Easter Fun

One of the perks of living in a small town is that when they have city events, like an egg hunt, you can actually go and it isn't crazy crowded and they don't run out of the free stuff. Here they have an "egg hunt" in the downtown area and all the businesses hand out eggs. So, you aren't actually hunting, but they also hand out samples and coupons and it was good way for us to discover what all St. Joe has to offer. You could get your picture taken with the Easter Bunny and all day long King kept saying how much he wanted a picture with him, but the minute we actually saw the bunny costume he wigged out and wanted nothing to do with him. Conrad also freaked out and EZ made it clear that he was too cool, so Netta was the only one to get a picture with him.

It's been awhile since we have had a chilly Easter, but at least it was sunny and actually kind of enjoyable to be outside.

Of course we dyed Easter eggs, but we opted to do it while Conrad was napping so he wouldn't spill and or drink any of the dye.

Easter morning meant baskets of course. Netta can never have too much makeup so she got more with a Hello Kitty theme of course. As a complete side note, Netta does not actually like Justin Bieber, but one day EZ was at the Y and some girl kept chasing him and saying she was going to kiss him because he was pretending to be "Justin Beaver." Netta and EZ of course thought it was hilarious, so when I saw these jammies on clearance I had to get them.

My favorite part of Conrad getting a basket was watching him eat the Sour Patch Bunnies. He kept smacking his lips and making a sour face, but he kept on eating them.

Kingston is obsessed with Skylanders, even though it is actually EZ's game and he can't really play. EZ wins big time since King only wanted a Skylander for Easter, which of course EZ can now also play with in addition to the one he himself got.

As we were exploring downtown at the egg hunt we discovered a bakery with this awesome multi-colored bread, which makes for some awesome Easter french toast. I think there may be a new tradition at the Brown house.

At Easter I am reminded of how blessed I am to have this family and to have a Savior who made it possible to be with these crazy kids forever!

Spring Break

Being closer to my parents meant a spring break trip to good old Moon Township. John had to work so I got to take my first solo road trip with the kids. It is about a 6 hour drive and while the kids weren't exactly perfect it was definitely better than flying with all 4 kids by myself. I got a lot of "Wow you have your hands full" comments at the rest stop. We had to eat as quickly as possible because Conrad kept trying to escape. Luckily, we didn't lose anyone. (Oh and my kids look homeless since we haven't found a hair lady yet, but luckily my mom's hair lady, Linda, was nice enough to fit my kids in.)

Back in January I was supposed to visit my friend Elly in Rhode Island, but that ended up being when we went house hunting, so my parents graciously offered to watch the kids for me so I could spend three days with her. I was especially excited for this trip, because she and her husband Jay just had their first baby in October. Timothy is such a cutie and somehow I managed to get a picture of him, but none of me and Elly. It was fun to be the one without a child to worry about for a change and I ended up sleeping 10 hours each night. I have years of not enough sleep to make up for and it was amazing. We also ate at a ton of AMAZING restaurants. I am seriously deprived of those in St. Joe, so I was in heaven.

The kids were great for my parents and everything went smoothly while I was gone. It wasn't quite Easter yet, but my parents decided to through an Easter egg hunt for mine and Rachel's kids' while we were there. I loved going to my grandma and grandpa's house in Rochester growing up and doing these, so I am really excited to be close enough to home to have them for my kids. My mom did a great job of getting prizes and treats for everyone.

Going to Rhode Island meant I wasn't actually home as long, but that's ok because we already have multiple trips planned for the summer!

March Madness

We closed on our house on Feb 28th, but we didn't actually take possession till March 3rd. So here is the one picture I have from inside the rental house. John and Conrad just chilling watching some TV. Like father, like son. We actually watched a lot of TV in that house and Netflix was our savior. 

To celebrate my birthday John got me these beautiful flowers to put in our beautiful kitchen. I never thought I would be so excited about a kitchen. Sadly, it only looked this clean for a day and then all of our stuff was delivered and it's like a bomb went off. This unpacking process is going to take quite some time. 

We are slowly discovering more and more about St. Joe that we love. March was Lego month with Lego themed activities all over town. They had a special Lego architecture class at the art museum. Certain designs were chosen to be displayed around town. Shh don't tell EZ, but Netta's was the only one chosen. Poor boy he tried so hard, but I have a feeling that being a girl played in Netta's favor this time.

 We also discovered that there is a rockin' children's museum here. We immediately bought passes and I am sure with this weather that we will be spending a lot of time here. One of the coolest things is that they have a whole face painting section. The kids went crazy with this. Kingston is supposed to be a Skylander. 

