It's Not Mother's Day

Ahh, it's summer! The time for lazy days and relaxed schedules. Although some days it seems like we are just as busy as always.

Our routine around these parts is to do our grocery shopping on Tuesday's. I get lots of sympathy glances at Target . . .

 

 

Much to my husband's chagrin, my grocery list does not always get fulfilled. Either because I ran out of room in the buggy or because my sanity was on the brink and I just decided to leave. He does not understand how this happens.

 

That means that on Sunday's and Monday's we are sometimes searching for things to eat and getting creative in the kitchen.

 

A Burford family tradition was to have blueberry muffins on Saturday's and my dad's biscuits on Sunday's. At the Brown house, we do something similar with muffins and/or pancakes on the weekends. Most weekends I ask the boys which of those they'd like - if they can't agree sometimes I'm nice and I make both.

 

On Mother's Day I made toast (friends, please inform my husband of the whole make mom breakfast on Mother's Day concept, thank you). That was met with grumbling and I informed the kids that it was Mother's Day so I got to do what I wanted.

 

Combine that with in the summer I shop with three kids and we often are scraping the barrel waiting on grocery day to roll back around and the other day I didn't do my usual - what do you want? pop tarts, cereal, toast, etc. I just made sausage and toast and called it a day. And Mason just stared at me blankly and matter of fact informed me that today WAS NOT MOTHER'S DAY!

 

Oh my - good thing I like him! So this summer will be filled with lots of "here I made it, now eat it," just to prove that it should always be mother's day!

Country Nights

The big boys were out of town last week on their annual birthday camping trip with my dad. Lots of good memories were made with Mason, Conner, and Papa - like, hey, remember that time we went camping and a tornado and a flash flood happened and our camper floated down the Caddo River with all our stuff in it?? Good times!

 

Ryan, Aaron, & I had some good times as a family of three as well! We spent one night riding 4-wheelers and fishing and picking blackberries. It was a great fun!

 

 

hanging with daddy on the pier

 

 

we are so blessed with our country view!

not a neighbor in sight!

i love aaron's face in this picture!

i also love how the pasture looks after the first hay bale of the spring!

 

deep thoughts

 

 

Tonight we headed to the local Dairy Queen for a cool summer treat. Mason said he had brain freeze on his lips! :)

 

we roll shirtless around these parts . . . actually Ryan drove to DQ fully clothed but I made him ride in the back on the way home and feed Aaron ice cream so he'd stop crying for ice cream. he ended up shirtless because Conner dumped part of his ice cream on him!

 

not sure why but Ryan said next time he'd just go by himself . . .

sweet as ice cream

 

happy now that his belly is full of ice cream

 

And that's how we do summer nights here!

Take me Out to the Ballgame!

 This past weekend we had a fun trip to the Texas Rangers game versus the Kansas City Royals! There were five couples and 10 kids - our common denominator was 7 & 8 year old boys plus a 9 year old, three 5 year olds, and the lone little girl was 4 - it was fun times!

We arrived in time for the boys to swim a bit before the game and then we headed over to The Ballpark.

My Rangers fans

 

me & Ryan

 

we sat in the "all you can eat" seats -

that was like Conner's third box of popcorn

 

sweet baseball boys

 

the real fun happened here after the game

 

our group had 20 people in it and other families would walk outside

and look at the pool and us and then just leave!

 

we also had noise complaints since we loitered in the hallway a lot

 

 

Our MLB weekend reminded me of games past. I was excited to know that I've been to as many cities to watch baseball as Ryan (granted he's been to more stadiums because he's been to old & new stadiums in the same cities but still!).

 

On our honeymoon we went to the SkyDome (now renamed the Rogers Centre) and watched the Toronto Blue Jays vs. Boston Red Sox in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on April 10, 2003.

 

We've been to a few Houston Astros games when it was Enron Field and Minute Maid Park -

this game is Houston Astros vs. Cincinnati Reds. We had great seats on the 1st base line.

 

And you really can't tell it but I went to Turner Field with my friend Lauren in April 2000

 to watch an Atlanta Braves game! Terrible picture of myself but that's all I had!

 

 

 

Looking forward to many more ball park adventures with my sweet boys!

Out of the Mouths of Babes

My kids watch a show on Cartoon Network called Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu. If you have boys then the odds are that you know about this show and all the Legos that come with it!

The storyline for one of the characters, Lord Garmadon, is that he was bitten by a fierce serpent, The Great Devourer, and that evil now runs through his veins as a result of the snake bite.  Even if the evil Garmadon wanted to be good, he couldn't, because of the Devourer.

