It's a Sunny Day in Our Lives!

For those of you who are not in the Greenville/Greer area this week, let me tell you something. This weeks weather has been INSANE!! I've attached a video of the Boys playing outside yesterday afternoon.

The temperatures have been in the high 70s with 80 being the high yesterday. It's unbelievable! Except, we're living in it, so it is believable I guess. Anyway, we love it! I'm able to wear flops again and Baby Harry loves not having to be all bundled up when we go outside! It's nice for now, but with Christmas less than 2 weeks away, I'll be ready for the cold (and turtlenecks, right Annie B!?) when the weather turns normal this weekend.

Before I forget, I have a friend (well, I guess he's my friend-he's really Rhett's friend and my Boys' playmate!) who has an awesome blog so I want to give him a shout out! Check it out here: http://kentbateman.blogspot.com/ . It's very thought provoking. One thing that I have learned about blogging is that if you read someone's blog and agree (or disagree) about something that is written, let the author know! Let then know if you like reading it! Let them know that there are people out there reading it! I love it when you email me and comment on my goings on (is that a word?!) or comment directly on the blog. I feel validated!!

Okay, so it's Wednesday and I have decided to make it WONDERFUL WEDNESDAY! Here are 5 wonderful things happening in the Brown Family right now.

1. Reece and Garett are on the same basketball team with church and loving it! They have won their first 2 games! Hootie Hootie!! Let me know if you want to come to a game and I'll give you the schedule!

2. My kitchen is coming into the final stretch of being re-done. Once we are finished anyone who wants to come over for dinner is welcome! I love my new stove/oven and can hold so much more food in the fridge now! BIG hugs to Rhett for all of his hard work reconfiguring my cabinets so the microwave will be up and out of the way!

3. Logan LOVES acorns! And I don't mean just a little bit! I have them all over my house! We can't walk barefoot because he drops them and then I can't find all of them till I step on one. I find them in every load of laundry because he puts them in every treasure pocket he has. This is much cleaner than the rock phase since those were covered in dirt!

4. It's only 13 days til Christmas!! I love Christmas! The lights, the songs, the hot chocolate, the craziness...it's all so much fun! It's awesome to talk about the reason we celebrate Christmas with the Boys too. Garett is full of questions about God and how we know that Jesus is beside us all day. I think that this year the Christmas Story will have new meaning to him. What an exciting time!

5. Finally, I am happy to report that my Speech class is over! I gave my final speech last Friday night (and received a 100!) and took my final test on Monday and if my calculations are correct, I ended up with a B. That's great for me since #1-I hated school before and still wonder why I have gone back and #2-Most of you know that I love to talk, I just hated having to plan what I was going to talk about! I'm a fly by the seat of your pants kind of girl so there you go! A B is awesome! Now I am looking at taking 2 classes beginning in January and possibly auditing Rhett's math class before I take my only math class left.

Okay, that's all for now since a Mom's work is never done! I think I'll put a load of laundry in, eat some bon-bons and take a nap on the couch! Just kidding-I'm skipping the laundry part! This last part was purely for Rhett's benefit!

Have a great rest of the week and remember to let me know you're out there!

Till next time, I'm fondly yours,

Jeanne

CHO for the Brown Family

P.S. I'm sorry, I didn't mention Harry in my 5 wonderfuls. He's doing great (did you hear him laughing when Reece was swinging?! That's priceless!) and has moved up to his big boy car seat.

OK. Now I'm finished. (People finish, turkeys are done. I learned that in Speech from Ms. Trumbo!)

Learning to Adopt!

Just looking at my pictures, what do you think this post will be about? Hmmm, could it be, one of the Brown's favorite pastimes, our vacation to Disney World? Ding ding ding!!

You're right...kinda.

I sat down to work on this not having a clue as to what I was going to talk about, but knowing that if I didn't post soon ,

I was going to lose some faithful readers! So, Logan (along with a smelly Bubba) climbed into my lap and I asked Logan to look at pictures with me and pick his favorite. He picked these three. My favorite is the one with my tower of Boys on Main Street at the Magic Kingdom. It doesn't matter which picture I pull up from September's trip, Logan can tell me all about what was happening in the picture. He has amazing recall abilities.

Our trip to Disney each year is a trip into fantasy land. Literally. This is not real life that we experience, BUT, real memories are made. I don't think my children are aware of just how lucky they are that they have gotten to meet Mickey, or Buzz, or Pooh. There are children who will never have this experience and this is what I try to instill in my boys. Thankfulness to Beba and Teba for them taking us is something that I try to get them to express. Now that I think about it, we have tried to work vary hard to express thankfulness this year. I have repeated over and over, "Look at the person when you thank them." We've also worked on ma'am and sir with Logan. Reece and Garett have that down pretty good now and are great examples for Logi to follow. I didn't show this form of respect to adults until I was taught how to when I moved to the South and I love that my Boys are learning it at young ages. We are learning every day so I want to show you an example of progress that was made just this week.