EZ is a Creeper from Minecraft.

And Netta is just kind of scary.

EZ really got into the building area, but it was hard to take him seriously in that get up with his face painted.

We discovered The South Bend Chocolate Company, which has awesome hot chocolate. We happened to go on St. Patrick's Day and they were giving out all this free green stuff. Netta of course had to go back multiple times to grab free stuff and make sure everyone in the family was outfitted. That's my girl.

Netta brought home this drawing, which I assumed was of an animal on the beach and maybe some jellyfish. Then she informed me that the animal above ground was a sphinx and that the things below ground were all skeletons. She scares me sometimes.

March became extra exciting when EZ decided to fracture his elbow. Since we didn't have basements in Texas, I was so excited to move into a house with one, so I could put all the toys downstairs and send the kids there when I need a break. Well we weren't even here 3 weeks and EZ hurt himself playing under the mini trampoline. We tried to avoid the doctor but after a weekend of it hurting I finally took him in. Of course I did it during the day and had King and Conrad with me. They were fine at the doctors office, but then they were hellions at the xray place. So, the next day when it came time to take him in to get the cast John came home from work to take him. And then snapped this picture of EZ enjoying some gourmet hot chocolate while I was stuck at home eating who knows what with the kids. While I appreciated not having to take all the kids to the doctor again, I think I got the short end of the stick on this deal. Luckily, EZ was excited to have his friends sign the cast and he only had to have it for 3 weeks.

We Survived February

Let's just say that February was rough. The move officially happened mid-month and then all of a sudden this place I thought I could possibly live in forever, was no longer home. Luckily, my kids seem to be more resilient than I am and had basically no trouble adjusting to the move. Before we left Austin, we had to stock up on winter gear. When the shipment arrived the kids were very excited. They were sweating their butts off, but they insisted on parading around in it.

I got to go to one last event with Netta at her school. They had a special "read with your mom" time for the girls at the library. It was so cute to see all these girls reading in Spanish. I can't talk too much about it, because it still breaks my heart that we left that immersion program.

When we arrived in St. Joseph it was buried in feet of snow. This is the worst winter they have had in 40 years. We missed the polar vortex, thank goodness, but there was still more snow and missed school days to come after we got there. Like I said, the kids were super stoked about the snow and had to play in it the first chance they got. I think EZ's expression says it all.

The kids' started at their new school on Valentine's Day and I think having a party that day was a great way for them to meet their classmates and adjust to the new school. They are very excited to be attending "Brown School." Clearly it was made for us. Oh and it kills me that I am sending my kids to school in full blown snow gear. I really never thought that day would come, but here we are. The best part is that the kids get 3 recesses in the snow and then they still come home begging to play in it more.

EZ was super excited to build his first ever snowman. Unfortunately, this picture is actually of his second snowman. Kingston destroyed the first and is lucky to still be alive. 

John's niece Brittany has been living in Chicago for a few years with her family and of course they were moving back to Utah a week after we arrived. We are just 1 1/2 hours from Chicago so we were able to visit her one time before they left. It's a bummer they won't be living here longer and the funny things is this has actually happened to us before. When we were interning in Texas, John's sister Becky, who had lived in Galveston for 10 plus years was moving her family to Washington State and actually stopped to visit us in Austin as they made their way out of the state. We just can't win when it comes to living by John's family. 

Moving was hard and then having to live in temporary housing for 3 weeks made it even harder. It was really difficult to find a place that would rent to use for such a short time. We ended up finding a small small duplex. The guy was actually nice enough to rent us the side that he uses during the summer, which I didn't think would cause any problems, but then we arrived and realized that it was completely full of all his stuff, including all his food and we had really no place to put anything. This meant we ate out a lot and sadly this town doesn't exactly have the best restaurants or much variety. At least not ones that are kid friendly. It also meant the kids had no place to run around and if more then one of them was talking at the same time it sounded like they were all screaming. Luckily, we got to see our house before we closed on it and we were reminded of how good things are going to be. Conrad was absolutely in love with all of the cupboards and we couldn't keep him out of them. 

At the end of the month I celebrated my 33rd Birthday, which was a little bitter sweet since I didn't have any of my girlfriends to celebrate with, but luckily I had Netta to keep me company and get pedicures with. None of the nail places here will actually give someone her age a pedicure. They will only paint her toe nails, so she was a little disappointed. That's my diva.

