Thursday, August 28, 2014

AJ is 3 years old!!!

 
Wow...my baby boy is 3 years old!  Its amazing how quickly the time goes as I so clearly remember Jake at this age and AJ was just a little baby.  Now he is a big boy...which he will proudly tell you.  :D
 
 
I look at him now and he is sitting on the couch with a sword, and happily singing "Paw Patrollllll" as he watches his favorite cartoon.  :)  I remember after having Jake wanting so deeply to give Jake a little brother or sister and hoping that they could be great friends.  It took a little time but I realized one Christmas that we must be pregnant.  I had spent a lot of time praying for my little AJ and I have always felt like this was God's perfect Christmas gift to us that year.  :)  Then on August 22 an adorable little boy was born and we have all been having fun every since.  AJ is such a character, who has a huge personality, is adorable and knows it, loves to hang with the big boys, play outside, swim, build with Duplos, play superheroes and of course love and cuddle.  He still likes to compliment my shirt, or hair or shoes and its so cute.  If you ask him something he will often give you a look of great concentration as he slowly taps his little finger against his cheek.  AJ is my little reader too, I will often find him at bedtime or naptime sitting in his bed surrounded by a bunch of books while he is supposed to be sleeping.  And he adores his big brother!!!  Watching my two boys play together is wonderful.  AJ wants to do everything his brother does and often follows his interests.  The other day he even gave Jake one of his new beloved Ninja Turtle balls that we had gotten for his birthday party, it was Leo and both of their favorites...but he wanted Jake to have it because it would make him happy.  :)  How do I know this?  He told me...this boy has a great vocabulary and talks really really well.  It often surprises me but it so much fun to talk with him.  Many times are spent with me laughing.  :)  With our new life here in Oklahoma he has found many new things that he loves.  He enjoys going to the zoo often (which includes him asking me this week to go even though we had just gone last week...and yes we braved the heat and I took him with a friend again)!  He loves the monkeys (spider monkeys of course), the elephants and the black bears.  He is even brave enough to check out the snakes.  :)  He loves going to the splash pad in our neighborhood and any of our playgrounds.  And he is super excited for AWANA to start because he finally is old enough to go.  :)  This boy would love to start school right now but I keep telling him he needs to get a bit older.  Little Austin Jonah, our Squidly is a very special little boy and we love him with all of our hearts.  I look forward to seeing what type of man he becomes but until then I enjoy every second of my chicken nugget loving, hug and kiss loving, goofball, confident little boy.  So happy I get to stay him an enjoy the time with him before he starts school like his brother.  And I am so thankful to God for my best Christmas gift ever!!!  Happy Birthday AJ.  :D


Tuesday, August 12, 2014

More Summer Fun

As we are winding up our summer I wanted to catch up on my blog posts.  With this one I am officially caught up.  :D  Just in time for an upcoming trip to Dallas Texas to have some last fun family time before Jake starts Kindergarten.  We are super excited to see a Rangers game and also take the boys to the Lego Discovery Center.  And then of course we also have AJ's 3rd Birthday coming next week.  At lot of fun to finish out a great summer!  But until then I will invite you to check out some of the other fun things we have done to enjoy our time...around many play dates and fun lazy days at home.  :)
Going to the zoo has been a fun activity this summer.  We were also able to go to story time twice which the boys really enjoyed.  That is what they are doing here.  Juice Box, stories and a craft...fun times for my boys.  And then of course we would enjoy the zoo for a hour or two before it got hot.  I love having a year pass to the zoo, especially since it is so close to home.
One weekend we also went to family day at Ryan's work.  There was face painting and a bouncer...my boys were thrilled.  Oh and also as AJ now calls it "Dunk a Duck!"  lol  the game where you throw a ball at a target and try to dunk someone in the water...no idea where he got this name.  hehe  But here is Jake, I mean Captain America.
And Iron Man himself
The boys loved their faces and I was amazed that they held so still to get them.
We also took advantage of a big 4th of July sale this year and got an above ground pool.  It has been so great to have to be able to cool off on a hot day and the kids adore it.  These pictures were taken when it was brand new, we had not filled it all the way, and it had not heated up under the sun yet...but they could not wait another minute.  :D
Even AJ has gotten a lot more courage.  Although after some heavy rains it is much more full than we were keeping it for him and so now he is addicted to his little floaty ring.  Oh well, going to start him in swim lessons this fall.  But he LOVES his ring and is pretty cute in it.  Gotta get some pictures to share.
"Maybe it is a little cold"
One of those moments where you can tell they are brothers..almost identical pose  :)
Jake swimming and AJ walking :)  Although AJ would walk around in the pull yelling "I doing it,"  little guy thought he was swimming :)
Adorable brothers enjoying cartoons together one morning
Jake also got to enjoy VBS at the same church he goes for AWANA.  He loved it, especially since they gave them glow stuff at the end every night and had "Glow People" come out and dance.  They were people with black sweats on and they made stick figures out of glow sticks on their backs and then with the lights out they came in and danced around...it was really quite awesome to see.  AJ loved it to when we all got to go to closing the last night.  VERY clever.
Jake of course was front and center showing off the songs.  :)
My goofy boys playing at one of the neighborhood parks
One morning I took the boys on a donut date.   :)  We had a lot of fun and the boys loved their sprinkle donuts.  Duncan Donuts was a hit!  I think AJ is thinking here..."I can take a bigger bite than that."
....and he did.  lol :)

At The Movies Fun at our church!