Reece was sick on Thursday of this week and so I asked my friend Melissa if she could take Garett to school. She was fine with this. Garett was not. I was told that he wasn't used to riding with Melissa to school and that he wasn't going to do it. I begged, I pleaded, his Daddy offered him a dollar, I offered him a dollar. No dice. I sat down and explained to him about how sometimes we have to adapt to change. I explained that he would be fine. That he would make it to school just fine and go on with his day. I told him that even though I wasn't taking him to school, that I would be there to pick him up. I promised. Still, he was upset. I left him to get dressed while I made breakfast. Five minutes later he cam into the kitchen, smiling. "Wow! What a change", I thought! I was pleasantly surprised when he told me. "I'm ready to adopt!" What a wonderful moment for me, not just because he touched my heart by using adopt instead of adapt, but because he GOT it. Through all the crying and hyper-ventilating, my words reached him and he understood. We chose our JOY for the day (since we wouldn't be in the car together!) and when he left I emailed his teacher (Mrs. Deal, Wellford Elementary-wonderful teacher, we love her and Mrs. Gibson!) to let her know we had kind of a rough morning and related the adopt/adapt story to her. I asked if she could just love him a little if he was upset at all and she mailed me back and told me that he was doing great and writing about the morning in his journal. I breathed a sigh of relief and took Joy from the way the whole event played out.

Okay, so maybe I rambled today, but it's okay, because this is all for my family and you can stop reading at any time. I love all of my Boys and just wanted to get this story down before I forgot it.

Moral of the story: I know that my Boys are not by any means perfect, but they are mine and are a constant work in progress. That's all I can do. We wake up, choose JOY and move along trying to make others feel loved and good about themselves, fall into bed and start all over the next day.

I feel another blog coming on, but it will have to wait. I want to talk about my husband and the amazing job he is doing re-doing my kitchen, Reece and Garett and their basketball team, Logan and his growing up too fast moments and Harry and HIS growing up too fast moments. But, I am tired, it's time for Harry's bottle and morning will come quickly, so I will close for now.

Thank you to those of you who hung in there through all of my story!

Until next time, I'm fondly yours,

Jeanne

CHO for the Brown Family

P.S. Reece is better now, it was a 24 hour bug, thank goodness!!

JOY!!!

What are we going to choose today?!?!? JOY!!!!

This is how my day starts out on the way to school each morning. Once everyone is strapped in and I have a captive audience I ask the most important question of the day, "What are we going to choose today"? The boys (and Brianna) answer, " JOY"!!! Then we sing the song, surely you've sung it before:

I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart

WHERE?

Down in my heart

WHERE?

Down in my heart

I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart

WHERE?

Down in my heart to stay for all day! (We added the "for all day"!)

Then we sing it again. Logan says sing it again LOUDER! Or Garett says "full speed ahead"! and we sing it super fast! However we do it, it puts a smile on everyone's faces no matter how the morning has gone up till that point.

At the beginning of the year I was doing a Beth Moore Bible study and she talked about choosing joy each day. God gives us the choice to make the day how we want and so you should choose joy! I chose it when I was still at the Marriott and everyone thought I was silly. At then end of our morning meeting I would remind everyone to "CHOOSE JOY"!! Now we sing it in the morning and as the boys get out of the van at school I remind them that I love them and to choose joy and to make wise choices. I think that it makes me think about my blessings all day when I make a point of choosing joy each morning. So, I've been thinking about what brings me joy. Like it or not, here it is.

The beautiful autumn leaves and Logi pointing out "red tree, orange tree, yellow tree" when we are driving.

The sound of the kids as they get out of school. I sit in car line with the windows of the van open and the chatter grows louder as everyone files out. I love that!

My Baby Harry's giggles that shake his belly when you talk to him.

Hearing Reece and Garett say sweet things to each other and talk about school when they don't realize I'm listening.

Knowing that Logan is learning right from wrong when he tells me that he is going to share his cars with his friend Cadence.

Hearing the crunch of the gravel when Rhett's car pulls into the driveway at the end of the day.

Sunday night Game Night with my family.

I could go on and on. The world is filled with so many things that can bring you joy if you surrender to it. Look for the positive and refuse to let the negative in life take hold. You'll find joy a lot easier that way. Try it! Tomorrow morning when you are on your way to getting your day started ask yourself, "What am I going to choose today?" And then, without any abandon, say it, "JOY!!". It can't hurt to try it!

I've attached a picture of Reece and Harry today. Reece loves to hold his baby brother and obviously, Harry loves to be held so there was joy spread all over both of them!

Until next time, I'm fondly yours,

Jeanne

Chief Home Officer for the Brown Family

Happy Birthday to Rhett

Well, today's the day. Rhett turns 36. He has been dreading this day for a while now and we (the Boys and I) are determined to not let him be depressed.

His celebration began on Sunday when we ate dinner with his parents and Meredith and TJ. We went to his favorite place for Mexican food in Greer, El Mariachi and though he didn't want them to, they sang to him! There he is at the top of the page. He smiled on the outside, but he wasn't smiling too much on the inside!

I made his birthday dinner Monday night since he has class tonight and we got him a huge chocolate chip cookie instead of a cake. He smiled more when we sang to him. Maybe he was just happy not to have to wear a hat!