New Year, New Life

January brought a new year and and lot of other changes for the Brown family. We knew these changes were coming, but at least for me, it hit me like a ton of bricks when the final decisions were made and things started happening. John had been unhappy at Dell for awhile and all fall he had been putting our feelers for a new job. We love Austin, so we weren't opposed to staying there, but we also wanted to be closer to more family, which meant either moving closer to mine in the east or John's in the west. Before John really started searching for a job, he was contacted by Whirlpool about their Global Leadership Development program. It is a rotational program that puts you on a fast track to becoming an executive. While the job was very tempting, it would mean moving to a small town in Michigan and pulling our kids out of their Spanish immersion program and moving them somewhere with nothing like it. Michigan is closer to my parents, which is a definite plus, but I just could not wrap my head around leaving the Spanish program and moving somewhere without an Old Navy. Dell was going through a lot of changes and layoffs at the time and flooding the job market in Austin, so nothing there worked out. We had one job opportunity in California near some of John's siblings and in a school district with an immersion program, but in the end it wasn't right for us and we decided we were Michigan bound. I think poor John knew from the beginning that Whirlpool was the way to go, but I just couldn't accept it until we had fully researched all our options. Luckily, there is the chance that we could do one of John's rotations abroad, so our kids can have another kind of immersion experience. Our fingers are crossed for Brazil!

Once we were committed to moving forward Heavenly Father blessed our lives in many ways. I was stressed about selling our home and buying a new one, but we were able to sell our home in 6 days and some awesome friends watched our kids for us so John and I could house hunt together in Michigan and we found an amazing home that we absolutely love. Also, I was worried about cancelling my BYU-I teaching contract last minute. For some reason you can't live in Michigan and teach for BYU-I and I had to tell them I was moving 3 days before the semester started. I felt guilty doing that, but it just so happened that they were able to take my students and distribute them throughout the other sections, so I didn't leave anybody hanging. 

We also had some fun things happen in January that weren't nearly so serious. John loves the TV show Archer and the cast came and did a live reading of scenes from some of the episodes. I would not have chosen to go on my own but John loved it and I will admit I laughed as well.

Once we knew we were moving we had to hit up all our favorite restaurants. We loved the burger joint Freddy's and then they made themselves even better by starting to serve fry sauce. The kids and I ate their one last time and Conrad used the same fry to dip in the fry sauce and suck it off over and over again. That's my boy.

EZ competed in a Spanish creative writing competition at his school and he came in first place for 2nd grade! That allowed him to compete at the district level. He didn't win any prizes that day, but we joke that he won the whitest kid award. He was honestly the only non-Hispanic kid in the entire competition. We were so stinking proud of him and this may have added to my sadness over leaving this program, but I promise I am ok now.

We also had to squeeze in all the cousin time we could get with Lincoln. Sarah and Casey are not in love with Austin and are very open to Casey finding another job and them moving, so hopefully they will be able to head our direction soon.

Conrad had 2 milestones this month. First, he FINALLY started walking. I still can't believe he was 16 months old before he took his first steps and really 17 months old before he was walking more than crawling. I was so sure that since he is the runt of the family he would walk the earliest, but nope he walked the latest. He also got his first hair cut. His cute little duck tail was turning into more of a rat tail so it had to go. (Leaving my hair stylist Melanie was also a cause of stress for me. It's so hard to find one you love as much as we loved her!)

Christmas and New Years

The Christmas Eve lunch trip to Waffle House was alive and well this year. I love eating there but our family is outgrowing the tiny booths and it makes it hard to get good pictures together.

John and EZ opted for a trucker hat theme. I love this pic because of how much John looks like his dad.

On Christmas Eve, Sarah and her family came over. We would have loved to have been at the annual Eckerson Christmas Even open house in good old Moon Township, but we did our best to make some of the same "traditional" snacks and celebrate with them in spirit.

Christmas morning involved the usual unwrapping and screams of excitement. It seriously makes my day to see my kids so happy, but then when it's all done my once clean and beautiful living room looks like a bomb went off.

On New Years Eve our friends Lara and Rodney came over with their kids Jacob, Aaron and Leah. Lara is one of my best friends and our kids get a long great. It was bitter sweet taking this pictures, because even though nothing had been "officially" decided yet, we knew that big changes were coming for our family that meant we wouldn't be getting to hang with these guys anymore. 

Every year we do a puzzle and this year poor John stayed up super late trying to finish it because I was busy hanging with our guests and kind of neglected to help him for most of the night. Sorry babe!