Can it be!??!

...that this child slept through the ENTIRE night with NO DIAPER!! And not only did he go all night without it, he went all night with NO ACCIDENTS!!!

WAY TO GO STERLING!!!!

He has been throwing a fit every night now for the past like two weeks because he doesn't want to wear a "baby diaper" (in his terms) and while I was at WalMart last night (buying diapers!)Heath put him to bed. He didn't feel like messing with it, so he told him if he goes potty right now then he wouldn't put a diaper on him. (he was going to go in later to put on the diaper after Sterling had fallen asleep) So he did and off to beddy bye time for Sterling, with no diaper.

Fast forward to when I come home from WalMart about 10:15 pm. Both are asleep and I assume Sterling is good to go for the night. We have never attempted this no diaper thing before so I had no clue! Well Heath had every intention to put a diaper on, but couldn't lift his head off his pillow for anything and totally forgot about it...until this morning of course. He goes to leave and figured he would go in there to wake Sterling up to go potty before he left figuring he would have a huge mess to clean up and better do it before I saw it! Well, low and behold he didn't and he gladly got up and went potty for Daddy!

So much for the entire package of Huggies Overnights I just bought!!! I'm not complaining though...YIPPEE!!

Just a good reminder

One of my good friends emailed this to me the other day. What a wonderful reminder to all of us! Just thought I would share.

YOU SAY GOD SAYS BIBLE VERSES You say: 'It's impossible' God says: All things are possible (Luke 18:27)

You say: 'I'm too tired' God says: I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28-30)

You say: 'Nobody really loves me' God says: I love you (John 3:1 6 & John 3:34 )

You say: 'I can't go on' God says: My grace is sufficient (II Corinthians 12:9 & Psalm91:15) You say: 'I can't figure things out' God says: I will direct your steps (Proverbs 3:5- 6)

You say: 'I can't do it' God says: You can do all things (Philippians 4:13)

You say: 'I'm not able' God says: I am able (II Corinthians 9:8)

You say: 'It's not worth it' God says: It will be worth it (Roman 8:28 )

You say: 'I can't forgive myself' God says: I Forgive you (I John 1:9 & Romans 8:1)

You say: 'I can't manage' God says: I will supply all your needs (Philippians 4:19)

You say: 'I'm afraid' God says: I have not given you a spirit of fear (II Timothy 1:7)

You say: 'I'm always worried and frustrated' God says: Cast all your cares on ME (I Peter 5:7)

You say: 'I'm not smart enough' God says: I give you wisdom (I Corinthians 1:30)

You say: 'I feel all alone' God says: I will never leave you or forsake you (Hebrews 13:5)

6th picture

I know there have been lots of people do the, 6th picture in your 6th folder on your computer, post so I wanted to do it as well. (sorry Rachel that you just did this one, but I thought it was fun!!) So here is my 6th picture in my 6th folder...

Sterling with his Papa (Heath's dad). I just love this picture because Sterling loves his Papa (and Nana!) so this is too sweet. This picture was taken Halloween night after we trick-or-treated around their neighborhood. Sterling got hot (surprise surprise, the kid is ALWAYS hot), so we took off his costume and let him crawl around. This was his second Halloween and he had just turned ONE but wasn't even walking yet!

Here he is in his costume... look at that face! (and no it wasn't too short, his pants were just hiked up!) How appropriate for this week! :)

And the winner is... with a sick twist

Well as I sit here sipping my 100th glass of Emergen-C, trying to shake this, I think, flu that I have had now for two days, trying not to bad mouth blogger at this very moment while it continues to try what patience I have left in me because it keeps downloading all my pictures in the wrong order!! (I am pretty sure that was a major run on sentence but who cares! work with me here!) Thanks to everyone for your input on the whole owning your own business thing, we are definitely going to take everyone's opinions/suggestion into account. I appreciate them all! We have a long road ahead of us, but it's going to be a fun/scary ride! Wow! I must say, what a weekend!! It started with our friends costume/scavenger hunt party Friday night. Oh.my.goodness. We had a BLAST!! They amped it up this year! On this hunt we only have an hour and a half to get this stuff. You can not pay for anything, and you have to take pictures of things, and get people to give you things. In other words look like fools around your town pretty much. But oh the fun! Thanks Dina and Bently for hosting this awesome party!

