What A Week!

Last week was amazing, crazy but amazing! Last Monday we took off to Salt Lake to see the lights, go shopping, rest, and spend time with family.

We spent 2 nights and 3 days at the Kimball with my parents and had so much fun.  On Tuesday we went shopping at the South Town Mall.  Well my Mom went shopping and we played.  The girls so Santa, rode on a train that goes across the mall, and rode on the carousel. Then my sister Wendy came to see us and we all went to see the lights.  Bailey kept saying "This is the best Christmas ever!"  She also loved holding Aunt Wendy's hand and dragging her all over temple square.

On Wednesday we loaded up and came home. Ben went to work and I attacked the laundry.  On Thursday we took off for my parents house in Idaho.  We had to drop some stuff off at my brother Todd's house and he invited us to dinner so we had a good dinner with him and Brenda.

On Friday I got my nails done and we got ready to take off to Boise to see my brothers.  We stopped at my brother Scott's house for awhile and then went and had dinner with my brother Eric.  It was awesome to see all of my brothers and sisters in a 4 day period.

Saturday was Bailey's birthday and we had a party at Scott's house and then most of the boys in the family went to the Idaho Famous Potato Bowl.  They had lots of fun.  Sommers and I went shopping with our kids who are basically the same age so it was like having 2 sets of twins.

Sunday  we left Boise around 10am and with a stop at my parents made it home around 7pm. It was a good week with 4 different destinations. Bailey slept in 5 different houses.  We had an amazing, crazy week, but it was so good to see everyone.

A few highlights

So I haven't blogged in a LONG time and I've decided I'm not going to catch up, but just do the highlights.

We made our yearly trip to the Hogle Zoo in September. 

My parents and my sister Wendy joined us for the day.

We had so much fun.

We carved our first pumpkins this year.

Bailey kept playing in the pumpkin gutts and saying

"This is disgusting!"

Bailey was a ladybug for Halloween this year and Hinkley was a bee!

I don't have any picture from Thanksgiving, I guess I'm not really sure where November went! Hoping to do better at keeping up on my blog!

25 again!

I had a great birthday we didn't get any pictures except for the cake!

My niece Lyndsie made the cake it was a 2 layer cake

The bottom layer was chocolate chunk surprise, it had rollos in it!

Lyndsie had planned to do lunch with the girls and I, but when we got to the restaurant my sister in law, Brenda and driven 2 hours just to have lunch with us and do some shopping and then she drove 2 hours back home! We all got Cafe Sabor take out for dinner and had a great day with my family!

Swimming!

All the Browns came to Logan when Ben's little brother got married and they all stayed at Hotels with swimming pools.  So with the weather being bad we all went to the Holiday Inn Express and went swimming.  Bailey was in heaven, ever since going swimming last year at my brother Eric's house she has loved swimming.  Thanks Yvonne for the floaties!

Hinkley wasn't sure she liked the whole swimming idea.  She clung to Ben and cried and when I got in she clung to me and cried and just when I was about ready to give up she decided that it wasn't so bad and enjoyed it for the rest of the time.

Uncle Matt forgot his swim suite so he took all the pictures for us that night, Thanks Matt Man.

Valentines Day

The weekend before Valentines Day we had to get some new tires on Ben's pickup. So we needed to do that in Idaho. My niece went down on Friday and took the girls home with her, so Ben and I had a little time to ourselves! :) Ok Ben's in tax season so not really and I cleaned the house all day on Friday. P-A-R-T-Y. We did go out and have an amazing dinner at Texas Road House, which is in my top 10. On Saturday Ben when to work and I got ready to head to Idaho as soon as he got home. Thanks Lyndsie for taking them home with you!


On Monday we got Bailey a movie and Hinkley some toys, they each got a little toy from Todd and Brenda and a BOX full of goodies from my sister. Wendy likes to spoil the kids. She also sent a couple boxes to Idaho too! We had candy, pencils, hair bows and bands, towels, note bookes, toys, straws, candy, and I think some candy! Thanks Aunt Wendy for being so sweet and sending the package! Thanks Brenda for the braking talking puppies too. The girls are so lucky to have aunts, uncles and cousins who spoil and help take care of them!

Bailey also had a party at preschool and we went to the neighborhood Valentines party, so we have a ton of candy if any of you have a shortage we'd be more than happy to share!

Super Bowl

Ok, this year I didn't really like either of the teams playing at the Super Bowl, the National Anthem was a good talking point and some of commercials were pretty funny, but other than that it was just an excuse to have some good food!


My sister-in-law Yvonne sent me and Lyndsie some oreos! I thought they were so cute and were a must for our Super Bowl party. Ben thought that it was way crazy to have Oreos shipped from Idaho but they were cute and Oreos, enough said. Thanks Yvonne for mailing those to us! :)

We also had Ben's amazing 7 layer dip, meatballs (Thanks Cara for the recipe), cookie bars, wings, and Lynsdie made some amazing chicken Nachos. We were so full by the 2nd quarter I think we were all ready to throw up!

Check up

Bailey's 3 year check up and Hinkley's 9 month were close enough to each other that I was able to take them together, which was so nice not to have to go twice. Anyway they are doing great! Bailey is just under her peers in height and weighs 30lbs. Hinkley is growing all the time! She is a little chunk, she is a pound heavier and an inch taller than Bailey was at her age. Hinkley weighs 18lbs and I can't wait until she hits the 1 year and 20lb mark so we can turn her car seat around.


It kills me how big Bailey is! She is still a sweet sister and an amazing help, sometimes a little too much! She loves to help me cook, clean, and take care of Hinkley. She loves singing, dancing, pretending to play the piano, playing with friends, preschool, Sunbeams, having her nails painted by Lyndsie, seeing family, playing her leapster, and spending as much time as I let her in the tub. She misses her dad like crazy and has started to ask him to please not go to work the next day and to stay home with her! She loves Skyping with Grammy, Papa, and cousins Shaydon and baby Slater.


Hinkley has been rolling ever where for a while and has just started doing the army crawl and now she is really every where. She loves being able to come and find Bailey and I. She just barley broke her first tooth about two weeks ago and now has her two bottom teeth. She LOVES Bailey, loves to try to dance and sing with her, loves splashing Bailey in the tub, loves to have her picture taken. She has the cutest giggle and makes the craziest faces. She hates to have her clothes changed, have her cover on her car seat so she can't see, she hates to have me put her hair in piggys, she hits my hand away and tries to wiggle away from me. She is totally breaking my heart with how big she is getting. She loves her dad and smiles like crazy when he comes home and gets really irritated if he doesn't pick her up right away.

We love our girls and are so grateful for them. They keep us entertained, laughing, up at night, paranoid, and we can't imagine our lives with out them.

Christmas '10

It was our year to be with Ben's family for Christmas this year, so we headed back to Idaho on the 23rd and was there until the 26th. We stayed with my brother Todd and his family because there just isn't enough room for all of us at Ben's mom's house.


Of course Ben had to get in a little sports with his family so on Christmas Eve he went and played basketball and than after the game we all went over for the Big Brown Party. We start out with a big amazing meal, we clean up and then the kids get ready to go. All the little kids get in about 10 cars because of all the car seats, than they sing carols, look at lights, and go see if they can find Santa. It was Bailey's first year going and she loved it. I stayed with Hinkley at the house to feed her face before the party really got going.


The kids are gone for about 20 to 30 minutes and when they come back Santa has magically come while they were gone! Its crazy but true and it happens every year. So we had a great time, Ben's little brother proposed to his girlfriend, everyone got spoiled, and its so awesome to just be together. Ben's mom got the girls the coolest bouncy horse. It holds about 300lbs so the uncles thought it would be fun to race them too, it was so funny.


We saved 3 gifts for the girls for Christmas morning just to have a little fun with them and my family the next day. Bailey had to play Santa and she was such a good helper, helping everyone open their presents! We had our traditional Christmas breakfast at Todd's, still amazaing after all these years! We were able to Skype with my parents, always good to talk to them. We had a great Chritmas holiday and it was great to be with family.

The Best Gift

The Best Gift
By Barbra Streisand


The best gift
That I ever got
Didn't really weigh a lot
It didn't have a ribbon 'round
And it sometimes made a terrible sound


The best of all it seems to me
It wasn't 'neath the Christmas tree
And yet I guess I'd have to say
That it made all the other presents twice as nice


The best gift that I've ever known
I'd always wanted most to own
Yet in my dreams of sugar and spice
I never thought it could be so nice


The best gift that I'll ever get
Was sometimes dry and sometimes wet
Was usually pink but oftentimes red
As it lay so innocently in its bed


The best gift of the year to me
The one I hold most dear to me
The gift that simply drove me wild
Was a tiny new born child...

Thanksgiving '10

It was a Gerratt year for Thanksgiving and we still all got together. It was weird wtihout my parents there but the next time its a Gerratt year they will be back.

A lot of the work and stress went to Todd and Brenda. They offered to have dinner at their house! There was a lot of us, but it was so much fun and great to see my family. We stayed with them and the rest of the family stayed at my parents house.


Brenda went above and beyond, she had craft projects for the kids, turkey hats and snow man tree ornaments. She also had a snow man pinata for the kids. She and Lyndsie filled the pinata with candy and little numbered bouncy balls. Each kid got a ball and after they gave the ball to Brenda she gave them a prize. All the boys got remote control cars and the girls got little Fur Real animals. They all loved them!


Dinner was awesome! We had SO MUCH food it was comical. We had turkey, prime rib, salads, home made rolls, vegetables, and so many pies that we didn't have enough room on the table for them all! It was so much fun to watch the kids play, eat, watch football, eat, be together, and eat!

I also love that the girls were able to spend time with thier Aunts, Uncles, and cousins. Eric's kids are older but so amazing with their younger cousins. Hinkley and Slater are only a month apart and so cute together. Slater has always been longer than Hinkley. She, as you can see, is much chubbier! Thanks Todd and Brenda for hosting Thanksgiving. It was awesome to see everyone, it makes me wish that we could see everyone more often.

Daddy Time and Turkey Painting

We were all home just hanging out and playing with the girls. I went to change laundry and while I was upstairs sorting clothes Bailey came up stairs and found the laundry basket and told me that she was taking it down stairs. When I came back down this is where I found the girls. Hinkley was in Bailey's jumbo blocks box and was loving it. I guess she thought she was pretty cool.
Bailey put some blocks in on top of her and Hinkley was totally happy to hang out and play with the blocks. When Bailey saw how much fun Hinkley was having I guess she thought she needed to try it too! Hinkley has now learned to scoot so there is no confining her to anything!


My sister sent Bailey this little turkey to paint. Bailey was so excited and couldn't wait to piant it. I didn't know what the paint would do to the table but it came right off of everything that it should have. Bailey had an awesome time and felt so grown up. She even put it in a special box when the the Thanksgiving decorations went down. Thanks Aunt Wendy for the awesome memeory, we wished you could have been here for the painting party! I thought I had a picture of the finished product but apparently not!

Halloween '10

Halloween was a party this year. Its so much fun to have Bailey getting old enough to understand, get excited, and enjoy the holidays. I'm a little sad that she is getting older and such a big girl!


We decided to take her to the Halloween ward party. The youth put on a party for the primary. Bailey had fun playing games, seeing her friends, she hung out with her friends Megan and Ellie pretty much the whole time, and loved winning the prizes. She was so excited. We didn't have her costume yet because I hired Ben's sister to make it for her this year. So we kind of had to improvise on her costume for this party because her real one was in Idaho. We borrowed the wings from Megan and Ellie, the skirt from my cousin Katie. We only half dressed up Hinkley she could have cared less!


For real Trick or Treating Bailey was an Indian and Hinkley was a Skunk. Bailey wore the skunk costume at 10 months and it was getting pretty tight on her. Hinkley wore it at 6 months and it was pretty baggy for her, but still way cute! Hinkley was really good she just kind of puts up with us. Bailey was way excited. We stopped at Uncle Todd's and Aunt Brenda's first and than headed to Ben's mom's ward party. Bailey was having to much fun to eat but had a ton of fun Trunk or treating with her cousins. We left Hinkley with Brenda she was all partied out. After the ward party we went back to hang out with Todd and his family. When ever the door bell would ring she would run and open the door the little kids on the other side would say "trick or treat" and Bailey would say it right back to them. Todd and Brenda would have to be close behind to hand out the candy. That fun come to a quick stop when she ran to open the door, the kids yelled trick or treat and Bailey took one at them and screamed and ran! By the time she got to me she was hysterical! One of the little boys had a skeleton mask on. It took me a few minutes to calm her down and she didn't want to play with the trick or treaters any more after that.


She still loves to play trick or treating and loves to dress up now. She kind of always did, I think she gets it from her Uncle Eric! I think Hinkley is just glad we aren't putting her back in the costume and is our sweet baby.

My baby...

Before Halloween Hinkley turned 6 months old! Holy crazy! I can't believe she is already that old.


She is a beautiful little girl. She is really calm and mellow, except when she is hungry or really sleepy. She smiles and giggles and is amazing. She is doing well with her baby food and is good at eating her veggies. At 6 months we moved her out of her cradle in our room at night and into her crib in her room. A very emotional night for me. She has done pretty good in her own room, its still weird because she has been in our room since we have been in this house.


She is sitting up, very observant, and puts up with all of mine and Bailey's crap! She loves Bailey, loves to watch the dog, loves to roll around the floor, and like to sing and talk. At her 6 month appointment she weighed 15lbs and is little lower in weight and height than her peers, but is healthy and doing great.


Her skin is a little bit darker than Bailey's and her hair has stayed black. So we have started calling her Cocoa Bean. Its so cute to hear Bailey say it too and it seems to fit her. She makes some of the best faces in pictures. We love you little Cocoa Bean and we can't imagine our lives with out you

The Pumpkin Patch

So over the past few years it has been tradition for us to go home and go to a pumpkin patch in Idaho with my mom. Well since my parents bailed on us we had to find another one. Ben thought it was a little silly for us to go to Idaho just to get some pumpkins! Silly boy! I love our pumpkin patch in Idaho because its home, so I think its the best and I LOVE it!


After talking to our neighbors we found one here that worked for us pretty well. We took the girls and had a great time. It was the first time Ben had joined us, he is usually doing something really important, like watching football, and doesn't come with us. It was also a first for Hinkley. She of course was amazing! She did her usual thing and slept the entire time! I love her to pieces!


Bailey loved helping me pick and hold all of the pumpkins and gourdes, while Ben kept a running total in his head. Silly accountant! We took Bailey over to the big pumpkins and told her to pick whatever one she wanted. It only took her a few minutes to decide and than she was really bummed because it was to heavy for her to carry on her own! Bailey looks grumpy in her picture, but I promise she had fun.

Rise and Shout the Cougars are out!

Ok so when I married Ben I knew that he was a die hard BYU fan. I was raised as a friendly BYU fan, and when we were married was more of a BSU fan. Well after living with Ben for 8 years I'm now a very big BYU fan. Every year Ben buys us all new BYU shirts, this year Bailey got an entire outfit! We usually try and go to at least 1 BYU home game a year and I love it, the atmosphere in Provo is Awesome.

Anyway this year BYU was playing USU here in Logan. Yes, I know USU won. The FIRST time USU has won against BYU in 17 YEARS, I'm still a huge BYU fan and so not a USU fan. Ben took the whole day off the day of the game. He went golfing that morning and than we all headed to the Jones Simkins tailgate party. There were a ton of people at the stadium for the game. Ben had to go in his pickup with the grill so Lyndsie met me to help get the girls over to the party.


After the tailgate party I took the girls home to meet my niece Lexie. She came down just to take care of the girls and hang out for the weekend. We had a ton of fun at the game and with Lexie. She kind of came to say goodbye. She is amazing with little kids and is going to nanny in New Jersey for a WHOLE YEAR! We will miss you so much Lexie, thank you so much for coming to watch the girls and to hang out. Love you!!

Outing to the Zoo

So we took Bailey to the zoo last year and decided that she was a little young and we would'nt go again for a couple of years. Not to mention the day we went was the first day in weeks that it hadn't rained, the zoo was packed, and it was HOT!! That may have been a part of our decision to wait.


Well Bailey is growing up way to fast and she is so cute about everything new and gets so excited that how could we deny her a trip to the zoo. My niece Lyndsie is back in Logan and a trip to the zoo couldn't take place without her and one of Ben's brother's friends Eric moved to Logan recently to go to school so he came too. Neither one of them had ever been to the Hogle Zoo before! What!!! I didn't know that was possible. But they probably just wanted to be with Ben and I, we are pretty cool to hang out with, two old people with two little girls, what a party.


On the way to the zoo Ben asked where the directions were...ok not a great start to the trip, but I reminded him that I was trying to get the girls ready and out the door and since he was driving the directions were his responsibility. Luckily for us we have a navigation app on our phones so we did make it with out any issues!


We had so much fun! Bailey loved all the animals, being with everyone, riding the carousel, the train and a surprise visit from Aunt Wendy! And on a random side note Ben and I ran into a childhood friend, yep love the Hogle Zoo. Hinkley was amazing! She was such a good baby, she didn't cry once all day. We were on the road by 10:30am and weren't home till about 10 that night and the only time she cried was around 9:00pm. I love that little monkey.


My sister met us at the zoo and than we headed to her house to relax and let Hinkley stretch, she had been strapped in her car seat or stroller all day. Than we all went out to eat with my sister, her husband, and my niece Lexie. Than we had a little issue, I changed Hinkley's diaper 3 times at my sisters house and with the other 2 changes before that I was totally out of diapers, so dang it, we had to make a quick stop at Target! Oh darn! I got the cutest winter pajamas for Bailey and diapers for Hinkley. What a day!

Well Hogle Zoo can't wait until next year to see you again!