We have been greatly blessed to find an amazing church.  Not only are in a great bible study group where we have already made some dear friends, but we also love the pastor and his messages and the kids ADORE the kids ministry.  They said it was there church after the first Sunday we tried it out.  :)  So now Lifechurch.tv is our church and we are so blessed to attend the campus where the pastor actually preaches from and its just down the street from our house.  Anyway, the month of July is called "At the Movies" and its the big outreach event of the year.  Every week they chose a movie and pull a message from it.  Its very clever and the kids loved the fact that there was also popcorn and slurpies and church every week. They also decorate every campus after a movie.  Our church was decorated after Frozen and it was a giant hit with the kids.  There was also another campus in Edmond that decorated as "The Lego Movie."  Since that is a movie that we still watch every other day in this house...we had to check it out.  Also I apologize for the huge amount of Lego pictures...Jake decided to sit next to me and tell me which pictures I needed to include...and well, the boy loves Legos....and there are a TON of Lego pictures.  :)
 The huge snow monster.  This was the first week and as you can see from AJ's body language, he was not too sure about the characters.  This is the closest he got to on the first two weeks we went.  :)  But Jake loved them and wanted a picture with him and everything there.  :D
 Frozen picture spot
 The second week Olaf made his appearance...my boys LOVE this character and so they were super excited
 This is how AJ enjoyed seeing everything at this stage...in one of our arms.  :)
 Catching the Frozen show between services where the princesses sang.  It really was incredible and the boys loved it
 Jake and his buddy :)
 Sled Ride :)
 And here we had a turning point, at week 3 AJ was finally able to take pictures with the characters and just in time for...
 Lego Movie Church (as Jake now calls this campus)  Jake and AJ LOVED seeing all the Lego Movie stuff.
 Emmet is well loved in our house
 Jake was incredibly excited to see this
 The boys with Lord Business and of course a Lego Kevin Durant...a huge hero of the OKC area :)
Lord Business...yeah this guy scared our boys a little bit 
 The boys checking out a HUGE Lego house
 The Lego House it was patterned after
 The boys and one of their heroes...Captain America
 Checking out Emmet
 Benny, the astronaut in the middle is a favorite in our house as well.  If you have ever skyped with us and you have heard AJ yelling "spaceship, spaceship, SPACESHIP!!!" in the background...this is who he is pretending to be.  :)
Spiderman AND Mikey the Ninja Turtle = very excited Brown Boys 
Vitruvious and the boys 
 Had to get a picture of some HUGE Lego Movie fans :)
 Wonder Woman was the excitement here...my boys know their super heroes
Wyldstyle
Emmet
 The little Lego Building area was big with all our kids.  We had made this trip with 3 other families in our Lifegroup and we all had a good time.  :)
 Unikitty
 Boys and their Legos :)
 Ryan and some of our friends :)
 The boys checking out a cool city scene
 AJ built an airplane
 This trip to the other campus was a huge hit and we are very happy that we made the trip.
The last week AJ finally was brave enough to walk up to Olaf...even though he loved the character and was always excited to see him...from a  distance.  :) 
Brave boy giving Olaf some love :)
 
Can't wait to see what they set up next year!!!  Any friends want to come and visit us in July??? :D 


Monday, August 11, 2014

Enjoying Summer Fun

Ahhh the joys of summer!  Flexible schedules, fun activities and a lot of wonderful time with my boys!  I am soaking up every minute of these last days now as Jake is about to start Kindergarten a week from tomorrow.  Can't believe that he is old enough to start...and here Kindergarten is full day.  I am going to miss my big boy but he is also SOOOO excited to start school.  He has missed it all summer and he is super excited to go back.  :)  I should probably enjoy that while it lasts.  :)  But here are some wonderful pictures of us enjoying our summer days!  :)
AJ enjoying one of his favorite foods...bread and butter :) 
During an afternoon naptime Jake helped make his Daddy some banana bread.  Sweet little guy
Painting!!!  My boys loved to paint and I don't get the stuff out as often as I should, because they really love it.
Happy 5 year old boy :)
Cute little painter with a LOT of hair...this was right before we got the boys new haircuts
They were very proud of their works of art :)
Some blogs ago I told you about a plant that Jake started from a bean at school..check out how tall it is now :)  And the very proud gardener!
We started the summer with this blow up pool...Jake was super excited as you can see by him trying it out before there was even water.  :)
Ready to go!
Let the water fight begin!
Would you get between these two?
Things got really fun when daddy joined in.  :)
And then we finally set up the Wii video game.  Nice to play sports inside when its hot out.  AJ was learning how to bowl here.
Jake gets a little excited with his remote :)
One morning we made Muddy Buddies...
...and each of the boys helped to make them.
They were very proud of what they made and mostly LOVED to eat them.  yum!!!
Jake also continued to play t-ball.  AJ was at every one of his brother's games and while he would have loved to play too, he did a great job of cheering for his brother and the Wildcats team.
Jake at bat
Jake working on his slide into home :)
And then a casual run into the dugout
Jake and his coach after his last game
2014 Wildcats T-ball team (Daddy helped assistant coach)
Jake's t-ball picture
He was super excited about the medal that his team earned
And of course, as often occurs, Jake had a picture and so AJ wanted one too.  :)  He is also sporting his Austin TX shirt.  Fun way to have a shirt with his name on it :)
This is how a little boy enjoys summer :)
Super proud of how I accidentally caught this picture!  Jake was practicing his cannonballs in the kiddie pool.  :D  Love the look on his brother's face
This is how the Brown boys dry off after a swim...
...running like crazy around the yard.  :D
My cute little guy.  Always amazes me when I see him wearing clothes that his brother also wore...both "when was Jake that little" and "wow, AJ is big enough to wear it."  :)