the movie......but came out a wee bit dissapointed. I know it was low budget, so I won't judge the semi-lame special effects, but I will judge the rest in my amatuer movie critic kind of way. Really it comes down to feeling like Edward & Bellas relationship was way under developed. (That and Carlisle's make-up job) My favorite part about the book, was all the over the top cheesy highschool flirtations, that took me back to my days of giddyness, and the movie was so rushed that it didn't show all that. But I have been kind of itching to see it again, i'm thinking maybe i'll like it better on round two. So really it wasn't bad, just a let down after reading the book.
Starting the twilight festivities with a party including some seriously intense trivia/jeopardy games, and more good food than one gal should eat in one night was a darn good way to start the night. I actually really like being part of this odd little twilight phenomenon. Any reason to have a party right?