The Brown Brick Road

Capturing our adventures one photo at a time...

Spring Fling

What a BEAUTIFUL weekend we had!  It was a little flirt with spring!  I don’t know if these nice temps are here to stay but, man, I’m going to enjoy them while they’re here!  On top of the nice weather, we had GJ and Daddo in town!  Can’t beat that!!

The weekend started off Saturday morning with some snuggles in bed…

and then we met up with GJ for a trip to Home Depot to get more “yellow dirt” for Maxwell’s sand table.

Home Depot always provides entertainment.  Who knew a guy using a saw could be so exciting?!

We then got home and put together a little project.  Maxwell was a big help…

Our completed masterpiece!!  Tada!

Al fresco dining now available at the Brown house!  🙂

This next picture just makes me laugh…

I have no idea what they’re all looking at on the ipad but even Spencer is into it and they crack me up all sitting on that little bench together!

Maxwell was outside just about all weekend long playing, playing, playing…

Spencer got plenty of fresh air too…

and some good snugs from Daddo!

That night, GJ and Daddo nicely stayed at the house while Robert and I went out to eat.  Spencer, who is always dead asleep by 8:00 and never wakes up until much later in the night, decided he didn’t want to go to sleep that night.  I finally put him in his bed still awake when we left for dinner at 8:15 and when we came home at 10:15, he was still awake!  GJ said he was just as wide awake and wiggly as could be!  I guess he knew that his only chance to play with GJ was when Maxwell was asleep so he wanted to take full advantage!  I was finally able to get him settled down and snoozing at about 10:30…

Unfortunately, he didn’t sleep great.  He keeps rolling onto his belly and then wakes up crying because he can’t flip himself back over.  We’ve stopped going in to roll him back though because he will eventually either flip back over or go to sleep on his belly.  I think he woke up 3 different times between 5:00 and 8:00 am on Sunday morning.  Not fun.  But, it was nice that everyone slept until 8:00 with daylight savings time!

On Sunday, Maxwell and Robert went to church…

My handsome boys!

The rest of the afternoon was spent outside enjoying the longer daylight and blowing bubbles!

Maxwell even thought baby brother needed some bubbles on him!

What a great weekend all around!!  I’m officially ready for spring!

Visitors!

We’ve had some fun visitors this past week.

Last weekend, the boys got to hang out with LuLu and Granddad all morning…

and then Spencer got to meet his cousin Mary Ellen for the first time!  fun!

Then GJ and Daddo stopped by for a couple of days on their way to Arkansas.  Someone was really excited to see GJ…

and really excited to get some M&Ms from Daddo!  🙂

GJ and Daddo couldn’t wait to squeeze on Spencer…

I then had fun showing off Spencer’s squeezable physique!  🙂

The next night, GJ and Daddo got to hang out some more and read some books…

and blow it up before bedtime!

We loved having everyone here and wish we could see them all every week!

Have a great weekend!  Don’t forget to spring forward on Sunday!

Maskers 2013

Like last year, we traveled down to Montgomery this past weekend to go to the Maskers Ball.  Our niece, Anna, was a princess in it this year and we had a great time hanging with the fam “uh-gumry” as Maxwell calls it!

The weekend started off right for Maxwell with a new Thomas the Train book…

Spencer got a fun little giggle toy too!

thanks Lulu!

That night, Robert and I got all dolled up and left the kids with a sitter upstairs in the hotel.

We had a great night celebrating this pretty princess!

A few more pics from the night…

The next day we enjoyed the beautiful sunshine and went to the Maskers lunch…

and then snuck in a cute cousin pic before it was time to head home!

A fun weekend all around!

ps – want to know more about what Maskers is?  read my post from last year where I explain it a bit more.

Massive FL post

Ok, I need to recap our trip to FL and I’m just going to do it in one giant post so get ready.  Robert, Maxwell, Spencer and I flew down to Naples to visit my parents on the 28th. ..

We took the car seat for Maxwell to sit in on the plane and Spencer was comfy in the sling – it worked out great!

Robert came back to AL on the 2nd but I stayed down with the boys until the 7th…that means a full 10 days of pictures so this is going to be a long one!

