The Brown Family

Sunday, January 26, 2014

Jan 2014

Hello to January 2014! We are excited for a new year and to see what this year will bring us. We already received great news with Matt getting a promotion at work. He is now the Regional Director of Plant Security! He has been traveling a lot lately, every 2-3 weeks per month, so it's been an adjustment being a single parent during the week. I'm just lucky to have great girls that are used to our crazy, busy schedule! I continue to work 40 hours in 4 days and then work from home on Fridays so there is never a slow moment for us during the week!

Lyla has had a few take home projects from school lately. This project was to decorate the bear in his winter gear. We had a good time trying to figure out how to make his scarf, gloves, hat and boots! I'm not very creative but at least Lyla had fun with cutting, gluing and coloring!

Lyla was proud of her bear

Hayden continues to do a great job sleeping in her big girl bed. I just love to see what position she will be in when I check on her. I just wish she would stay under her covers as she has the coldest room in the house. At least she is dressed warmly.

After the holidays, I wanted to start potty training Hayden but she hasn't been showing a lot of interest. Lyla didn't show a lot of interest in the beginning as well so we will continue to keep a consistent schedule with her in hopes she will become more excited to become a big girl soon! I'm also hoping with Lyla being around and Hayden wanting to be just like her big sister, that might help push her a little more. Wish us luck!

Nap time in Hayden's bed...can you tell this was staged!

This winter has been a hard one already. We have been getting snow here and there but the below 0 temps have been keeping us inside a lot. We have already had a few cancellations for school and I think we might have another 1-2 cancellations this coming week too. We will just have to have more fort building and craft days I suppose.

Ella getting love from the girls

Lyla playing with all her new Barbie toys!

The girls had a great day helping dad snow blow the driveway and then going sledding in the yard. Who needs a sled hill when you have a 4wheeler and a pull behind sled! The girls just love this time with daddy.

Updates from Nov-Dec 2013

We were quite busy around the holidays again this year. We enjoyed spending time with family and friends and having a few play dates as well.

Lyla had her first Christmas program in mid Dec. I still can't believe she is in 4K and now she is involved with school programs. My baby is growing up too fast! They sang a poem "Chubby Little Snowman" and then "Frosty the Snowman" with just her class and then another song "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer" with both her class and the afternoon class. She had a little stage fright when she saw the big crowd of parents but she sang all the songs and did a great job.

Lyla with her class in the black dress and red cardigan

We decorated for Christmas earlier than ever this year and I think we started a new tradition. The girls and I decided to decorate opening weekend since Matt is busy hunting and the last thing we want to do is go shopping with the big crowds. I always feel decorating right after Thanksgiving is more stressful as we spend most the weekend with my parents and then hurry to get everything up in the house. Now we will celebrate Christmas for a little longer!

I got motivated to cut the girl's hair again in December. Lyla's was getting so long and I wanted to even off Hayden's as much as I could. Lyla has a lot of hair so it's getting more and more difficult for me to cut it. I suppose we will have to run to the hairdresser one of these days!

Beautiful girls after their haircut

We celebrated Christmas for a week this year. We started at my parents the weekend before, celebrated the Monday before with my cousin Jody, her family and my Aunt Jill and Uncle Jon and then back to WI for Christmas Eve and Christmas with Matt's family along with celebrating with Mike and Nikki and Matt's parents the weekend after. It was less stressful trying to run around to see everyone in 1-2 days so we enjoyed having our celebration longer this year.

Grandpa's big score with light savers for the girls

Boy Barbie's...the girl's got Ken and Ryan!

Anne and Lyla after sledding outside

Hayden, Anne, Lyla and Owen about to open presents

Christmas Eve...getting ready to go to church

The girl's lovin their Ella Marie!

Family Christmas picture

This was the year of Barbie's for the girls. They got a new Barbie house along with lots of Barbie's, cars and accessories. Hayden got a lot of Tinker Bell stuff as well. Opening presents Christmas morning is always a joy.

Periwinkle and Tinker Bell dolls

The girls with Great Grandpa Wyman

Pose by the Christmas tree

Grandpa and Grandma Brown with the girls

We also had a few play dates during the holidays. My college friends Stacey and Mandy brought their 2 kids over for the day. The kids played so well together and we were able to catch up as well. We also celebrated New Years Eve over at the Kratz household so the girls could play with Jonathan and Hailee again.

Movie time with goldfish...Lyla, Tanner, Jonathan, Ali and Hailee

Now we are in January and everything has slowed down. Now Matt and I are ready to tackle house projects that hopefully with come together quickly!

Saturday, November 2, 2013

Pumpkin Patch Fun 2013!

This post is a little out of order but we made it to the Pumpkin Patch again this year in Oct. We went with our friends Mandy and Jason along with their kids Jonathan and Hailee. We had a great day but it ended up raining right when we got in the pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins! To say the least, we were pretty quick at picking out our pumpkins!

Getting tall!

Tall girl!

Petting sheep with Hailee

Hayden's buddy

Playing on the little tractors

Lyla always scopes out the tractors

Playing in the sand

Busy workers

Climbing down

Dad had to join in the fun too!

Playing on the horses!

Who's going to win?

Jump Jump Around!

Trying to bury each other!

Climbing the tires

I had to include another picture of the girls playing dress up! I got my super hero and ballerina!

Hayden's big girl bed!

My baby is growing up! Hayden just got her big girl bed on Friday and has been so excited all week waiting for it to come. I left the crib up last night just in case she wasn't sleeping well but she didn't get up once! We checked on her a couple times last night and found her in various positions like off her pillow, her head up in the corner of bed, sideways and etc. I'm so happy she is transitioning well but sad that she is growing up!

Lyla, this is my bed! Get out!

Pumpkin Carving and Halloween Costumes 2013

We got our pumpkins carved this year, in a mad rush like always! Matt and I are not very creative so we like to follow patterns to make our pumpkins look decent! I can't talk as I just help get the "guts" out of the pumpkins and let Matt do all the carving! Lyla liked cleaning out her pumpkin this year but Hayden still just likes to watch. Maybe next year she will clean the "guts" out!
This is what we came up with this year:

Lyla helping out

Excited for pumpkin carving

Lyla's buck pumpkin

Hayden's skull pumpkin

Halloween
My mom made the girl's costumes again this year. Lyla decided in the beginning of the year that she wanted to be Periwinkle (Tinker Bell's sister) and let Grandma know right away. The costumes looked amazing like always and I'm so glad I have a crafty and talented mom I can lean on! Hayden was Tinker Bell this year, a costume Lyla wore a couple years ago.
It rained on Halloween this year but we didn't let that stop us trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. The girls got lots of candy and love going through their buckets everyday to decide what they want to eat!