Update=)

Well, I haven't done a family update in a while, so here goes.

Kole-man is growing like a weed!! He is a silly sweet boy and is really doing well this year in 1st grade. We are so proud of him!! He made straight "A's" for the semester, and his behavior has improved greatly from a year ago in school. Mom and Dad LOVE this! We get GOOD notes home now! Here is a silly picture to entertain you:

Kole is doing to do a fun new program at FSU in a few weeks called "African Adventure". He gets to go after school and do crafts and sing songs and do experiements!! It is through the science program, and he is soooo into it. I'm sure that this will only last a few more years (meaning his enthusiasum for learning) so we are going with it for now!!

This child needs to be in sports! Unfortunally, his mother is always missing the sign ups for football each summer. Hopefully this year, we will figure it out=). We were going to try wrestling this year, but we decided to give Kole another year before going down that road. So, no sports at the moment, although I wish there were SOMETHING active for him to be involved in. For now, its just kinect games (which I might add make a person sweat!!!!)

Kole has some red ear slider turtles that we keep in his room. We don't "play" with them because they carry germs, but they are really fun to watch. We recently got a new set up for them called the Turtle Tub. It is massive. But really neat! They even have an area for basking and (gulp) egg laying. I don't know what I'll do if we have baby turtles, but it could happen, as I have found out (through some research) that one is a boy and the other is a girl. We may be shipping baby turtles to everyone in the family.

We are in the process of re-doing his room, piece by piece. It's gonna take a bit to get it done, but once it is, I will feel so much better! An unorganized room drives me mentally insane. We need storage in his room as well. Any ideas? He needs one big dresser (as it is he has three small ones....ugh). We looked at a neat "cubby hole" bookcase from Ikea, and we might go with that, but I am afraid its going to be costly to get enough storage for him.

Onto my next boy, Hubby Zach. He is doing well! Z is much happier now that he has a new job (and so is his family!). He now has soooo much more flexibility in his work. He can stay home if he wants to, or go to the office if the house is driving him nuts. The organization is called "WV Coalition to End Homelessness". He likes being able to focus on the one area of homelessness instead of being pulled in several different directions, like he was in his old job. He actually ENJOYS his job. He likes doing it. He works late because it is interesting to him. So weird. I mean, I like teaching, but when I walk out the doors on the weekend, I am done till Monday morning. Now, if I farmed or crafted for a living, I probably wouldnt stop working either=)!!!!!

Zach is still trying to be "Primal" as well. Eating primally basically means eating like a cave man. It works for him, and I am sure it would work for me as well, but I love bread. And other carby things. Alot. So I only do primal on occasion.

This is the cookbook. Our favorite recipe is Primal Enchiladas. SOOOOO Delicious!

We went on a wintery hike through the woods, recently,  in DEEP snow. That was a cardio work out for sure! Here are a few pics from that.

It was soooo cold and snowy!! These two pictures are of one of our favortite places. 27 Falls (I think it's 27...maybe its 21.....I dunno, but we love it!) You have to hike quite a bit to get to it. We were out there for a good while too.

So this was probably way illegal, but we were pretending to be survivor man. We wanted to see it we could make a fire with wet stuff. We got some some smoke, no fire. We would never survive the wilderness in the winter.

Its a family affiar!

Kole was "SOOO TIRED!!" and his legs hurt, so daddy zach carried him for a short while. This child is over 70lbs. I'm not sure how he didn't throw out his back.

Now what you've all been waiting for.....an update on ME!!! Haha, j/k.

(Edited- due to recent happenings in the news....lol)

On a sadder note, I was pregnant for a little while and now I'm not=(. I was supposed to be 12 wks. and a day, on the day I miscarried. I know people don't normally blog about things like this, but I felt like putting it out there. I always like to give the pink elephant some attention before letting him loose.

We had been trying for a long while and so we were very excited when we finally got pregnant. Nervous, but excited too. We told Kole right away, and he then told his teacher, the bus driver, his 20 closest friends, and the neighbors all about the baby!! So, we had to tell lots of people about the misscarriage, which totally sucks, especially because you usually have to tell them pretty soon after it happens (to avoid embarrasment on their part) and it is still a tender subject at that point. But bless his heart, he was just so excited too! So we were super bummed for a while. There are still sad moments, but as a family we are healing well from the tragedy, and have grown closer because of it.

All that being said, I know God has a plan. He is in control and I trust Him. End of story. Without that, I think it would have been more difficult to move past the hurt than it has been.

So anyways, onto another subject. I have been crafting alot! On the side of this page, you will see some new things I posted on etsy, but I have made many other things that I'm not selling=). I am currently working on a project for my nephew, River. He will be here soon!! I don't want to give away the surprise, but its gonna be great. I have also made several aprons (and need to make several more). I have been giving these away to my friends, but I figure they will be my walking advertisements!!

I wear button earrings almost every day. I love them!! They are on my site as well.

I promise that I will post some crafty pictures soon.

So all is well with the Brown's. Just pluggin along. Ready for spring and warm breezes. I need to play in dirt. We need sunshine and fresh air. And its coming!! Can't wait!