I took my big camera with me down there but didn’t take one single picture with it.  Sick babies = no time for camera.  Besides, my iphone was always right beside me!  When we left, Maxwell was just getting over his Christmas cold and Spencer was just catching one.  Poor guys.  Despite the stuffy noses and congestion, we were happy to be down in the FL sunshine!

Unfortunately, one day into the trip, Spencer just seemed to be getting sicker so we ended up taking him to the pediatric ER just to make sure it wasn’t an ear infection or RSV.  He was such a trooper about it all…

Thankfully he only had a cold and they sent us home with some albuterol breathing treatments to help with the wheezing.  Poor little guy just wasn’t his happy self and was pretty needy all week.  boo.

With the help of my mom, we were still able to do some fun stuff though like bike riding…

and visiting with an old friend at the zoo!  I was so excited that my friend Nancy happened to be in Naples and I finally got to meet her babies!  I think Maxwell had a little crush on Abigayle…

and I think this giraffe had a little crush on Robert!  🙂

We couldn’t really leave the house as much as we wanted, but that didn’t bother Maxwell at all.  He had a ball running all over the place and playing with any toy or household item he could get his hands on!  He also loved bossing all of us around and tell everyone where they could – and couldn’t! – sit!

Good times with the toy car…

and the real car…

blowing bubbles…

and playing with Susu!

We did try to get down to the beach a few times and Maxwell loved it.  He would hit that deck and start running to get to the sand!

After the new year, Keath, Jen, Delaney and Nate came over to celebrate Nate’s 2nd birthday on January 4th!  We had a fun little Mickey Mouse party complete with hot-diggity-dogs and mouse ears for everyone!

Nate then got to open his birthday presents (with plenty of help from Delaney!).  After all the Christmas present opening he had done, I think Maxwell was a little sad to be left out of this round of presents!  His face cracks me up in these pictures –  he wants to get in there so bad!

Ha!  Happy birthday Nate!

The kiddos had a blast playing together…

By Saturday, January 5th, Spencer was still pretty pitiful so I actually took him back to the doctor just to make sure he hadn’t developed an ear infection.  Luckily he checked out just fine and still had nothing more than a cold with lots of congestion.

After many nights with not a lot of this…

he finally got some good snoozes in…

And that made all the difference!  My little guy started to look more like this…

and this…

Happy baby!

Some quality time chatting with Susu was good for him too!

By the end of the weekend, we were all feeling better and having fun!

We even made it out to lunch where Maxwell got quite a few umbrellas and literally ate butter by the spoonful!  I can’t blame him – it was cinnamon flavored butter and it was really good!

Despite dealing with sick babies, I just love being down there around Christmas to see all the lights on the palm trees…

and enjoy sunsets like this…

Can’t wait to get back down there again soon to get my toes back in the sand!

A big thanks to GJ for all of her help while we were down there!  Couldn’t have done it without you!

Hope you all have a great weekend!!

MGM Christmas

After seeing what all Santa brought and filling our bellies with pancakes and bacon, we loaded up and drove in the rain down to Montgomery to spend the day with Robert’s family.  Maxwell had a bad cold and was definitely not feeling 100% so the distraction of playing with his cousins was nice!

Spencer was a trooper all day and loved finally getting to meet his Aunt Jenny…

Lulu got plenty of love from all her grand babies…

and I had plenty of time to love on mine…

even if one of them didn’t want to sit still!

We all had fun opening presents!

Maxwell even got this GIANT puppy from Katie and Anna!

whoa!  that puppy is bigger than Maxwell!

Maxwell did pretty good all day but, by late afternoon, he was done and melting down.

After our late lunch, we said our goodbyes and gave out some “tackle hugs”…

and headed back to Birmingham just in time to beat the thunderstorm too!  It was a fun day and I’m so grateful that we live so close to Robert’s family and get to see them so often!

ps – I made the desserts for lunch and made a Triple Chocolate Bundt Cake that my friend’s mom always used to make (happy to share the recipe, let me know if you want it!) and I also made this Apple Cranberry Cake from Barefoot Contessa (Ina never fails!).  Both were EXCELLENT if I do say so myself!  Will be making both again for sure!

pps – I hope you all have a great weekend.  I’m going to be taking the next week off to enjoy a little vacation but I’ve got some fun posts lined up.  Wanna see our house and Spencer’s room?  tune in next week!