livin' la vida loca

yeah, our life is a little crazy lately (oh yeah, and Ricky Martin finally came out of the closet :), but here is what I have time to document:

Maylee is growing so quickly, we are just trying to enjoy every minute of her sweetness before she gets too old! And I torture her with photo sessions as often as I find time - here is her 'mom quit torturing me with that stupid flash while I am sleeping' face :)

Can't get enough of the sweet sleeping baby :)
Stretching and waking up - again I am in love :)Kinley and Grandma Brown - my kids just love hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa!
A few of the cousins, kiddos, Grandma Brown, and Aunt Kim - we love family gatherings!This is the reason I have no photos of Mason - he refuses to cooperate! This is what I got when I asked him to smile for me :) ... and this...
... and this... :) this picture was laying on my bed because I was changing the photo in the frame, so he decided to hide behind it, it actually turned out pretty funny because it looks like Kinley's head on Mason's body, he thought it was hilarious :) Mason is such a funny kid :). Quick Mason story: last week at Preschool his teacher's husband (who is a police officer) was there to teach the kids about safety and he let them explore his police car. I was sure Mason would LOVE it. When I picked him up afterwards I asked how it was and his teacher said he wouldn't go near it. She said maybe the lights and sirens were too much for him. When we got in the car I asked him about it. He told me all about the police car and said the red and blue lights were SO cool! I asked him why he wouldn't go inside of it then. "I didn't have my seat belt on and I didn't want him to take me to jail" was his response :). I tell our kids that if they don't buckle up in the car that the policemen will take Mommy to jail, apparently he thought that meant he would go to jail too :). Ooops. That kids remembers EVERYTHING I say :)
Random projects :) Burp cloths-
Monogram onesie (front and back)
Ruffle flower onesie with ruffles on the bum (for a baby gift, fun easy project)Rolled fabric roses and melted fabric flowers - also easy and fun! Do you think I have an obsession with hair accessories? Maybe :)
Maylee's carseat cover - Farrah made it for me before she was born so I added cute girly things (in pink of course :)The nursery chair - a recliner that I bought on KSL.com for $10 and recovered with chocolate brown minky dot fabric - it is super-soft, and looks better in person, the photo is weird :)IF you made it this far in my mass-photo post you deserve a cookie (ooooh, I want a cookie, stupid Weight Watchers :), so instead you get a little treat, the before and after of Maylee's nursery (finally!). It still needs a few touches, but I may never get to those.

This was the nursery way before, when it was Mason's room (I had gotten rid of some stuff already when I took these, unfortunately I never took pictures of his nursery, it was really cute)After I got rid of everything, before I started adding the new stuff :) This was about 3 weeks before Maylee was born - nothing like waiting until last minute :)The finished product :)We had to keep it unisex, and I finished about 4 days before Maylee was born, all I added after were the pictures of Maylee, the frames were all done before :)
Special thanks go to Matt for humoring me and doing all of the paneling, shelf molding, baseboards, window sill, casings, etc. knowing that our house was on the market. I LOVE it.

AND I re-did my laundry room (added cabinets and moved the hanging rack) not photoworthy, but a major improvement, so WHY would I ever want to leave this house? I have finally made everything exactly the way I want it! And to add to the chaos of our life lately we have had 3 showings a day all week, so I have had to leave the house for about 5 hours at a time with 3 kids in crappy cold weather, so we have had to spend a LOT of time at the mall. Not fun with 3 kids. Which brings me to my next point... if you made it this far you get the latest news, we unfortunately sold our house yesterday! We got a full price offer and accepted, however they do have a contingency since they need to sell their house still, but they seem to think it will be no problem. So, that's our lastest exciting news, I have a new BIG project to do (a new house!), but I will be beyond sad to leave my house that I love so very much, and of course our friends and neighbors who have shared our lives for the last 4 1/2 years. Sniff sniff. Seriously, I am emotional about it, but I know it will be a good change eventually :). Thanks for humoring me and reading all of this nonsense, it's more for my documentation than anything :). Time to feed the crying baby, I promise to update more than once a month... actually I can't promise anything, but I will try!

