SLC 2012

Kasey will be on-call at work beginning June 14th {our anniversary} through the middle of July... Obviously, we are not too thrilled about this. This means that we won't be able to go anywhere for our anniversary, Mikenna's birthday, 4th of July {my brother will be home (2 hours away) from DC}, and to top it all off - Kasey's 10-year high school reunion in Oregon. Bummer.

On the upside, we were able to get out of town for a few days before our month-long lockdown. We ran the idea by our wonderful friends, the Santiago's {our families have become very close, we both have 3 girls close to the same ages and they live right next to us!} to see if they might want to join us for a few days of fun at Lagoon and the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City. Since they did decide to come and a full itinerary, we were unable to visit the many family members we have there... Sorry guys, next time!

We left after the husbands got off work on Thursday evening and arrived at the hotel around 11:30 pm. We got conjoining rooms so we could all hang out before and after our planned activities. Brittney and I weren't tired for some reason so we decided to go try to find a store to buy healthy lunches for Lagoon. Neither one of us wanted to feed our families greasy fair food as a meal. That was quite the adventure - Super Target was closed, we found another market that was closed, the tomtom led us to an alley and said that we had reached walmart {um, no!}, so we had to follow a map on my iPhone which was fun... We had managed to make a huge circle around it, only to find out it was just a quick trip on the interstate at the next exit! We had fun though laughing for the 2 hours it took! Then we had to quietly put everything away in the fridge without waking up our kids and husbands - not easy when you can't stop giggling at every crinkle and crunch as well as eachother. Friday morning, we went down to the continental breakfast only to find out they shut it down at 9... It was 9:15! So we had breakfast together at IHOP, then headed to Lagoon.

Just a few highlights...

This was Adiee getting prepped for the skycoaster. You know, when you pay an extra $30 for them to scare the pants off of you... I was worried about Adiee on this one. She occasionally has a fear of heights, but wanted to do this with her dad.

 She was SO excited! What a wierdo, this ride is absolutely terrifying if you ask me.

 NO fear!

Look at those baby blues! She is such a gorgeous little girl!

 No turning back!

"This must be what a bird sees." Adiee said this to Kasey as they are climbing to the top...

How sweet and innocent is that?!

They LOVED every second of it. Brave girl!

I was very nervous about what her reaction was going to be.

The girls in their coordinating ladybug/polka dot outfits.

So cute!

Isla enjoying her dip n dots :)

Mikenna and I are about to go on the Catapult, another X-treme ride. I really like this one!

She's so excited! Last year she did the swing and Adiee did this one with me.

Loved it!

Sweet Isla riding the helicopters!

Saturday we planned to go to the zoo. We had breakfast and finished getting ready. This day was a little more hectic, then we found out the zoo was about an HOUR away... We took the scenic route and drove through downtown SLC. Of all the times I've been there, I don't think I have ever been downtown. By the time we got there it was already around noon. Zoo parking was ridiculous, so Kasey and I opted to just pay for parking so we didn't have to keep trolling the lot for someone to leave. The weather wasn't as nice this day, an occasional chilly gust of wind really put a damper on the day from the get-go.

Our 3 beautiful babies!

Our 3 little "chick-a-dees" :)

Checking out the seals...

Mikenna played photographer with my phone :) Made me nervous a few times, could you imagine her dropping it in the water or in an animals cage?! That thing was expensive!

This picture was taken right after what was probably the worst moment of my life - Adiee got separated from our group. Kasey, Schnihder, and I all went running in different directons while Brittney stayed with the kids. I was running around looking for her and I physically couldn't scream her name, except once. I couldn't believe that it was happening, it didn't seem real at all. I don't think a minute had passed when I saw Adiee walking towards and talking with a zoo worker, she was calm but started crying when she saw Schnihder and I running towards her in opposite directions. I squeezed her and just started sobbing. I felt like such a horrible mom, and I held her hand while we walked back to where our group was. Kasey had to talk me through a full-blown panic attack - something I have never experienced before. I physically couldn't breathe, it felt like someone was squeezing my throat and I was breathing through an opening no bigger than a pinhead. I remember feeling like I was going to faint because I was crying so hard and fighting to breathe, being just so thankful that she was safe with us, and feeling like I was a terrible mom. Kasey made me feel better by saying that I wasn't a bad mom, this is something that happens sometimes {although, it's not supposed to happen to me...}, that Adiee knowing to calmly look for a person in uniform and to ask for help was just confirmation that she has good parents. But it's 2 days later and I'm still feeling very emotional about the whole ordeal.

