January Days

January has been a very busy and wonderful start to a new year. Merrick got to play in snow for the first time. It was a nightmare trying to get him all bundled up, he did not like me putting all those layers on him. But once I finally got him outside and he figured out what to do with all that cold white stuff, he had a great time.


We just had one bad run in with the snow. He tripped and fell face first into some snow while he was trying to figure it all out. And of course like a good mom instead of hugging him and making him feel better, I was holding back laughing and trying to take a picture.

We got to move into our new house on the 5th. Its been a lot of work unpacking and organizing but we couldn't be happier with our new home. We Love Love Love it and enjoy some extra space for the kids to run around. Below are a few pics we took before we moved anything in. I was trying to wait and post pics of it furnished but it is taking way too long to get it cleaned and organized.

Front entrance

Entry into upstairs family room

Kitchen and dinning area in the back room

Upstairs Family room

view from dinning room

Upstairs bathroom

View from back patio

View from front yard

Max turned 2 months

Merrick likes to be a big brother and try and pick up his little brother. Sorry Max

Merrick loves to play in the backyard and it has been amazing weather. He LOVES the tramp

He loves to throw anything. Here he is finally throwing the correct thing and practicing his pitching skills.

The light makes it look like Max is balding early :) We love these boys!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas was absolutely wonderful this year. It's been awhile since I had so much fun on Christmas and Christmas Eve. Kids definitely bring the magic back to Christmas. It was so great to spend so much time with the family and Andrew's Dad was even able to come and spend time with us this Christmas which was awesome. Most importantly Christmas is the time to remember the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ and it is a time to give gifts of service and love to those we love. Although it has been a hectic and crazy month it was fun to find small and simple ways to serve and show love and appreciation to family and friends.

Perhaps the greatest gift we were given this Christmas was we closed on our house on the 21 and everything was finalized on the 23. It was quite a roller coaster ride up until the last and final minute of the short sale when we finally got word that the house was ours. We are so excited and feel so blessed to be able to have our own beautiful home. We hope to move in around the 5th of January. Pictures will be coming soon. Thanks Chester for making our dream come true.

Max taking his afternoon nap preparing for Christmas Eve festivities at Grandma's

Max has these crazy eyes that have a hard time focusing on anything still so it is always funny to see what he will look like in pictures. This is actually one of his better shots.

Merrick Loves to give his baby brother hugs and loves and kisses and hold him. He can be so sweet.

After opening a few presents Merrick would always go and give baby Max a love and hug. We love you Merrick and Max.

This was the face Merrick made after opening every present

Andrew got this great new BBQ from his Dad for our New house

Merrick Love love loves music. So we got him a little drum set and a small keyboard piano. His favorite toys are always the ones that play music.

Max had a nice and relaxing Christmas

I'm not sure what was more fun, all the toys in the presents or all the wrapping paper from the presents.

Max is Already 1 Month Old!

Here are a few more pics of Max I've taken in the past couple weeks. I've come to realize I am terrible photographer. I really wish I could take a class and learn some basics so I can get some good pictures of the babes. But here's the best I've got.

Max Kekoa Brown

Max Kekoa Brown was born on Nov. 16, 10 at 9:17 pm. He weighed 7.12 lb and 21 in. long. After many hours of debating whether or not to be induced, I hesitantly decided to be induced around 2:30 pm on the 16th. Things seemed to progress fairly slowly at the beginning and then really kicked into high gear at the end. I think I ended up only having to push for about 5 min. before he was born. He came so fast his forehead and nose were bruised and he bursted a blood vessel in his eye. The bruising went away by the next day but his eye still has a red splotch on it. But he is very healthy and so far a very good baby. We are So HAPPY to have little Max in our family. Life just doesn't get much better.

We need atleast 5 more comments from 5 different people in order to get our free print or gift. So if you didn't get a chance to check out the pictures on the link below please take a min. and check out the pics and leave a comment on her blog. We greatly appreciate it!

http://www.shannonkaedingphotography.blogspot.com/

check out the pics

We recently had some pictures taken in which we are anxiously waiting to get them all back to see how they turned out. However our photographer has posted a sneek peek of some of the pictures on her blog. We would really appreciate it if you had a few min. to check out these pictures and leave a comment on her blog. If we get lots of comments she will give us some free stuff. So tell everyone you know to check it out and please leave a comment. Thanks

www.shannonkaedingphotography.blogspot.com

Happy First Birthday Merrick

Merrick turned 1!! I can't believe he is already 1 year old. I think most moms probably say this. We had to celebrate this wonderful child, so we through him an "Under the Sea" birthday party in my parents back yard. We had a slip N slide and a couple blow up pools and other fun water activities going on. The kids had fun just playing and getting wet. Playing in the water is one of Merrick's most favorite things to do as well as eating, so we made sure we covered both.
I just have to say I am one of those mom's who is completely obsessed with their kid and could go on and on about all of the silly and wonderful things he does every day (Just ask my mom), but for everyone else's sake I will try to keep it to a minimum. Some things that Merrick is doing right now are:
~Waves and smiles at everyone
~ Loves to play in the water, and sticks his face in the water whenever possible
~ Can flush the toilet
~ Loves to eat and opens his mouth as Big as physically possible for every bite of food
~ Fruit, bread and noodles are his favorite
~ He loves dogs and tries to say Dog and laughs when i say Ruff Ruff
~ Can stand not holding on to anything for quite a few seconds
~ Has taken about 3 steps on his own
~ Claps his hands whenever we say "Yeah" or "Good Job"
~ Loves to play in sand
~ He is the BEST snuggle bug ever, especially right after he wakes up
~He has 2 teeth on bottom and 2 making there way down on top
~ He loves to talk and talk and talk and yell and growl and scream and point at everything
~ He is just starting to wear size 18 month clothes
~ He likes to try and put the lids on things and is pretty good at it
I could go on and on but I will stop for now. We love our little bug!


Some of you may have seen this cake in last months parents magazine. It was quite the task to take on but I had fun making it. Thanks to some help from my mom I think it turned out pretty ok. It definitely tasted good! (Sorry it's not the best picture)



Here is one of Merrick's famous open mouth shots.
Merrick's friends that were able to make it to the party. A small bunch but fun nonetheless.

Merrick LOVED eating his cake. I would say he probably ate 3/4 of it. the other 1/4 went all over him and the floor. There was not much left on his tray by the time he was done. He was pretty intense about it the whole time too. It was his first time really eating sugar like that and needless to say he carried on playing for another 3 hours after his party before I could get him to take a nap which then only lasted 30 min. He slept good the next few days.






This picture was suppose to be taken on Father's Day but Merrick slept through church so we took it the next Sunday on his actual birthday. I got them matching ties for Father's Day, Oh so cute!!