girl time

ellie and i spend the afternoons together while the boys are napping, schooling, and working. i remembered these pictures i took at the beginning of the month. we were picnicking in the backyard, watching the bees on the flowers, and obviously, being silly.

she has the best smile.

  

pride & joy

wednesday morning started out rough with news on the election. not gonna lie, some tears were shed at the brower home. even jack was sad by the news. they "voted" at school and he proudly told me that he voted for mitt romney and then when his friend, ava, told him that she voted for obama, jack yelled "obama is a liar!". maybe we shouldnt have told jack that much :) but, i think everything will end up ok. at least, we are going to make sure everything ends up ok in our home. we have renewed our resolve to be self-reliant and get our food storage and gun supply together. 

but wednesday afternoon was an entirely different story!

jack was awarded the 

GATOR OF THE QUARTER AWARD

at school!

we are so proud of jack and the awesome kid he is becoming.

here is a portion of an email i received from his teacher the following day:

I can only imagine how proud you are as parents to have Jack! Myself as well as the other teachers are constantly impressed by his great behavior and willingness to be such a great help to anyone and everyone. He always acknowledges the other teachers and is incredibly polite. I am not sure how much he told you about the award, but only one student in each grade receives it each quarter (voted on by the teachers of that grade). Jack truly deserved the award and is a great inspiration to all other students.

when picking him up from school, i have had several teachers stop and tell me how helpful jack was in art class or spanish class or in PE or with a substitute and he has had two "positive referrals" sent home from the principal letting us know that he excelled in various areas. we are so glad jack is our "first quarter of the gator", as he keeps calling it. we celebrated by going to.... chick-fil-a!

then yesterday we went to feed the horses

all three of the kids enjoyed it. in fact, when we left jack was in tears because the horses looked sad that we were leaving (we didnt want tell him it was because the carrots were gone). and then when we got home ellie was crying on her bed because she just loves horses so much and already missed them. she really does love horses and sleeps with 2 horse toys most nights. she was thrilled to feed/pet them. and, truth be told, i love feeding them too. theres just something so majestic about horses. not to mention their soft lips nibbling on your palms... i love it!

then the cows came over and unfortunately most the carrots were gone, but they tried to give one to this little guy.

check out that tongue!

im thinking this girl needs to get on a horse and try it out... maybe for christmas???

soccer is over

we had a great fall soccer season.

jack is getting pretty dang good. he has even begun trying to pass the ball to his teammates, which have no clue whats going on, and he has figured out the importance of having a goalie. ellie wasnt afraid to get in there either, but i dont know how long she will want to keep playing. before each game she would say, "im TIRED of soccer. i dont WANNA play soccer", but she'd get out there and play once we were there.

jack and his best bud, Ava.

yes, they are holding hands.

and yes, chris is going to talk to him about it :)

they hold hands everywhere they go.

poor charlie.

he spent every tuesday night strapped in his stroller growling and grunting, trying to escape.

luckily chris made it for the last game (making 2 out of 8) and was able to help entertain the little beast.

auntie

being an aunt is the best.

we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of delayna's second babe, who is due at any moment! 

good luck layna!!! and good luck quentin- your world is about to get rocked, kiddo :)

grandma and aunt rikki flew to hawaii last saturday to be there when the baby arrives- lucky girls. the last text i got was saying they had just left the PCC and were headed to waikiki.

happy hauntings!

what a whirlwind of a month october was!

we had many celebrations, so we'll tell our story through pictures rather than words.

ward halloween party on the 26th:

wonder woman, super man, and clark kent

check out grandma linda's freaky skeleton hand that she passed out candy with!

harvest fest 2012 at 

bonita springs charter school

on the 27th:

waited in line for 1 1/2 hours for this:

while chris listened to the BYU football game on his phone and controlled, or tried to control, charlie

then waited in line again for the nerf gun maze:

ellie's preschool

fall festival on the 26th:

 charlie loved every second 

(until he couldnt have a piece of candy and had the biggest tantrum known to man, but i wont go into that)

this is how ellie prepared to enter the petting zoo:

halloween

at the brower house:

we had a fancy dinner complete with "mummy dogs" and plastic wine flutes.

our elf, skippy, has stopped by a few times through out the year, just to remind the kids that santa is always watching and taking notes. he dressed up as a ghost for halloween (although he looks a little bit more like a kkk member if you ask me). the kids were ecstatic to see him!

along with all of our fun events, the kids turned into to some pretty mean and feisty kids. after the party at jack's school, they were being rotten and in the heat of the moment, as a consequence chris decided to take away their trick or treating privileges. yesterday morning i got a text from chris saying he didnt think he could stand not taking them. he caved. so...

ready to trick or treat!

to say charlie was head over heels about running (RUNNING) from house to house to charm people into giving him multiple handfuls of candy, would be the understatement of the century. he knew what was going on and took full advantage!