 

 

This morning on the way to school a conversation came about where the older boys could not understand why a family member was a certain way.  They couldn't wrap their sweet, innocent little heads around the sad fact that sometimes family treats you worse than others.  The only way I could explain it was just that "he had evil in his heart."

 

Conner is all his five-year-old wisdom said, "Like the Great Devourer bit him." I immediately caught the Ninjago reference and started to say no that it wasn't quite like that, but thought for a minute that it was EXACTLY like that.  A wise & cunning serpent, a devourer, has breathed his evil into him.

 

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 1 Peter 5:8

 

Just an encouragement this morning to stay the course, fight the fight, finish the race, lest you get devoured . . .

 

Children sometimes have the best and simplest ways to explain things!

Embracing the Camera!

 

So every week Emily over @ the anderson crew Embrace's the Camera - meaning she actually gets in pictures with her kids instead of just acting as their photographer and no one ever knowing what she looks like! So dressed up or still in her PJ's she's getting in the photographs! Of course, the week I'm prepared to do so she didn't do a link up but here I am embracing the camera with the bigs anyway!

 

 

springtime fun laying in the grass

 

 

me holding an alligator! Conner was a little scared so I was brave -

 it was surprisingly very cold and somewhat soft

 

 

I don't always love myself in pictures but I'm glad my kids will have memories of all the fun we had TOGETHER!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AARON!

Baby boy is officially a toddler today - sniff, sniff! I cannot believe it has been one year since he's been here! We all love him so, especially his big brothers! They are his heroes and favorite playmates!

 

Aaron, on his birthday, 4/19/12



 

 

mommy & daddy love

 

getting to go home

 

2 months

 

1 year

 

 

 

2 months - little cowpoke

 

 

1 year - cowboys can't be still!

 

you're a walker! you've been walking for about 3 weeks!

 

sweet guy!

 

mommy's new man - 2 months

lay still with my monkey? you're crazy mommy!

 

 

You weigh 20 lbs 9 ozs and are 29 inches long. You have 5 teeth (two bottom, three top). You say "dadadada" and "mamama" but you don't use them to identify us you just babble them. You like to laugh and clap to direct attention to yourself.  You've got the silliest fake laugh - it's so funny! You love to be outside and you have a 6th sense about when someone is eating junk food (you come running!). You eat a lot of food and are always begging for food if anyone else is eating and you are not.

 

You are not really a fan of being away from mommy but you are getting better!  You are a MESS maker!! You love Klenex and toilet paper. You put everything in your mouth (like all babies do!).

 

You have been the biggest trooper in dealing with our crazy schedule! We seem to always be in the car on our way to somewhere and you eat most of your meals in your carseat! You roll with it quite well.

 

Your favorite time of day is 3 o'clock when the boys get home! That is your naptime but you have to stay up for a few minutes to play and giggle with them!

 

WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH AARON RYAN (AKA AARON GAGA) BROWN!! Couldn't imagine life without you!

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

These Days . . .

These days I'm a baseball mama & coach's wife more than any other title I answer to and it's been crazy busy but I'm loving this time with my family.

 

Ryan is coaching Conner's tball team and Mason's machine pitch team! Conner had his first set of games this weekend.

 

My little Panther! Go #12!

 

 

Ballpark Baby

 

Love these memories of older brothers playing and cheering

 

Ryan & Conner

 

Playing Catcher - I think he's bored! :)

 

 

Off to the farm - Aaron loves his Papa!

 

two peas in a pod 

 

look at me go!

 

my little country boy

 

Mason is determined to build a pond in our backyard!

 

Spring time Saturday evenings

 

love

 

beauty

 

 

BBQ beans for supper!

 

 

I'm loving these days with my boys, but pieces of me misses the fellowship of small groups at church during the week and pieces of me yearns for the days that I can pack my bags and head out into the mission field . . . but then I'm reminded that these are the people God has given me and they are my mission field. They are the souls I'm to win. And when the Great Commission told me to GO it didn't say I had to go far and so for now I'm satisfied to GO to the ballpark and to GO to ball practice and to GO to the grocery story because you never know what God has in store for the day!

 

The days are long but the years are short and I'm intending to make the most of them! Love my family!

 

And lest anyone think we are smiley all the time lots of our days have been spent whining about going to ball practice, staying up too late and waking up too grumpy, missing our home, and spending 10th anniversaries eating casseroles and going to bed early!

 

And funny story - the boys were playing Kingdoms (made up game) and Ryan & Mason were the kings and Aaron & Conner were the knights and I thought I'd at least get to be Princess, Queen, or Damsel in Distress but when the time came to assign my role I was told I was the Cook! :) No romance here!