Family Pictures

Our Family 2011

I love that we're all looking at each other and Kaity is like "what am I doing here?"

hugs

 

Notice the veins in my dad's neck and hands?  He was having a very difficult time keeping Kaity on his lap!

Jennie, Brett & Sean

Adorable

This is Kaity's mischievous smile.  She wouldn't keep her shoes on and she wouldn't sit on that chair, I'm surprised we even got this one.

Taking pictures is a very serious thing

An absolutely sweet picture of my little girl.  Amazed that we got this one, too, since she was being far from sweet during the photo shoot.

Running - this was her favorite shot to take  We took Jared's wedding ring and threw it across the room for her to chase.

Momma & Kaity

We went to this great place last Friday called Fotofly in Draper.  It was awesome!  The photographers were great and (most important to me) they were patient with my two-year-old who was no longer patient with pictures.  Seriously, why would Kaity ever want to hold still?  There was so much stuff to climb on, look at and play with.  That said, we got some great shots of the family, and the few that we got of Kaity were perfect!  The best part?  We paid $80 (plus tip) for the one hour session and got a copy of the CD with photo rights.  Yes, that's right, the CD was included in the price of the sitting fee!

August is a very busy month for us!

Jared and Kaity at the reception

Dad and his siblings

Great Aunt Cyndi

The entire Heber Brown crew (minus missionary Chris)

The Kevin Brown crew (minus missionary Chris)

The newlyweds and Grandparents Brown

August is normally pretty busy in our family.   We have 4 birthdays, 2 anniversaries, and then there's back to school preparations.  Well, this year was double-time.  At the beginning of August we drove to Boise for Chris' farewell.  It was so much fun to see our family and Chris did a great job!  On the 18th Chris flew into Salt Lake, we picked him up, had lunch, and dropped him off at the MTC.  Can I just say I LOVE the new drive through drop off?  Before there was so much crying and people herding.  This is so much quicker, like a band-aid.  Anyway, that night we drove up to my parent's house for Kaitlyn's real birthday.  She even had a princess cake (which I made).  She loved it!  The next morning, my parents dropped us off at the airport and we flew to Sacramento, California.  I hate flying.  It makes me motion sick.  Having a 1 year old bouncing around does not help, either.  Anyway, we arrived in Sacramento and Grandpa picked us up.  We became part of the wedding-decorating party and ensuing festivities. When the Browns do a wedding, it's big.  When Cyndi does anything, it's big.  When both are combined: monumental.  When we got back it was time for Jared's birthday.  We went out to dinner and had a fun time with family.  Jared especially likes his new board game, Small World.  Finally, Jared started his last (hopefully) first day of Fall Semester; and Kaitlyn cut 4 new teeth (bringing the total to 9).  Here's to a wonderful, but less hectic, September.

Kaitlyn's 1-year pics

Since we are in Boise this weekend for Chris' farewell, we decided to take family pictures while we're here.  This will be the last time for 2 1/2 years that the twins will be in any family group photos, so we thought we'd make the most of it.  While here, we asked Lynn to take some photos of Kaity, too, since we're so close to her first birthday.

Picture Dump

Here are a bunch of cute pictures of Kaitlyn over the last few months.  She is now 9 months old and crawls around and climbs on everything!  She weighs 15 lbs and is 25 in long, so she's a bit small but we're not worried because she'll eat anything (except baby food vegetables).  Her favorites are bananas, mashed potatoes, and graham crackers.  She'll do anything for a graham cracker.

Jared's mom and dad at the HP park in Boise.  They have Michael, Kaitlyn, and Thomas, their three grandkids.  (Weston hadn't yet arrived).

Jared, Dad, Matt and Tyler (Chris was hauling dirt) planting trees in Tyler's back yard.

This one is from February.  Kaitlyn surely loves her food!

I got Dad's toy!  (Actually, she killed a Goomba the other day - saving her dad's butt during a daredevil run).

Kaitlyn loves to play with anything that rattles when she shakes it.  This makes Nerds boxes wonderful toys...until she gets them open and we have to take them away.

