our special boy

i don't think little boys come any more special than jack.

he is incredibly thoughtful, sensitive, generous, intelligent, a jokester, optimistic, adventurous, focused, extremely athletic, and spiritually minded. he has his moments, like all kids do, but they are short-lived. he is my best helper and i often find myself treating him like i would a teenager or even an adult, because he is quite mature. i have to remind myself not to speed up his childhood and to treat him like an 8 year old. 

we love our jack

jack chose to be baptized a member of the church of jesus christ of latter day saints. about a month ago he told chris and i that he had been praying to know if that was the right choice and he knew in his heart that it was.

we all feel so blessed that grandma and grandpa could be here for this special day.

jack asked grandpa bart to baptize him and daddy to confirm him. he also had grandma speak about baptism, grandpa speak about the holy ghost, and ellie, dani & jenna sing a special musical number, When I am Baptized.  

our hearts were so touched to see the room fill to over-flowing with so many there to support jack in this decision. there were over 65 people, including his school teacher Mrs Been and her husband, his soccer coach Bryant, along with his wife Pam and their son Ducati, and our friends Mat and Julie Strasser with their two little boys. jack is a wonderful example to all and it was heart-warming to see all the people that he has already made an impression on here in arkansas in the year that we have lived here. he also had so much support from our family and friends that aren't close by. from special gifts, to thoughtful emails and cards, he was showered with kindness. thank you everyone for all the love!

after the baptism, we had a waffle bar in the gym. i wish we had taken pictures because it was seriously awesome and a total hit with all! and, it was extremely easy to put together.

aunt layna and uncle tony even sent a baptism package all the way from Hawaii, complete with baptism leis that he has hung up around his room.

this year i have made a video for each of the kids birthdays. i'm not sure if it is the fact that turning 8 is so special, or that I'm in denial that i have an 8 year old already, or the pregnancy hormones, or perhaps a combination of all those things, but making this video was an emotional project for me. emotional in a good way. packing 8 years worth of memories into a 3 minute video is challenging. what a kid! This is currently his favorite song, Riptide by Vance Joy.

jack is 8 from Lisa Brower on Vimeo.

october is over

october was nuts!

but in the best kind of way. 

we celebrated our 10th anniversary, jack's 8th birthday, halloween, the fall season, and are enjoying a visit from grandma and grandpa brower. whew! thats not to mention all of the projects we've been involved with for school, church, and of course growing a human should be added in there somewhere too.

bart and janie flew into town just in time for all of the festivities and the kids are in heaven! we get three great weeks with them before they head home and begin their adventure as missionaries in ohio for the second time. we love love love them!

on to our activities...

traditionally, your 10th anniversary is celebrated by giving diamond jewelry (trust me, i googled it). but chris and i don't do things very traditionally. instead of jewelry, we opted for something a little more exciting... chris built an AR-15 and i bought a 9mm handgun, which is a little easier for me to handle than our 45. and that way we don't have to take turns when we're shooting :) we also got our family a membership to an outdoor shooting range outside of town at a place called Thor. needless to say, our anniversary was explosive.

charlie tags along and collects all of the shells he can find, calling it his gold treasure.

the day after our anniversary is jack's birthday.

usually we make the kids wait to open presents until the evening, mostly because we can and its fun to watch them squirm and get all hyped up. but since daddy was going to be working late, jack got to open gifts before school, which he thought was AWESOME.

we visited him for lunch at school

he got a metal detector (best gift for an adventurous boy that doesn't really play with traditional toys) and tested it out on grandma's knee replacement... it works!

charlie even likes it

here's jack learning how to use his new pocket knife from grandma and grandpa. all of our pencils are sharp now, which makes me smile and think of my dad because thats how he always sharpened pencils.

jack had such a wonderful birthday and to top it off, he was baptized on the 26th, which i'll blog about separately. but it was a great and proud moment for our family.

celebrating fall in the ozarks!

we enjoyed an afternoon trip to Cox Berry Farms to go apple-picking, which was a first for me and the kids. it was great fun and even though the orchard wasn't much of an orchard, the kids are still talking about "the time we went apple-picking", which makes it a total success.

i'd love to say that we've made apple pies and crisps and applesauce and all things apple with our pickings, but we've just snacked on them and made caramel apples for FHE last monday. nothing too exciting, but tasty nonetheless!

halloween!!!