It didn't take long for Adiee to recover, can you see the excitement over the giraffe? :)

I love this picture, and holy cow does Mikenna look grown up or what?!

Sweet girls!

We had lunch, shopped in the gift shop {Mikenna got an elephant mood necklace, and some slime with a tiger in it. Adiee picked a frog whose eyes pop out when you squeeze it and a glass frog sculpture. Isla picked a beautiful pink crystal sea horse necklace and a pen with charms on it.} and we called it a day by 3 pm. So we basically paid $60 for 3 hours of freezing our tushes off, and a scary experience I won't ever forget. After we left, we went shopping, to dinner, then went swimming at the hotel.

Look at that face!

 Having a great time!

Easy does it :) What a sweetie pie!

Sunday we took off around noon, Kasey had to get back to town so he could take on-call while Mike left on a business trip... Even when we aren't on-call, our weekends aren't always our own. We're still trying to get used to that. If you're visiting just this post, I posted 2 others earlier {one this morning, and one last night. Just FYI if you wanted to read those as well ;-)} Thanks for reading!

Yard Sale!

Over the past month or so, I have been on a mission to eliminate ALL clutter in our home. I have gone through every box, every cabinet, every bin, basket, and drawer in this house. After an exhausting 3-day yard sale on the weekend of June 1st and we raked in over $1300. Kasey and I haven't had a garage sale in about 7 years, we have had full intention on doing one sooner but I have a tendency to over-think and over-analyze EVERYTHING so I made actually doing it quite overwhelming. This year I was fed up and decided I was going to just do it already. So I spent about 3 weeks going through all of our possessions, 1 week pricing everything, and threw it out on the lawn... I got rid of all our baby items, I bawled my eyes out all weekend because it's hard to accept that the baby stage is already all over for us. I cried when I was putting out all of our baby clothes and especially their Christmas dresses. I sobbed when I sold our swing, jumperoo, bath tub, bouncer, and car seat to a pregnant smoker. Breaks my heart. I sold everything at any price because my bottom line was ultimately to have it gone - item brand new $125, marked at $20, they had $3... SOLD! No joke. What didn't sell by Sunday afternoon, we donated to a lady that owns a thrift store in Hanna, WY. She's known to give more than she sells, so it felt great to help. We donated over 200 cute, clean baby girl outfits {some still with tags}, over 20 pairs of shoes in good/great condition, 10 large baby/toddler toys that we have outgrown, 2 boxes of other toys, 2 large boxes of stuffed animals, household items, and all kinds of other miscellaneous. She hauled away 2 truck loads of our no longer needed goodies.

In the process of sifting through all of our things, I found this. Made my day :) Kasey wrote it on a box when we were moving into our first home together. The box was in horrible condition so I had to recycle it and since I am NOT a hoarder (haha!) I took a picture of it and moved on :-)

I spent the next few days after our successful yard sale cleaning and organizing the house and it was immaculate when we left for a short vacation last Thursday. Best of all, we taught the girls some valuable lessons - letting go of once treasured possessions when we outgrow them {just because you were given that when you were 2 doesn't mean we need to keep it forever... a.k.a. hoarding}, giving to the less fortunate {we are so very lucky to have daddy. He provides us with not only the things we need but also with the things we want. Not everyone has that.}, taking care of the things that they still want by keeping them clean and organized {I don't know how many times we all have stepped on and broke things that they didn't put away so they ended up in the garbage}, and it's not all about quantity - I got rid of all the "filler" toys {stuff that doesn't get played with very often if at all} and I have made it EASY for my girls to keep their rooms and their playroom tidy. I think it is working because it has been a week and they have yet to absolutely wreck their play spaces and clean-up time takes only minutes instead of hours! I'm absolutely loving it, and so are they - no more days where cleaning up their toys seem endless.

Update!

Ok, so 3 full months have gone by since my last post... Ridiculous, I know. Even Christmas was left undone -
A few of my favorite Christmas photos:

Isla waiting "patiently" for Christmas Day :)

My sweet and crazy little Adiee!

Sweet and Sassy Mikenna!

Christmas Eve!