Playing cards with Uncle Matt, Uncle Chris, and Daddy.

Every day that Mom was here to visit, I'd inadvertently dress Kaitlyn in the same color.  She loved playing with Grandma and missed her very much when she went back home to Boise.

Kaitlyn absolutely loves bathtime!  Also, I love her swimsuit!  Two birds with one photo, hey?

This is Grandma Brown, Kaitlyn, Kaitlyn's cheetos, and Great-Grandma Watson, once again we all coordinated outfits.

Kaitlyn loved having a playmate!  Here's another photo of Kaity and Michael.  Once again, he's 4 months old, 1 lb bigger than Kaity and they're the same height.

Probably my favorite picture from Mother's Day weekend.  Kaitlyn loves the piano, she plays with me, with Uncle Sean, and with Grandma Brown!  She is the only grandkid so far who has been allowed to touch Mom's piano.  Mom was playing A Child's Prayer, which is one of Kaitlyn's favorites, it's definitely her favorite primary song.

we moved, we decorated, we started a new job, the Easter Bunny came, Grandma came! Here's the scoop:

Okay, we mentioned earlier that we were moving to Brentwood Park apartments.  We did so, and thoroughly LOVE it.  Thank you so much to everyone who helped us move!  We didn't think we'd be leaving so quickly, but the Lord has blessed us with this opportunity.  We very much miss all of our 201 ward friends.  I work 15 hours a week as the office manager, and I like interacting with adults again.  Between having the stake reorganized, visitors, conference, and illnesses, I haven't been able to do a whole lot with the ward yet, but I like it so far.
For Easter the bunny came to visit on Saturday.  We watched conference and enjoyed it quite a bit.  Kaitlyn especially loved the plastic eggs.  On Sunday we went to the gun club, a long standing family tradition (since my grandma was little).  There was an Easter egg hunt for the kids and Kaitlyn got to participate.  Mostly Mom and Dad ate her candy but she was very happy to suck on a sucker for a few minutes.  Pictures are on my dad's camera, so I'll have to post them later.
Grandma Brown took a break to come down and visit at the end of April and then Matt and Chris went home after finishing finals.  Kaitlyn misses them all very much and we're so excited to visit them all for Mother's Day.
Extremely exciting recent developments:

• My cousin Mark is getting sealed to his family in the temple.  He is in his late 30s and his oldest son is mission age.
• My dad entered us in a sweepstakes and we won the grand prize!  Kaitlyn will be getting a savings bond, a bunch of Graco products, and a humongous 1st birthday party which we get to fly in 10 people for.  It will be a bit early though, in July, because the family is pretty busy in August planning for...
• Jared's Aunt Cyndi is getting married!  Yay!  Party of the century!
• My little sister is pregnant!  Ralph (name of the fetus) is due at Christmas time.  We always swore that we wouldn't have kids in December, but now that Ralph is on the way; we're very excited.

I promise to update more often as well as put Kaitlyn's 9 month stats and pics in later this month.

Cheesy Grin!

Kaitlyn has started doing this smile all the time.  It's so adorable!  Also, Jared and I think it makes her look just like her namesake, my Grandma.

My New Nephew

Here are pictures of my new nephew. His name is Michael Hutchins. Most likely his middle name will be Banazir. Megan and Michael are doing great, which is awesome since Michael was measured 21 inches and 10 lbs 5 oz!

2 month stats

Kaitlyn turned two months old last week. She's growing so much! She weighs 10 lbs 7.5 oz. and is 21.5 inches long. Kaitlyn is smiling all the time now, and we love it. She also loves to spend time talking to us, or just about anyone who will listen. She has rolled over three times; but I don't think she's figured out how to do it - so far it's just been an accident and she's looked very surprised at how she got there. She's also started paying attention to toys. Her favorite, by far, is a small mickey plush that my mom and dad bought in Disneyland. Here's Kaitlyn smiling after a diaper change: When I was little, my cousins and I all had cabbage patch kids. As soon as my dad found out that Kaitlyn was a girl he went out and bought Kaitlyn her very own cabbage patch kid. There are pictures of me when I was smaller than my cabbage patch. I'll try to find a picture and post it. Kaitlyn wasn't ever smaller than Starr Margie (all cabbage patch kids have funky names, mine was Adella Carrie), but you can see in the pictures how much she's grown since we brought her home from the hospital:

Happy Halloween from the Brown boys!

