Brown Family

Oakland Temple

2010-08-15T21:25:00.007-06:00

Today we decided to go visit the Oakland Temple. It is a very beautiful, sort of ethnic looking temple. There are palm trees and flowers of all sorts, and the view from the temple is amazing, you can see all the way to San Fransisco and all around. Apparently, the temple is in our stake and about 5 wards meet at the chapel next to the temple. The kids loved to run around at the temple. And Evan was calling the water fountain-"the big, big splash."

Bad Bunny

2010-04-02T17:28:00.004-06:00

Sadly, the bunny is going crazy! She eats everything: rubber, cloth, wood, everything except plastic and glass (thank heavens so many things are plastic :). She has scratched Eric pretty badly. And the nastiest thing of all, she thinks our beds are litter boxes! Actually, she goes in litter boxes pretty well, but then she discovered beds, ew! So we close all the doors when we let her out. However, finally, and worst of all she bit Evan, he has two big teeth marks on his leg. I also think she might be a boy :), she was too young to tell when we got her, but now I think I might see some boy parts, and I think she (or he) is spraying everything. Today, I built a sorta make shift cage for her in the garage and she is now demoted to the garage. What do I do? I think she needs a nice big cage, she needs to be fixed, but I don't want to spend money on her right now. I'm bummed. The kids will be so sad if we give her away, but it just might be the right thing to do. I haven't decided yet.

Jamima

2010-03-28T14:12:00.002-06:00

We finally named the Bunny Jamima. She is so fun to watch bounce around the room. I should video her. She has gotten a lot bigger. She is going to be a big rabbit.

Bunny

2010-02-24T10:21:00.002-07:00

We bought a bunny. I know it was spontaneous and the kids are probably still too young, but I have been wanting a pet for years. She is so cute. We are having trouble picking a name. We have thought of: Aiko, Jamima, Savannah, Luna, Orya... that's it for now. The favorite for everyone is, Aiko, but I don't think she looks like an Aiko (but I do like the name). Anyhow, she is a brown bunny with lots of white and black streaks in her fur. She is just small, but she will be a big, fat rabbit eventually.
I am worried about Emma's asthma, the bunny is okay, but she eats hay :( We will see what happens, if it is a problem-I will probably put the bunny outside.
Rabbits are useful, too, I can use her droppings for fertilizer, and if there was a long term emergency I guess we could breed rabbits to eat (Doesn't sound very good tho)
She can litter train, so I have been doing a lot of work trying to get her to go in a litter box. She does, but she is still a baby. When rabbits are full grown and fixed they litter train very quickly.

Fridge Adventure

2010-02-11T14:46:00.005-07:00

Today, we cleaned all the food out of the fridge. I thought we had lots of food, but actually we hardly have any food :) There always seems to be a million dressings and toppings, then some fruits and veggies, and other misc. foods. There is also the pile of foods I don't think I really want to eat, but I feel bad throwing it away, so it stays in the fridge until I convince someone to eat it or it rots, in which case, I don't feel so bad throwing it away :) While I was looking Evan got his hands on a jar of homemade salsa (almost gone) and he threw it--glass shards and salsa all over the tile. Good thing it was almost gone. Of course, the kids sat in the fridge with their feet hanging out while I cleaned up the mess.I love my kids, mess and all!

Spices on the Loose

2010-02-09T14:47:00.004-07:00

Today, I decided to tackle the giant paper pile. It is the biggest paper mess I've ever, ever had. I don't think I've gone through all my papers (and the junk that got mixed in) for at least a year! Isn't that awful. Well, moving in with my parents didn't help. Anyhow... so I'm going through papers and the kids are very quiet--Hmmm... what are they up to? I walk out to see and ... oh, wow, Emma had climbed onto the counter and was pouring all the spices all over the floor, counters, and in a monkey cookie jar! Wow, it smelled like pizza and mustard. Worse yet, they used a potty training potty as a stool and it was covered with spices. I picked it up to pour the spices that were on top into the sink, alas, the potty had been used recently :( and out came the pee with the spices. I was in shock. I cleaned up the whole mess. But now my spices are bit messed up, and some are completely gone. I will admit it was funny. And I got to test my spice skills playing what lid (which had the name on it) goes with which jar? Smell it, taste it, look at it. The only two I was really unsure of were Savory and Oregano... I hardly use those ones, so I guess we will be alright it they are switched :) I also didn't realize that parsley smells really awful, like rabbit food or cage lining! So that was my adventure for the day :)

2010-02-09T14:45:00.001-07:00

I think I would like to try to blog again. I'm very lousy at it so far. But that doesn't mean I can't keep trying...

