Christmas Celebrations

 Santa came to the local Kings store this year.  Here's Rylan sitting on his lap.

 Andrea with her candy cane from Santa.

 Landon sure is growing up but still likes to sit on Santa's lap.

 Even Alexa was willing to sit on his lap for a picture.

 Little Lyndie's first Christmas.  She didn't even cry when Santa took her!

 Happy holidays from the Browning family.  We sure are getting to be quite a crew.

 Christmas morning.  Here's Landon with his new robe and Real Steel Robots.

 Baby's first Christmas.  She loved all the bows and wrapping paper!

 Andrea was sure excited about her new dream-lite.  She also got that robe she is wearing.

 Alexa with her new calendar.

 Santa brought Rylan a toy tool set.  Here he is ready to do some serious construction work.

 Landon made Joe this apron at scouts.  He loved it!

 

I had to get a picture of Lyndie in her "Baby's first Christmas shirt."

Piano Recital

 Here's Landon and Alexa at their Christmas Piano Recital.  Landon played Jolly Old St. Nicholas and Deck the Halls.  Alexa played Carol of the Bells.  They both did an outstanding job!  I was very proud of them.  Alexa did so well that she was asked to play at the Christmas Relief Society meeting later that month.

Halloween Festivities

 I'm really behind on my posts so bear with me as I post things from months ago.  Here we are carving pumpkins.

 Alexa and Rylan carved this one together.  (It was actually mostly Alexa because Rylan didn't want to touch the slimy inside goup.)

 Here's Landon and Andrea with their pumpkins that they designed themselves.

 Here's Lyndie in her special Halloween pajamas.

Rylan was a dinosaur this year to go trick-or-treating.

 

 Andrea was Tigger.

 Landon was a Clone Trooper.

 Alexa was Cleopatra.

 And Lyndie was a little lamb.

 Ready to go trick-or-treating.

Enjoying our traditional Halloween dinner of mummy dogs, slugs (peaches), witches fingers (cheetos), and bubbling blood (red kool-aid with dry ice in it.)  We had a happy halloween!

First Day of School

 I'm quite a bit behind on my posts, but here are the kids on their first day of school.  Looking pretty good!

 Waiting for the bus.

 Getting on the bus.

 I always let the kids ride the bus on the first day and then I meet them down at the school to take their picture and make sure they made it to their classroom okay.  By the time I got to Alexa's classroom, her teacher had already started talking and I didn't want to embarrass her by taking her picture, so I just got Landon.

 Andie is in Kindergarten this year and she goes in the afternoon,  so she got her pictures later on that day.

 Rylan's not in school, but he was feeling left out.

My big Kindergartener!

Splash Park

 Right before school started, I took the kids to the Splash park in Rexburg for one last bit of summer fun.  The kids rode the carousel, played in the water, and had a really good time.  You can tell by Andrea's face that she is enjoying the carousel ride!

Trying to warm up on the cement.

My Cute Baby!

 Lyndie looked so adorable in this hat that I had to post these cute pictures.  She is such a joy to me!

Summer 4-H

 Alexa and Landon were involved in several 4-H groups this summer that kept them pretty busy.  Both of them did woodworking, microwave cooking, and biking.  Alexa also did crocheting, art, embroidery, and dairy.  Here's Alexa with her first place, judges pick ribbon at the county fair for her woodworking flower box that she made.  This qualified her to enter her box at the state fair where she also placed with an Outstanding award.

 Here's Landon with his microwave cupcake that he entered in the fair.  Because he was just a Clover Bud, he only received participation ribbons.  Next year, however, he can get first, second, and third ribbons.

 First place on the pencil drawing Alexa entered!

 Both Landon and Alexa entered their school science fair project in our county fair and both placed second.

 Here's Alexa with her calf, "Pumpkin Pie" getting ready to show her calf in front of the judges.  This whole dairy thing was very new to me.  I know nothing about cows so it was very interesting for me to learn along with Alexa.  The process of showing a calf is actually pretty difficult.  They have to maneuver the calf around in certain patterns that the judge tells them and the calf even has to have his legs in a certain position when he stops.  This is very difficult considering how stubborn cows can be!

 Here's Alexa showing her calf.  I thought she did really well for her first year, but only received a red ribbon.  Hopefully next year she'll get a blue ribbon.