They must've been super good this year! Santa brought Mikenna a new bike, Adiee a kareoke machine, and Isla the storytime Belle doll. Kasey and I bought them a kayak for this upcoming summer. It was a wonderful Christmas, it was just the 5 of us all day. We played with all of our new toys, played games, watched Christmas movies, and Kasey, Mikenna, and Adiee even took the new bike out for a spin. We facetimed with my family since we weren't at the holiday get-together.

Here's everything else the Brown Family has been up to:

January 20th - Mikenna & Adiee performed their dance "I'm a Ballerina Doll" for the varsity girls basketball game half-time show. They looked so beautiful!

The next morning (Jan. 21st), Isla performed her tap dance, "Good Ship Lollipop" for the varsity girls basketball game half-time show. What a cutie patootie!

February 11th - Isla performed her tumbling/trampoline routine for yet another varsity half-time show to, "We Are The Champions".

Her teacher asked me to make matching headpieces for their costumes!

Valentine's Day, Kasey surprised me with a bouquet of pink lillies and a Coach purse! A few weeks before, I had been "casually" (yeah right, hahaha) dropping hints that I would like one, and one night I was browsing some and happened to mention that I had found the one I wanted. I fell asleep with the website still up on my phone and Kasey bought it for me while I was sleeping! The next day when I woke up, the purse was the first thing that came up... I woke Kasey up, "I reeeeeally want this purse!" And he says, "Good! It's on it's way here" and rolled over to keep sleeping. And I went nuts, made him prove it, and his hopes for sleeping in were shot, haha.

February 20th - I had a dermatologist appointment because Kasey had noticed a new spot on my back. The girls and I went to Casper, they stayed with my mom while I went to the doctor. I had 2 suspicious spots on my back. They removed them, and sent them in for a biopsy. Pretty scary stuff, but a few weeks later they called with the results and it turned out to be nothing. Better safe than sorry.

Last weekend in February, we bought a camper. And ever since we got it home, Kasey and I have been working hard at making it our own. He has spray painted all the cabinetry with a cool "rock" textured paint, I have been painting the walls a shade of white. And just a couple days ago we tag-teamed the upholstery, he took all of the covers off the cushions while I washed them and put them back on. So they are nice and clean. I still have to finish painting the walls and I am going to be sanitizing everything once it's done. We are getting excited for camping season now! Pictures to come when it's finished.

The whole month of March was pretty uneventful, just our regular schedules with movie dates and BBQ's with good friends, and a couple parent teacher conferences thrown in (which they are doing fabulous, by the way). That is until the last weekend of the month... Read on to hear about the madness, ha!

March 30th - Adiee Grace turned SIX! I know everybody says it but it is seriously hard to believe that our kiddos are getting so old. I made birthday pancakes for the girls, stuck a candle in them and we all sang to her before Kasey left for work. The girls had dress rehearsals for their recital for 4 hours... Kasey volunteered to tackle that all on his own so that I could go for an impromptu trip to Casper (seriously, what an incredible man/husband/daddy!) While I was in Casper I picked up 2 Nintendo 3DS's (one for Adiee's birthday present, and the other for Mikenna - an early b-day present. She's been wanting one for FOREVER!) I also picked up a new pair of capris. 4 hours, and $600 later, I headed home with my mom. We met Kasey at the rehearsals, ordered a pizza and had Adiee open her gifts from my mom and us. Thanks to my mother, we are now expecting a tadpole in the mail (another flipping pet... oh jeez!) and butterflies when it gets a little warmer. It's ok though, she's really excited (they can't live too long right haha??). When she opened the Nintendo 3DS, she was SO excited, and Mikenna instantly looked devastated asked if Adiee had to share, then started to cry. Kasey took her aside and told her that we had one for her too, that wasn't the plan but he said he couldn't stand to see her like that. We told her she could have it early or wait for her actual birthday, which do you think she picked? Ha :)

March 31st - Dance Recital Day! I was busy preparing for Adiee's birthday party tomorrow - only 4 people RSVP'd so I was stressed about how many were actually going to come. I made about 2 dozen cupcakes and a cake. The cake wasn't turning out how I thought it would, not knowing how many people were coming, wondering if I had enough party supplies, dance recitals that night, blah blah blah... I ended up bawling my eyes out (Pathetic I know! But I'm a perfectionist at heart so if it's not right, then I have a tendency to freak out... Still working on that, ugh!) Then, it was time to get the girls all gussied up to dance the night away. When we got home, we put the kids to bed, made a checklist for the morning, and went to bed ourselves. LONG day.

