latest obsessions

ellieellie has an obsession with tortilla chips and spicy queso dip. so at church, when other moms bust out the goldfish crackers to get their little one to shut their mouth, i pull out tortilla chips.

jack

our little swimmer is obsessed with his new speedo goggles. he is also in love with "hams". oh! you dont know what "hams" are?! well normal people refer to "hams" as a hammer. he can say hammer, but chooses to call them hams... i have no clue for the reasoning behind that one.

and of course, jack is still in love with fish, any fish, as long as its a big one! i have come to grips with the fact that he will never out grow this obsession, and thats ok.

lisa

i am head over heels for chick.fil.a's cookies 'n cream milkshakes....large ones! and i am utterly infatuated with The Pioneer Woman. she is freakin hilarious and i love love love her recipes. check her out at http://www.thepioneerwoman.com/ i have been glued to my computer, trying to read everything she has posted since 2006, which is a TON...why didn't anybody tell me about her sooner???? i'll be totally honest, at first i saw a little link of hers on a friends blog and i thought it was an lds lady that was posting food storage recipes. but then larissa sent me a link to one of her recipes, and ree drummond and i have been inseparable ever since!

isn't this the most lovely little blouse in the entire world! its the new silk frances cami from jcrew and i want one in every color. ive even told chris that our next daughter's name will be frances and we will call her franky, thats the power this top has!

christopher

since chris' birthday at the end of june, i think he has spent more time on his phone than off. at least he is getting his money's worth right! chris is also more addicted to publix rootbeer than ever before. when he gets a crazed look in his eye, i know we've run out and he might hurt someone if we don't drop what we are doing and get him some more...some more RIGHT NOW!!! chris also got a new macbook pro for school (which starts end of september). he's spending a lot of time figuring out all of the cool little tricks and gadgets its got. and, truth be known, the first night after chris got it, he went to work and i thought i would just check it out to see what all the hype is about. i didnt put it away until 2 hours later! that sucka rocks!!

oh how i LOVE sunday dinners!

we almost always have a big sunday dinner with all of us browne's. yesterday was no exception. chris made some delectable spare ribs in the dutch oven and garlic mashed potatoes that were truly heavenly. we also had sweet sweet corn, juicy watermelon, texas toast and pink lemonade. and to top it all off, loverly larissa made brownie sundaes from scratch. yesterday was truly a divine sabbath!

the spare ribs chris made were amazing! and i can say that because i actually ate them! in fact, i had seconds, thats how good they were! for those of you who know me, thats pretty incredible huh! for those of you who dont know me, well, shame on you. no, just kidding! im not the biggest meat eater on the planet, so having a second helping of ribs is quite a culinary feat for christopher! they were marinated in coca cola over night, then cooked in the dutch oven with onions and drenched in sweet baby rays bbq sauce with a little brown sugar and some cinnamon! i am licking my lips right now and thinking about going to heat up some left-overs.

we are looking forward to next month when rikki, alli, and jacob will all be here to join us for a sunday dinner (and a wedding).

over due

sorry for the delay in this long overdue post...we have been slightly busy this month. we were lucky to have a week long visit from chris' brothers, Marc and Doug, a couple of the boys, and grandpa Bart. they spent a lot of time in the water, but thats about all you can do in florida this time of year. unfortunately the fishing wasn't as good as we had hoped it would be, but i think everyone had a good time. ellie and i were extremely out numbered, but we managed to have fun - even with all the burping and tooting that goes on with 7 males in a small house :)

they were here for the opening of the 6th harry potter movie, so we all attended that on opening day. i really enjoyed the movie although there is always a feeling of dissapointment because there is NO way the movies can ever be as enjoyable as the books. but over all, it was really good!

thanks guys for coming! lets do it again, only next time let's invite some women too!

