The Crazy Browns...take 2

Flashback one year - same time, same place - all of the Brown crew gathered together at our house in celebration of Grandpa Bob & Lacey's birthdays. Grandma Cheri thought it would be fun to do a family picture with all of us sporting crazy glasses, which we did. She brought a huge bag of them. And the pictures were crazy and fun for sure. One of them even made the cover of the 2010 Brown Family Calendar. So yesterday morning, we got a call saying that it was that time again. Time for another crazy Brown family picture. Pull out our best hats - crazy ones if we had them - and get ready for take 2. Ta-da. Here we are. The little bit wacky Brown extended family sporting our hats and silly faces. I wonder what the 2011 theme will be?

Happy 62nd birthday, Grandpa Bob, and Happy 28th, Lacey! We sure love you both! And thanks for the tasty spaghetti, Cheri, and the fabulous breadsticks, Mom, and the sweet fruit, Jessie, and the scrumptious Lemon Merangue pie, Jayme. All so good. I love that we all bring something and the whole meal comes together perfectly. It's been a couple of months since our last family dinner (I think it was Ryan's birthday dinner in early January). We had a great Sunday! It was good to see all the fam.

(BTW - Lacey is almost 6 months pregnant with a baby girl. We're excited for Chase & Gavin to get a sister and for us to get a new niece. Lacey & Mike are really happy. Lacey told me tonight that she's planning to name her new babe Ava Mary Ellen. Mary Ellen is Grandma Cheri's mother's name (Ryan's Grandma Hawk, who they all called Nana.) She passed away before I met Ryan, so I never had the privilege of getting to know her. I love the name though. Ava Mary Ellen Dupont. Sounds very elegant to me.

My other SIL, Jessie, is due with baby #4 in July (but she's not finding out the sex of her babe since she already has 3 girls, so we'll all by dying of suspense for the next 4 months). And my other SIL, Jayme, is pregnant with her #4 too, due in September. She has 3 boys, but WILL be finding out the gender of her babe soon.

So all 3 of my Brown SIL's are expecting. I'm the only one not great with child. But since our beautiful family of six is perfectly complete, I'll just be a very excited Aunt Kelli three times over this year. Lucky me! I better get busy making those baby blankets! Summer will be here before we know it.

Here is our attempt to look a little less crazy. Pretty amazing that 22 out of 23 of us are looking forward with our eyes open, don't ya think? (Thanks, mom, for taking the pics for us.)

Lainey, Rowan & Easy E. Man, our kids love their cousins! The decibel level at our house tonight was crazy high. Kids everywhere, all bouncing off the walls after a rainy Sunday at church and indoors, all so thrilled to have a night together with their best friends in the world.