This is a webpage that we started when we were out in Salt Lake City for almost 2 weeks adopting our new baby boy. We decided to keep updating it when we got back to Tennessee because it is fun for us to keep up with, and also because several of you have told us that it became your daily ritual to check on Brown in the morning while you were having your coffee. Thanks so much for still wanting to look at this site. It really means a lot to us that people want to keep up with him. He's doing great and 100% healthy! Completely healthy!

  This page was getting a bit too long, so I am breaking it up into 3 month intervals. The most recent entries will be on this page,
and you can click the buttons below to see more of his earlier months.

If some of you are having TROUBLE VIEWING THE VIDEOS IN FIREFOX, it seems like they have changed a setting or something that is not working with YouTube videos as well as it did. You can view them in Internet Explorer.

August 20, 2008

I feel like I have been really slack about writing on this thing. There have just been so many fun things happening, that I haven't taken the time to sit down and write about it. So I thought I'd play catchup real quick. August has been a fun month. Lots of play time with Brown and watching him do new things. He is sitting up so well, now. It's crazy how many doors that opens up. He really enjoys books and being read to - he was actually helping me turn the page today instead of trying to just eat the book. He loves people and watching everyone and going to different people - especially the ladies. The boy is a flirt and it is so funny to watch. I loved going to pick him up a few minutes ago from his afternoon nap. He smelled like so many different people that had been holding him and kissing on him this morning. All of Curt's coworkers at AIA and DRA were so sweet and played with him for a long time this morning and even let him nap in their office while I went to my dermatologist appt. He wasn't even doing anything but sitting there being Brown, and I was so proud of him and happy for all of these interactions he was having. As my friend Laurel described him a few months ago, "he's just so nice."

Anyway... last week we were up at the lake and Marcie and Ashley took a bunch of pictures of us in the pool. I love the pictures because it is Brown in action just smiling and pulling my hair and giggling and trying to eat my face. All of that probably doesn't sound like much fun to anyone else, but I love it. I'm going to restrain myself and only put a few of those pictures on here. I know it looks like a lot, but there are about 48 of them that I really wanted to put on here.

My sister-in-law and neice came to visit last week, too. It is always so fun to see Brown with his cousins! Keely likes to pet Brown on the head and say, "oh brownie... your thow cute." It's hilarious. I really don't think that she knows his name is Brown. She just thinks he is straight up "Brownie." He doesn't seem to mind. He is always intrigued by Keely and loves to watch her and play with her. She is quite the little entertainer. Keely definitely has a lot of Linda Barker genes in her.

August 17, 2008

The Brown would like to take this opportunity to welcome a new tooth into his mouth. We are quite pleased as at least we now have a reason for the past 5 days of screaming at bedtime and waking in the middle of the night for several hours of crying. We thought we were reverting back to the days of being a 2 month old. But as of last night, he seems to be calming back down and having fun again. In fact, we were with some friends, and we got him to sleep in their crib without too much trouble. But several minutes later, the whole pack (I do mean a pack!) of kids came running through screaming like normal kids. We thought, oh no, here we go trying to get him down again. So I walked in and presto, he never even woke up. Amazing. He is now sitting up long enough to play with toys and pick things up and put them straight into his mouth of course. He still has a tendency to fall over especially if he is looking up at you walking across the room. But all in all he is coming along well. Next week we have the final legal matter of appearing before the judge which will be the final step in the adoption. Should simply be a rubber stamp kind of hearing, but it will be nice to have that behind us. It has been a long, unfamiliar road this path to adoption. Thanks for all your love, attention, prayers and support through this whole process. It has been much appreciated. Now just keep it up for about 18 more years.

August 8, 2008

Brown is liking to play "hide and go seek" these days. Actually, it's more like, "watch mom or dad hide and wait for them to pop up and scare me and make me laugh". In the video, you can hear me genuinely laughing and probably enjoying this game more than Brown actually does. Kind of embarassing.

August 5, 2008

We've been so busy house-sitting and laying around on the rafts at the lake, that we just haven't had any time to update Brown's blog. It's been tough out here, but we are managing. Brown has learned to swim! Sort of. Basically, he lays back in his life jacket and flaps his arms around and he starts moving, though I'm not sure Brown has even realized that he is moving because we obviously walk with him in the water so we are always next to him. This video isn't the best because he had already been "swimming" in that claustrophobic life jacket for about 15 minutes and he was just about "done" with it. So it's only a quick snippet of his mad swimming skillz.

Brown is doing much better sitting up by himself, as you can see in this other video. He loves to sit in front of the mirror and smile and talk to himself. Sometimes I interrupt him because I need attention, though.

July 29, 2008

We are house sitting for my parents at the lake house right now, and we are loving life. It's beautiful up here, and several good friends have come into town to enjoy it with us. The big news (it was actually quite small when you put it into perspective) was that Brown got his first cold ever this week! Crazy, eh? He made it 71/2 months without a cold, which I'm sure had nothing to do with his psycho parents who carry hand sanitizer in their pockets and spray down strangers when they get too close. OK, we don't really... but deep down we would probably like to. He got over the cold in 24 hours, so it wasn't bad at all. I feel like we've been initiated or something into "real" parenthood now.

Brown is doing great. My favorite thing about Brown these days (well, one of my top 148 favorite things about him), is that when he starts getting fussy and whiny, I can almost ALWAYS make him laugh and stop fussing. It's awesome. It's like I can see his wheels turning and in his mind as he's crying and I start making faces at him and playing with him, he thinks, "alright, alright...I give... it's not that bad. I know, I know." And then he smiles real big and it is really stinking cute. He's so sweet. Ummmph! Sorry... sometimes, I just have to grunt. He's just so squeezable and lovable. This video shows another one of my 148 top favorite things about him. Brown loves people and being held by anyone and watching people and stuff. But then at some point, his little introvert side kicks in and all of a sudden he wants us all to stop touching him and he just needs some space. So if we lay him down on a blanket or in his crib to be by himself for a few minutes, he is giddy. It's hilarious. Sometimes, the boy just needs his space. So this video is me eavesdropping into his little personal space after I laid him down for some "brown time" in his crib this afternoon.

July 24, 2008

WAHOO! Another milestone for the Brown yesterday. He is FINALLY rolling both ways - front to back AND back to front. This is huge! For one... he seems to be enjoying being on his belly more since he can get there on purpose. Hopefully this will be good for his flat little head so he will stay off of it. Secondly, he can roll over and over like a little roly-poly now, which means he is getting more mobile. Gone are the days of leaving him laying on the couch or the bed, and knowing he would just be laying there staring at the ceiling fan. Now, he might end up several feet away by the time he finishes rolling and bumps up into the wall or the chair and can't go anymore. Crazy! Things are starting to slowly change around here.

OK... let me warn you... this video is LONG! It's 7 1/2 minutes long, so don't start watching it unless you have a lot of time on your hands. I just kept filming and waiting for him to finally roll over onto his belly, and it took approximately 7 minutes and 7 seconds - so you can fast forward to that section if you want to see it. But I wanted to post the video since this is basically Brown's baby book. It is 7 minutes of watching him in action, hearing his different coos and sounds, watching his smiles and interactions with me... so I wanted to keep it all to look back on. It's sweet little Brown moments. He is LOVING the new discovery of playing with his feet, too. So anyway... there is your warning about a ridiculously long video. Cheers to YouTube for all of this video hosting!

July 23, 2008

Brown is discovering more "cause and effect" things around the house. It's been fun to see his little wheels turning in his brain. This huge box has been a favorite toy the last couple of days. You can tell that he feels very strong and powerful. What a gifted little guy. :)

July 18, 2008

He loves grabbing our faces when we are up close to him. It is so fun! And he is mastering percussion... kind of.

July 15, 2008

Brown has had a busy weekend. He started it out with his first tailgating experience. He was overwhelmed with excitement for the UT Vols. He was so excited that he almost slept through the entire thing. The tailgate party was put on by our new friends in Cleveland who are some of the most hardcore UT fans I've ever seen. Yes, they even give Will Haisten a run for his money. The party was to celebrate the fact that kickoff was 51 days away. Wow. So anyway - it was fun and Brown was the littlest... well, youngest guy there.

As Curt wrote on the 13th, we had a nice, relaxing weekend at the lake. It's so fun to see him enjoying and splashing in the water. It was good to be home with him yesterday and have our first "normal" day in a while here at our house. I had several teary eyed, overwhelmed moments of close up eye contact and smiles with Brown that just made me so thankful. I'm not sure if these moments are going to fade away at some point, or not. I'm sure they will be fewer and farther between when he is running around and has less time to smile and stare into my eyes with glee. As much as I look forward to watching him grow up and be able to do more and more things, I sure am going to miss these sweet moments. Everyone tells me to cherish them, and I sure am trying to.

July 13, 2008

Brown had a fantastic day yesterday, splashing in the water for the first time. I mean he has been in the water many times - lakes, ocean, pools, sinks, tubs, baptism last week - and has occasionally moved his hand to randomly splash, but yesterday, he got the full on going crazy kind of splash. He seemed to rather enjoy himself getting water all over his face, in his eyes and mouth without any bother. You can see some of this in the video. It was great. Maybe we will try swimming soon.

Today, the rain may keep us out of the water for a while, but we will probably sneak in for a dip sometime. But being lazy today is great. It seems our time gets sucked into so many activities, mostly into those big blue eyes that came into our home 7 months ago. So having a quiet day is a blessing unto itself and I look forward to taking some time to reflect and be grateful for all the blessings that God has given us. -curt

July 8, 2008

Aaaahhh... it's so nice to be settling back in to home. It was a great 2 weeks at Harrison Bay State Park with a couple hundred middle schoolers, but it sure is nice to start getting Brown back on some kind of schedule. Poor guy. He did great, but he is happy to back and dreaming beneath his mobile and getting a clean diaper change on his changing table instead of a plastic bunk pad or closest picnic table. He doesn't mind the air conditioning, either. I'm including 2 pictures of our little room we were in at Harrison Bay just to show the messy chaos we have had him in. It was actually really fun, and a good reminder of how little we really need to live on (though, as you can see, we crammed as much junk as possible into that little room! :)

Sunday was a big day for Brown. He was baptized at St. Elmo Presbyterian Church. It was really sweet to have all of our family there, including Brown's Great Grandparents (THE Brown's). We are thankful for our families and the heritage that he is a part of.

July 2, 2008

Curt's mom and dad kept Brown last night and today so that I could go to worksites. Becky just emailed this picture of Brown chilling with Granddad in the hammock. Great picture! I can't wait to see him tonight! They are bringing him out to meet up with us at the Evening Meeting at Harrison Bay State Park. All the women counselors were sad he wasn't at breakfast with us this morning so they could steal their snuggles.

July 1, 2008

We are going on our second week of camping at Harrison Bay State Park in a cabin with hundreds of crazy middle schoolers running around. Brown is in heaven because he really likes looking at all of the new faces. Plus, there are plenty of female counselors on these trips who miss their own kids so they love holding and playing with Brown to get their "baby fix". This picture was taken during our staff time when he fell asleep on one of our college summer staffers. He is doing great and loving all of the attention. These are Son Servants short term mission trips that we are helping to run, and it's fun to have Brown as a part of it. He's really easy to have around right now - we realize it may be a little harder than this in the years to come. We'll see.

People at the camp are really amazed at Brown's temperament. He is just so chill and easy-going. We feel SO lucky, because we know it can go either way, and you never know what you are going to get, whether they are adopted or biological. We feel sure that our next one will be a high maintenance little terror to pay us back for these glorious months with Brown. We deserve a little terror. He's made it so easy on us.

We took him to his 6 month appt yesterday with Dr. Jeannie. They were all impressed by his size and weight. He is literally "off the charts", and we like him like that. 23.6 lbs and 29 inches long. He's a real boy! He got 4 massive shots in his thunder thighs, and those tears and his purple strained face are just brutal to watch and kiss. Poor guy. We loaded up his formula bottle with tylenol and shoved it in his mouth. He got over it in 10 minutes or so, and then we dragged him back out to camp. What a little trooper! Nothing else to tell... Brown is doing great. And we are in heaven. OH YEAH!... last week, one of the middle school boys looked me up and down and said, "you don't really look THAT big to have a 6 month old."   awesome. :)  You gotta love middle schoolers.

