more December fun

so much happened last month that I'm very glad it's January and we can finally take a few deep breaths!

jack had his first archery tournament. it was a fun shoot, so it wasn't a legit tournament, but it was good practice. he was a nervous wreck when he arrived. his shooting wasn't his best because of it. hopefully he will be able to learn how to calm himself down during the season. tournaments start the end of January.

Ellie and I went on a date to watch one of the activity day girls at her figure skating winter show. we froze our buns off and we both laughed too hard to get a decent selfie.

why is it so cute when dad's read to their kids??

Ellie's class had a big project on Mayan civilization and they broke up into groups for individual topics. Ellie's group got geography and they made a volcano for the open house for families... but the volcano didn't work!! turns out that she and her partner, Peyton, were putting tiny bits of the baking soda and vinegar in at a time rather than using it all at once. luckily their teacher let them try again in class the next day and it worked great!

we have had a great time at activity days making stuff. we made sand art cookie jars to give to someone for Light the World and then the first week of January we learned how to make pretzels!

one of our Young Men leaders was walking by the kitchen and stopped in to tell us how good our pretzels smelled and he said "im not kidding, it smells so good I kinda wish I was a 9 year old and that I was a girl right now". that made the girls laugh so hard!

jack mastered card towers and taught Ellie one night while they babysitter so Chris and I could go to the temple.

Chris bought a new weber kettle and had to take it for a test drive with some ribs.

we were able to spend a lot of time hanging out with family during December!

caiden was visiting from BYU-I and Morgan and Chris were visiting from st Louis, so we got to spend some time with them. to say that the kids LOVED abby and Kate would be a huge understatement. not to mention how much fun they had playing ping pong with Caiden.

Charlie helped make chili and borrowed uncle Marc's chef's apron. he liked it so much, he told Marc that Marc should buy a new one and give this one to Charlie haha!

jack gave his first talk in sacrament meeting on the 30th and did a fantastic job! seriously proud parents over here!! his talk was on the importance of goals and how they keep us on the covenant path or get us back on it. he did very well and looked so calm and poised. unfortunately Chris was at work that day, but he received a nice text from a pharmacist in the ward that let him know what a great job jack did and that he should be proud of him.

we are.

and Owen was Owen all during December :)

December happenings!

Christmas time brings one of my favorite traditions! 

Christmas cards! 

I absolutely love receiving cards at Christmas time!

the past couple years I've tried really hard to have our cards in the mail sometime during the first week of December so it is out of the way.

the first Saturday of December is the annual Granville Candlight Tour in our village. all the businesses, restaurants, churches and museums on our main road open up with live music and special treats. there are horse drawn carriages giving free rides and Christmas trees line the streets. its pretty magical!

unfortunately this year it was raining. but he still went out for about an hour to check things out. we listened to a bluegrass band that played in front of the vault at the local bank, checked out the toy trains displayed all throughout our library, and visited a few other museums and homes before getting some hot cocoa, an apple fritter, and some Mexican street corn.

the elementary school kids get to make ceramic ornaments in art class and then each class gets to decorate one of the trees lining the sidewalks downtown. Charlie's tree is right in front of our post office this year.

hopefully next year the weather will be a little more pleasant.

for activity days last week the girls acted out the nativity and then they each made a little nativity for their room. it was a fun night.

Owen and I made a bunch of gingerbread for a competition at the ward Christmas party. he cut out all the stars and random shapes and I cut out the house.

then the big kids helped with the rest:

frosting, stacking, sprinkling

our house came in 2nd place!

the primary kids sang some sweet songs and then jack and the youth sang a beautiful song about the Savior that brought tears to my eyes. its truly the most wonderful time of the year (besides the cold weather, ha!).

after the party we went to Zanesville, which is about a 30 min drive, for a baptism at 8pm. I was able to go with the sisters to teach the lady being baptized and was so excited to see her make that change in her life. she is an amazing girl! technically she is in our ward boundaries, but she lives closer to the Zanesville building and is dating a guy in the Zanesville ward, so that's where she was given permission to attend and be baptized. 

the whole point of this story is that while at the baptism, we bumped into Alli and Jacob's nephew, Elder Dooley, who is serving a mission currently in the Zanesville ward. 

small world!!!

our kids thought it was pretty cool to meet someone else that is a cousin to Louie and Olive! hopefully he will be able to serve in our area at some point. we really love Dave and Dani, his parents. they stayed with us during Alli and Jacob's wedding and we really enjoyed getting to know them. that Call family is a special one and im so glad Alli gets to be apart of it!

last night I went to a cookie swap with some friends from church. Owen helped me make a bunch of cookies all day long!

on Monday night we wanted to Light The World in our community so for family night we went to bob Evans for dessert. while there we quietly picked out a little family that was eating and secretly paid for their dinner, to pay it forward for the kind people that did that for us last month. afterwards we went home and jack gave a sweet lesson on forgiveness. 

it was a good night! 

although if i'm being totally honest, Chris and I both regretted that piece of pie. no bueno, bob Evans. no bueno.

all I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth

this is a post all about Owen!

