Olivia's 1st Birthday

We celebrated Olivia's Birthday with the traditional Mickey Mouse Pancakes!! We had cake, presents and balloons. What more could a girl ask for. Olivia got her first baby doll, thanks Aunt Lea. And a shopping basket that we have already put several miles on. Olivia is walking very well, and speaks some... Besides calling the boys "guy" she very distinctively grabed her hind end and said "poop". That's my princess!! We love you Olivia!!

Easter 2009

I tried a new system of color coding the eggs this year. Each kid had 2 colors and could only seek their colors. This way the older boys actually had to hunt for the eggs instead of just keeping them in sight for Nathan and Olivia. Grandpa Browning hid Thomas's eggs and we were still finding them a week later. He definately earned every piece of candy he got.

Great Grandpa Browning's

We went to New Mexico to visit my grandpa. He is 80 now and still out hikes the rest of us. He built seats on his golf cart (with seat belts) for the grandkids. Then took them 4 wheeling in it. He doesn't golf but bought that special for the kids. He showed us all the trails he has cleared and the fire wood that he chopped and rocks he moves to make roads. He also showed us the extra room he built on his house with wood panneling he cut for the cellings. He is an amazing man and works harder at 80 than anyone I know. He taught the boys how to play 42 (dominoes from when he was a kid) and washers (like horse shoes). The boys played and hiked for hours. Grandpa even let the boys go out when the deer came down to take pictures. Thanks Grandpa for the many things you have done for me.--Rachel

Spring Break

I took the older boys to Castles N Coasters for spring break and we road rides until we were sick then the boys kept on. Thomas has a cast iron stomach and rode everything several times. Josh.. not a fan of the boat that swings you back and forth but still rode the free fall and log ride enough to get our moneys worth on those two rides alone. Me...I'm the coolest mom ever now, even though the free fall makes me scream.

Johnny Appleseed

A week ago the first grade kids had their annual 'Tea at the Whitehouse' event. This is where they pick a historical figure, learn about the person throughout the week, and then dress up like them and have a program that us adults attend and go "ohhhh, look how cute". It is a neat thing the 1st grade classes do. When talking over people that Josh could be, he decided that he wanted to be Johnny Appleseed, because he wants to where a pot on his head like a hat. Yeah, it was as easy as that to decide. Who would have known? Josh had mom and dad there, along with grandma and grandpa Greer. It was a fun event.

Oreo's are yummy!!!

Guess who loves Oreo's?? Olivia!! I don't know if she likes the black part better than the white part. From the look of it, she likes both. We will work on table manners later in life.

Birthday Party for Thomas

I have to start out with a cute picture of Olivia in her shades. She rules the house.

Thomas is turning 9 next wednesday. He had his birthday party on friday night. He invited three of his best friends (Parker, Creighton, and Michael) to go to Crackerjax to play goofy golf and ride the go-karts and bumper boats. Josh got to go also. The way there and back, 5 boys had their Pokemon books out and traded Pokemon the whole trip. I don't see why they love those cards so much, but they are all into it. Once at Crackerjx, we were there for over 3 hours, and I think everyone had a good time.



This picture is the boys getting ready for golf. They thought they had it all figured out. It quickly turned into speed golf and something I havn't seen. They soon found themselves on the ground, trying to pray that their balls would go where they needed them to go, and if it didn't, they would try to blow behind it to keep it from going backwards. It didn't work very well.

Here the boys are in line for the bumper boats. I don't see many frowns.

Later on, I caught Thomas and Josh running around with their arms around each other getting ready to ride again. As the parent, it is nice to see that even with Tom's good friends there, Tom and Josh are still best friends.

I have to admit that after the first round of go-karts, I thought they were going to kick all 5 of the boys out of the park. The go-karts are not supposed to be bumper-karts. Tom's friend Parker was a very aggressive driver, it must be that go-kart he got for Christmas. They all started basically ramming each other fighting for position going around the turns. I was waiting for the guy in charge to stop and throw them all out, but the teenager just let them go at it. It was fun to watch. Those poor cars are in bad shape.

Back to the house for some ice cream cake and presents.

They spent the rest of the night staying up and playing what boys are addicted to, the Wii and video games. This morning they woke up and were playing some more.

The house is put back together now, and everyone is a little tired, but this was a birthday party that Thomas really enjoyed.