Happy Birthday Dear Daddy:

I bet Alanna has sung to him 100 times already and it's not even lunch time!  She sure loves her daddy.  We are so thankful for him and wanted to publicly wish him a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

 (This is after we all opened our stockings.)

Monkey Monday:

Christmas Cookies:

I got the idea from a friend to make some cookies with Alanna and pass them out to our neighbors.  This will be a forever tradition for us...it was SO much fun!  We have only met one of our neighbors and we've lived here for 4 months now.  This was a great way to meet them and chat with them.  They were all so amazed that we would make something for them and thanked us over and over.  We also prayed for them as we were walking to their house.  Alanna came home and was smiling ear to ear and said she wanted to do this again! <3

MERRY

CHRISTMAS!!

Love, The Browns

 

Monkey Monday:

Kennedy's Birthday:

 

 Alanna's BFF in Vegas is Kennedy.  For her birthday party, her mom invited 3 girls to come and have manicures together and then out to eat.  These girls were squealing and giggling the whole time and each one had to have just the right amount of sparkles and glitter!!  That nail salon will never be the same.  HAHA.  The workers were talking as fast as they could in Vietnemese about us crazy moms, I'm sure.  One of them kept asking me, "you sure you don't want manicure too?"  They couldn't believe we were just there for the little girls I guess.

 They all chose different colors and sparkles and were SO PROUD of their choices!  Kiera (on the left) just turned six last week, then Alanna is 4, Kennedy is 6, and Bryn is 4.  They all get along so well.

 We ended the night at Mac Shack (a custom mac n cheese restaurant that is fully organic) and had a Rapunzel cake for dessert.  I think this is the way to go as far as parties are concerned and we might have to do the same next August for Alanna. (Plus it was a fun girls night out for us moms as well!!)

Gingerbread House:

 This was our first time to ever attempt a gingerbread house and I think it came out fairly cute.  Of course it had to be a Mickey house and of course it had to be pink!

There were several broken pieces of candy and icing drips that just HAD to be licked and eaten too!  =)  I don't think we'll be winning any awards, but I do think we will make this a tradition from now on.  It was a lot of fun to do as a family.

#poordog

Yes, that is a glow-in-the-dark necklace.  As always, Asha was thrilled.  Alanna begged and begged and begged to let her wear it while she sleeps in her room tonight.  I gave in.  Poor dog.

Monkey Monday:

Friday Funnies:

Alanna decided that her nativity set needed some 'extras' this year.  She is adamant that there was a dog in the stable with baby Jesus and she is pretty sure there must have been a chicken too.  I don't really disagree.  I'm sure there were many animals.  But I know for certain that there were no pink Mariposa fairies looking down on that special night that Christ was born. =)

Deep Thoughts From Alanna:

 Last night as I was laying in bed with Alanna, we had a conversation full of deep thoughts.

A: Mom, I've been thinking about some stuff...

Me: Okay, like what?

A: Well, I know there is a God team and a Devil team, and I know that God always wins...but HOW does he win?  Does God kick the devil or pinch him or what?

Me: Well, the Bible tells us that at the mention of the name of Jesus, the Devil and all his demons run away.

A: Mom, that is SO interesting!

Me:  It is!  We can just say the name of Jesus.  His name is very powerful and we don't have to be afraid!

A: Right!  And no one can take us out of His hand, right?

Me:  Yep!  We are safe inside of His hand!

A: So it's kind of like God is the shell and we are the snail, right?  The shell protects us and we can go inside if we get afraid.

Me: Now THAT is interesting!

This girl is a thinker.  She thinks things over and really tries to understand them.  I'm pretty sure she gets that from her daddy. =)

The Three Wise Men:

Gold, Frankington, and Murder. =)

Go Fish:

 Cie-J taught Alanna to play "Go Fish" and it is so much fun!!  It's neat that she can understand the basic idea about cards because Cie-J is itching to teach her Dummy Rummy. =D  Almost every night after supper, we play a game or two.  Alanna is hysterical when she gets her cards and looks at them.  She says "Woohoo!  Yeah, baby!" if she gets matching cards in her hand.  We have no clue where she would have heard that or gotten it from, but it's cute!  It's a great way to unplug and just spend family time together.  Alanna hugged Cie-J after teaching her and told him that it was her best night ever.  She even won a game all on her own!

Watch out Grandpa, Grammy, and GG...we have another Brown card player in the making!!!

Monkey Monday:

Fancy Dancing:

 After ballet class was over, the teacher put on some music and told the girls they could have some free time to dance however they wanted.  Alanna and Kennedy grabbed each others hands and danced around like this.  Her mom and I just cracked up!!

Then they twirled around and around and around.

I asked Alanna in the car what they were doing and she said "Mom, we were dancing fancy."

Of course!

Thanksgiving At The Browns:

Our little bit of Thanksgiving food.  It was delish.

We gave the left overs to the dog for her special Thanksgiving treat and Cie-J prayed that she would not get diarrhea from it  LOL!!!!

Then we made a fort in the living room and ate our pie in there as we watched a movie.  It was so much fun and will for sure be our new tradition!!

Monkey Monday: