Thanksgiving at Scott's Parents

More photo's of our trip to NC for Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving at the family

Thanksgiving this year also included a little visit from Santa early. We met at Laura's and exchanged gifts. As you can see Maddie started warming up to Grandpa.

Jared's Birthday

While Jared's Birthday was in November we are just now getting photo's updated on the site. As you can see everyone had a blast.

Snow Bunnies

Our first snow came before Christmas and here are the snow bunnies getting ready for a good old fashion snowball fight.

More Christmas

Christmas Day

Simply stated, the kids had a lot of fun.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve at the Brown's starts with an afternoon trip to the mall. After grabbing warm beverages at Starbucks for Mom & Dad and pretzels for the kids, we watch the last minute shoppers running here and there. We usually even score a couple of deals ourselves.

Christmas Eve was made complete last night by letting the kids cut, bake and decorate cookies. Jared and Evie each decorated six cookies. Evie ate five of hers and Jared managed to only eat one cookie. Jared told me the cookies were for Santa (in whom he doesn't believe). He said he thought Santa would visit to bring us more presents or just come for the goodies!

Evie + red icing + white shirt = remove the shirt! :)

Christmas Traditions

Part of our Christmas tradition includes Teresa baking a backet or bucket of Christmas goodies and delivering them to our neighbors. I would be concerned if someone like this came to my door.

Things I don't want to forget....

Update on Jared from December 17, 2009:

Financial freedom thought from the mind of Jared: Yesterday in the car he told me he wanted to slice his coins in half, doubling the number of coins. I told him I thought the federal gov't would be interested in such a proposal. He said, "I'll draw a picture and you can write a note. We'll send it to the federal go...vernment." Yep, true story....maybe my little boy will be Time's Man of the Year next time!

Jared is allowed to play in the gym's basketball court as long as there is an adult supervising. Today at the gym one of the workers told Jared he could play in the basketball court. Jared told her he could only play back there if there was a grown-up. She told him it would be okay because there weren't any other ki...ds back there. He told her he couldn't because HE DIDN'T WANT TO DISOBEY HIS MOMMY!!!!!!

The Maize

We had a Sunday School Social at the Maize a few weeks ago. The kids had a total blast. After playing, taking a hay ride, and picking out pie pumpkins, we roasted hotdogs over a pit fire and made s'mores. Really, it was soooo much fun!Ian managed to squeeze into a shot! That's okay---we love Ian!

See my baby's little ribs???

The duck races were a hit with all FOUR of them! :)

You can't tell from this photo, but Evie was CRYING!! She was fickled about whether or not to ride, but once she got on, the tears came...thankfully they didn't last long!

Madison Turns TWO

Just before bedtime, Jared created a special birthday message for his sister...

ALL ON HIS OWN! :) Not that I'm proud or anything.

I took the kids to the grocery store to pick out a cake. I kept picking up cakes and letting Madison select...this was the one SHE picked. It was a buckeye cake and it was super-yummy!

Update on bathroom remodel.

Not a great picture--too much flash--but this is the new hardware we picked for the cabinets. It has a smooth rust-colored finish--very simple, but I like them a lot. I asked Scott to tile the narrow wall between the shower and bathroom door. He obliged and added a towel bar, since we always seem to have 3-4 towels hanging up (since Jared uses our shower).

Above: The floor tile looks orangey in this picture; the tiles on the side of the tub are closer to the actual color.

Below: The cabinets are really darker than this picture (closer in color to the above picture); they appear lighter because of the flash.