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Independence Day

We decided to go up to my parent's house for a BBQ this Saturday. It was fun to hang out and we had a really great dinner of hot dogs and hamburgers, salad, watermelon, and apple cobbler. I was tired, so we left early before the family did s'mores, but that's okay. We came home and it was so nice outside that we took a blanket out and laid on our front lawn and talked with our neighbors, the Owens, until we were all chased inside by the appearance of the sprinklers. This picture is of me cooking bacon for the burgers - I didn't want to get bacon grease on my shirt, cause I really like that one. However, being at my parent's house, the aprons are all disney related. This one has a black top and a red bottom with two yellow 'buttons' on the front. Everyone thought that it was really cute that my belly stuck out just like Mickey's, so we took a picture. Speaking of my belly, we went to the Dr last Wednesday and everything is going fine with Kaitlyn, no protein, low blood pressure, and she's head down - which is great since I'm not entirely sure she has room to flip if she weren't already set.

3rd Trimester!

I am so excited to be in the home stretch. I know I still have a ways to go and it's the hottest part of the summer, but I'm still pretty excited. I am grateful that I get to be big and awkward and grouchy at home in front of my air conditioner instead of at work chasing kids. Maybe it's because of my mom and how she was so excited to be pregnant, she always told us how wonderful everything was - even the morning sickness. Maybe it's because we tried for quite a while to get Kaity, but I have loved every minute of being pregnant. Even when I didn't feel well, or was nauseous, dizzy, tired, sore, itchy, grouchy, swollen, etc. I have been so happy because Kaitlyn is just growing and healthy. The doctor says everything is going well and I'm right on schedule. Oh, and for all the family who keep saying there must be twins, I'm so big...the Dr. confirms that Kaity is the only one and I'm measuring just fine. I'm just short and carrying her all out in front. Here's a picture from 26 weeks - she's grown a lot!

Four Squared - Tagged by Karissa

My friend Karissa tagged everyone who read her blog to post the fourth picture in the fourth album in their pictures folder. Since I have photos both at work and home, I'll put both up:
This one is from Megan's baby shower. She looks freaked out because a few of her friends were discussing the details of home births without drugs. I almost kicked them out of my house. They really scared Megan and pissed me off, too.
This one is from Christmas 2006 in Idaho. Aunt Cyndi made all of us matching Santa slippers. Although it's almost impossible to tell, Mom, Dad, Jared, Tyler, Megan, John, Chris, Matt and me are all in this picture. Thanks Cyndi, they're awesome!

I tag Jenae Hasler, Aunt Cyndi, Carisa Brown, Aunt Cathy, Carrie Miller, Malarie Leao, Meg Larsen, Martha Harmon, Martha Birk, and Michelle Palmer.

My family

I had a friend ask me about my family, so here are pictures of them. Above is most of my dad's family, with my grandparents Ruth and Don Zaelit at the top in the white shirts.
These are my mom and dad, Peggy and Matt.
Jennie is my adorable little sister.

A fun one of Jennie.My Grandma, Lenore Webb, and my parent's dog, Elroy.
Mom and Dad Brown, Julie and Kevin.
Grandma Ann and Grandpa Heber Brown.
Carissa and Tyler, Jared's older brother and his wife.
Jared's little sister, Megan, and her husband John and baby Thomas.
My adorable nephew Thomas.
Matt, one of Jared's younger twin brothers. Matt is funny and smart and very sweet.
Chris, the other twin, and baby Thomas. Chris is funny and knows how to fix anything.
My sisters, Megan Brown Hutchins, Jennie Zaelit, and Mandy Martin

Mandy is one of my best friends. This was at one of the non-alcoholic pina colada nights (NAPC) that the girls often threw. Mandy is currently serving a mission in California and will get home in February.
Oh, and my favorite picture of my parents: