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???