Happy Birthday Conrad

Conrad turned 1 on Aug 20th. It is kind of hard to fathom that he is that old since he is still so little. At his 1 year check up he was still only 19 pounds. EZ was 20 pounds at 9 months and both King and Netta reached that by 6 months. How may be little, but he is the happiest and smiliest baby on the face of the planet. He loves minions so when I saw these minion cupcakes online I knew we had to do them. Plus, I knew I could actually handle them and I am really proud of how they turned out.

We have this birthday boy hat and shirt, that my Aunt Nancy and Uncle Tom got EZ for his first birthday and they are both still going strong. Too bad Conrad wasn't a bit fan of the hat.

It was hard to come up with gifts for Conrad since we already have so many toys. So, we just copied what Lincoln got for his first birthday.

King was hesitant to dive into his cupcake.

He really was not a fan of the icing at first.

But then he got a taste of the twinkie . . . 

and it was game on.

August Happenings

August involved a lot of random happenings and a lot of driving all over the place. Both EZ and Netta did summer camps at the Y and somehow I have no photo records of them. Netta did your traditional summer camp with songs, games and crafts and what not. EZ did a basketball camp. I cannot tell you how hard it was to find a camp that they each wanted to do that took place during the one free week we had. I was really surprised when EZ asked to do basketball camp, since it isn't exaclty his forte, but he insisted that he really wanted to and he loved it. All the kids also did swim lessons. I was a bit nervous about King and he was a bit of a stinker. He refused to get in the pool with the teacher for the entire first lesson. After the embarrassment I suffered last year when I lost it on EZ, I really did my best to remain calm. Luckily, his teacher was great and by the end King was swimming around by himself with floaties on, which was a huge improvement.

EZ was a champ this year and earned his pink bracelet, which means he can swim in any of the pools by himself. It was especially awesome because I could put Conrad in the child watch and then while Netta and King were in their lessons, EZ could swim in the pool by himself and I could sit in the hot tub. 

Netta did great in her lessons as well and of course made a new best friend. That girl can't go anywhere without making a friend. She also can't help but pose when she sees a camera.

EZ won tickets to a Round Rock Express game so John and him had a Daddy-Duder date. It was hot as all get out, but they still had a good time.

We celebrated our 9th anniversary on Aug 20th. Sarah was kind enough to watch the kids for a night so we could get away. We stayed in South Austin and I finally got to eat at all the restaurants that John always talks about that only he has visited thanks to work. We couldn't stay away the whole weekend, since my kids can be crazy at night, so we decided to make the rest of the weekend a mini family vacation. We went to this really sweet bounce house in South Austin called Locomotion and the kids loved it.

Then we hit up P. Terry's for lunch. Netta kills me in this picture. 

John got himself a pair of sunglasses there so he and Netta could be twinners.

The last weekend in August, my mom and my sisters Sarah, Meghan and Katie all got together in Austin for a girls' weekend. Meghan and her family drove down from Utah so they could visit other family as well and so we were able to get a bunch of the cousins together. It was near impossible to get a picture of all of them looking at the camera.

Here we have 3 of the 4 boys born last year. We keep getting 3 of the 4 together, but we can never seem to get all 4. 

That weekend us ladies headed to San Antonio and it was awesome. Basically, we ate and shopped a lot and enjoyed being husbandless and kidless. Of course we threw in a chick flick and some pedicures. We need to do these more often.

Blue Bell Factory

We have lived in Texas 5 years and we finally made it to the Blue Bell factory. (If you don't know what Blue Bell is you should find out). It was totally worth the trip. My friend Lara specifically requested that I get a picture of the silos out front, because the tallest one is sugar of course.

We were able to go with a group of friends and the kids were in heaven. I mean friends and unlimited samples of ice cream. It doesn't get much better than that.

At the end of the tour everyone can try as many samples of the ice cream as they want and then everyone also gets a free cup of one flavor. They even let me get one for Conrad, which I of course at most of.

EZ and his buddy MJ are such goofballs when they are together. This is the most serious picture of them I could get.

I really wanted a good picture of my family together, but alas that is nearly impossible.

The tour was actually really neat, but I think that we drove the tour guide crazy by asking questions about things right before she was about to explain them. That and she kept having to try and yell over our hoard of kids. Oh well it was fun for us!

