Febuaury

It's time to resurrect the blog and start recording our family history, it is the only genealogy work I am interested in doing. This counts as genealogy right? 

You have to start somewhere and it might as well be February, it's the shortest month of the year and it is also Black History month and Valentines Day. Although there is no mention of either holiday in our February recap I am going to forge ahead.

Matthew did have a birthday in February and we celebrated Southern Arizona style with a trip to Bisbee and surrounding areas.

TUCSON

We stopped in Tucson on our way to Bisbee and went to the San Xavier Del Bac mission it was neat I think but I was in a hot dog coma so I can't really say. The real pilgrimage was to the inspired El Guero Canelo sonoran dog stand. I love hot dogs and carbs and  free salsa bars that have pickled carrots and what I think are smoked green onions but I have no real idea. This place did not disappoint and I am unwilling to disclose how many of these oversized hot dogs we ate. not the best start to a romantic birthday weekend, but I have no regrets.

BISBEE

Bisbee is the perfect mix of charming and weird with some copper and mineral deposits mixed in, an existential delight. It's filled with art galleries and antique shops and crusty hippies with even crustier looking dogs.

Adorable right?

We took the scenic route home and headed west for Sierra Vista, along the way we made a few stops. Like to a charred hillside with an enormous angel and cross effigy. There were no plaques or information posted so I assume they just appeared there.

 of course we stopped in Beautiful Downtown Palaminas, and as advertised it WAS beautiful but we are still unclear as to where the downtown was.

It was a great trip and I have decided that the best birthday presents to give your spouse are ones that directly benefit you.

Matthew's Birthday

Matthew turned 30 in February and his long time friend Peter had the good sense to have a birthday in February as well so we had a par-tay.

We celebrated the birth of Matthew and Peter by having an amazing bbq in the Fords backyard. The meat man and co-birthday celebrator really pulled through and spent 15 hours smoking 13lbs of brisket to savory meat perfection. Lacy and I put our pinterest skillz to work and made a citrus salad, brussells sprouts, mac n cheese and bread pudding in mason jars. I like pinning recipes more than actually making them. But I like eating them most of all, unfortunately my food consumption prevented me from taking a single picture of the party and I had to steal all of these from Kayla's blog.

It was great to celebrate with good friends and even though Matthew failed to make good on his birthday promise and dunk a basketball from the the 3 point line, a good time was   had by all.

Add caption

Our Olive girl

Good news, Olive was just as great in February as she has been the prior 19 months of her existence. I have said this about every baby stage thus far but this time I mean it, THIS is my favorite age. She has all the personality (and teeth) of  a full grown woman, she is so mobile and independent and plays and gets dirty in the backyard just like a little kid but still has a few remaining baby traits like her chubby little baby hands,  sizable diaper booty, and occasional midnight feedings (not nearly as charming as the chubby hands). It's the perfect hybrid of baby/child.

She  loves to throw tantrums, but really who doesn't? Her tantrums consist of her lying face down on the ground/ carpet/ gas station floor/ gravel path and quietly cry. We have failed to parent/discipline this behavior due to how amusing we find it.

She loves to be helpful. sort of. But mostly she loves all of her cousins.

Based on her 20 month review we have decided to extend her contract for an additional 20 months as her parents.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

My baby girl is ONE years old! It has been a true pleasure hanging with this lady for the past year. She's funny, she's a good dresser, she loves quesadillas, she sings opposed to crying in the morning when she wants out of her crib, and she totally melts my heart in every possible way.
I LOVE YOU OLIVE!

Since Olive and Gabe have birthdays within 2 days of each other it seemed appropriate to throw a double party. It also seemed convenient and genius on the behalf of Olive's mom to partner with Gabe's mom in the planning and execution of a party, since we all know Adrianne is a craft-master and not at all lazy like yours truly. The end result was fantastic, and I have decided that I LOVE throwing parties, but really, I love throwing parties and then delegating lots of work to my family while still receiving all of the credit and praise.

Olive, I will party with you any day!

May first

If a tree falls in the woods but no one hears it does it make a sound? Likewise if we pass through life's milestones without broadcasting them on the internet for voyeurs and cyberfriends to witness do they even count? What I am trying to say is we have set up a 24 hour webcam to make sure not a single moment of our private lives fade into obscurity. The Brown's are going LIVE!

Until our live webcam stream is available here is a sampling of what the Kardashians have been up to. I mean Brown's.

Easter Sunday.

Day trip to Sedona with the Dangerfields(not pictured)

A quick trip to California sans baby. We really debated whether or not to take her cause we were afraid we would miss her too much. As it turns out that fear was purely hypothetical.