we celebrated this year with three different outings: a school trunk or treat, a ward Fall Extravaganza, and a Halloween Fiesta at the smiths on the 31st.... all of which produced a whopping amount of candy.

this year we dressed up as harry potter, hermione granger, and dave the minion. i am seriously loving this harry potter phase in our home right now!

there was face painting at the ward party and this is what charlie looked like most of the night :)

chris won the chili cook-off for the "heartiest" chili at the ward Fall Extravaganza. he spent the afternoon smoking beef ribs then adding the meat, along with sausage and bacon, to his chili. obviously, it was out of this world delicious.

here he is accepting his award. 

he's very humble.

he has since put his "trophy" on top of our kitchen cupboards, out of my reach. i've reminded him that i am very accurate with my handgun and will have no problems taking care of it if it stays up there for too long :)

i was a bit of a grinch this year and said we wouldn't be carving pumpkins because when "we" carve pumpkins it really means "me" and i just wasn't feeling up to it this year. well, thank goodness chris isn't a grouch because when he announced we'd be carving pumpkins for FHE last week, the kids thought he was the best daddy in the world. and with all the extra adult hands around, i wasn't the only one scooping and carving, hooray!

chris had last week off of work. on thursday, we kept the kids home from school and took grandma and grandpa on an adventure up to the bentonville/rogers area. since I'm only a couple weeks away from delivering, i stayed home and went to a dr.'s appointment.

after an enjoyable visit this summer, chris took everyone to the gorgeous Blowing Springs for a picnic and a hike and also made a trip to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

what a month!

a birthday party

how is it possible for our little jack to be turning 8 next week??? i remember when he was little, i would see other people with their 8 year old getting baptized and it felt like that stage of my life was so. far. away. because i mean seriously, when your oldest looks like this....

.... you think the only things in your future are diaper changes, feedings and spit-ups. not their baptism and 8th birthday. 

well, life hit fast forward and we are fast approaching that time. so naturally a celebration is in order!

jack wanted to go with his papa and jenna to a razorback football game for his birthday, so call in the hogs they did!

they braved the cold and the rain and thoroughly enjoyed the arkansas/alabama game last weekend.

jack said his favorite things about the game were that jenna bought him cotton candy and that they had a great view.

this was their view... all the way at the top...

afterwards they hit up denny's because it was late and they were out on a special outing without their younger siblings and why not? chris said they had a major case of the giggles while there.

wooooooo pig sooie!

wooooooo pig sooie!

wooooooo pig sooie!

 RAZORBACKS!

and in other jack news:
he received this on monday

poor girl... he circled no.

he told her friend (the one that delivered the envelope), that he isn't supposed to "like" girls yet. chris told him the only girl he can like right now is his mama. 

a few fall festivities

fall is trying to decide whether or not it wants to stay here in arkansas- with some cool days that tease us into thinking it has arrived and then a few hot days just to keep us on our toes. but we aren't letting the warm days keep us from celebrating this time of year.

we've been enjoying pumpkin! pumpkin cookies, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin oatmeal. you name it, we've been enjoying it. we picked up pumpkins at sams club. they grow 'em big here!

there's no way in hades we are going to be carving these big boys.

our dear friends, the gibson's, invited us to their neighborhood fall festival a few weekends ago. we had such a wonderful time! a little lady in their neighborhood puts on a dinner and a little homemade carnival. there was even a raffle and i won twice!!! I've never won anything before, it was fantastic.

the kids got to launch pumpkins

and play the oh-so-sanitary game of bobbing for apples. 

raise your hand if bobbing for apples at a public event gives you the heebie jeebies too... 

ellie bobbed against a boy from her school class and decided that bobbing for apples just doesn't work if you are missing so many teeth :)

jack challenged Asher and he accepted with enthusiasm! 

it was great fun to watch!

the boys requested mustaches at the face painting booth. i think the girl painting had never seen a mustache before.

charlie spent most of his time hoarding the fish pond

and riding the "roller coaster"

there was even a maze and it was amazin'.

we've also been preparing for our halloween costumes by making wands. its going to be a very harry potter-ish year!!

any guesses on which is charlie's wand?

jack and ellie are quite pleased with their wands and believe even harry and hermione might think they are the real deal.

we've also tried on a few masks here and there,

and made a few of our own too

we are hoping to go to a local orchard and pick apples sometime this weekend. 

life is good.