June 20, 2008

The boy loves to bounce. We really do need some taller door frames, though, because he's about to bounce down to his knees.

June 19, 2008

Well, here I sit. Brownless. Curt's mom is keeping him tonight so that I can get ready for the upcoming 2 weeks of Son Servants mission trips. THANK YOU, BECKY! I don't know if she ever reads this, but if she does, let me just publicly say that Becky Chaffin is the best mother in law and Nana for Brown that I could have ever imagined. She is such a huge help to us. AND... Brown loves being with her and giving her snuggles and huge grins. Huge help! My mom rocks, too... but her specialty is for the older toddler, who will be running around and pulling off all of their antiques from the tables in their home, and making her chase him throughout the house and down to go swimming in the lake. She THINKS it will be easier when Brown gets older. Hee hee. Don't tell her. That will be just the time when Becky will be needing a break and it will be my mom's turn.

So anyway, I should SO not be updating this thing right now, but I know I won't do it for a while after this, and I just got an email from a "hater" who said we weren't updating it enough. Brown doesn't want to lose any of his readers, so here I am.

This week has been monumental in that Brown is getting somewhat monumental in his physique and has managed to outgrow his infant car seat at a record 6 months! So this picture is his LAST ride in his little infant car seat. Curt managed to almost get me choked up by showing me the luggage tag that is still on the handle from our flight back from Salt Lake City. Wow. That really does seem like a lifetime ago. I can't believe Brown is that same kid (just for fun, scroll down to the bottom real quick and look how scrawny and sick looking he was with those tubes in him). I'm so glad I didn't know him like I do now, or I would have had a hard time not ripping those tubes out of him and running out the hospital with him (which I realize, probably would not have been in HIS best interest).

He is doing great with eating the "solids" now. He was seeming to be a green veggie kind of guy, and sort of shunned all of the orange ones. But he downed a whole thing of carrots yesterday, so he is on the right track. I felt like his vision was improving right before my very eyes. The one thing that is kind of humorous about the feeding experience is that I can't seem to keep my mouth closed. It's like when you are playing a video game and if you want the car on the screen to turn right, then your whole body leans to the right - as if that is going to help. Well, when I want Brown to open his mouth for the spoon, I open my mouth really wide. And I've tried to stop. It makes me laugh out loud. It's like trying to keep your eyes open when you sneeze. It's just really hard. So I hope I stop this habit before he is out on the town eating in public, or else people are going to enjoy watching me more than him.

We were using this site as a way to keep our friends and family updated on what was going on out there, but we are continuing it because we've had so much fun keeping up with it. The bottom line is that Brown inhaled tons of amniotic fluid and it went into his lungs and damaged them. However, the doctors and nurses in the NICU were brilliant and were able to repair the damage, so Brown is on the upswing and will soon have strong lungs like all of the rest of the kids on the block. In the beginning, however, it wasn't clear what was wrong with him. They had lots of different theories going - from lung problems to heart problems to being septic, etc. It took a few days to learn that the amniotic fluid had been the culprit, and we were definitely relieved.

December 12, 2007 - Thanks for your prayers and interest in our awesome new addition to our family. It has been quite a ride the last few weeks, and it doesn't seem like it will be calming down to "normal" (whatever that is) anytime too soon. But it is an adventure - and we're glad to be in it together. We'll try to update this webpage as often as we can. Thanks for the calls, text messages, emails, thoughts, and prayers. It doesn't feel nearly as lonely out here in Salt Lake City as it could! The first 3 days of this "blog" are going to be taken from our emails or journal entries over the last couple of days, just to make sure everyone is up to date on what's been going on. This adoption happened so fast over the last 2 weeks, that many of our dear friends don't even know we are adopting right now. Sorry if you feel "out of the loop", but don't worry... we kind of do, too! Start at the bottom of this page if you want to start from the beginning.