What have the Brown's been up to?

A. Have they been relaxing on a white sand beach by the ocean?
B. Have they been snoozing on the couch?
C. Have they been hiding?
D. Have they been trying to unpack their new house, get ready for all the holidays and watch over a curious little girl?

All of those sound appealing but if you picked D, you are correct! Your grand prize is reading a brand new blog for 2010!

Since there has been a lot going on and a couple months since I last posted, I will have to break this up in categories to keep my sanity (and so I don't forget anything). Sorry if this is long!

We moved!
We officially closed on our house on November 9th and started moving everything from our garage into the house. Luckily we were able to get everything into the garage the week and weekend before with big help from Matt's dad. Matt's uncle and cousin even came and helped for a day as well. With me trying to take care of a little girl, Matt needed all the help he could get!
Here is Lyla playing at the old house. How did I get under my activity center?

Since I have so many new pictures to share in this blog, I will update with pictures of the new house soon.

My parents came up a couple days ago to help paint Lyla's room. I have projects I want to get done and with them leaving until the end of March, I thought that would be great time for them to help. Here are before and after pictures of Lyla's new room. You can't really tell from the pictures but her room was blue with hand painted pictures all around. We wanted to keep the tree in the corner and with guidance from my aunt Phyllis, we were able to keep it!

Before:


After:


The house is pretty well put together and our next project is to get the garage straighten out. I may need a couple weekends break before I help Matt tackle that project!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a great Thanksgiving at grandma Brown's. Lyla is definitely the entertainment of the day. Here she is getting pushed across the room in a cardboard box from Aunt Marge.

Lyla and Great Grandma Brown

Grandma and Grandpa Brown

No blog is complete without a closeup of Lyla!

Hanging out with my bearded dad

Mom I'm missing my sock!

Lyla and I drove down to my parents house on Thursday night so we could get up bright and early to go shopping on black Friday. Do you think having a 8 month old would slow my mom and me down? Nope! We decided to go shopping even earlier than before (4:00 a.m. mind you) so we could get great deals! Lyla did great and I think we have a new shopper in the family!

Happy Birthday Dad! Here is Lyla celebrating with her dad's 28th birthday!

Merry Christmas!
We celebrated Christmas Eve at my parents house with my dad's side of the family. My cousin Jaime and her family came from MI and my other cousin Jody and her family came from MA so it was great seeing everyone!

Here is Lyla helping to unwrap her presents. At least she liked the bows!

Here is Lyla and her cousin Anne (my cousin Jody's daughter). What great buds!

Here is Lyla and her cousin Reagan (my cousin Jaime's daugther). Reagan is the oldest of the grandkids and a great helper already! She will be the leader of the pack!

Cute picture of Lyla and her cousin Anne in the background

Here is great grandma Knox and all the great grandkids! From Left: Anne, Reagan, great grandma Knox, Lyla and Bryce (Jaime's son). We will be adding 2 more to the family next year with my brother's son due beginning of March and my cousin Jaime's baby due end of May. I love our growing family!

Lyla sitting with daddy saying "hi momma"

Family picture

Family picture with grandma and grandpa Knox

Smile big with momma

Ready for bed with PJ's on with cousin Anne! Anne why are you leaning on me?

On Christmas day, we traveled to my aunt Phyllis's house with my mom's side of the family. Lyla got to play with her cousin Keira (my cousin Nick's daughter). They are expecting their 2nd baby in April so we will have lots of new baby's in 2010!

Lyla's auntie Kristi came to spoil her before we headed up to WI for the Brown X-mas. Lyla loves her new toy!

Brown's X-mas:

Since we celebrated in IL this year for X-mas, we had our Brown x-mas a day later. Lyla got a lot of presents and again was the center of attention.

Here is uncle Mike and aunt Nikki showing Lyla her new toy. Mike we will get you back someday!

Our blog is definitely not complete without a picture of Ella. Here is Ella with her new baby. It only lasted 10 minutes before Ella decided to tear it up!

I think that's all I can write today! I hope you enjoyed the new updates and pictures!

Lyla's First Halloween!

We had a great Halloween and have been packing in between! We close on November 9th so that date is coming very soon. The house is almost all packed besides the everyday stuff we use. We will be moving everything out of our house next weekend so it's crazy to think this is our last week here.

I think Ella knows something is going on as well. She has been a little naughtier than usual and keeps stealing Lyla's toys. I guess she will need a new "baby" when we move into the new house.

Lyla and I were invited to a Halloween party at my friend Mandy's house. Of course since it's Halloween we had to dress up! Lyla wore her flower costume during trick-or-treat and kept it on all night! I'm glad I picked out a cute but comfy outfit so she could still crawl around.

My friend Mandy and her son Jonathan.

Mandy's aunt had a couple storage containers full of Halloween costumes and I found this hat! I had to be festive too!

Last weekend we went over to Scott and Peggy's for a Packer party. Peggy was in AR but we had to show pictures of what what she missed.

The whole clan!

Uncle Mike and Lyla saying "Go Pack Go!"

My parents also came last weekend to help Matt and I pack up the house. They were a great help and we got a lot done! I don't like to pack or take the time to pack very well so that's what my mom is good for (and many more things as well)!

Lyla helping Grandpa put together boxes!

Well the rest are just random pictures of Lyla! Wish us luck moving!

Making funny faces with my pacifier!

I love Ella!

Cheering for the Packers!

Playing with my first trick-or-treat basket...momma forgot to give it to me on Halloween!

Still warming up

We are still warming up after our weekend at Devil's Lake. I think it has been the coldest weekend I can remember. The last 2 years have been really hot so we didn't hike a lot but this year was really cold and again we didn't hike a lot! This year Matt and I missed out on hiking with the big group b/c of Lyla's sleeping/eating schedule but we did manage to get in one big hike and a couple small ones to the lake.

