New car

This month we sold one of our dream cars.

we had the Xterra for 3 1/2yrs and it was a great car, besides the fact that i always wanted one, we had a lot of great memories in this car too.

it was the car that we drove our new twin babies home from the hospital in,

the car we did many camping and road trips to and from UT to AZ and CO.

the car that we were lucky enough to find in a pinch for the right price just after our honda was stolen out of our drive-way....never to be seen again.

the car that the girls grew-up in, from new babies to walking and talking 2 1/2 yr olds.

the car that never ever broke down or had any problems,

the car that made us still feel young wild and fun.

so here is to good-bye to the Xterra and hello to our new car...

yes a dodge mini-van.  aka Mormon assault vehicle

life is getting busy with the twins and it sure is nice to have a car built for kids and families.

here is to many more memories and to several road trips.  the 22hr drive from UT back to Texas was a breeze as the girls watched little mermaid 4 times, and the only time we heard a peep from them was when the movie was over!  so glad we got a new car!  wish we had done it sooner.
and even though buying the car ended up being a huge problem with some shady car dealers at doug smith auto,(that if i lived in UT i think i would get my friends and picket outside the dealership to warn everyone!) the car has been great, now if i can only convince the twins that it's my car not Jo-Jo's. (every time they climb in it they say, "it's jo-jo car, we like it")

days and days

 the best part of our day is when we go check the mail, and get 'birthday letters' from 

our best pin-pal Pappy.

they aren't really birthday letters but he draws really pretty pictures and has cool stamps so the girls always say, its my birthday so he sent me this!  lucky for us they a have a birthday letter in the mail once a week!

 i'm sure everyone had a great new years eve welcoming in 2013!  which means we only have 2 1/2yrs til we are done with residency!  spence has a had a really really busy january (no brown exaggeration needed). he has been leaving around 4:30-5:30am and getting home around 10:30pm everyday except sat/sun and its more like7-5pm.  definitely exceeding the 90hr wk week limit:) needless to say we have really missed him, but tried to fill our days and nights with activities so we don't miss him too much.

new years eve was no exception spence was on call and at the ER working so i tried to do something fun!

what did i come up with? movie night watching snow white on vhs for the first time! the girls enjoyed it.

 the girls are such good helpers.  pappy got them in the habbit of helping with everything! so they helped me sand down a dresser i found so we can paint it and put in their room!

last saturday night spence was finally home just before bedtime, look how tired everyone is! 

 last week we kept down pouring rain.  it would rain all day and night, i was worried at one point that i missed the note saying to head to noah's boat!

 the rain in arizona during monsoon season has nothing on the storms here in texas.  our back yard literally became a 3ft wide river and a small pond.

since we don't get any snow, i figured we might as well go play in the rain, if you can't stop it, you  might as well join it. so the girls put on their winter snow gear and out we went to run in the rain!  the girls had fun for about 30min and then as wet as little fish, they wanted to go home and get hot cocoa!

Alamosa Sledding

 What do you do when you have lots of snow but no sledding hill? have grandpa and daddy pull you FAST!

 Alamosa is known to be super cold. the three days we were there the average temperature was 6 degrees, which is warm considering in the morning its typically a negative 22.  so on christmas when the sun decided to come out, we went outside to play in the snow.

 the girls had a blast getting pulled around the back yard!

 and we all got a pretty good work out pulling them!

 Ty doing what all father's do, white washing their kids!

 Tenley warming up her hands like pappy taught her, so cute!

 and of course grandma debbie couldn't miss out on the fun, so she hitched a ride too!

so glad the girls got to play in snow, its so fun when you are little and don't ever get to see it because you live in warm texas.

Christmas

 This year we spent Christmas in Alamosa with all of spencer's family.  it was a little crazy with 7 grand kids under the age of 5, but the kids did a really good job of sharing and not climbing the tree.

Spence's family tradition of having a shrimp boil for dinner, with potatoes, corn, chicken, shrimp and this year they added in crayfish...yes crayfish and no i wasn't even tempted try any seafood this year, 

but the boys had fun!

 Here are the kids waiting for the ok to head downstairs and see if santa came.  Poor crew was sick that morning and just layed on the bathroom floor. 

