Halloween 2014

I edited some but not all of these pics because that’s how I roll.

One of our favorite fall traditions is to spend Halloween evening at Mamma and Pop’s house.  This year, Matt’s niece and her husband were in town visiting, so that was an extra bonus! (Sadly, I have no photographic evidence of this at all.  Bad mommy blogger.)

After dinner we got the kiddos all dressed and outside for a little photo op.

Here you can see James is worried about Thomas eating acorns.

Here you can see Matt fishing acorns out of Michael’s mouth.  Ha!

The money shot of the evening:

I decided at the last minute to accompany the kiddos as the wicked witch.

Michael as the Tin Man:

James as The Scarecrow:

Thomas as The Cowardly Lion:

Natalie as Glinda the Good Witch:

And Joanna as Dorothy.  Excuse the hat.  :)

Natalie and I had a little fun.

Are you a good witch or a bad witch?

We just couldn’t quite pull together a costume for Matt (but next year…), so here we are minus the Wizard.  :)

James cracks me up.  He’s sitting on Mamma and Pop’s hedges, waiting for the action.

We traipsed up and down the street, then the babies and I went inside for a snack while the big kids hit one more cul-du-sac.

It was pretty fun to see people’s faces as they put it together who we were.  So fun!

I’m loving the family themed costume – we’ll see how long they let us do it to them.  :)  I’ve already got some ideas brewing for next year!

Trunk or Treat and Fiesta on the Foundation

The Sunday before Halloween was Trunk or Treat at the church, followed by dinner on the foundation of our new building!

The big three:

The whole brood --

It was kinda hot.  Poor warm lion.

Without his hat, I thought Michael looked like a knight.

The girls:

The boys:

Look at those red cheeks!

After this picture, we stripped the babies down a bit, and Natalie and James took off their headwear.

We discovered there were games inside – A/C!!

I sat down and nursed the babes.

James discovered there was chocolate (and lots of it!) in his bag.

He’s saying “chocolate!!!”

After the games and finding friends to visit with, we went back to the car to change the kiddos out of their costumes.  Or as someone said, “Go back to Kansas.”  I thought that was pretty clever.  :)

By the time we got to the foundation, the tables were absolutely full.

It really worked out well though, because it would have been overwhelming to try and sit with our crew in that crowd.  There was a ton of empty space, and we just sat down to picnic with a couple of our favorite families.

Thomas reeeeeeally wanted down to play, and he ended up covered in cement dust.

Here’s his hand print on my jeans – ha!

I thought it was a pretty cool idea to fellowship on the foundation of our new building.  We also got to use silver sharpies to sign the beams.  I like that those prayers, words, and signatures will always be a part of the building.  And somebody let me know that my butt was sitting in the prayer chapel.  How nice.  :)

Pumpkin Patch 2014

I have aproximately 8,642 things I’d like to blog about, so I’m going to keep these posts short and sweet.  :)

This is from our family trip to the pumpkin patch this year.  We went on opening day, and the kids did great!  Thomas wasn’t feeling great, and he didn’t want anything to do with the dirt or hay or pumpkins.

But Michael thought they were fab!

Michael’s foot:

Thomas’ hand:

It was fun!

Day in the Life in November

~4:45: Babies wake up; I nurse them. They go back down in their room.

~7: The babies wake up, but I get to go back to sleep.  Matt feeds them (and everybody) breakfast.

9:00: I finally get up to a noisy house.  :) I nurse the babies.

At 9:30ish Matt and the bigs go for coffee and donuts while I take care of the babes and get some chores done.

10:30: The babies go down for a nap.  The bigs and I finish picking up the living room and then sweeping it.  I think Matt was in the garage airing up the tires in the van.

Around noon I cleaned up the kitchen from breakfast and then make lunch.  Joanna played photographer for me.

After lunch I headed to the grocery store for a much needed restock trip.  I spent a looooooong time there.  :)  Matt oversaw the kiddos in picking up their room.

Then the babies had a late lunch.

I got back a little after 3:00 and started putting away groceries.

Matt took everybody on a walk so I could clean up the kitchen, make a salad for a dinner with friends later, and start getting myself ready. 

They came back a little after 4:00.

We left about 5:00 for our friend’s house.

Between the three families, there were 12 children in attendance.

We visited, ate dinner, and chased Thomas up and down and up and down and up and down the stairs. :)

Michael says “I’m coming!”

We stayed until almost 8:00, which is way too late, but it is so fun to visit with friends!

We got everyone to bed as soon as we got home (after a little reading I guess).

Matt left to take care of a couple of doggies we’re watching out for, and I’m sure I did something useful.  :)

Then we watched some television, ate some snacks, and went to bed in the 10:30ish range.

I like Saturdays!