Lyla is cuddled up with momma in her Bjorn. She had layers of clothes on and she also kept mom warm too! Every time we passed someone on the trail they smiled at Lyla and loved her bear jacket. They would say "I didn't think there were bears in these woods!"

Family picture

Piggyback ride with dad

A cute family picture of my cousin Jody and her husband Jeff and 3 month daughter Anne.

We moved our traditional potluck this year to a shelter so we could get out of the cold. Part of the group came early and put up tarps to keep us even warmer!

We still had a big group and lots of food too!

Lyla just had her 6 month checkup and she is now 16 pounds and 4 oz and 26 inches long . She is in the 60% for both weight and height. Her doctor still hears her heart murmur but our appointment with the UW Children's Hospital is not until the beginning of December.

Lyla is also dealing with a cold so she has been pretty plugged up lately. I feel so bad for her when she is eating or sleeping b/c it seems like she is trying so hard to breath through her nose. I'm hoping she will get over this soon.

Other Lyla updates, she started to crawl! After I posted the last blog, she started to crawl the very next day! Now with her crawling, I definitely can't get anything done around the house! I thought it might take her a little while to start crawling quickly but that's not the case. She's in the next room before I know it!

I put Lyla down for a nap before we headed off to Devil's Lake. I heard her talking 30 minutes later and I walked in her room and saw her like this. Not only has she just started to crawl but now she able to pull herself up to a stand! She is a busy little girl!

Lyla's first meal in her new highchair. It is so much easier to feed her in this compared to her Bumbo where she tries to stretch and get out of.

I love my activity center!

Close up!

Other news on our end, we got an accepted off on our house! We are officially moving November 9th! I'm so happy we got our new house but I'm not looking forward to packing. It took us a while to pack and move when we just had an apartment but now we have a house we lived in for 4 1/2 years and a baby to add to the mix. And the packing begins!

That's it from us. Have a great weekend!

Blog Slackers

As my friends call it, we have been Blog Slackers lately! I guess it happens with busy jobs, busy weekends and a busy little girl.

Lyla has been changing so much in the last month and couple weeks. She is already 6 months and 1 week old! Here are her latest milestones.

At 5 -5 1/2 months:

• rolling over a lot in both directions (especially in her crib)
• starting to recognize her name
• started to eat rice cereal
• rocking back and forth on knees
• sitting up on her own with one hand on the ground to keep herself up
• grabs objects with both hands
• lots of talking (same vowel sounds)
• tummy crawling

At 6 months:

• tummy crawling to certain objects she wants (even if it's Ella's toys)
• roll over to sitting position on own
• can sit on own for a couple minutes (until momma makes her laugh and she falls over)
• continued lots of talking
• really knows her name

Lyla was so funny when we gave her rice cereal for the first time. I made sure Matt was videotaping so we could get her funny faces on camera. Here are some shots below.

Smiling with cereal all over my face!

We have been introducing veggies as well for the last couple of weeks. So far she has had green beans and carrots. At first she liked green beans (first time) but now she doesn't want to finish the bowl. She has been a big fan of carrots so that's great! My doctor told me to start with the green veggies first b/c they typically love sweet potatoes and so forth and will never want to eat the other.

Lyla is such a happy baby! She is always smiling and is still very easy going. She is still on her 3-3 1/2 hour schedule so you know if she starts getting crabby ("crabbin" what my mom calls it) you know she needs to go down for a nap. She is still feeding 5 times a day so I'm thinking we should be able to stretch out her schedule shortly. Even when I have to wake her up at 6:00 a.m. to take her to daycare she is just fine! I was never a morning person so hopefully she will be!

Nothing big has been happening with selling of our house. We have had 2 people come and look at it already but no offers so far. We haven't heard anything for a couple weeks as well. Our realtor said it's really slow right now so of course that is perfect timing when we are trying to sell ours. I'm hoping we will get that lucky couple to come and make an offer so we can get our other house. Pray for us that we don't lose it!

Well that's it from us! We are looking forward to Devil's Lake next weekend with the camping family. We can't wait to see everyone!

Hope you enjoy the updated pictures of Lyla!


Here is Lyla wearing daddy's camo hat. She loves to smile for the camera!


I thought this was a hilarious shot of her when she was cuddling with me. These were the faces she would give us sometimes!
Piggyback ride on daddy!

She still loves her tummy time!

Sitting up on her own for the first time!

Almost sitting up

Trying to crawl

Sitting up on her own!

Hanging out with daddy in her bear jacket (mind you this is at 6:00 in the morning)

Lyla's First Packer Game

You saw it right. Lyla went to her very first Green Bay Packer Game this weekend. We went with Grandpa and Grandma Knox. When we got to the game and were walking in, we were stopped by security asking if we had a ticket for Lyla. So apparently for NFL games, EVERYONE needs a ticket. Even if they are 5 months old sitting on your lap. Needless to say, we were not very happy walking all around the stadium to buy a $59 ticket for Lyla. At least we saved $12 b/c they allowed us to buy a cheaper ticket! We already took Lyla to a Milwaukee Brewers game so we didn't think twice on taking her to this game. I guess we know now!

Go Pack Go!

Lyla did great the whole game. She cheered and even watched what was going on on the field. The giveaway was yellow pom poms so it was perfect for her to cheer with.

Being sweet with grandma

Hanging out with my daddy

Lyla also had her 4 month appointment this week. She weighs 14 lbs 8 oz and is 25 inches long. She again is in the 75% for both weight and height! What a healthy girl!

I'm now done posting for the day. 2 posts in one day is good for me!

Have a great week!