So here we are last year:

(Dog and Beth Bounty Hunter)

And here we are this year:

(Heath Brown Electric electricians)

Yeah, we definitely couldn't beat last years, but this one was pretty original huh!?! (and MUCH MORE COMFORTABLE!!!) We had shirts made and on the back it says "Heath Brown Electric" with our little guy symbol and heath's phone number. Now Heath can wear them as his work shirts. Pretty nifty huh! :)

Anyway, here are just some of the pictures from my group on our scavenger hunt...

YMCA in a laundry mat

picture of us in a shopping cart

in front of the Chick-fil-A cow

dancing in the back of a truck Now here are some of Heath's group: (they had 4 guys and one girl...poor Dina!) (I copied these off of someones pictures so that is why they are so small...sorry!)

picture of everyone forming a triangle in front of a bank sign...I think the guys got a little confused on their shapes!

I had to stick this in here...I can't believe he could fit in the front of the cart...ugh! forming a pyramid in the downtown court square

walking through a drive thru

picture in front of a restaurant that starts with a "Q"

Some other things included in the hunt that you don't see pictured are: picture with a pizza delivery person, fully dressed firefighter, in a cop car, blow up Halloween thing in a yard, us in Burger King hats, in an elevator, someone from our group wrapped in toilet paper like a mummy, in a boat, in a porta potty, at Wendy's, on a pay phone, and a few others. But there were LOTS more tangible things we had to collect. One of the hardest things was to get a receipt with $1.37 of gas on it. I, dressed in my nasty electricians outfit, got some guys to do this for us! YaY! You couldn't pay for any of the things we got and you couldn't steal anything...it was hard! But there were prizes to be won!! Guess who won!?!

We did!! Woo hoo!! Gift cards to WalMart...can't beat that!

Ok, look how tall this guy is! He is double some of us girls heights! He is 6'8" and YES he played basketball!

The crazy guys! And the silly girls

Then Saturday morning/afternoon we headed off to Sterling's gymnastics. My grandmother is in town and my mom brought her to watch. Well, let me just tell ya after three weeks of trying to get him to go/participate in the "big kid class" we will be joining Owen back in the 2 year old class! He doesn't want any part of this class. He literally just sits there and cries for the whole hour. So, back to Tuesday nights it is.

After the fiasco of gymnastics, we go home and rest up before heading to our annual pumpkin carving contest.

Claire and Sterling getting ready to carve. See, Heath hallows the pumpkin out, and I do the rest. I am a little anal when it comes to the carving of my pumpkin. It has to be perfect!

This is one of MANY attempts to get the cousins together for a picture. It just wasn't happening!

And this was as good as we could get! Poor Owen was sick and wasn't able to be there. Then they tried something new this year...a hayride! Boy did the kids love it! Heath in heaven on his four wheeler!

Now if you read a few posts ago, you will remember me telling you that there is a contest every year, and we always seem to come in 2nd place with our pumpkin. I will list the winning pumpkins 1st-3rd place in order:

1st place...Bert and Ernie...how cute is that!?!

2nd place: Casper 3rd place...skull and cross bones

Can you guess which one we were!?!?

You guessed it....2nd place!! We won a $50 gift card to Copeland's restaurant so I can't complain! :) (my family can stop laughing now!=) ) We had so much fun with family and friends though. Here is the other competition:

The kids pumpkins...too cute!

But as the night progressed I started feeling not so good. But we had live entertainment to keep my mind, somewhat, off the achiness that was starting to creep up. That's right, Heath and Chad provided us with some live entertainment with their guitars and voices. They were actually really good!! :)

Happy Fall!

Oh, Saturday night about 2:30 am, we awoke to Sterling sounding croupy again and since I was sick in bed (I was miserable by this time) Heath had to take care of both of us. It was a great night, let me tell ya! Heath and Sterling slept outside and in the living room on a palate for the rest of the night. So needless to say, we missed church yesterday morning and our annual Fall Festival at church. But thankgoodness Sterling is still too young to realize that he missed it. I hate that we missed that, but less candy for me to get ahold of, and better for you cause now you'll only have to suffer through one halloween costume post! ha

HEATH BROWN ELECTRIC up and running!!

Well it's official everyone, Heath Brown Electric is now up and running! We just opened a separate bank account today just for the business. We got his official business cards made today as well. But I gotta tell you, this whole 'starting a business from scratch' thing, is way more overwhelming than I thought it was going to be.

I think we are both just trying to take it day to day, but that is so hard because there is SO much involved with starting/owning your own business. That is why we kind of questioned God at first like, "are you really sure we are ready for this?!?" We both have zilch experience in business, marketing, sales, accounting, tax mumbo jumbo and everything else that goes along with all of this.

Please don't get me wrong, I am completely and totally relying on God. I have no doubt that He is going to provide for our family because He already has in all ways. I am simply saying that I am just getting overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done and things that need to be learned (by both of us). Mainly learned. I am not a good learner, if you will! I think it's because I get too overwhelmed by all the knowledge that is thrown at me at once and I try to store it all, and get frustrated when I can't remember and then that means failure.

My mom is a VERY successful business woman with her main part of her job being marketing and sales. She is a perfect source of info for us...still overwhelmed. Heath's dad owns his own VERY successful business and a wonderful source of info for us as well...yet still overwhelmed.

We are trying out our very first marketing technique next month. With the help of some of our family and friends we have put together some really neat fliers that are going to be hung around various places (IE. banks/small businesses that will allow it/supply shops, etc.) around the surrounding towns. In order to get Heath's name out there to say that he is on his own and ready for business, we are offering everyone 15% off their total bill for the month of November. (**so anyone who lives around here, if you have any electrical needs/wants, the month of November would be a time to take advantage of the offer! Seriously though just leave me a comment with your email address or phone number and we'll get ya taken care of!!**)

So I have a question for everyone. Anyone out there who is reading this who is in business for themselves (or really anyone who has skills/knowledge in marketing, sales, accounting, taxes, all of the above!) please give me some input on ways that make running a business successful and less complicated!! If you have never left a comment before, it's time to now! :) And for all my faithful commenter's...I welcome your thoughts/brain power as well!

I welcome all comments!!

Nothing=good and bad

Wow, it literally took me 3.5 hours to get caught up on everyone's posts tonight!! Whew! I'm worn out! But I must blog before I hit the sack since it is 10:30 and a school/work night!

The reason:

Sterling has been getting this red, nasty rash just around his mouth after eating certain things. What are those certain things you might ask? Well, that's what we would like to know as well. So we take him to get allergy tested today. UGH!

Since he has a slight (ok, extreme) anxiety for doctors offices right now, (you know since he threw up all over the place because he was getting his blood drawn for allergy testing at his doctors office a few weeks ago but they couldn't find the vein and were wiggling the needle around under his skin, while we were having to pin him down. So he got so upset and threw up all over Heath and some on the nurses! Ya know that probably doesn't have anything to do with it at all! I don't think I posted about that...too dramatic!) the whole 2.5 hours spent at the allergy specialist today was some great fun, let me tell ya! (please insert a VERY sarcastic tone here)

here he is not having the slightest clue what is about to take place Now he has some sort of clue because we told him it was going to be a few little "brushes" on his back to see what he is allergic to...here's what he kept doing while waiting! And it's time to start!! This child is so stinkin strong. I didn't get to take very many pictures because I had to help Heath hold him still. He was FREAKING out in this picture! We even pulled a trash can near by for the "just in case"! 36 pricks later....

They actually had a TV in there and you can pick out a movie to watch while you are waiting...how cool is that! So Sterling is watching "Chicken Little" while we wait the 15 min to see the results.

And here's the end result.... NOTHING!

Which is good an bad at the same time. Now we just have to figure out what is causing this rash. It goes away when you put hydrocortizone cream. We just have to watch and see what he touches or puts in his mouth and see if we can tell what it is. Great. Worn out after all that hard work. Oh, we went running/walking when we got home. This was taken at 7:00...a very rare occurrence in the Brown house!