Halloween Fun and Noodle Making

Here is a sneak peak at Curtis's Halloween costume. This year, he decided that he wanted to be a pastor for Halloween!


Some church friends had a big Halloween party in their barn. The kids participated in a costume parade.


I love evenings when we come together just for the purpose of having fun and enjoying each other.


The town of Hope hosts a big Halloween party on the square each year. We started the night by touring through the Yellow Trail Museum and hearing the fictional tale of the "Zombie Chickens" that have been running rampant in Hope.  Afterwards, we got on a hay ride and heard some make-believe ghost stories surrounding Hope's history. There was a trunk-or-treat, pumpkin painting, games, and music. Here's a peek of Graydon in his Iron Man costume.






The past two Sundays, we've spent our afternoons making noodles at church. Our Sunday School class makes these as a fundraiser every year. Money raised goes towards needs in the church and in the community. It's a lot of work, but also fun too.




While some of us were making noodles, others were playing in the nursery. Here is Curtis with our neighbors' grandson.

The Pumpkin Farm

Our weekends seem to have filled up and we wanted to get to the pumpkin farm before Halloween, so we decided to go after school on a Monday. We had the kids finish up their homework right away and then ventured out.

We happened to be there just as the sun was approaching the horizon and was therefore right in everyone's face. There are lots of squinty eyes in these photos.

The kids sure are growing!


































The great thing about going on a Monday is that we had a lot of space to ourselves!




The pumpkin hunt is on!














These are the keepers!


After picking our pumpkins, we rushed back down to the farm store to purchase our pumpkins and enjoy some apple dumplings before they closed at 6pm. Much to our dismay, they were sold out of apple dumplings!

Plan B: we found an apple dumpling recipe online, stopped at a grocery store to purchase ingredients, and went home to bake our own apple dumplings.




We had to wait a little longer to eat them, but it was worth it when they came out of the oven. And while we enjoyed our treat, we watched "The Great Pumpkin". My favorite memory from watching was Graydon's hysterical laughter each time Charlie Brown got a rock. After a few times, he had all of us laughing.


If I could describe my ideal day, I think it would look a lot like this: going somewhere fun, eating good food, and enjoying time with people that I love. Quality time is my top love language and I was feeling super full that night.

We should have checked the forecast. . .

Andy and the boys gathered a bunch of wood to use for our youth group bonfire a couple of weeks ago. That event got rained out, but we still had all that wood; so Andy and I decided that we would have our own fire on a Friday night. He built the fire and brought out chairs. I brought out the sticks and s'mores ingredients.


Bella warmed her feet by the fire.


We roasted a few marshmallows.




A few of us made a s'more. And after enjoying our beautiful fire for about ten minutes, the rain started to fall. I guess the one detail we neglected was checking the forecast! We followed up our fire with the movie, Hotel Transylvania 3.


Earlier in the week, our school day began with this glorious sunrise. I did nothing to alter the color of this photo - this is straight out of the camera. And as is always the case, the camera still didn't capture all of the beauty of the sky that morning.


Mabel in her favorite spot.




And I got this new mixer! We've had it for a week and I've already used it three times. It's definitely a game changer - especially with my pizza dough. The hook attachment kneads the dough and I no longer end up with a sticky mess all over my hands. We eat pizza just about every Friday night and this makes the dough-making process so much easier!

October Life

Laura and Tim sent us this candle for our anniversary. This is my favorite scent so I was so happy! And since our anniversary was super busy with Heritage Days, this will have to do for our anniversary picture this year. :)


Our girl is happiest when she's as close to a human as possible.


Curtis has discovered The Magic Treehouse series and it has sparked his delight in reading. I love how he puts those glasses on. He has no need of glasses, but these 3D movie glasses with the lenses popped out make him feel smart.


We scheduled a bonfire night with our elementary youth group, but it ended up raining. Plan B: a game in the basement and movie in the living room. We also baked some s'mores in the oven.


Bella drew a smiley face onto the steamy bathroom mirror.


This is how Curtis wears his socks these days. It doesn't matter if he's wearing jeans or sweatpants, his pants are always tucked in his socks. I asked him about it recently and he said that he started it to help keep his pants up and now he just likes it. I love that he's still in that stage of life where he wears what he wants, how he wants, and he doesn't care about trying to look like everyone else.


We had a slight scare when we returned from Wisconsin and hadn't seen Salty in over 24 hours. He roams from time to time, though he often sticks close to the house. And he's always back to eat. So when he didn't return in over 24 hours, we got a little worried. We went on a golf cart ride through the woods, the cemetery, and Mr. Dodd's farm, but didn't see him anywhere. Each time we felt anxious about where he might be, we just prayed for him. Late that next evening when Andy was coming home from a church meeting, who did he see on our back porch but Salty!!!


We all ran out to the kitchen, rejoicing and cheering over Salty's safe return. As you can see, the sentiment was completely lost on Salty. That's a cat for you!


He didn't seem to understand what all of the excitement was about.


And a moment later he was ready to go back outside.




I think his favorite spot is the back of our golf cart.


There is a large sycamore tree in our front yard that is home to about thirty buzzards. One Saturday morning, we looked out to the deck and saw three of them sitting there. They have never come this close to the house before. It was a little eery and I wondered if there was a dead animal hiding somewhere.


Graydon had an awesome flag football game this past Saturday morning. He scored three touchdowns and a two point conversion. The boy was on fire!


Our girl, Mabel, had some tummy troubles. We could tell she wasn't feeling well because her energy was low, she laid around a lot (and she had lots of runny poops!) Poor girl.