I Think I Might Get Sued By My Own Son!

Tonight, as I am mopping all of our floors, I hear Dane slip and fall in the kitchen. I asked if he was fine, and he came into the living room, clearly disgusted with me, and said, "We should have signs in here that say Wet Floor!" So, if anyone knows a good defense lawyer, I might be needing one soon. I think I'm going to be extra nice to him for the next few days!

Sydni's 9 Month Pictures

• This has been a fairly rough month for Sydni, but despite it all, she has stayed happy and calm, for the most part. Spring sprang, and we Browns, except Lane, have been sneezing and coughing and wiping our noses with the best of them. Dane and I have the luxury of being able to take allergy medicine to keep us going, but poor Sydni can't take anything, yet. Unfortunately, she developed an upper respiratory infection, and she had to take medicine via her eyes, nose and mouth. The only holes in her head that went unmedicated were her ears! It took a few weeks for her to recover, but she is just about better now, I think.

• She now has five teeth, four on the bottom and one on top, and she has handled teething like a pro with very little fussing, thankfully. She is looking more like a little girl with all of her teeth.

• I am happy to report that she has mastered her crawling and is no longer dragging herself around like a wounded soldier! She is also pulling up on everything and can walk around a little bit while holding onto things. A few times, we have caught her letting go and standing for a split second before she falls down. So, I think she is starting to trust herself a little more.

• Her greatest and newest trick of all is her clapping! She claps all the time, and she will also clap on cue when we sing "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands", which is really cute. A lot of times, she will just be playing or crawling around, and she'll just stop, sit up and clap for a while. It's so sweet. I'll have to get a video of it and post it.

• She spends most of her time following her brother around, so that keeps her very busy and on the go, since he never slows down! Another interesting thing I've noticed about her personality right now...she is perfectly fine with crawling away from me to go and play or explore, and she will sometimes even leave the room. But, if I happen to leave the room, even for just a few seconds, her entire world falls apart. She does this same thing with Lane and Dane, too. It's just so sad. It usually happens the most when I'm rushing around the house putting laundry away. So, as soon as she gets back to the room I'm in, it's about time for me to go back and get more laundry and go to another room.

• I've also noticed something new about her lately, and I think that this is pretty common for baby girls. With the exception of me, I think that she prefers men over women. Several times, lately, especially at church, we will be talking to a couple, and she will let the man hold her, but not the woman. I think that's really interesting. Also, I think that she is developing some special bonds with her uncles. She loves all of her uncles, but I've noticed that she lights up when she sees her Uncle Shad and Uncle Roger, and she'll let them hold her quite a bit. We see them some, but not like it's every day or every week, so I think that's neat. Disclaimer: Uncles Shayne, Joe David and Jason, I'm sure she would do the same with you, too, I just have not personally witnessed this behavior with you, yet.

Now, for some very exciting news! Sydni let me paint her toenails for the first time this morning. I thought it would be fun, well it was very challenging, but she actually did very well and sat still in my lap long enough to get them painted and to let Dane and I blow on them for a few minutes. Here's a couple of pictures of those sweet toes.

Happy Easter!

I hope everyone had a great Easter Sunday! We sure did. My parents drove down to go to church with us, stayed to watch the kids hunt eggs at church, and they treated us to lunch at The Jalapeno Tree, which was great! They got to stay for a little while, and then they drove on up to Texarkana to see the Fincher clan and to go to church with them that night.

I had so much fun getting Dane and Sydni all dressed up in their new Easter clothes. Every year growing up, my mother would make my and my sister's Easter dresses, and it was always so much fun to plan. Well, I did not inherit my mother's sewing skills, unfortunately, but I still get excited planning the kids' Easter outfits. I found the most beautiful dress on sale at Dillard's for Sydni. For some reason, which I can't figure out, they had an entire rack of spring dresses, regularly priced $40, on sale 40% off, which made it $24! I usually budget about $25 for their Easter outfits, so I got hers for $1 underbudget! The accountant in me just loves that! I found Dane some nice new khaki dress pants, a blue oxford dress shirt, and a pretty new green tie. I couldn't believe it when I bought him size 5 Slim dress pants this year! He's getting so tall! On the previous post, there is a picture of all of us at the Rangers game, and I couldn't believe how tall he looks in that picture. It's funny, as much as I have loved him at every stage and will miss things about each stage, I get so excited thinking about the fun stuff coming up in the next couple of years.

