The Browny Bunch

Aaron has recently agreed to say his own prayers.  He always prefaces his prayers by saying they will be little prayers because he is a little boy.  However, his tend to be longer than what any of the rest of us say, including Brad and I.  He goes through a list of things he is grakeful for (a combo of grateful and thankful).  Here is an example of a portion of his prayer this morning:  "We're grakeful for motorcycles because they're fast.  We're grakeful for Mom and for Dad and for Sarah and for Chloe and for Kyle and for Emma and for Little Man.  We're grakeful for jet planes because they're fast.  We're grakeful for scary saber tooth tiger pumpkins.  We're grakeful for pillows and for cocoa.  We're grakeful for mom's robe because it's soft.  We're grakeful for our blankets..."  
I know that I will miss these prayers someday!

December has been pretty busy so far.  Not in a super crazy way, but busy nontheless.  We got our Christmas tree set up and decorated.  We dealt with burned out lights, placing it up on a table to keep it out Emma's way, blown fuses, and hot plugs.  But when it is lit (for no more than 30 minutes at a time), it looks great!

Emma has taken to walking like a champ.  She is walking most of the time now.  We love to watch her cute toddler walk. 

This is one of the outtakes from our Christmas card picture photo session.  I was hoping Emma would look up at me, but she was much more interested in grabbing Kyle's face.  haha!

Emma's first time with two pony tails.  So cute!

The after-effects... not as cute, but pretty funny!

Emma also aquired some injuries last week as the result of her toddling around.  Kyle bumped her nose with the bumbo seat that he was goofing around with.  It gave her a pretty good scratch.  Then that evening she knocked the side of her forehead and got a bruise.  The next day she did a face plant onto a toy truck and bruised her cheek.  This picture was taken while her cheek was still red.  The bruise showed up the next morning.

Sarah had an 80's day at school.  I showed her how we used to wear our socks.  I know.  Awesome!

Aaron kept refusing to let me take his picture the other day.

I finally got one of him later in the afternoon.  It took a few tries to get one with his eyes open.  We had some good giggles about that.

Today Chloe stayed home from school because of a sore throat.  She was resting on the couch and Aaron snuggled up next to her.  They both slept like this for over an hour.  Emma's not the only one who's so cute!

I think these pictures speak for themselves...








Ta Da!

I have a lot to be grateful for.

This great guy.  I don't know where I'd be without him.

This gorgeous girl, who is smart, kind and beautiful.  (And yes, she now has glasses!)

This beautiful girl who is fun and spunky and keeps me on my toes as a mom.

This handsome boy who is growing up faster than I would like.

This cutie patootie, who only likes to be called Aaron Curtis Brown, who still snuggles me at least 3 times each day.

And this little snuggle bug who lights up our lives....

It doesn't get any better than this bunch!

I am in the middle of learning one of life's lessons right now.  How to NOT regret past decisions, but how to learn from them.  Some of this involves our house, but today my focus is on Sarah's schooling.  Once again she is bored at school.  She comes home nearly every day saying, "Guess what we learned about in math today?"  She is not learning.  She finishes her assignments in class and rarely has homework.  (Not that I'm really complaining about no homework.  It just seems indicative that she is breezing through the material.) 

We had similar issues just before she went into 5th grade, but figured we'd wait it out and hope for things to improve.  They didn't.  She had an excellent 5th grade teacher who definitely listened to our concerns.  There just wasn't much she could do about them.  She told us about how the math and literature programs changed in 6th grade preparatory to moving into junior high.  So we waited and hoped for things to improve.  They didn't.  So by the end of 5th grade we wondered if it would be better to have Sarah skip 6th grade and move up to 7th.  You should have heard the exclamation points when that came up!  It's rarely done!  She might feel overwhelmed by the older kids!  She'll miss all the fun of her 6th grade year!  The 6th grade curriculum will be better!  So on to 6th grade she went.  And.... repeat frustrations.  We had some teacher support, but there's only so much that they can do for 1 student when they have to focus on teaching 25.  I debated homeschooling.  But for a variety of reasons, that didn't seem to be the right answer.

Sixth grade came and went.  There were frustrations, yes, but we kept thinking 7th grade will be better.  She'll be in junior high.  She'll still be in Quest*.  She'll be able to take 7+ math.  And there have been some things that are improved, but there are still too many frustrations.  Brad and I decided last night that we are done putting up with mediocre education.  Sarah has needs and they aren't being met. 

I emailed her counselor today expressing my concerns about her frustration and suggesting that she might do better in 8th or 9th grade math.  Brad is willing to help tutor her in any concepts she needs to learn in order to catch up to their curriculum (if needed).  I was disappointed in the counselor's response.  It was threefold.  #1: He suggested I speak to her math teacher, who, he felt, could better address our concerns.  #2: He then said it was "practically unheard of at Marcus for kids to move up a grade level, especially just for one class." #3: He would relay my concerns and talk to some others at the school (her math teacher, the principal, and one of the vice principals) and get back to me.

I think it is #2 that bothers me the most.  Really?  No one else has ever had a problem with the math curriculum and has needed more than just a chat with the teacher?  And so?  Just because no one else has moved up doesn't mean that isn't the right answer for Sarah. 

Now we wait.  Wait to see what the school's response is and then move ahead from there.  All I know is, I wish we had decided to have Sarah skip 6th grade.  But we didn't.  So we had better learn from that decision.  I know that we will not be sticking with the status quo when it isn't working for us!!




* I'm also ready to find out what the literature curriculum is for all 3 years in her Quest program.  She has also had barely anything to do/read in that class.  I figure if I know what books they will be studying, then I can supplement with classics and others that aren't on the list.

