Kalai's First Debut

To Nursery! The picture above was taken after we got home from church today. You can see how happy she is! Now that she is eighteen months old Kalai is in a Nursery Class at church. Today was a bittersweet day for me. I knew I was gonna miss Kalai but at the same time I knew that having Kalai in nursery would help me be able to fulfill my Church responsibilities. I am the YW secretary and I work with the girls on their Personal Progress. So every week I try to pull the girls aside and get updated on what they have been working on. Things went more smoothly today and I got alot more done without having to chase Kalai down the hallways. But what really helped the most was knowing that Kalai was going to have a great time. And we were right. All her nursery leaders told us that she did just fine. When I walked in to pick her up, she was dancing. As soon as she saw us, Kalai wanted to show us all the new toys in the nursery room. Kalai is a super social little girl so I knew that she would love all this playtime with kids her own age. To prep for nursery, Michael and I have been teaching the nursery lesson that is going to be taught to her ahead of time for Family Home Evening and then I try to do a quick review everyday. Also, we taught her the song Popcorn Poppin' which is a popular nursery song. She can sing some of the words and do the hand motions too. She got a little shy for the video camera but if you watch the video, you can see her sing her little heart out!

And here are a few quick shots Michael took of us.

Proud of my Baby Girl!

"One of these things is not like the others,One of these things just doesn't belong, Can you tell which thing is not like the others?"-Sesame Street

"One of these things is not like the others,One of these things just doesn't belong, Can you tell which thing is not like the others? By the time I finish my song?"
-Sesame Street Song



About three years ago Michael and I went shopping at one of our favorite stores IKEA and saw this kitchen table set. This is an image I found of the kitchen table online.



We absolutely loved it. However when we bought it there was one little problem. Can you spot it?

Here's a hint.....


Ugh! Our chairs don't match! Of course that was never our plan. When we bought the table Ikea told us that they did not have any matching chairs in stock but since it was a popular table the employee promised us that they should have a new batch delievered in no time. So we went ahead and bought the table planning to buy the matching bar stools later. Weeks later, I stopped by Ikea again to buy the stools and they were still out of stock. So a month or so later I stopped by again and still no chairs. But this time I got the sad news from a different Ikea employee. Ikea had discontinued the Ensta Line and we would not be able to find matching stools. I was disappointed but Michael and I realized there wasn't much we could do so we bought some stools that would do the job even if they didn't match. But there's good news! For Christmas, Michael's parents searched around and found some matching chairs for our table!!! I love them so much more than the orginal stools too! Thanks Julie and Larry! So here's a picture of our new matching table and chairs! Ta da!


P.S. I painted the wall in the background! I love how it turned out.

They also bought and painted another piece of furniture for us which I am really excited about. It hasn't arrived yet so I'll have post a picture of it later. Also, I decided to include a picture of our new couch we bought a while ago. I have had some requests to post a picture of it so my family members can see it.





Also, just for fun I decided to post a couple pictures of Kalai's room. When I was pregnant with Kalai I never really got to "nest" since I knew we were going to move one month later. So since I never posted a picture of Kalai's nursery I decided now would be as good time as any.



Last but not least I have to post a couple of pictures of my cute baby girl!

45 Days of Christmas!

"Truly He taught us to love one another, His law is love and His gospel is peace."






This Christmas Season has been a crazy busy time of traveling for our family. Within the last two and a half months Kalai and I have been visiting family for 45 days! First we went to Utah to visit my sister for three weeks, then to California (2 weeks) to visit my parents and grandparents while Michael was taking finals. Then my family flew into Birmingham and we headed for Panama City (8 days), Florida for Christmas and New Years. It was the first time my sister had ever visited Alabama so of course we had to show her the sights. We took her to The Civil Rights Museum (which was amazing and I highly recommend everyone going), 16th Street Baptist Church, The Culinard, The Vulcan, Chuy's and ate plenty of southern food! In Panama City we went here

Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum and had a Blast! Adventures included a ropes course and laser tag and much more!
We also went here...

But we spent most of our time here...


Saying good-bye to my family was tough but luckily we had the Brown Family Christmas to look forward to! We spent a couple days there totaling up to 45 days. Here are some more pictures from our travels!











We are so thankful for the Christmas Season which helps us reflect on the birth and life of our Savior, Jesus Christ. We are excited to see what adventures the year 2011 brings us and wish everyone a Happy New Year!

Halloween 2010

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Happy Late Halloween! Michael picked out Kalai's Halloween costume as a surprise when I was pregnant so it was fun to finally see how cute she looked in it!!!

Stats

So I know that I am WAY behind in this but I wanted to let everyone know Kalai's updated stats (15 month check-up). Sorry I don't remember all the exact details
Head: 50 %
Height 50 %
.......AND drumroll please......
Weight: 10% 20lbs. She is technically more like 8% but still!
She is on the charts! I'm so proud of her!