Brown Family Reunion Part 2

They had this area set up for playing GaGa Ball. I had never heard it called that, but either way we spent a lot of time playing it and Johnny and EZ got really into it.

Every night we had some kind of evening program in the stage area and Netta took any chance she could to get up on the stage. This time it was because this paper with the song lyrics kept rolling up.

Also, every night during the evening program King would pass out. Great photo bomb from John's sister Debbie.

Here is Netta showing off her beautiful rag roller curled hair.

Every reunion they run down this mountain called Greens Peak. None of my kids were up to the challenge so we just waited at the bottom for Johnny to come down. Here are the kids waiting with EZ's buddy Rigdon. He is actually the son of the caterer, but they had a ton of fun together.

Some of John's family still own a ranch and do cattle drives. The kids got to get in on the action and ride horses and watch them brand cattle. I may never get over the smell. I am not a cowgirl.

When it rained the kids got to watch a bunch of movies thanks to Uncle Joe and his projector. 

Uncle Stew brought his motorcycle and gave all the kids rides. We have pretty cool uncles. 

It is also tradition to climb Mt. Trigo. It was a bit of a disaster with our kids, but in the end everyone except King and I made it to the top.

They also have a rope swing that Grandma Netta originally hung up. I wish I had a picture of EZ doing it, because he ate it really hard, but he did not give up and then got really good at doing it. Instead I have a picture of my trying to carry King around it.

Like I said it was hard to find a place to let Conrad crawl around so he spent a lot of quality time in the Bjorn. Luckily, John is a great dad and did most of the carrying.

On the way home we spent some extra time as Katie's house and enjoyed some sweet s'mores.

We came home to this pile a crap, but it was totally worth. John's family knows how to have a good time.

Brown Family Reunion Part 1

In July we headed to St. John's, AZ for John's family reunion at their family homestead. It was a 16 hour drive. Luckily, we were able to break it up by stopping at my sister Katie's house in El Paso. Here are the kids ready to go. EZ's fake smile sums up how I felt pretty well.

Our poor car got absolutely covered in bugs. It looked like beautiful stars, but unfortunately it was disgusting bug guts.

On the way we stopped at a gas station and saw this humongous spider. The picture doesn't do it justice. I made John do like 3 laps around the parking lot trying to get a better picture. If I was brave enough I would have gotten out of car, but I didn't want to get attacked by the mosquitoes or the spider.  

Since we have a baby we got to sleep in a cabin instead of a tent, which was a huge score for me. This was the last picture of all the kids laughing on the top bunk before King and Netta almost killed themselves falling off.

You can't really see it, but I the background there is a wooden fort that EZ was obsessed with and spent much of the week working on.

John's family was in charge of the reunion and they had this fun check list of things to do. One of them was to find a horny toad. EZ was so excited when his cousin found one.

The only downside to camping is that Conrad is still just crawling and it was hard to find non-dangerous/dirty places to put him down.

The summer at the homestead has some crazy weather. It was warm and sunny the whole time exact for about 2 hours everyday starting around lunch time. Then it would pour.

No story behind this pic, except that it is adorable.

They don't mess around at these reunions and everyday is filled with cool activities. They even have a family 5K. It might not be quite a true 5K, but they take it very seriously with numbers and different category winners. Here is King showing off his speed.

Netta got really angry with me for letting her run in those shoes, because they kept falling off. In my defense John was in charge of the race and I was in charge of Conrad, so I wasn't really paying attention to Netta's shoes. There were some tears shed, but of course she put on her best face for the camera.

EZ's age group taking off was hilarious. They almost took out some adults who got in the way. 

One day was dedicated to cowboy life and there were some awesome activities. They had a real cattle brand set up so the kids could brand a piece of wood. The adults actually did the branding of course. 

The girls all used rag rollers to curl their hair and the kids played marbles. 

Someone came up with this bucking bronco and it was the coolest thing ever. Like I said, they don't mess around. 

We also learned to shot marbles. Not sure doing this with Conrad in the carrier is the best idea.

And finally, what is more fun then using a washboard. Who knew Netta would want to spend so much time doing laundry.