Maylee 2 Month Stats

Miss Maylee is 2 months old already, time flies by so quickly! She is so much fun, we love every minute of her. She is super-smiley lately, which just melts everybody's hearts (who can resist a sweet baby smile!?!). She loves to smile at McKinley while she talks to her. She loves her baths, her brother and sister (they are very entertaining), and of course she loves sleeping and eating :). She weighed 10 1/2 pounds at her 2-month visit and was 22 1/2 inches long. Again, forgot her head measurement, but she is in the 50th percentile on everything, so just about average. Again, I am spoiled by a serious sleeper :). She sleeps from about 11pm to 8am, so I am getting a pretty good night's sleep... still not sure why I am tired all of the time, but it may have something to do with our crazy chaotic life :). Well, enjoy the photos, we love our sweet little princess!
Not the best picture, but I love that she is smiling at Kinley and Mason while they try to get her to look at the camera :)I heart Baby Legs, seriously how cute are those? :)

Happy Easter!

I had such good intentions of taking pictures on Easter... but... well... as usual it didn't happen. Since a picture is worth a thousand words and I slacked on the pictures, you get a bunch of words. Sorry. :) This year Easter was on General Conference weekend, so we got to stay home in our PJ's (yeah, like every other day for us, but at least Daddy got to be home with us :). We had Amanda and Ben and Brittany, Ian, and Lily over for a big greasy conference breakfast, Easter egg hunt, and to watch the first session of Conference on Sunday. Then Grandma and Grandpa Brown brought a fabulous Easter dinner and stayed to hang out with us and play with the kids - the highlight of their week, they LOVE to play with Grandma and Grandpa! Grandpa wore his awesome cowboy boots, and Mason was SO proud that he owns cowboy boots like Grandpa :) - this boy just idolizes Grandpa Brown. Anyhow, here are the few pictures I managed to take, it was a fun family-filled day! Happy Easter to all!
McKinley checking our her Easter goodies from Grandma BrownMason in his new Easter jammies (if you know Mason, you know he LOVES jammies, and his footie jam's from the winter had holes through all the feet, so it was time for new ones :). He honestly strips his clothes off as we walk in the door from going anywhere and heads straight to his room to put pj's on! :)Grandpa Brown with sweet baby MayleeCan you see why we love Ben? The kids just think he is the greatest, what's not to love? :)My cute neice Amanda took some pictures of my kids for a school assignment, I love this one (McKinley wanted a picture with just 'the girls,' which worked out for the best since Mason refused to cooperate :)

Our Special Time

Some of you know that we waited and tried for several months to get pregnant with Maylee – which for us was a very long time, our other two were ‘surprises.’ When I got pregnant I swore I wouldn’t wish away one single minute of it. I didn’t quite make good on my promise. I don’t love being pregnant, and towards the end I was just miserable and couldn’t wait for it to be over. Then Maylee came, and I wanted to make sure I ate up every minute of her newborn sweetness. But, there were dishes and laundry and two other kids to take care of as well. It has all flown by so quickly, and Maylee is often in the background observing the commotion around her. This time around I have learned to appreciate those few quiet moments when I can just stare at her sweet face, cuddle her, and enjoy just her. Now, don’t get me wrong, I value my sleep, but there is something special and magical about our special time in the middle of the night. I know it won’t last forever, and so I can actually say that I enjoy it. It’s the only time that it’s just me and her, it’s dark and quiet, and there is nothing else that I have to do but cuddle my little Maylee and take in her sweet little face. I wish there was a way to record it, or photograph it, or somehow capture those rare moments before they are gone. I hope I always remember our special time, because those wee morning hours are moments that I will always treasure.

Seriously, who wouldn't want to stay up all night staring at that sweet little face? LOVE this baby!

Us Lately...

I know, we practically dropped off the face of the planet after Maylee was born, but we are still here, and alive, I promise! We haven't been up to much, but here is a little update on our so-called life lately :).


We don't get dressed unless absolutely necessary. If you stop by unannounced, you will find McKinley dressed in something like this: and Mason will inevitably be wearing something like this: but hey, they are happy and it makes for less laundry for me to do :). We do bathe regularly at least. The kids take about an hour bubble bath every day around 2 o'clock just for something to do. I manage a shower every morning, although some days it may not still be considered 'morning' by the time I actually shower. Maylee gets a bath at night because it wears her out and makes her really sleepy. She {obviously} LOVES her baths :)
Mason loves to help with his little sister. They are quite jealous that Mom gets to feed the baby all of the time, so sometimes I pump and let them give her a bottle. They think that is SO great! McKinley is a proud big sister - again :). She used to feed Mason his bottles, now she is much older and so helpful!
This one is just cute because I LOVE sleeping baby faces :). She looks a lot like McKinley in this picture, actually. We have holed ourselves up in our house only emerging for the rare walk on an occasional warm day. We use sanitizer to the extreme, and avoid anyone who has been sick. McKinley and Mason finally went back to preschool last week, and of course somehow ended up sick. Mason started to get a cold Saturday (we thought it was allergies), Maylee started to get stuffy on Sunday night, and now McKinley and I have colds too. So far nothing terrible, but annoying. I hate hearing poor little Maylee trying to sleep with her little nose all stuffed up. This is the face of a very annoyed stuffy almost-5-week-old baby:
However, she still manages to be happy even though she can't breathe through her little nose :)
And this is what two bored cooped-up stuffy-nosed kids do to entertain themselves while mommy tries to take care of a grumpy congested baby:
As you can tell, it's a party over here :). We miss you all and hope to re-join the 'real world' again once the weather warms up, which is hopefully very soon! Summer can't come soon enough!