Anyway, of course, we were in a hurry getting ready for church, so we didn't have time to take pictures before we left. So, instead, I had to wait until after church, when Sydni was ready for a nap and Dane was hyped up on sugar, had lunch on his tie and shirt, was ready to play, and not ready to sit still and pose for a picture. I got him to pose for two, and then he was off to play. Oh well! Sydni, on the other hand, was a complete angel and I was able to get a lot of pictures of her. Unfortunately, I had my camera on the wrong setting, and most of the pictures turned out really fuzzy. I tried to play with them and doctor them up in Picasa, and they're a little better, but not as clear as I'd like. They're still sweet, though.

Hope you enjoy them, and I hope your Easter was as happy and blessed as ours was.

Here's Dane...

And, Sydni girl...

Winding down for her nap...

A Nice Texas Day!

Last weekend was the annual LTC conference for the kids in Dallas. Lane was heading up the Speech competition again this year, so he had to be out there on Thursday, a day earlier than the rest of the group. As it turned out, a couple at church had tickets through their work to the Texas Rangers game Thursday afternoon. They were so nice to give them to us. Dane had not been to a Rangers game yet, and he is the perfect age to go right now. So, he was very excited and made sure to bring his Rangers cap and his baseball glove.

There is a patch of bluebonnets growing in one of the flowerbeds in front of the church building, so since I had the kids dressed in red for the game, I thought it would be a good opportunity to get a few good shots in front of them before we left town. Well, it was just one of those days. Dane was acting goofy, and Sydni, who is usually the perfect little picture taker, decided to get really irritated and did everything but look at the camera. I actually did manage to get one really good one of Dane, though, and a lot of funny ones of Sydni. I'll have to try again next spring, I guess. I don't think I have it in me to try again this year!


This is the best one of the two of them that I could get. Dane's just being weird, and Sydni is actually yelling at me. She's started yelling when she's frustrated. It all started a couple of weeks ago, after Lane and I both would have to wrestle her down to give her two oral medicines, eyedrops, nasal drops and to use the nasal aspirator on her. Did I mention that was every 8 hours? It was terrible, and for about 5 minutes after we were done, she would randomly just scream at us like she was telling us just how mad she was at us! So sad, but a little funny, too!

And, here's Little Miss Photogenic...

A family photo in front of the Nolan Ryan statue

Easter Egg Hunt at Granna & Pa's

Each year, my family gets together for the kids to have an Easter Egg Hunt at Granna and Pa's house. Joe David, Stefany and Jed were in the weekend before Easter, so we did our hunt a little early this year. The weather was so beautiful that day, so it was great! Mary Nan, Laura and Dane dyed and decorated eggs, and they did a great job. For some reason, J.J. wasn't quite in the egg decorating mood, so it was just the three of them. Here are the proud egg decorators with their creations!

Before the Easter Egg Hunt began, we gathered all the kids together with their baskets for some pictures. They're all growing up so fast, and they are all such good kids. While we were on the front porch, I also took some pictures of Dane and Sydni sitting in the rocking chair. Poor Sydni, she had been so sick that week with an upper respiratory infection, and her little nose was so raw. So, she is not quite her sunny self in these pictures, but she's still pretty sweet, I think!

And, the hunt begins!

Sydni spent most all of the hunt sitting in her Pa's lap - and I think they both enjoyed it!

Stefany bought each of the big kids a dozen cascarrones (I think that's how it's spelled), which are confetti filled eggs. As you can imagine, this was super fun for the kids, and for everyone actually! As Dane was breaking each of his, he got to individually wishing each person a Happy Easter. Well, I discovered that he has definitely inherited his father's flare for life because when he got to the egg dedicated to J.J., he swirled around until he saw him, and then he yelled "Happy Easter to J.J!" and motioned toward him much like a game show host would a contestant. It was funny, and I'm so glad that I got it on video.