Also, here is a video of a lightening storm that kept me & Michael up at night. Insane!

This one is for the Daddy!

Short & Sweet! But that pretty much wraps up how we feel about Daddy!!!

ABC As Easy As 123!!!

Extra Extra Read All About it!

A couple fun stories from the life of the Brown Family...
*Kalai came up to me today and used a wet wipe to "clean" my face and then bent down and gave me a kiss! Aww..she's gonna be a good mommy someday!
*I had Kalai up on the conveyor belt at Wal-mart and the male cashier just loved her. Kalai was playing with a package of gum and holding it up like a phone. As we were leaving, he said, "My gift to the baby" and I looked on the receipt and realized he had bought her the gum! Oh how very sweet! And we benefited too, since we are gonna be the ones actually having the gum!
Ssshhhh...... I'm blaming this one on the daddy :)
*Michael was watching Kalai and she was going through my purse but he didn't think too much of it. When I got back in the room I said to Michael, "why is she making a face like she has dentures in her mouth?" but we still didn't think much of it. I pulled out her tooth brush and opened her mouth and realized there was something shiney in there. I pulled it out and it was a Hersey's chocolate hug wrapper! Oops. She had sucked all the chocolate out of it. She must have gotten it out of my purse. I went to brush her teeth again and again there was something in her mouth. Another wrapper. Are you kidding me? I pulled it out and went to brush her teeth and again another wrapper. That child had sucked clean three chocolate hugs at the same time. For a girl who was never had chocolate...she learned pretty quickly how good it was. Lets just say, we brushed her teeth extra good and also I'm gonna have to get a better hiding spot for my treats. Like I said...I'm blaming the daddy.
*Yesterday my whole family went to three different temples! What are the chances of that? I was able to go to The Birmingham LDS Temple with the youth from our church since my calling is in the YW Presidency. It was so nice to be able to see the rising generation take time out of there busy schedules to attend the Temple. There was a special Spirit there and I know they were doing the work of the Lord. I'm so thankful for their testimonies of the gospel and for their examples to me.
Michael and I took Kalai to the temple! Here are a couple pictures of her.

On the other side of the conversation

My parents often call to talk to Kalai on the phone and so yesterday I decided to video tape Kalai while she was chatting on the phone so that they could see what it looked like from the other side of the conversation. My favorite part is at the end when I ask her, "who's sweet?" and she answers! Wait for it....

Life Lately

Here are just a couple of pictures of Kalai modeling the bow I made her at Christmas time! Even though I think the bow is super cute I just can't stop from looking at Kalai and her beautiful eyes! She's adorable.



Even though I am the one who usually whips out the camera in our family, I love it when Michael tries his hand at it too cause I think he is really talented at capturing the moment!

Isn't He the Greatest!?!

Yes, he is!!!
Michael surprised me with these when he came home from his internship today...

I love him!

Dream Vacation!!!

After a long hard week of packing up and moving to our new place, we were rewarded with a fun-filled week of vacation time to FLORIDA!!! We drove down to Orlando with my parents to take Kalai to Disneyworld for the first time! My mom did volunteer service and was able to get us all free tickets there. Thanks Mom! Kalai loved it which is a good thing since we went there to celebrate her birthday with the Familia side of the family. She esp. loved Pirates of the Caribbean (her first ride) and It's a Small World (her last ride). She loved looking around and see all the sites. It was a really fun age to take her because she was just soaking in all the information. She finally fell asleep during the Electric Light Parade on my parents laps. We took video footage of her so I will put a video up here later. After that, we drove down to PANAMA CITY!!!Michael's side of the family owns a beach house there and we were lucky enough to get to stay there for the week. It was fabulous to say the least! The ocean was warm, the sand was white, the sunsets were gorgeous and the company was great! We had a couple of friends from Birmingham (The Thornton's and the Stoddard's) join us for the week and it was a blast! We spent the whole week shopping, boogie boarding and tanning. Plus I had my parents there so that was an added plus! My mom cooked her way through The Pioneer Women Cookbook and also made her specialty and family fave- Tacos! So, lets just say, we ate pretty good that whole week. At the end of the week, we threw Kalai one last birthday party so she could celebrate her birthday with the Familia side and my parents got her the cutest gifts but I'm gonna have to post pictures of the gifts later...believe me, it's worth the wait! Also, I will post some pictures later of the big gift we gave Kalai. Anyways, here are some pictures of the trip. We got also got to have our family photos taken on the beach and I'm really happy with how they turned out. Thanks Dad! The rest of the pictures are of fun-filled vacation! I hope going to the beach house is a new tradition!









































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Here's a sneak pic of the photo shoot I did for my friends, the Thornton's, while at the beach. I have a few other photo shoots that I need to catch up on before I get to the rest of them.