the brower hour: our first October in Ohio!

October is always such a busy month... mostly good busy, but busy nonetheless!

when we moved in, just next to the driveway and next to the basketball hoop, there was a big pile of wood and bricks that had been burned. the grass surrounding it was dead and ugly. it was quite the eye sore! so using the materials that were already there, Chris built an official fire pit. all he bought were the little pebbles to go around it to fill in the big burned area. he did a great job!

we were busy in the kitchen during October!

a peaches and cream pie

my sister in law was throwing a going away party for her dear friends and asked me to make a couple dozen apple pie flavored caramel apples. it was a fun little project for me!

a chocolate blackberry cake for a family dinner.

Owen has done so many fun activities at preschool and is loving it so much.

we went to the Lynd Fruit Farm for an apple tour.

the tour guide did a fantastic job! he taught the kids a little dance to help them with their picking that was adorable to watch.

Twist and Twist and Twist and Tug!

Owen sure loves his teacher, Mrs Jackie!

she is truly phenomenal!

the preschoolers had a visit from the firemen and were able to get inside the truck and Owen thought it was awesome!

mrs Jackie made applesauce with the kids too.

it's been fun being able to watch Owen be independent and be a "big" kid the past couple months. he was very ready to start school, despite being three. he definitely has an oldest child personality, probably due to the age gap between him and Charlie.

Chris is now in the elders quorum presidency and I am an activity day leader and primary teacher in the newark ward. its been fun! the other lady that's in activity days is awesome and my first week she was teaching the girls archery and BB gun shooting and safety. super fun!

its been great being with Ellie! I've never been her teacher before and now I get to be with her on Sundays and Wednesdays.

she is left eye dominant, but shoots right handed... its especially interesting with a bow haha

our beautiful trees started showing signs of fall!

this was the kids first leaf pile and they thought it was special... they had no idea how big their piles would be come November!

we bought a leaf shredder that claims that one bag of their shredded leaves is equivalent to 16 bags of unshredded leaves. one afternoon Chris, Owen and I bagged 8 bags and that was only the tip of the iceberg. and we had hardly lost any leaves from the trees yet!

we have the best neighbors!!! in fact, Ellie has become very good friends with our neighbor, Evie. she is the sweetest kid ever! her stepmom and dad set up our neighborhood's first annual Hike and Hot Cocoa event. we hit the trails behind our house for an hour, stopping for some hot cocoa that Ellie and Evie made once we reached the top. it was a great afternoon!

October was full of lacrosse! practice every day besides Friday and Sunday.

because it typically isn't a fall sport, it was hard to schedule games with other towns. jack and Ellie each had only one day for games, which was a bummer. but they learned a lot during those games, being able to put into practice what they had been learning.

jack's game was so, so, so cold. the wind was intense.

Charlie became a sock monkey to keep his face warm lol!

but jack played great!!! they lost their games, but jack had a few really great scores. Chris had to work that Saturday, so we face timed with him during the game. I looked like an idiot trying to hold the phone so Chris could see but still keep watching the game lol! plus, I can't help but yell during their games but I have no clue what the rules of lacrosse are, so I definitely made a fool of myself a couple times yelling things that turned out to be rules for girls lacrosse and not boys!

Ellie's game was also FREEZING! but Ellie proved to be a fierce competitor! she is able to get past the defense and slam the ball in the net like its nobody's business! they lost their game though like the boys.

Owen and Charlie liked going to practice and games because there is always someone to play with, even if they are older. in fact, Owen loved playing with the big boys because they would wrestle and tackle and throw him all over the place.

even though jack and Ellie both played really well this season, things were not looking good for their team's for the end of season tournament in Canton, OH. Ellie's was on Nov 3 and jack's the 4th, so he wasn't able to participate because it was a Sunday. he was bummed.

eating fireballs to stay warm because it was in the 20's, YIKES!!!

they played three games, winning two out of the three. because they advance teams by the total number of goals made throughout the tournament rather than by how many wins they had, the girls took second place overall!!!

I don't remember the total number of goals but it was a little over 30... Ellie scored 12 of them!

the team that came in first was the one that beat our team during our only game of the season, and they creamed everyone.

Ellie had so much fun and only had one pretty bruised finger at the end of the tournament.

we drove by reed and cathy's old home and also stopped at Lehman's on the way home from Canton, which is an amish store that we visited years ago when jack and Ellie were really little.

we also stopped for dinner at an amish restaurant that was super busy. when we went to pay our bill, someone had already taken care of it! we were so touched by that and hope to pay it forward soon.

we've had a good time getting to know the missionaries serving here. we have a set of elders and a set of sisters. Ellie and I took the sisters out to a Mexican restaurant in Granville called Day Y Noche before the women's general conference session and had such an awesome time!

I love that Ellie gets to have examples of sister missionaries around her so that she can make that a goal in her life if she chooses to. I've tried to really help the sisters a lot with rides or going to lessons with investigators so that my kids know its something that is important to me.

Chris and I were able to sneak away for a few dates during October, either to lunch or the temple (THANK YOU Marc and DeLauna for babysitting and making it possible!) or out to dinner for our anniversary on the 22nd. its been so, so nice being able to find times to reconnect even though our life has been super busy since the move.

14 years with this man!

he knows me better than I know myself at this point and I'm grateful for that because he knows how to push me when I need to be pushed, how to let me be my own person when I need to be my own self, and how to let me figure out how to be a mom and a wife through trial and error. so thankful for the past 15 years that he's been the center of my world!

ps- Chris, sorry about your $20 peppercorn steak that turned out to be mostly peppercorn with a tiny bit of meat in the middle hahaha!