This morning he woke up and while he was getting ready to leave, Reece and Garett brought him the card they made and a balloon that we hid in the shower. I think the balloon is his only surprise since he bought the shirts and movie that he wanted for his present and will pick out a new Dallas Cowboys shirt online for me to order, but that's the way he likes it. Nice and calm, no surprises.

When we talked about this birthday I was told, "No Party". End of discussion. When I tried to downplay the number 36 (and that's all it is, a number) I was told that that was easy for me to say, I'm 33 and that's closer to 30 than 40. He's closer to 40 and that makes all the difference I guess. I told him that I didn't care what age I was because as long as we grow old together I'm good. That shut him up! How can you complain about growing old when you are growing old with the one you love?

I have known Rhett for 15 of his birthdays. The first one we celebrated was his 21st. It wasn't as wild and crazy as you would imagine. In fact, we celebrated with Melanie and Stephen Jeter! No late night drinking with no remembrance of what went on. Just dinner and I'm sure since we were with Stephen that was lots of reflection and looking forward. Fast forward 4 years and we celebrated his 25th birthday as husband and wife. I didn't ask this time-I just threw the party! That's what wives do, right? I was a new wife and the surprise party was at Don Pablos (can you tell that Mexican is Rhett's favorite food?!). It was a surprise til he started recognizing cars in the parking lot! Oh well, I tried! He has had new babies to help celebrate on his 29th, 31st, 34th and now 36th birthdays. Every year adds more cards to his collection with hands traced on the back with the date. One day Rhett's sons' hands will be too big to fit on the back of a card to be traced and we will marvel at where the time has gone.

Before I end, I want to thank Rhett's Mom, Vonnie, for having Rhett 36 years ago today. The day he was born, God chose him for me and I am so grateful that you raised such a loving and wonderful son. He is the best Father ever and I am proud to be Mrs. Timothy Rhett Brown.

I want to end this with a quote from the birthday card Reece made for his Daddy.

"You rock and I bet everyone else thenks that to! I love you and everyone else dose to!"

He read my mind! Rhett, you do rock and we love you so very much! Happy Birthday!

Till next time, I'm fondly yours,

Jeanne, Queen of the Rhett Brown clan

P.S. Thank you Mrs. Kinard for the word "fondly"!! :o)

So Maybe I'll Send This One

So...I started this blog to preserve our goings on for future generations, but have yet to let anyone see it. If you're reading this, then I guess I got brave and sent it out!

What's going on in our lives? Well, Reece and Garett are loving school, 2nd grade and K-5 respectively, Rhett is happy for the cooler weather of fall (but not looking forward to winter : ) ), Logan and Harry seem to enjoy chillin' with Mommy and Mommy is having a FANTASTIC time trying to keep a hold on everyone! Really! I am! I love taking the "big" boys to school and "staying home" with the babies. Logan looks forward to picking Reece and Garett up in the afternoons and knows their teachers' names and talks about Wellford Elementary like it's his school!

Rhett is enjoying his English class at Greenville Tech 2 nights a week and is SO blowing me away in the great grades department! His tests have all been super and he got a 98 on his first paper! He's talking this school thing very seriously and I think it's great for the boys to see him so hard at work on it. I'm totally the President of the Rhett Brown Fan Club!

My class is going well too-I'm taking a speech class online and doing okay. I have my third speech to present in November and this will be my best. We have to persuade our audience to believe the way we do on something. We were supposed to pick something that we are passionate about and since I'm sure the class doesn't want to hear me go on about my family, Rhett suggested I speak on IVF. In-Vitro Fertilization. Many people believe that children should be adopted instead of spending money on IVF to have a child. I strongly disagree. If Rhett and I had believed that, Reece would not be here today. If you don't know the story and want to, just let me know. I won't bore those who know about our miracle, besides, I haven't written my speech yet to win everyone over to my side!

This is "Red Ribbon Week" for Reece and Garett so they are wearing red tomorrow, their sunglasses on Wednesday and having a "sock hop" on Thursday to celebrate saying NO to drugs. This was Reece's list of drugs this morning on the way to school: cigarettes, cigars and beer. At what point do you list all of the other ones? Do you scare him to death now or wait until 3rd grade to try to explain everything? I guess we need to do it now-otherwise, when he's offered pot (and I pray to God he's not offered ANYTHING), will he know it's a drug? I'm told that you can't start talking about drugs too early, but how do you put it on a kindergartner's and first grader's level? Parenting gets harder every day, but it's the challenge I love and we'll just all learn together!

Okay, a few last thoughts:

When Garett thanks God for the "loveness you give us" it truly melts my heart.

Logan's bug eyed, long face look is priceless. (See picture above)

Reece is getting some big ol' corn getters in in the front of his mouth.

Harry loves it when Garett reads "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See " to him. An I mean LOVES-like big belly laughs love!

As Rhett and I discussed after a dinner time filled with what seemed like dysfunctionality to me tonight, I wouldn't want the Stepford children, so I'll love mine, craziness and all!