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.

Summer Joys

The summer kind of got away from us with the new baby. But, we did celebrate a few special days and spent a few more getting a tan. I turned 30...eek....and it may have been one of the most uneventful 30th b-days ever. I'll chalk that up to a 2 week old baby, and get a little extra crazy next year. Matt and Grandma Velyn celebrated their birthdays a day a part, so we joined forces for a little party. Carson & Brynlee dressed up for some Dancing to celebrate Matt & I's 8th anniversary on July 12th. That was pretty darn cute. To bad you can't feel the pictures, because Carson was wearing some pretty darn groovy velvet pants with his suspenders, that I believe were passed down from uncle Shane.

And the good ole' beach. The reason we pay those crazy bucks to live where we live, yet never quite seem to go. We only went to the beach a couple times this summer. A june baby doesn't go hand in hand with a sporting a swimsuit too often. Go figure! Not to mention June Gloom lasted through August! Anyhow, this was best beach day hands down of the summer. Perfect perfect weather! i'm pretty sure we didn't pack up the troops until 7pm. And we were especially grateful for "Mr. Koehle" who entertained all the kiddos.

And of course we were especially grateful for Grandma & Grandpa Anderson's pool this summer. One of our most favorite destinations!!!!