 Our girls still don't get the whole christmas/santa thing.  i think a lot of it is that we don't really talk about it and they are still pretty young.  since they don't really expect much we didn't really do much again this year.

(last year we gave them hand-me down singing books, and clothes)

this year we got them new boots.  we re-wrapped some back packs my sister handed down, and some dress up clothes from her and they were set!  literally they grabbed their back-packs and boots and headed into the other room.  it made me and spence feel really grateful that they can be happy with just a few simple things.  its a good example for spence and i to follow.

 We finally convinced the girls to come back and open a few more things...Quincy liked opening stuff and Tenley never really got into it!

 my parents got the girls some play dough stuff which is going to be so much fun! and Ariel dolls!

and spencer's parents got the girls a play kitchen!

 they don't have any clothes on because they had been putting their dress up clothes on and off...and of course its fun to run around in your underwear when its negative 6 degrees in Alamosa!

 spence's sister gave the girls a princess book with little princess, and tenley loved the book.  she just sat there and looked at all the pages.

 here are some of the cousins opening up their christmas PJ!

 Grandpa Todd read a christmas story about trains, and all the kids got train whistles!

 We all seemed to have a really great Christmas! the best part is that spence, the girls and i were all together! between med school and now residency time together is short and hard to find.

we felt really grateful to be together, to be happy, and to be healthy.

Brown's Christmas

Because we wouldn't be in Utah on Christmas day, my family had their christmas party a week early so we wouldn't miss out on any of the fun. 

Pappy of course was a major hit with the girls, they sang and danced to their cowboy song, 'ghost riders' and he gave them their favorite treat, chocolate covered raisins. 

We had taco's and tenley loved them just as much as the rest of us! 

i love taco's and wish we had them more often then just at christmas.

We also played a game around where you pass the candy bar around...it was a little complicated because the kids just wanted to keep their candy bar...

We also did BROWN's Got TALENT, talent show.  Cy did gangum style with MG and Tenley as his back up singers.  My mom got an awesome karoki machine that we can hook our ipods up to, and all the kids took turns signing their favorite song.  tenley is definitely not microphone shy, she sang  mama mia's super troop, and money money, and taylor swifts never ever. 

Here is  most of the clan,

my grandma gave all the kids little stuffed animals and a special card.  while she was passing out cards tenley thought she was so funny sneaking behind her and playing peek-a-boo.

Later that week we headed up to Sandy and visited the new Sheele store? i think that is what its called!

we didn't do any shopping we just went for the Ferris wheel and kid play place.

we had a lot of fun and hit up JCW's afterwoods on my request i love that place!

the girls were acting goofy so spence rapped them up like babies....they love it!

we gave pappy a special gift, its a curious george book that you read and record your voice

makes me cry to think we won't be seeing them for awhile, but this way the girls still can listen to him read them a book every night.

and our final picture together before our 8hr drive to colorado and then on to our 14hr drive to texas.

its been only a week since we left, but the girls still ask where pappy and fritz are.  it seems they focus on different people each day from grandma to reese, to manda and MG and so on.

they ask to go over to JoJo's house daily, poor things don't get that it takes 22hrs in a car to get there, otherwise i'd be there every day.  There is truly nothing better than being together with family. Everyday I give thanks for having such a wonderful, loving, and understanding family

Elk Mtn Sledding

Our last week in Utah we finally got snow! the girls were so confused at first calling it rain, i had to keep telling them no, it's snow.  we ventured out to the back yard and to sled down pappy's huge hill. 

of course Quincy couldn't go fast enough! while tenley went down a couple times and then just wanted to 'take a break.'

Tenley is a lot like me and had fun for awhile but really enjoyed watching everyone go fast.

Getting down the hill is easy, its hiking back up that gets tricky,

spence was a great sport and sled with Quincy almost all day.

fritz would run along side chasing the sled, he loves the snow too.

the girls loved the snow, and kept saying, 'oh, it tastes good!'

grandma watched us all from the deck and was ready with blankets and hot cocoa for anyone who got too cold. 

everyone enjoyed the snow, and the samoan's learned all about sledding!