Eating

2009-01-07T13:18:00.004-07:00

We are starting to give Evan some solid foods. He really likes it. It is a lot of fun to feed the baby new foods. He has had Green Beans, Sweet Potatoes, Oatmeal, Rice Cereal, and Apples. He won't take a bottle though. Hopefully, we can get him to take a bottle and pacifier. This will help start weening him from nursing to go to sleep.

In Limbo

2008-12-30T00:01:00.002-07:00

We are still unsure of what we are doing, it seems our plans change every five minutes. Eric is planning to finish his master's degree at the U of U. He is looking for a job that pays :) We will most likely be moving in with my mom sometime in January. But we are feeling optimistic, Eric and I still have all the most important things in life. I think the Lord knows what we are doing, he has not forgotten about us, he just has a different plan for us than we had. I think he must be planning something big. We must keep hope. Though due to recent misfortune, I have noticed that I don't really want to talk to anyone. It's no fun being in limbo and I don't really want to talk about it. So I will post an update on our situation when I have something to update :)

We had a wonderful Christmas. Our families were very generous in gift giving and we feel very blessed. Most especially all the donations to our January bills, we will survive January because of the love of our family and friends. I was depositing all the money today (which included $76 worth of change :) and I felt very rich to have people around me that love me and my family. I don't think you can ever be poor when people love you. I'm so thankful today. The Lord has been very merciful.

2008-12-15T15:05:00.000-07:00

Eric got back from Michigan unsuccessful. So we will be staying in Utah for now and moving in with my parents. We haven't been paid in 3 months, so even if we do get paid we will have to recover from the debt we have incurred during this past little while. We are sad that the economic state of our country isn't favorable enough so that Eric can finish his PhD in Canada. Maybe that dream will be fulfilled at some future date, but not now. Eric is very sad, he loves his current job and was hoping they would be able to continue to be our employer while we were finishing school.

Other than our ugly financial state, Emma and Evan have gotten colds. Which scares me--since Emma already went to the hospital this year for 3 days when she was sick with what appeared to be just a cold, and Evan is just so little.

Evan is officially 5 months old now, and he is so wonderful. He laughs and makes lots of baby cooing noises. He's going to be a talker I think. He also wiggles a lot. I think he will be very active as he gets older.

Emma thinks she is the mom and she is only 2. She is getting very good at putting sentences together and expressing her needs. Her favorite shows are Toy Story and Wall-e.

We have been staying at my mom's house for the past week, but we are home now. And we will be packing our apartment and plan to leave officially by the end of January (though we will most likely move in with my mom sooner than that because we can't live in boxes).

Leaving on a jet plane

2008-12-05T11:33:00.000-07:00

Eric left on a plane for Michigan this morning. I don't know how I will live without him for a whole week. We have been very anxious to see this day come because Eric is preparing a way for us to move there. He will see what Windsor is like (that's in Canada, just over the border next to Detroit), he will be attending the University of Windsor. He will be looking to see if we should live in Canada or the Detroit suburbs. He also needs to somehow figure out a secure financial situation. We really believe that if God wants us to live out there, He will have to provide the way, if He doesn't provide some security in going-then we will take that as a hint that he wants us to stay here.
Hopefully the whole trip will be a good experience for Eric, and hopefully he will stay alive out in the Detroit area (which is basically the 2nd worst place in the United States according to the FBI) I guess if we do move there, we won't be in danger of getting attacked by terrorists, who cares about Detroit? I guess we do now... :)

Family Blog

2008-12-04T10:14:00.000-07:00

It is true that our family already has a family blog. I've decided that Blogger might be easier to use. So here we are on Blogger. I hope to be able to update everyone on our family news and add some pictures.