My Valentines

I dressed both of the kiddos in pink for church  the weekend before Valentines day. I forgot to get a picture of both of them before church so I was going to get one of both of them when they got back. However Mathias' pink tie broke while they were at church. So here is a picture of Azlyn in her cute pink Valentine dress.

Here is Azlyn in her fun Valentine shirt on Valentines day.  She did not want to sit still for pictures but I got a few cute ones anyway.  This is the first time that I have been able to do pigtail off to the side and not just on top of her head. Yeah for her hair getting longer!

 

My sweet little Asher in his Valentines get-up. This was Mathias' when he was tiny as well.  Such a cute little guy!

I unfortunately didn't get any single shots of Mathias. He went straight to play at his friend's house right after school.

 Mathias got home at about the same time as Devin that night. I hurried and tried to get a picture of all my cute Valentines. Holy cow, if I though getting a picture of the kiddos looking at me and cooperating was hard before, man alive it is near impossible now. This was the best we got.

 Then someone came to visit as I was taking their picture and offered to take one of the whole family. Of course I jumped on that. We don't get one of the whole family very often because usually I am the one who takes the pictures.

For fun I thought I would compare the boys wearing the same shirt. We definitely do not make clone kiddos. I don't think they look a thing alike, except for the nose of course. All three kids have the same nose but that is as close as they get to looking the same.

4th of July

  As we have for the last couple of years, we went over to the DeGooyers for our 4th of July celebrations with the rest of the family. It is seriously so much fun to hang out with everyone, eat some yummy food and watch the amazing firework show that Kevin puts on for us.

I am trying to get better about being in pictures rather than just behind the camera. Love these cute kiddos of mine!

This is what I brought for the BBQ. Red, White and Blue strawberries! I got the idea on Pinterest . Love that site!

 Azlyn got to try her first Oreo, and of course she loved it!

 Here are a few cute pictures of Azlyn showing off her fun festive wear. Also she wasn't a big fan of the sparklers but she liked to play with the packaging.

 After the BBQ everyone was tossing water balloons back and forth over the net with towels. Mathias decided to bring out some water guns and start up a fun little water fight. It was a blast!

 At one point or another both kids took cover over by Grandma Brower because they knew she wasn't going to get wet.

 Someone at the party passed out glow sticks. Both of the kiddos loved them!

 Then it was time for sparklers! Mathias had fun with them but Azlyn wanted nothing to do with them. They had about a million sparklers and all the kids got to play with them for a while.

Then it was finally time for the fireworks. Kevin goes all out every year and puts on a fantastic show. The whole Brower clan comes to watch with about the rest of the neighborhood! Loved that aerial fireworks he usually has were actually made legal this year. Azlyn wasn't too sure about them. She liked to watch them as long as you covered her ears then part way through I noticed that she wasn't really making any noise or moving much and found out that she was fast asleep. I could not believe that she could sleep through all of the loud fireworks! It was such a fun day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Valentine's Day

  Our Valentine's Day was pretty laid back this year. It was a beautiful day out so Mathias talked me into taking the dogs for a walk. Man we were a site for sore eyes. Tilly has never been walked before and just wanted to run so she yelped almost the whole time and drug Mathias around for a while then I took her over and she kept getting in the way of the stroller. It was pure chaos.

 I wanted to get a few pictures of the kiddos in their red and pink before we left but Mathias didn't want anything to do with it so I tried to get a few of Azlyn. She refused to give me a normal smile!

Here Azlyn is giving me her squinch face and also doing her "big girl".

Here is a cute smile mid clap and with a squinch face. She thinks she is so funny when she pulls this face and therefore does it often.

 

 Azlyn loves to play peek a boo and will even play if it means just putting her hands in front of her face to hide.

 

This was the best one I was able to get however the sun was in her face. Oh well, at least I made the attempt I guess.

 Here is Mathias with the dogs just before we started the walk. I ended up walking Tilly (the puppy) after a bit because she kept getting away from Mathias.

This picture actually has a pretty sad story with it. It is just up the street from our house. I had Azlyn in the stroller in front of me and I turned around to take a quick picture or two of Mathias with Puka then all of a sudden the lady whose house I was in front of came out of her door and yelled, "Your baby!" I turned around in time to see the stroller go off the curb and tip over into the street. I quickly went over to her, while muttering a few swears and quickly turned it back over. Azlyn was alright and didn't even have any scratches on her, she was just startled, as was I . I cannot believe this happened. It is not like we were on a big hill or anything. Seriously I was shaking the whole way back home. We have a car seat adapter for our stroller and that is usually how Azlyn rides in her stroller. She has only sat up in it a few times. Hopefully she isn't scared for life.

 She was, however, definitely scared of it for the rest of the day. I tried to take a few pictures of her in her stroller when we got back to the house. She wasn't really having any of it. Look at that poor face.

 So sad!

Mathias took these two pictures. Not too bad for a 5 year old I must say.

 Here are a couple of pictures of my cute family in their festive red and pink for Valentine's Day.

 Seriously LOVE them.

After dinner we had the kiddos come down stairs to get their valentines. Mathias has been wanting a pillow pet for a while and could quote you the whole commercial so we finally got him one. Since we are pretty big into jeeping, I can't pass up a shirt when I see a jeep on it. Also Mathias is a MAJOR chocoholic! When I saw this box of chocolates with a monster truck on it, it just screamed Mathias. Azlyn of course got some cute spring clothes. I have the hardest time not buying this little girl clothes. She definitely has more than Dev and I combined I swear. She also got a Baby Einsteins little music thing because she loves music and I thought it would be something fun for her to take in the car and lastly she got a bib that says "I'm a hoot". I seriously could not pass this up because Devin's mom tells Azlyn all the time that she is a hoot and so it fit her perfectly.

