Daddy-Daughter Dance

A couple of different places around here hold a daddy-daughter dance around Valentine's. This year John decided to take Netta to one at the local rec center. Netta was so excited! What girl doesn't want to get dressed up and spend time with her dad?

Before the dance, I had gotten an email saying that there would be a professional photographer. I figured John would pass on that because it would be way over priced, but really after being married to him this long I should have realized he is not as cheap as I am and that he would go for it. When he first told me he had gotten the picture I was so irked, but then he showed me it and who could pass on something so frickin cute?!

(And yes Netta came up with the leg lift all by herself. John didn't even realize she had done it until he saw the picture).

Meeting Noah

On January 10th my sister Katie gave birth to her first child, a boy name Noah. Since she is living in El Paso now, I knew that I had to go visit when she had him. I was able to go at the end of January. I was very excited to meet him and also very excited for a weekend away by myself. Of course the excitement level took a little dip when I talked to John after arriving in El Paso. The day I left John was supposed to come home early from work so I could catch my flight, but he was stuck at jury duty, so I had my friend watch the kids. He ended up being stuck a lot longer than we had thought so the kids stayed at my friend's pretty late. After an exhausting day, John finally picked up the kids and then while driving home he got REAR-ENDED! It didn't total the car, but it did enough damage that the car was in the shop for 2 weeks. And poor John had to deal with the cops and the insurance and all the jazz while all 3 kids were freaking out in the car. To make it even more fun for John, Netta hurt her arm so he had to take her to do the doctor the next day and deal with x-rays and blood work and all that fun stuff and then she was sent home with a sling and he had to try and keep her from using her arm. I just couldn't believe all this happened and I had just landed in El Paso! I really did enjoy my trip, but I would be lying if I didn't admit there was a part of me that felt guilty that I was away while John had to deal with all this craziness. Anyway, I had a blast spending time with Katie and Brad and getting to know Noah.

John and I took a knitting class in the fall and I was really excited to be able to make Noah a baby hat. I made the newborn size, but unfortunately his noggin was still a bit too small when I came out to visit.

Luckily, within about 2 weeks he had put on enough weight that the hat fit!

Oh Yeah January

January kind of flew by in a blur. Mainly because I spent most of the month trying not to throw up. You know what that means. Baby Brown #4 will be debuting around Aug 27! Even though this is the sickest I have ever felt with a pregnancy, we are really excited about it and feel greatly blessed. We did our darndest to try and have another May baby, but alas the stars did not align for us a 4th time. I have to admit I am a bit terrified to be pregnant through the summer in Texas. I have a feeling I will be staying indoors a lot and consuming copious amounts of popsicles. To prove that I did something during January besides laying around on the couch, here is a pic of our $.99 gingerbread house from Target. You gotta love that way after Christmas clearance!

Chistmas Time is Here

Christmas came early to the Brown house when we received a package of SNUGGIES!!! John surprised us all before Christmas with some awesome snuggies that to my astonishment actually keep you really warm.

Of course we also decorated the tree. I really wanted a picture of the kids and I, but after 20 minutes and not one single good shot of all of us together we had to abandon ship.

The best part about Christmas this year was that my family came to us! My mom and dad came as well as my sister Meghan, her husband Jared and their baby Lucy. They all arrived on Christmas Day. It was a non-stop party and food-fest. My parents brought 10 dozen cookies with them made by these little old Italian ladies in Pittsburgh and they were all to die for. I put on a good 5 pounds of cookies that week. Of course my kids loved it and made good use of all the grandparent time.

We went on a few outings, including a trip to the Austin Zoo. They have a petting zoo there and King was in heaven. He would have stayed there all day feeding the animals.

He loved it so much that he had to get as close as humanly possible to each creature. I thought Netta liked animals, but King has her beat.

We also made the trek to Zilker Park. I love Texas weather and being able to go out in short sleeve shirts in December. Here is Meghan and my mom pushing King and Lucy.

For some reason EZ was in a really foul mood that day. I can't even remember what started it, but he was super cranky. By the park they have the Barton Springs and an area that you can wade in and dogs can swim. Everyone took off there shoes and went for a stroll in the water, but EZ wanted nothing to do with it. Gotta love his stink eye.

Here is everyone else enjoying themselves. Netta didn't even mind getting sprayed with water by the dogs.

They also have people at the park making balloon animals. There was one lady who made awesome ones that I have never seen before. Here are EZ and Netta showing off their balloons. I couldn't get over the awesome Hello Kitty.

I also loved this fish and the fishing rod. We got it for King, but unfortunately he didn't quite understand how cool it was and kept trying to take EZ's sword.

Everyone was able to stay for a week and there were plenty more adventures, but honestly I am so behind that I can't think of anymore right now, so you will have to settle for the highlights. I guess I should have taken more pictures so I could remember more!

Netta the Performer

Anyone who knows Netta knows that she is a performer. Her life is a musical, which she constantly narrates through her original songs. It was only natural that we continued her dance lessons. Now we are at the Pflugerville Rec Center and we really like it. In class she learns tap, ballet and some tumbling. She is in heaven every time we go. It worked out really nice, because two of her friends from Church are in the same class. That is especially nice for me, because us mom's have to sit around and wait for an hour while they are in the lesson so having a friend to chat with is always nice. Their big recital is in the spring, but in December they had a mini-recital in the dance studio. Netta was killing me, because I could see them practicing inside and she knew the dance, but as soon as the mom's got in their she was too busing waving and posing to remember the dance. Hopefully things will be a little better in the spring.