Owen was doing summersaults with Charlie and he bumped his tooth on Charlie's foot. it wasn't very hard, but it bled a lot and his tooth was loose. so the next morning I called his dentist and he told us to come in for an X-ray. 

wow, what a surprise we found!

just like big brother Charlie, Owen has an extra tooth right smack dab in the middle of his two adult teeth. 

owen's extra tooth was pushing on that baby tooth and that's why it became loose so easily when he bumped it. so the dentist pulled the baby tooth and Owen handled it like a champ with just a couple shots to numb things up. 

the very next day that extra tooth erupted. we are just waiting for the go ahead from our insurance and then the dentist will pull the extra tooth. hopefully it will allow that adult tooth to straighten up before it grows!

but missing his front teeth haven't slowed Owen down one bit!

he really, REALLY loves gingerbread cookies!

Owen also had his preschool Christmas program last Thursday!

they were dressed up like stars and our little boy sure looked like a little girl with those long locks haha!

IMG_6319 from Lisa Brower on Vimeo.

they sang two songs. the second song we didn't record because Owen literally spun in circles the entire time haha! turns out the little boy next to him was trying to stomp on his heel to pop his shoe off and Owen was making sure he couldn't. his teacher saw the whole thing and felt so bad, but we thought it was funny!

while making breakfast the other morning, Owen spotted three deer in our front yard and then two nights ago he was able to see three more in our backyard, one being a small buck.

he also spotted this little bird while we were shopping at Walmart last week. I tried to not let it gross me out that there was a living creature pecking at the food and bathing in its water...

Owen and I were invited to join aunt Amy and cousin Mason on a special preschoolers tour of the Columbus Museum of Art. our tour guide Molly was great with the kids. they had a fun time finding special hiding places for "dragon eggs" (pom poms) all through out the museum, while being super sneaky and quiet so no one would figure out that they had the dragon eggs.

two of my favorite things right here:

Owen and Chihuly 

I'm excited to go back to the museum... sans children ;)

we sure love this little fireball

thanksgiving weekend 2018

thanksgiving weekend was fantastic!

we headed south to Doug and Denise's house in Chillicothe for thanksgiving day. this is why we moved here! to be with cousins and loved ones around the holidays... and all the other days in-between!

when you go to Doug's, you shoot guns. 

that's just the way it is.

Chris was happy to help the kids shoot from the back porch.

dinner was delicious!!!

I sure love this man... and his gravy!

oh that's just Ellie giving a t rex a hug, no big deal haha

the best part of our day was when one of the dogs accidentally attacked one of the chickens. this was pretty weird, since the dogs are around the chickens all day every day and don't usually ever attack them. well, right outside the window we watched as Marc tried to wring the chicken's neck to put it out of its misery because it had a puncture in its chest... and it didn't work lol! with cousin Kate screaming, he then tried to chop its head off with a shovel and then finally succeeded with a knife. it was quite the commotion and hilarious! definitely a thanksgiving moment to remember!!!

 jack and I started a puzzle the day before thanksgiving and pretty soon Chris and Ellie joined in to help and we finished it over the weekend. we put the whole thing together only to find one piece missing! that is probably one of my biggest pet peeves... I was soooo mad! after watching me freak out for a couple minutes, jack finally pulled the piece out of his pocket. that kid thinks he's hilarious!

Friday night we had a girls night at DeLauna's house for all the moms and girl cousins and it was a blast!

we had pizza and the girls decorated Marc and DeLauna's tree before we watched The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. so good!

on Saturday we decorated the house with our Christmas music blasting and went tree hunting!

this is our new nativity that we bought in October while visiting Bart and Janie's friends. it is Amish made and all of the colors are the natural colors of the wood. pretty amazing. I love it!

after we got our tree we stopped at a little bar/restaurant called Bummies for some burgers.

we've got two different colored white lights on the tree which create this amazing stripped pattern. 

just kidding.

 its not amazing.

it's less noticeable during the day.

bring on the Christmas festivities!!!