Can you believe October has come and gone? I can't! I started out the month by ditching Brad and the three oldest kiddos for a week in Utah. I went to help my mom do some yard work since her energy was still pretty low. It was nice to visit with her for the week. We also spent some time with Brad's family and that was nice too. We had all of the cousins (minus the one's I ditched, obviously) get together for Sunday dinner. It was quite the pack!

Emma was the beginning of another round of "Brown babies".  From left to right is Jackson, Carter, Leah and Emma.  Number 5, Landon, made his appearance on Oct 29th.

Here are the rest of the cousins that were at Grandma and Grandpa's house that day.  The front row is the last round of "Brown babies".

Once we got home from Utah, we kicked it into gear working on Halloween costumes, surviving Parent/Teacher Conference week (which is all half days) and Halloween itself.  Brad spent most of his free time installing a sprinkling system in our backyard.  What a project!

In Aaron's free time, he got his hands on the camera and took photographs of anything and everything, including himself.

Then came Halloween.  I kept wanting to sing, "On the first day of Halloween, my true love gave to me..." because we stretched out the festivities for 4 days this year.  It felt like longer because of the time it took to get all of the kids' costumes together.  On Friday the 28th, Sarah got to wear her costume to school.  Then that evening I took all of the kids to EPO's fall carnival.  On Saturday the 29th, we had our ward's Trunk or Treat.  I love those!  Such a great way to do trick or treating!  On Sunday the 30th, we finally had time to carve our pumpkins.  And of course, on Monday the 31st, we finished celebrating Halloween.  Brent and Ash came over for dinner and a couple of short Halloween movies and all the kids except Emma went trick or treating without us.  (Another great way to do trick or treating!)

Here's the gang in their costumes:

Sarah was Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice.  She was happy when people recognized that she was wearing a Jane Austen (Regency) style costume.  I mostly enjoyed making her costume.  I had a HUGE problem when it came time to do the button holes.  Luckily I was able to patch things up in the end.  Most of her costume was made from an old duvet cover and sheets that I'd saved for fabric.  All we had to buy was the lavender fabric and a little bit of trim.  Oh, and gloves of course!

We had fun getting her hair into the right style for the period.

Chloe wore an old dance costume of Shelley's layered over a long sleeve shirt.  We bought some devil horns and turned her into a devil.  She had a great look!

Aaron was our tubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff.  I'm still so happy about the deal I got on this costume forever ago ($4 @ Costco)!

Kyle was a ninja.  The only thing we had to buy for his costume were his ninja swords.  He was so excited to go to the dollar store and pick those out!  The fabric for his armor was leftover from other sewing projects.  I was going to make him a black jumpsuit and hood as well, but realized that his fleece pants and EPO hoodie turned inside out would look great and involve no work on my part.  Woohoo!

Emma's ghost dress was also made from an old sheet.  (How classic is that?!)  I made it short though, so she could crawl around and not get too hung up on it.  She was the cutest little ghost ever!

Now we are on to November!  Yard clean-up, thankful thinking, and prepping for Christmas time and the youngest two's birthdays.

Well, a month has gone by since my last post.  Stuff has happened.  Pictures have been taken.  I've just been too busy living life and sqeezing in a nap or two (or three) to blog.  I'll be back.  Eventually.

Emma has started to pull up on things so that she can stand.  I found her in her crib the other morning like this...
Now she is pulling up on the gate in front of the stairs, the boys' toy drawer, us (if we're sitting on the floor or holding her), and almost the couch.  She can't quite reach the couch cushions yet because we own tall-people couches. 
After having this sweet girl in our family for 8 1/2 months (which was a long stretch of time on the other side of the womb), I can't believe how time has flown! 

Last Wednesday was the first day of school for the three oldest kids.  They were all super excited and so was I!  We kicked off the day by having cinnamon rolls for breakfast.  There's nothing like sugaring up the kiddos and then sending them off to someone else! Muah-hahahahaha!

Sarah is in 7th grade this year and so she headed off to the junior high.  We have all been looking forward to this for over a year now.  So far, she is enjoying the change.
I feel I should mention that the weather forecast for the day was to warm up to the mid-80s.  Originally Kyle had picked out shorts and a t-shirt to wear.  Chloe did NOT want to wear her running shoes (they're not new) because she didn't have PE on the first day.  It seems they really wanted to wear their new duds and I didn't think it was worth a fight.  They all came home feeling pretty toasty but happy about how they looked.  Believe me though, they all wore shorts for the next few days (since they were also 80 degree days)!

Here is everyone but Sarah at the bus stop.  It was weird to send her off to school before the other kids.  It will definitely take some getting used to.  I think she's glad to get out of the house before the "Hurry up, Chloe"s begin.
Aaron, Emma and I are enjoying our unscheduled, quiet days together.  Yay for school!

In an attempt to not spending the ENTIRE summer as a boring mom, I took the kiddos to the zoo.  I also asked Ashley to come with me.  She's good backup in the wrangling department!  We went to Point Defiance because #1 it's close, #2 it's small enough to manage in a few hours, and #3 it's close.  We started off with the obligatory picture inside the shark's mouth:

They were having a special exhibit, "The Scoop on Poop", which taught all about poop, how it is disposed of in nature, where it comes from, etc.  They had a hilarious cutout which only Kyle would deign to pose in.  I think you can see why...
Nice facial expression, dude.

I let the oldeset four ride the camels.  Kyle wanted to do it all by himself.

Chloe did too.

Sarah rode with Aaron.  I was glad she was happy to do it because I didn't want to pay for another ride for myself.

We also fed the budgies, but I forgot to take my camera into the exhibit.  The kids all had a great time in there.  We rode the carousel too.  Ashley tried to take some pictures, by my camera is pretty lame and it was hard to get a good shot.  She did get this one of Emma while we rode though.