The day after the dance recital, Netta had a Christmas performance at her school. I just have this one lousy picture, because King was being a pill. Luckily, I was able the get video. Netta did well, but it got off to a rocky start when her teacher made Netta take off her jingle bracelet and Netta broke down in tears. Apparently, it was very important to her and luckily her teacher gave it back so she didn't spend the whole time in tears.

King will probably hate me for this later, but he is hands down my hardest baby. He is so clingy and was being insanely bad at Netta's school. I was supposed to help in the classroom that day, but he was being so bad that I had to leave. Luckily, there was a grandma there who stayed and helped. I was so drained and just done with the kids by the end of the day that I made John take them out to dinner while I sat at home by myself. John is a saint, because I made him do that again 2 nights later. I don't know why, but for some reason this week just pushed me to the edge. Luckily, John is awesome and really so are my kids, so after a little break I was feeling more like myself and of course I love having them. Oh motherhood.

Thanksgiving in Utah

This year we headed to Utah for Thanksgiving. 9 of John's 10 siblings were there so it was quite the affair. We were able to stay for a week and a half and the kids loved every minute of it. It was a little harder on the adults since our kids decided to wake up at 6 or earlier every morning and Netta had so much fun she peed her pants on multiple occasions, but despite the difficulty of traveling with kids, it was totally worth it to get to see so much of John's family. We also had the added bonus of getting to see my sister Meghan and her husband Jared and their daughter Lucy.

Austin is relatively kid friendly, but let's face it nowhere can really out do Utah in the kid friendliness category. You name it and we did: the Nickelcade, the Aquarium, the Dinosaur Museum, rollerskating and bounce houses, etc. John's family pretty much took over the bounce house place and Meghan and Jared joined us as well. King had a blast.

Lucy was a little unsure of whether or not she liked it.

I desperately tried to get a picture of Lucy and King together but they just both down right refused to cooperate. Meghan tried to wrangle them into her lap, but neither one really appreciated it.

We stayed with John's sister Misha and her family. They have a daughter Arden who is a year older than EZ and they had so much fun together. They also have a daughter named Sable who is a couple months older than King, but they didn't get a long as well. In fact King learned to say "No" while we were in Utah to keep Sable away from his toys and his personal space. Here they are at the Dinosaur Museum.

Since John's family is so big we ended up spending a lot of time in Church buildings so the kids could have space to all play together. We had Thanksgiving dinner at one and a game night as well. King and his cousin Henry were both in one the binky and frisbee action.

EZ LOVED getting to play sports with the big kids. Every time we go to Utah we feel so guilty leaving and taking our kids away from their cousins. Although, I nearly froze to death while we were there so I am not sure we will be moving anytime soon.

Of course Netta loved being with all the older girls as well. Here Netta is with her cousin Seville. I think Netta would have spent every minute with her if she could have.

On Thanksgiving Day, me, Misha, Nikki, Jacque and Meghan all ran a 5k Turkey Trot. I was excited about doing it, but a little nervous because I had done nothing to prepare. Meghan and I ended up together for most of the race and thanks to the fact that she had no plans of walking, I ran the whole race as well. I think it helped that she was pushing Lucy in a stroller and that kept her running more at my pace. Despite the freezing cold, it really was fun and to top it all off they handed out the most amazing Stephan's Candy Cane Hot Chocolate. The stuff is to die for. I have some pictures of the race on my phone, but I am so behind on the blog that if I wait to post this till I have those pictures on the computer than I will never catch up.

So the trip was a blast and we are just hoping that maybe next year some of John's family will be able to make the trek to Texas so we can see them more than once a year!

EZ's First Soccer Season

We decided to make extra good use of our YMCA membership and sign EZ up for sports this year. The fall sport was soccer and it was an interesting experience. EZ is definitely a bit of a scatterbrain on the field and in the beginning he rarely if ever touched the ball, but by the end he got much much better. His coach let him play defense, which he loved and I think is more fitting his less aggressive personality. His team as a whole got way better as the season went on. We played the same team for the first and last games of the season. The first game they creamed us like 10-2 and the last game we tied 2-2! There were definitely times as I was running around chasing Netta and King and missing most of the game/practice that I had to wonder if it was worth it, but I think seeing how much improvement he made and how excited he got I would definitely do it again. Here he is showing off his trophy.

Taking a little rest on the sideline with one of his buddies.

The last game it was really windy and John had to stand behind the goal to keep it from falling over. I promise that he normally does not hover around the field like that. There are definitely psycho parents that do, but John is not one of them. They frighten me.

Sarah and Casey were there for the last game, which was hands down EZ's best. I am glad they got to see him actually kick the ball and kind of stay focused. It was also the game I got video of so in the future it will always look like EZ had it together.

Like I said King and Netta gave me quite the run around during games (in fact I even lost Netta once and someone found her headed towards the road, which I can't write more about, because it stresses me just thinking about it), so we had to resort to stuffing King full of treats in his stroller.