D Day

today is delayna's day, aka, D Day. we had a lovely shower for her at the church this morning. it was put on by her dear friend aprihl shapiro. there are a few more pictures on my facebook page if you are interested. it was fun to watch delayna in the spotlight because she usually tries to shy away form that sort of thing.

wedding blossoms

this morning we (larissa, my mam, and myself) worked on wedding preparations. we were able to put together all of the center pieces, pictured below, the coursages for the mothers, tony's boutenier, and delayna's bouquet. we were very productive! and, if i say so myself, they all turned out rather lovely.

i made my mom do this...she's the greatest :)

sorry the lighting wasn't the best. these pictures are a bit washed out, but you get the idea. it will be a VERY pretty wedding.

year book awards

yesterday we finger painted and here are the results!!! (cheers in the background)

Most messy

ellie bellie won this with flying colors...literally

Most likely to Succeed

i think ev looks like he could walk straight into an office, sit down to his computer, and start barking out orders, dont you? or maybe just his highchair...for now

Most Artistic

jenna was the only one who understood the concept of painting

Cutest Couple

Best Dressed

seeing as she was one of two that were dressed, this wasn't a difficult choice

Class Clown

wait, what the?! how did this get here! oh well! this just happens to be my all time favorite picture of my sweet little sister alli. hahaha, it is hilarious!!!

bloom bloom POW!

this beautiful bird of paradise bloomed within one hour this morning. we have been waiting for our first bloom all summer, so we were pretty excited about it! i LOVE living in florida!

our day consisted of splash parks, naps, and eating breakfast for dinner...this is the life! we went with everett, jenna, and dani. jenna and dani belong to our dear friend katie smith from our ward. jenna and jack will have to meet up again in twenty years. he would have some awesome in-laws!

last night i couldn't sleep. i had "the itch" to make something. so i decided to make an apron for the greatest niece in the entire world! kayla, this one's for you!!!! and it will be in the mail tomorrow...i hope you will be able to use this while spending time in the kitchen with your mama!

tastes and sights of the fourth

we had a fun ward party on the 3rd. our building has a spectacular view of a fireworks show put on by an outlet mall a little ways away. we had hot dogs, cookies, a marshmallow fight, a balloon toss, a bounce house (provided by frank fernandez), and the kids had a wonderful time. it was HOT and HUMID and HOT!

on saturday morning, larissa and i had a girls day out!!! we started bright and early and headed to downtown naples and went to the farmers market off 5th. (its really off 3rd, but you know). i was expecting it to be a bit bigger, but we did enjoy it nonetheless. i bought a german scone and some freshly made guacamole and lari bought some veggies, homemade soap that smells divine, and a french crepe. this little french lady practically made her buy the crepe for 5 BUCKS! so we split the cost and the crepe...it was heavenly! but what isnt when its filled with nutella!?

we walked to the beach from the market and saw two neat creatures. the first being this crab. it was much bigger than it appears in the picture. its legs were hairy like a tarantula, sick! larissa almost stepped on it, otherwise i doubt we would have seen it. and we also saw a manta ray while we were walking down the pier.

a couple more shots from the market:

after adventures off 5th ave, we went to the coastland mall. i havent been there since high school i think. of course it's completely different now. we played dress up and each ended up purchasing a few things :) none of which we took pictures of. *funny story* when we got in the car after the mall, we both started gagging a bit because the smell of the veggies from the market. well, after gagging, we both started laughing really hard and larissa accidently hit her head on the horn, which led to much more laughter!

at one store we split up, picked out a "nasty outfit" for the other person, and met back at the dressing rooms to try on our nasty new diggs. im sure we could have been even more ruthless, had really really immodest outfits been allowed! here is the result:

ok, these pictures dont do these outfits justice, seriously! larissa is WAY TOO CUTE in ANYTHING! i know, its not fair!

when we went to the dressing room, the lady asked "do you want to share a room?" hmmmm. tempting, but NO!

i think the cheapest item was this shirt at $88. ok ok, i really cant remember how much it was, but its close to that. but i do remember that "love kills slowly"

after the mall guess what else we did? you guessed it! we went to the next mall! we hit up anthropologie at waterside shoppes and i picked out a few shirts for my birthday...which is coming up...just so you all know...august 3rd...its a monday...just so you know ;)

after our adventures we went home to mom and dads and helped prepare a barbeque. yum! dad grilled ribs and chicken and all the trimmings! complete with chris' root beer keg! then we all, of course, jumped in the pool! it was a perfect holiday! jack can now swim the length of the pool. he is very slow and wears water wings, but still! my little hooligan is growing up!!!

i always enjoy spending time with larissa. she is one of those people that you cant help but have fun with. i am sooo lucky to be stuck with her forever, thanks to bo! no really, she is a wonderful person and i find myself thinking "what would Larissa do?" quite often. i love love love being so close to her, in friendship and location!