I guess this is growing up

Olive is a sicky so I have been stuck in the house with her all day giving her breathing treatments and watching Dirty Dancing on TV- watching this film as an adult I can not believe that I was allowed to watch this in my youth, I am equally shocked to find out this film was supposed to be set in the 60's not the 80's. I guess a shirtless P. Swayze transcends all decades and parental censorship.

here is a shirtless Olive reading a book with her dad at the doctor.

Here is a shirtless and screaming Olive getting a breathing treatment at the doctor. Must learn matthew's secret for never being the one holding the traumatized child at the doctor's.

looks like girlfriend partied too hard at da club the night before.

Can you believe this? Is my baby growing at an alarming rate or have I just become another sad cliched adult always jabbering about how kids grow up too fast ?

London's Run

Do two half marathons (2 years apart) equal a full marathon? Me thinks yes. In that case, my gals and I ran a marathon this weekend! Running is often billed as an individual sport, but how people train and run distances greater than ten miles all by their lonesome is beyond me. This is evident by my unsolicited "coaching" and encouragement of any and all lone runners I passed on the course (believe me this number is small). My training for this half marathon was spotty and I wouldn't have finished had it not been for an excellently crafted playlist--heavy on Kanye--and also the support of these two ladies. Thank you Shanna and Shelly, and allow me to apologize for my complaining and the strange noises I made along the course. oh and Thank you Mr. West for the sweet tunes. And lest I forget the high fives and cheering from the Queen Creek HS football team. You made me feel like the head cheerleader even though I was crying and there was snot on my face. Thank you.

Pre race dinner complete with dessert, a trip to Walmart, more dessert, and skimming the pages of Lucky looking for new hair cuts. Can you tell I am really into the photo collage? especially since it minimizes the not so flattering post race photos of me.

Sedona 1/2 Marathon or what I now refer to as the first leg of the Marathon I ran.

The red rock vistas of the Sedona course were slightly more scenic than the dirt field complete with tractors blowing dust in your face that comprised the Queen Creek course.

The medals were a nice touch also.

...and this, well I just couldn't help myself.

Record keeping buisness

xmas, new years, mlkj day
earthquake, birds and snakes an aeroplane
it's the end of the world as we know it......

I have spent an embarrassing amount of time making these photo collages below so please feast your eyes on the most basic display of photo editing that has eluded me for over a week now.

Christmas 2010

We figured since Olive babe was only 6mo old this christmas that we could get away with just giving her some books and allowing her to eat some wrapping paper, I love this picture of her because it appears that even at 6mo she is very aware of how lame her parents are.

This was a tough holiday season for Daddy Boy we had a total of 3, yes 3, family pictures scheduled so I took it easy on him and let him drink as much QT as he could handle and hold what appears to be a trani head in our own family pic.

New Year's Day

we hiked Flat Iron on New Year's day. It was possibly the coldest Arizonian day I have ever experienced and my water and M&M's did not last me as long as I anticipated so we may or may not have made it all the way to the summit.

MLKJ Day

We tipped our hats to the brave Arizonians that consented to adopting MLKJ day as a federal holiday in order to host Superbowl XXX by spending the day at the Landbridge in Payson. Could Januaury in Arizona be more pleasant? yes, if arizona was actually california and was showered with beautiful weather and amazing vistas all year long, then yes Arizona in january could be more pleasant. Still, not too bad.

2010 favorites

as if our family isn't already pretentious enough, olive has really been getting into vinyl lp's this year. so far, she's focusing mostly on entry-level stuff she can reach on the bottom shelf, but she's developing quickly and seems to be showing interest in some of the more experimental stuff on the next shelf up. we're fairly confident that come next december she'll be rattling off her own year end list of jazz reissues or something else equally interesting. but until then, here's the two older brown's undoubtedly uninteresting and pretentious lists of year end musical favorites.
please use the comments as they were intended to be used; a place to share your political views or to advertise sweet deals on prescription medications or designer watches.
thanks,
-- m b, 2010

lindsay

kanye west - my beautiful dark twisted fantasy - (def jam)

mark mcguire - living with yourself - (editions mego)

beach house - teen dream - (sub pop)

lcd soundsystem - this is happening - (dfa)

the morning benders - echo - (rough trade)

vampire weekend - contra (XL)

girl talk - all day - (illegal art)

matthew

14 - dem hunger - caveman snack - (leaving)

13 - sohni chambers - yaw-mah-ha - (goaty)

12 - julian lynch - mare - (olde english spelling bee)

11 - magic lantern - platoon - (not not fun)

10 - roll the dice - roll the dice - (digitalis)

9 - woods - at echo lake - (woodsist)

8 - brother raven - vss-30 - (digitalis)

7 - jefre cantu-ledesma - love is a stream (type)

6 - beach house - teen dream - (sub pop)

