Some of the future Mighty Men - may it be Lord! The guy in the middle moved here about a year ago from Louisiana. He spent a week in the SuperDome and had some scary stories to tell. His mom was expressing her gratefulness for the hurricane because no one had ever done anything like this for her son for the 15 years they lived in Louisiana. Pray for these boys!! 

Zimmie loved Isaac! 

McKenna learned a few "moves" at camp! 

McKenna was excited to have a surprise visit from Ashley! She just joined the Shooting Stars for a while and fit right in! 

fun on the water slide 

love this pic of Breana and her hair! 

Van's back! We have grown to love Van and Cindy so much over the past few months! 

This little guy had a great attitude all week - he just learned to bury his head in my chest when he reached his "touch" threshold! 

Jill leading her "jam" session!! She's pretty good for a white girl! Ha! 

RB trying to convince Big Boy to obey...he was sent home on Tuesday. 

a typical moment for Pee-Wee - he always seemed to have his own plans! 

RB being doctor! He was trying to get this kid to let him put some eye drops in. 

McKenna with her cabin, the Shooting Stars. She had a great week - we were so proud of her! 

the legendary Armanie!! you have to admit he's really cute! 

Our friend, Frank Thomas, a mentor from a church in Como. 

Op Camp

I'm sure all of you have already heard about many of the legendary tales of Op Camp Midland and Como! "Big Boy" being wrestled by Cary and Randy, Isaac (not our Isaac) and the red demon with the knife, the 5 runaways, Armanie ("Pee Wee" - who seemed to resort to "peeing" when faced with Cary's discipline!), and the 18 baptisms in the junior high camp! It was quite a dramatic week! God is moving!!
Randy has done nothing but think and talk about plans for his discipleship group that he'll be starting soon with 8-12 of these boys. God gave Randy and Cary the name, "Dr. Brown's Mighty Men". Can't wait to see what that is going to turn into!! I've posted a few pics of camp - wish I had a few of some people that I didn't get. Bless you guys. I love the Brown family more than words can express.

Anda

Adventures

Well, we haven't been on any big adventures like Opp camp and Panema, but Lena had a first last night. James' dad is in town and we all went out to eat at Papasitas last night. Lena ordered off the kid's menu last night for the first time. She had enchiladas. She's basically on table food now. For the last couple of weeks, she hasn't been wanting to eat pureed food, but has done well with spaghetti and lasagna that I make at home for her. So, I we decided to try some of the table food and she is just eating it up. She loves trying to feed herself. She takes the spoon of food out of my hand and puts it in her mouth sometimes. She's getting to be a big girl.

Also, she is becoming a little daring in that she will sometimes let go of what she holding and just stand there and lean against something without holding on to it. She's also trying to cruise while holding my hands. She's really quite the mover. It will be interesting to see what all she's doing when we see you all next.

We're having a lot of fun with her. She makes us smile and laugh every day. Can't wait to see you all again.

April

Adventure details?

Some of you have been on big adventures and I am dying to hear all about them--Op Camp, Panama, etc.

Somebody share!

Happy 9th Birthday, Ashley!

 

This girl loves her daddy.

 

Dainty little dress-up party

 

This was at Mitch's paintball party for his 13th birthday a few weeks ago.

 

Jesus

MoMo was in trouble in time out the other day, sitting on the floor after we prayed about obeying. Her prayer had been a little flippant and so I was telling her that Jesus is really here. She said, "Yeah, He's right here" and she started looking around trying to figure out where He actually was (this whole concept of Jesus being here but being invisible freaked her out so much a couple of months ago that she had trouble going to sleep!). She finally decided that He was right beside me on the floor and told me so. When I started to get up from this little discipline section she exclaimed, "Oh! Don't step on Jesus!!" Love that little muffin.

Anda

For Mom

We went over to Mom and Dad's to spend time with Molly and take pics of the developments in their yard for them to see what's going on while they enjoy the lake! I didn't think to take a picture of the flagstone--maybe you already saw it. It looks great to me! Hope this helps, Mom.

Hanging out with Molly 

Always ready for adventure--a new tree to climb 

Happy kids~ 

high-tech inventions

Rita thought I should blog about this and I told her it was too humiliating, but here I am blogging about it anyway. We had some people over for lunch on Sunday, so we had a loaded dishwasher by Sunday afternoon. I try to start it and it doesn't work. On Monday, I try again and still no luck so I finally call Sears that afternoon and schedule them to come repair my dishwasher this morning. In the meantime, I'm washing everything on the counter by hand. Last night, RB comes home and starts messing with it just to see if he might be able to repair it. I look down and my dishwasher is running. Everything seems just fine. It then occurs to me that I didn't remember ever pushing "start" (I've only had this dishwasher for 3 years - it's not like I'm not quite familiar with it). Thank goodness I discovered that little oversight before I paid the Sears repairman $60 to tell me to push the "start" button....

Somebody PLEASE tell me that I'll have a few brain cells left by the time I'm done raising 5 children - and bite your tongue if you're thinking of making any blonde jokes!

Anda

Elijah's latest development

Elijah has reached a new stage as well. My usually great little eater has gotten a little picky. This morning we had Pop-Tarts. The path of least resistance--easy, no dishes, everyone loves them. Elijah couldn't wait for his. After just one bite his Pop-Tart broke, as they all do when you take a bite, and he began to cry. Watching him try to put it back together, we finally realized the problem. We each demonstrated with our own that all Pop-Tarts break and it was a normal part of life. He would carefully put his back together, then try to pick it up only to find that it re-broke. Crying turned to screaming, and after 15 minutes of torture for the rest of us trying to ignore his tantrum, I finally decided he'd have to take his morning nap without breakfast. Poor baby.

You'll be happy to know that he did take a bite of a broken Pop-Tart on his own when it was all over so I felt a little successful. You know the saying, kids. What do we get for crying? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Not even a perfect Pop-Tart.

New things

We really enjoyed spending time with everyone during 4th of July weekend. I love every moment I get to spend with you all. Thanks Emily for all your babysitting. Lena sure loves playing with you.

Lena has accomplished a lot in the last week since we saw you all last. Last tuesday, she figured out how to go from laying down to sitting up. Later in the week, she started inspecting her hands and figured out that she controlled every move her fingers made. Right after that, she started crawling. She still only goes a few feet at a time, but it's crawling. Just today, (well Monday), she started pulling up. We had to lower her bed before bedtime. I knew the time would be coming soon, I just didn't expect it today. Lena surprised me when I found her at naptime pulling up on the rail of her crib. Also, since her newfound tricks of crawling and pulling up, I now have become a jungle gym. I still love every minute of it though. I'm looking forward to experiencing with her all the other accomplishments that come with being 7 mo. old. Still no teeth yet.

Hope all is well with everyone. We sure missed you at the lake, Randy, Anda and kids. Hope to see you all soon.

April

Lena started pulling up. We had
to lower her bed today.  

Lena is crawling!