Squishies

So as part of our Christmas present to my siblings we made them some "squishies." Squishies are pretty basic-- just a little stress ball made out of a balloon and flour but the significance dates way back. Once upon a time four Brown children were all attending elementary school and got a little bored. As a way to practice their entrepreneurial skills they decided to start a little business. A squishy business. It must've started with just one of us bringing one to school and some friend wanting one (and instead of just making one, to be nice, we charged them). But single-handedly we started a fad and pretty soon every kid in school had to have one. We took orders for different colored balloons, personalized messages and drawings on the front. We even offered the normal squish (flour), the harder squish (corn starch), or the ultimate squish (sugar). Having four siblings in the same school meant we also had a pretty nice monopoly on the market. We covered the sixth, fifth and second grades plus kindergarten. At home we had our little sister Kelly working her friends in the neighborhood. Business (and popularity) were booming.

And then came the inevitable... the squishies started to pop. And suddenly all the teachers were dealing with little piles of flour all over their carpet every day. It wasn't long before the school came out with a rule and banned all squishies from Grant Elementary-- forever.

So to honor our wild rebel days (I know-- balloon banning? what's next?!) I decided to make the siblings all some squishies for Christmas. In their favorite color. With special messages and pictures on them (should I charge extra?). Ah, the good old days!

P.S. Props go to my wonderful husband who sat and made a mess with me helping make these!! He's so great to play along with my nostalgic crazy ideas.

Fresh from Peru... here's Ryan!!

Hooray!! My brother Ryan got home from his mission today! He and my brother Peter missed each other by a month so our whole family hasn't seen each other in four years. We're so excited that he's back (of course... what missionary family isn't?).

Kelly was a one woman welcoming committee (complete with balloons tied on her back pockets). She makes me laugh.











Ever the prankster, Ryan came down wearing fake glasses cause he didn't feel like he had changed enough on his mission. What's more funny is that no one questioned it (Mom thought his eyes must be tired and he didn't want to wear contacts on such a long flight). Eventually we remembered Ryan's always had perfect vision and he fessed up that the glasses were fake :)

BYU/Utah Game

We watched the BYU/Utah game at my parents house and it was intense.



Thank goodness BYU won!


Even Grandma Brown (who's living with my family for a little bit) wore blue :)

And they lived happily ever after...

Hello!!

Sorry it's taken me so long to post the wedding pictures. Oops. I've really meant to get on and update sooner but it's been a crazy month trying to get moved in and settled and we finally got our internet up and working so now the blog and I can be friends again. Hooray!

Our wedding day was so perfect. We honestly wouldn't change a single thing. It was so great to have our families and friends and so many people we love there all day to celebrate with us. Adam and I felt that the temple was by far our favorite part of the day. We had such a wonderful sacred experience there that we wouldn't have even noticed if everything the rest of the day went wrong. It was incredible. That is definitely the right way to get married.

We were so happy and on such a high that we just relaxed and had fun with people the rest of the day. I loved it and I was so glad we weren't stressed and that we could just be ourselves and enjoy the day. The curls in my hair kept getting looser and looser as the day went on and I never did reapply the makeup before the reception but suprisingly I didn't care at all. Se la vi, right?

All of our pictures are posted online at: http://clients.lindsayjanephotography.com/. Click on the album "Adam and Stephanie" and then put in your email (no worries, they don't send anything) and then you can see all our pictures if you wanted to see them.

I'm posting some of my favorites below as well as my thoughts about the day (a little story if you will) so enjoy!

This was right as we walked out of the temple. We're officially husband and wife! I think our happiness meter is going off the charts.

We were so humbled to have so many friends and family there outside the temple with us. What incredible people they all are! We're so blessed.

This was a really fun picture with both sets of our parents but for some reason Adam and I could not stop laughing. I'm amazed our photographer got one. Part of the reason we chose to be married in the Salt Lake Temple was because both our parents were married here. They also both had their receptions at the Lion House which is where we had our luncheon (but Adam's mom will have to tell you about the little "disruption" they had on Temple Square that night).

How could you get married here and not take the traditional pictures in front of these gorgeous historic doors? All my life I'd come here and I never went to the top of the stairs or stood in the alcove cause it felt like that's just the bride and groom place to stand. It's a little surreal that this was our wedding day and our turn to be the bride and groom.

I just want to give a little shout out to my florist, Sherry Perry. I really wanted my flowers to look "Fall-ish" and I think she did such a great job of capturing the colors of the season and even adding the dried fall leaves to the bouquet to give it the right effect. Ah, I loved it! Well done, Sherry, well done!

These are all of mine and Adam's siblings (minus my brother Ryan who's on his mission and Natalie's husband Bob). We LOVE these people so much! They really are our best friends on the planet.

We both really love the actual building of the temple (especially Adam) and were glad our photographer kept getting fun angles and capturing the artisticness of the building.

This was our favorite moment of all the pictures. She put us on this bench and then walked to the other side and left us there. We started out posed how she wanted us but then we got talking and totally forgot we were being photographed or that there was anyone else around us or anything. It was this beautiful moment where we were just in our own little world basking in the joy of our wedding day.

We like this picture the best from the day (even though the temple looks a little fake :). We want to print it large and frame it for our house (as is kind of the tradition when you get married, to print one and hang it in your home... c'mon steph, does it really need to be said? obviously....)

Some last fun ones from Temple Square. At the luncheon my sister Natalie took a little video of us which you can watch at this link:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7544793234507546453&hl=en

This is our cake. Yum!

