Noah's 4th Birthday! Present Time

After watching Miles open his presents a few weeks ago, Noah was so excited for his turn to unwrap. He woke up Sunday morning and was ready. One of the first things he unwrapped was a transformer from Aunt Shannon and Mason. As you can see from this picture, he literally started pounding the box, screaming, "Yes! Yes! Yes!" It was was of the funniest things I've ever seen Noah do.


After his friends left, Noah was ready to tear into the rest of his gifts. Gram helped divvy them out, and Miles was in the wings ready to help unwrap. Noah's friends spoiled him....he got so much cool stuff. Check out his smile with the cool gift from the Williams....and look at him unconsciously signing 'I love you' as he checked out another. :)




Noah got Leapster for this birthday (handheld computer with educational games). Miles got a Nintendo DS for his birthday (handheld computer with games, less educational). Check out the dueling masters. Should I be worried? :)



Griffin jumped right in...grabbing some new water guns that Gram and Pop brough. A little something for everyone. Aunt Dana....beware!

Noah's 4th Birthday! Part II

There was a table set up with Iron Man tattoos. Many kids went crazy with them. Miles had about 6 total, including an advertisement for "Iron Man Online" plastered on his forehead. Nice.




Almost every friend of Noah's gave him a huge bear hug before leaving. It was so cute. His friend Miles (in this first picture with him) kept shouting, "I love you, Noah!" It was so sweet. Looks like Noah might be wiping off a kiss, too. :)





It was a great 4th birthday party. A great party, indeed.

Noah's 4th Birthday! Friendly Faces

Noah had 20 kids at his party -- 17 boys and 3 girls. Here's just a few of the many friendly faces that were running around our yard on Sunday afternoon.

Noah's 4th Birthday! Part I

We had a fun jumpy/slide for Noah's party. And, because it was a super hot afternoon, we broke out our baby pool/slide and let the kids run back-and-forth them and the playset. There were little bodies giggling and laughing everywhere. It was perfect.







Noah LOVED his chocolate Iron Man cake.


We were so happy to have so many family members and friends of Noah here.
(Check out this picture or Peggy and Griffin. More importantly, check out Sydney in the corner. Hilarious.)

Winning Hearts

Want to win over the Brown Boys' hearts? Send them an ecard or some monk-e-mail. My parents send them electronic cards for all occasions and the boys love them. We save them and play them over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over. Trust me. We play 'em a lot. Here they were again, last night, in position.



In our house, they are definitely gifts that keeps on giving. :)

Griffin

Did someone just say "busted" to me?


Oh yeah, I guess I did have a little backwash-action. :)


Griffin got a little report card at school this week. Since this blog is the closest thing he has to a baby book, I'm posting for him to reference when he's older. Sorry for those of you that don't own a magnifying glass. :)

Does that really say he doesn't LOVE Puffs? Who doesn't love Puffs? :)

Faith

I love, love, love these boys that God blessed us with. Wish I could say that I'm not in an all-out-internal panic about the swine flu. I feel this mother-bear urge to protect them, yet I feel helpless. I have a great desire to usher them into the house and lock them in. Mike is on a plane now and I'm sending him mental messages to hold his breath and not touch anything. This state of unknown about this illness (how quickly will it spread, etc..) scares me to the core. I can't recall ever feeling this worried about anything before. I'm trying to remind myself that I need to be informed and be cautious, but I also need to have faith that God will protect us. If you see me on the street and I seem to be talking to myself, I'm probably chanting, "have faith, have faith, have faith". :)

Psalm 91:11, For He will give His angels charge of you to guard you in all your ways.

Home Grown

I met my friend, Nancy, for lunch yesterday. She arrived with these beautiful flowers from her/her neighbor's gardens. I wish I could send along their scent with the photos: simply divine. She also came with lots of ideas -- like me starting a "square by square" vegetable garden with the boys. Ironically, I've been talking to Mike about starting one. The idea makes him laugh. Another of my wild ideas that requires great commitment (think triathlon). With Nancy's encouragement, I'm going to do it (who knows, maybe it will be a double win and get me excited about cooking?). I remember my parents growing tomatos in Ct (anything else, mom & dad?) and I loved it -- even though I was never interested in eating them. I think the kids would find it fun and interesting, too (Nancy said that she always had a garden when her boys were little. They are now in their 20's and are each starting their own.) I just heard on NPR that in 2007, 33 million people had home vegetable gardens. In 2009, its expected to be 43 million. Count me as one of them. I'm going to start my planning this weekend. I'll post about it again when we're up and running.

Cousins

We were so happy to have most of our family in town to celebrate Noah's birthday with us. Mike's parents, his sister, Shannon, and our niece, Mason, came in town as well as my parents. (My in-town sister, Dana, joined us for the party and Lindsey and Jason called in from St Louis.) The kids get so excited to see extended family, especially Mason. She's a few months younger than Miles and the two of them carry such a strong bond...kind of like mini Mike & Shannons.

They got silly Saturday morning in Grandpa's lap.


And they had a ball playing on the jumpy slide that afternoon & evening.




I'm still amazed that we got all 4 of them together for this picture. L.O.V.E these cuties!