April 1st - Let's Party! We rented the multi-purpose room and a gym at the rec center to have her party. We went to the store picked up the food and balloons, and my good friend Brittney helped Kasey and I set up the party. What would I have done without them?! Turns out, there weren't very many extra kids, so all that stressing out over supplies and food were unwarranted - why has the courtesy of RSVPing disappeared? We sang to her, watched her open presents, smacked a pinata around, had lunch and desert, and played with balls and on scooters, etc... I knew that weekend was going to be long and hard, once it was over I was so relieved but a week later, I am STILL unwinding from all that stress I felt.

Easter was a fun-filled family day. The girls woke up, found their baskets from the Easter Bunny and didn't touch them until they got Kasey and I out of bed... How good are they?! Well, they tore into those; then Kasey did his station checks since he was on call. I got the table set up for egg dying so we could tackle that as soon as he got home (we usually already have this done, but considering the weekend before... Ha!) We dyed our eggs, then went to the movie, "Mirror, Mirror". After the movie, we stopped by the house to grab their eggs, and went to a park for the egg hunt. So much fun! We headed home for some dinner and put the kiddos to bed. It was a wonderful day. I love my wonderful family!

 Dyeing those eggs!

 Wowsa!

 Found one!

Oh MY!

Our lovely little girls.

Kasey and I are truly blessed.

Holiday Happenings

December 8th - Mikenna and Adiee had their school Christmas Concerts. Noni came to see them sing and spent a few days here with us! The next day, we did those gingerbread houses that I had mentioned earlier with the 2 kiddos I watch every now and then. Don't mind the kitty scratches on Isla's cheek, she won't leave Lucy alone... :) They were in candy heaven as they unwrapped all their leftover halloween candy and decorated their houses! Yes girls, I did see the many pieces that you tried to "sneak".

Our little "elves" hard at work! :)

Tried to make the candy less tempting to eat with royal icing, glitter, and glue. It worked for the most part, except Isla took a big ol' bite of the frosting after I specifically said not to since it was made of raw egg whites and sugar... Ugh!

All finished! What a day!

Back in November, Babbette (the owner/teacher at their dance studio) asked me to make her grand-daughter a bow to match her dress for their Thanksgiving program at preschool. They loved it and so she asked me if I would want to put a basket of bows I've made out on her counter and sell them at her studio!

This is what we threw together and I've already made a couple hundred dollars, selling them super cheap. Thank you Babbette, you are so kind!

December 15 - I went "shopping" downtown with my new friend Sarah, and although it was unsuccessful, all of the 2 shops we visited were closing, it was a lot of fun! We weren't really ready to call it a night, so she came inside to chat for a little while. When we got home, Adiee had thrown up and was asleep, Kasey said that she was VERY worried about not being able to go to school for her class Christmas Party which was also PJ day to reward them of their efforts as a school (K-5th Grade) for bringing in over 1,700 cans of food during their annual food drive. She seemed just fine, so we let her go. I went to Adiee's class party, and Kasey went to Mikenna's! It was awesome that he was able to sneak away from work for a little bit to go so that they both had a parent there - HOW are we going to make it work when Isla's in school?!?! I guess we will just have to wait and see :)

Just a random FYI, this miserable place we call home isn't nearly as awful now that we have met a few family friends! So my days are not as lonely anymore, and are now filled with coffee dates and playdates, family dinners, etc... It's so much more enjoyable here now-a-days!

I made "lumps of coal" for a snack while we watched holiday movies with a few of the girls' friends.

Yummo!

December 18 - We went to Casper to celebrate my grandpa's 70th birthday! My Uncle Victor was able to come down from Salt Lake City and it was so nice to see him! It's been way too long - I just wish the rest of his family could've made it. Miss you guys!! The party was cut short for us though, Kasey had to get back home to be on-call so Mike could go take care of his wife who had an accident a few days before. We also finished up all of our Christmas shopping, YAY!

Days before Christmas, Santa sent each one of our girls an email to let them know if they were nice... or naughty! I should have video taped them watching the videos because Adiee was talking to him through the screen, Isla let him know that she was wearing her bathing suit, and Mikenna was on pins and needles to see if she was going to make the nice list (she had just got busted for throwing her frosted flakes across the table at Adiee - HA!!) Their sighs of relief were just priceless! Thank you portable north pole, those videos were so cute!