5 - sean mccann - chances are staying - (dnt)

4 - mark mcguire - living with yourself - (editions mego) //&\\ tidings / amethyst waves - (weird forest)

3 - emeralds - does it look like i'm here? - (editions mego)

2 - kanye west - my beautiful dark twisted fantasy - (def jam)

1 - sun araw – on patrol - (not not fun) //&\\ off duty ep - (woodsist)

Thank you, thank you

Is it too late to air my thankfulness a week and a half after Thanksgiving? One of the MANY things I have learned from the words(more like poetry) of my gal Natalie Merchant is that any time of year is a good time to Thank you, thank you. Plus I wasn't the Gratit-Dude(photo's of me dressed as the grati-dude upon request only) at Girls Camp 2 years in a row just because I owned a tie-dyed shirt, I think my attitude of gratitude had something to do with it.

This has been one of the happiest times of my life and thus it is easy for me to think of the many things that I am grateful for. I am madly in love with all of the people in the above photo, my love for Matthew has been on Human Growth Hormones this year and is HUGE(like gorilla juice head huge) and I am thankful that he is my husband. however I am not thankful for his terrible attitude about family pictures. and I mean terrible.

I am sooo thankful that I am a mom. I am sooo thankful that I am no longer pregnant. I am thankful that Olive smiles for the camera.

I'm thankful that everything worked out for Uncle Jesse and that "Forever" hit #1 on the Japanese music charts.

bjorning all over the world

Olive loves her bjorn and we are loving this time in her life when she is incapable of "walking" by herself. We are trying to make the most of this beautiful weather and Olive's lack of free will by strapping her in the bjorn and hitting the road.

we went to the natural bridge in Payson a few weeks ago and believe me a good time was had by all.

me trying to figure out the mechanics of the hold out family photo. we got it.

a tarantula worthy of guest appearance in Home Alone.
"what are you doing Marv?"

For FHE we hiked 'A' mountain. It felt great to get back to my Sun Devil roots and to be a walking buzz kill to all the young lovers atop the mountain who had taken their ladies there to "talk" about life and stuff.

Olive is soooo cute in this picture I am tempted to go get her out of her crib right now and kiss her face off. I wont.

does wind have this effect on all babies? cause this little girl was losing her mind.

Halloween: Spooky Scary Edition

I always imagined motherhood to be filled with great afternoons making memories with your offspring and not as heavy on spit up, blow outs and bags under the eyes. Funny how one afternoon of good weather and good behavior makes the many other afternoons of being in my sweats until noon with dried poop in my arm hair seem like the exception and not the rule.

Can you believe we rode a bicycle all the way there with two babes and still look this good?

Olive making my heart sing in the pumpkin patch at Mother Nature's Farm.

Holidays are just more fun with babies, especially ones who can't voice an opinion on their halloween costume. Olive as a witch and Matthew and I just trying not to embarass ourselves for once at the family halloween party.

a smattering of hipps and brown cousins at the party.

I could photoshop out Olive's drool line(maybe) but I think she needs to live with the photographic evidence that she spent the first months of her life foaming at the mouth and wasn't embarassed about it in the slightest.

seriously. this babe turned 5 MONTHS OLD today. seriously.

bonus points to Olive for not trying to take her hat off once during the par-tay.

Ladies Only

The first week in October Ashley, Olive and I accompanied Adrianne and Lucia on a "work " trip to the East Coast. We spent 5 days in DC and did some time in Pennsylvania exploring all the Pennsylvania turnpike had to offer. Here is a picture of all us gals with the Delaware behind us, right Ashley?

Olive and Lucia enjoying crepes both sweet and savory at Eastern Market on Saturday morning. these ladies are learning young that binge eating is a key element to any girls trip.

Are you aware that the season they call "fall" is not a season in name only? True. there is actually a distinct weather change, even the foliage is in on it. Another tid bit for my native Arizonians, there is also a season called Spring.

A completely unstaged photo of me pushing the double stroller on the hill.

Adrianne, Olive and Lucia at the Botanical Gradens,obviously the bench and concrete gave away our location. Trips taken with out Matthew are SERIOUSLY lacking in photographic evidence.

Olive and I at the park enjoying the beautiful weather and the short time window in which it is acceptable for females to wear overalls.

Marianne and Ashley outside of DC Cupcakes.
are you noticing a theme here?

this picture serves as the only evidence that we went to Pittsburgh, it also serves as evidence that my inability to lose my baby weight may not be due to a faulty thyroid like I claim. There is not a single human that I love in this photo, no trace of Katie, Levi, Macy, Atticus, Adeline or even Daisy. Just an enormous half eaten sandwich from Primanti Brothers.

Olive in a food coma/love coma. Her first successful girls trip.