It's in the Job Description

It’s my job to know which stuffed animal ‘Custard’ is, and where he was last seen (behind the couch in the basement).

It’s my job to know how far away the sun is – using some random form of non-standard measurement (I wish I had paid more attention in 8th grade science class).

It’s my job to bite my tongue while I clean up pee on the bathroom floor – it was after-all a good attempt, we just need to work on his aim.

It’s my job to accept that I will never ever get a good night’s sleep. Again. Ever. When my kids do all sleep through the night I will always lay awake worrying about them. Worrying that they will wake up. Or that they won’t.

It’s my job to know how to explain for the one-millionth time at bedtime that there are no bad guys in our house, and they can’t get into our house. And if they actually DO manage to magically shrink themselves to the size of ants and get down the chimney and then re-grown-up to normal size (a plausible option to an imaginative 5-year-old) that I will protect them no matter what and never let anything bad happen to them. And to silently wish that I really could keep anything bad from ever happening to them.

It’s my job to know how to spell every word in the dictionary, and to spell them out loud upon request. one. letter. at. a. time.

It’s my job to explain on a 3-year-old level the difference between girls and boys and why the new baby is not a boy, then let it go when my attempt to teach him the proper names of the parts of the female anatomy ends up with him declaring to his sister that her ‘pee comes out of China.’

It’s my job to balance dishes, laundry, sleep, preparing of meals, wiping bums, paying bills, and nurturing minds all while suffering from short-term memory loss and sleep deprivation.

It’s my job to figure out what makes my infant cry until midnight every night even though I have tried everything to soothe her. And to hold her and soothe her knowing that nothing I do will make her feel better, but at least she knows I am there.

It’s my job to know the cure for hiccups, where to find Japan on a map, and how many more days until Christmas upon request.

It is my job to be a nurse, although I have no medical training. To be a referee even though I don't know the rules (and I REALLY could use instant replay to figure out who actually had that toy first!). To be a taxi driver, even though I still can't parallel park. To sing lullabies although I can't carry a tune to save my life.

It is my privilege to hear “Mom, you make the bestest lemonade ever!” even though it is only Crystal Light.

It is my privilege to hold my baby and watch her sweet little face, and occasionally catch a contented precious smile (I don't care that they say it's just gas, it melts my heart).

It is my privilege to be needed, wanted, and loved unconditionally. No matte­­r what. I am not always good at my job. I don’t always have the answers. Sometimes the sleep deprivation robs me of my patience. But they love me anyways. That’s in my job description too. And there is no bigger paycheck than to sit at the table coloring with my kids and hear a contented sigh and a sweet little voice say “Mom, I love you” just out of the blue. Yep, that’s part of my job too. And it makes it all worth it.

Maylee is 1 month old!

I know I say this a lot, and I will keep saying it, but time flies by so quickly! Maylee is 1 month old already! There isn't much to report, she is sleeping better at night, but still up a couple of times to eat. She is healthy, eating well, and growing quickly. She pretty much just likes to eat, that is her very favorite thing to do :). We just love her and cuddle her and kiss her to pieces, we are so glad to have her in our family.Check out those chunky legs, and of course that sweet little smile :)

Another smiley Maylee picture, she is such a happy little baby! I took these a couple of days late, but I plan to do them every month until she is a year old with the same flower on to give it perspective. Such a spoiled little baby :)
She wasn't too sure about the 'photo session', but she was a pretty good sport about it.

Maylee Elizabeth Brown

Prepare for photo overload, this was Maylee's first torture photo session with Jeni Boston Photography taken when she was about a week old - there are many more years of photo fun to come, sorry Maylee :) LOVE all of these fabulous photos, thanks to Jeni!