*Update. Dev and I went on a date the following weekend. We figured it would be less crowded. We went and did a little shopping then went and saw the movie True Grit, which we were not huge fans of. After the movie we went out to dinner at Red Robin. It was a perfect day and I was so excited to finally spend some time with the hubby. He has been working a ton lately.

New Years Eve

For new years eve we headed over to Scott and Mel's house with the whole Brower clan. They had pizza, a ton of junk food and the chocolate fountain. We definitely ate more than we should have.

For the first little bit some played a game and the guys watched a hockey game.

The girls played Beatles Rock Band. Mathias and Audrey danced under the disco ball and crawled around playing dogs. Mathias loved having Audrey around to play with!

Azlyn has been making this face a lot lately around the house. She finally started doing it in front of others as well so now they don't think we are lying when we say she does it. We call it her squinch face. She squinches her eyes, opens her mouth and holds her breath for a second. It is so funny and she knows she is funny when she does it. So glad I finally caught it on camera.

Azlyn was so entertained by this little despicable me guy for quite a while she would just sit there and hold it and chew on its arms.

Towards the end of the night everyone was playing this game called Quelf . It made you do weird and funny things. If you look in the a couple of the pictures you will see Dev sitting back with his arms out, he had to stay like that and not move for a long time for a part of the game.

I didn't get a picture of when the ball dropped because I wanted a pic with my little lady instead. Mathias got ornery around 10:30 and kept saying that he wanted to go home. I finally got him to lie down but he came down a few minutes later and still wanted to go home. He finally told me that his ear hurt. I was a little bummed about that because he has never had an ear infection and I didn't want him to get one. I gave him some medicine and he was OUT for the rest of the night. It was fun to hang out with everyone and just pig out and relax.

Christmas

We had a really good Christmas. This Christmas was pretty laid back. We had our own little family Christmas and after we got it all cleaned up, all of the Brower family came over for the traditional breakfast of omelets. The siblings do a gift exchange and then Grandma and Grandpa give all the grandkids a present. And all of the families give Grandma and Grandpa a present. My mom went out to Virginia to visit my brother Dustin for Christmas. We sure missed her!
It was all about the kids this year again. Because things are kinda tight this year, Dev and I didn't do anything for each other and just got the kids some things. I loved watching their faces.
Mathias slept in till about 8. I am so mean and actually locked him in his room because I wanted to see the look on his face when he walked out into the living room and didn't want him to go in there without us. He was so excited when he saw the train set.

Poor Azlyn didn't feel good and just really wanted to snuggle for a while. So we let Mathias start with his stocking. He got some candy, an orange, some cars, a motorcycle, a tie, a leap frog math movie, and Toy Story 3 movie. We then let Azlyn have her stocking and she just kinda stared at it. I took the Raggedy Ann doll out and she kind of just looked at her. She also got an orange, a pair of tights and the movie Princess and the Frog.

This is what Mema (my mom) got Mathias for Christmas. He was so excited! He has wanted one of these for a while now and always plays with his cousin's. He is so happy to have his own. Now all we need is the weather to get warmer so he can actually enjoy it.

This is what Mema got Azlyn for Christmas. Her very first doll. A Disney Princess doll at that. It is a baby Ariel doll. We picked her out because she has red hair like Azlyn! Azlyn loves her. She kept trying to grab her crown and holding her hand. It was so cute.

Here are a couple of pictures of Mathias opening a few of his gifts. He kept saying this is exactly what he wanted. He loved everything he got.

Mathias was so excited that he got the criss cross crash track that he asked Santa for. The train track was also from Santa. Azlyn got her little stroller from Santa.

Azlyn is obviously too young to know what all this craziness was all about, plus she was tired and sick. She didn't really do to much with the tissue paper or wrapping paper which is what I thought she would love the most. I would open all of her toys and then place them in front of her and she would just kinda stare at them and then slowly start touching them and checking them out.

The kids with all of their loot. It took a few tries to get Azlyn to look up for a picture but I finally got one. I also love the ones where she was checking out her first princess movie and holding the dolls hand. Mathias has mastered the art of the super cheesy smile. Gotta love it!

This is what Grandma and Grandpa Brower got Azlyn. She loves it. She keeps opening and closing the top.

Grandma and Grandpa Brower got Mathias this cool semi truck that carries a ton of cars on both sides. He absolutely loves it!
We got Grandma and Grandpa a new waffle maker. The last one only made one waffle at a time and it took forever to make them for everyone. This one makes four at a time .

Dev's brother Rick and his family had us for Christmas this year. They got Mathias some duplo legos. At first Mathias was kinda bummed because he already has some but we later found out that this set was a little different than the one he already had. It has some extra things like a window and some flowers. They got Azlyn a cute summer outfit and a fun opposite/texture book. They got us a Blockbuster movie basket with some drinks, candy, popcorn and a gift-card to do the blockbuster by mail.
We had Scott and Mel and family and we got them a game, movie and each person their favorite candy.
Dev's parents got each kid a magic bullet. I am excited to use it!

Every year Great Aunt Lani brings a book of $1's and gives each of the grandkids their age in money. Mathias loved this! It is so nice of Lani to do that and we really appreciate it!

We tried to get a picture of all the grand kids like we have done the last couple of years. Azlyn was so done by this time. She was so tired, hot and sickie. She just wanted to get out of her jammies and go to bed. These were the best I could get.
After everyone left Azlyn took a nap and we put together some of Mathias' toys and played with them. It was a pretty relaxing Christmas spent hanging out with Family and just being lazy. Just the way it should be!