We picked the Old Meeting House for our reception because we loved how spacious and elegant it is. There is so much room to park, to mingle, to sit, to eat, it's great! And it's got such a stately classic look with the crown molding and historic windows and arched doorways. We really loved it.

This is Adam's family, the Hocks (L-R: Bryan, Aubry, David, Jeanette, Cody & Michelle)

This is my family, the Browns. My brother Ryan is still on his mission and wasn't there (hence the signs so he could still be included-- but good news! He get's home in three and half weeks!!). From L-R: Julie, baby Mallory, Natalie, nephew Tyler, Peter, Debbie, Tim, nephew Cameron, Greg and Kelly.

To quote Little Women, "I could never love anyone as I love my sisters!" Which all of these beautiful girls are. I love them (clearly.. you can see every tooth I have in the picture above)

This picture made me laugh so hard. While all might seem harmless and fun-- me and the bridesmaids-- I think the camera caught the proof that Leslie's rapidly moving hand was trying for a quick snatch of the flowers (look at her mischievous grin)!! Listen, lady, your day has passed!

These are our three nieces and nephews (all my sister Natalie's kids). Tyler and Cameron got tired as the reception went on and untucked their white shirts and tried to play with Adam and I while we talked to people (and hide under my dress). Boys will be boys!

We had so much fun talking to people at our reception. People told us we'd be so exhausted and not even remember who came but we felt quite the opposite. Every time we saw who was next we felt this huge burst of love for them and our only regret was that we couldn't visit longer. It's kind of a cruel trick to show you all these people you love so much (and some that you haven't seen in a LONG time) and then give you only like 30 seconds to catch up with them. But we were so grateful to everyone who tooked the time (or traveled far) to be there. We have the best friends in the whole world.

So we cut the cake and let picture number 2 (or Exhibit A as the court would call it) show for the record the nice delicate slice I placed in my husband's mouth and the humongous mountain of a piece he shoved into mine. And we're not talking a playful little "oops, honey, got cake on your cheeks" shove-- Adam full on rammed it into my face so much that a signifigant plug of cake went up my nose! Beautiful. I think this face says it all:

It reminds me of the scene on Dumb & Dumber where Harry and Mary go on a date and she playfully throws snow on him. So to retaliate he makes a snowball and nails her in the face. Some boys are so suave.

A beautiful capstone of the evening was when my brother Peter performed our song ("Stolen" by Dashboard Confessionals) for us on his guitar. He sounded so great and we loved hearing it there in that setting. Now when we listen to it we have this great image of sitting together as bride and groom hearing this song and feeling so happy and in love on our wedding day. Peter you're amazing!

And lastly there was the bouquet toss. Apparently I threw it pretty high up (based on where everyone's looking and they're shocked faces). The funniest part though was my sister Kelly. She didn't jump or move or anything, she just opened her hand and the bouquet kind of magnetically zoomed right there. How did she get her magical powers?! No one even had a chance!

Whew! What a post! So there it is. Now you've lived the entire wedding day over with us again. It was so beautiful and perfect and I feel like the luckiest wife in the world to have married such a perfect man. Adam and I are having so much fun setting up our house and figuring life out. We just laugh a lot. But when you're with your best friend all the time what else would you do? Life's perfect. I'll try to get on again soon and post some pictures of Boston from our honeymoon and what we've been up to since then. THANK YOU again to EVERYONE who made our wedding so wonderful. We really love you all!!!

Thank goodness for Dads

So last night we had a great Monday night. Adam and I went to my family reunion and then came back and had our own little lesson for FHE (we were reading in 2 Kings 6 where Adam's getting ready to teach in seminary and were intrigued by the "foodstuff" mentioned in the heading... little were we prepared for what the "foodstuff" actually was. Let's just say it wasn't the most uplifting lesson I've ever had... gotta love the Old Testament).

So we're ending our nice Monday and go out to the front porch to say goodnight. My parents bought this wonderful bench ("for our courting couples") and we were sitting on it for a minute and talking... night has fallen... the neighborhood's quiet... there are no cars.... when suddenly my dad pops out from around the corner with his weed-wacker! He glances up, sees us sitting on the porch, shouts a "hey!" then proceeds to start weed wacking the front yard. Mind you, it's 9:15 at night. The sun has gone down, there is no light to see anything... are you kidding me, dad? THIS was really your best time to weed wack? Adam and I just burst out laughing. The best part was that he didn't stop. I thought maybe he just saw one weed and wanted to catch it, but no. He went all the way around the perimeter of the front lawn and even back up the park strip and around the trees. He confessed later that if he had known we were out there he wouldn't have come out but this is so funny and typical of how his brain works. "Shoot, it needs to get done. I'm here. What better time than right now. Nevermind the couple saying goodnight on the porch. Don't let me stop you. Shoot." We were going to try to say prayers together (like we usually do) but we could barely hear each other over the loud buzz of the wacker. Ah, it's so comical. I mean, I really feel so sorry for anyone that doesn't get to live with their parents while they're engaged and get great memories like this. Dads, weeds, love. It all goes together, right?

The best part was after Adam left and I came in to tell my mom and siblings what dad had done. They all burst out laughing and he came in soon after that. Kelly (my little sister) was like, "Dad how did you not get that? It's just so common sense and you're the King of common sense!" So true. We all had a good laugh.

But for those who might be trying to say goodnight to their signifigant other in the future just remember this: