Pumpkin Patch Palooza!

Can't beat a great, cheap, fun family outing!!

We made our annual pumpkin patch trip only this year we added a few more friends and had a blast! We bundled everyone up and headed out to Random Lake to Speiker's Pumpkin patch and boy oh boy did we love it! The kids were actually fully entertained with the inside corn maze, hayride out to the field to pick a pumpkin, silly pictures, animals and more animals!

However.....we are paying for it, of the 6 kids that went Saturday 3 of them are sick, it was cold out (40 I think?) and it would start sprinkling for 2-4 minutes then stop then start again. All in all it was soo much fun! There were a ridiculas amount of funny/cute pictures so I'm just posting them all to my Facebook account! Enjoy!

Potato Heads!

I was talked into playing with the infamous potato heads and we had a blast! Whoever invented them were brilliant! These spuds have been around since before me! NUTS!

(Don't mind the jammies, we just got up)

OUR CREATIONS!!

Last but not least, Kaleb's finished creation.......his NANA!

Way too cute!! We had a blast!!

Now on to my PROUD PARENT boast! Andrew memorized his entire memory verse in Awana (John 3:16) and graduated up to the bigger book and earned his vest! I was a wreck watching him get called up for his award and accept it! He was so proud of himself he yelled from that front of Children's Church "MOM! LOOK!" and was waving that new book around like crazy!! I am so very proud of him, however had I known about the award I would of brought my camera! :(

Kaleb attended Cubbies Awana (3-5 year olds) and also made me very very proud. Not only did he do awesome at his first event by himself, without Andrew (Kaya, Kaleb's cousin/best friend was with him though) he also memorized 3 weeks worth of verses (short, very short age appropriate ones of course)!! How awesome is that!?

Merry Monday!

So our family being the holiday fanatics we are, just my immediate family and my grandma, we have started to count down! 81 MORE DAYS!  Now to be fair it is a bit addicting since I have been Christmas shopping for a few months now. Just here and there, if I see a good deal on an item that I know I can give as a present. Most people have told me I am crazy BUT....I am done by December 1rst usually! It really does make sense :) That being said I thought I would share some of my favorite online and retail stores and why.

AMAZON.COM
   There just isn't enough room to say all the awesome things about Amazon. I love how cheap you can buy brand new things and the shipping is waaay reasonable and I always seem to get my products earlier then stated on the page. Always a plus! My favorite things to buy on there are books and dvds mainly (just purchased 3 brand new factory sealed dvd's fairly new releases for $17.19 including shipping!).

WALMART
   Everyone has something bad to say about the place and I do too but I can't knock a good deal! I learned something about Christmas shopping early...NEVER WRAP THE PRESENTS BEFORE BLACK FRIDAY! Walmart is always soooo kind enough to give me the price difference! LOVE IT! It may cost me more now but after I am done I can cross an additional 2-3 names of my list with the money I received as the difference!

HALLMARK
  If I can't find that perfect special gift for someone I always head here, never fails! I have never walked out with a failed mission :) Plus you can almost always walk out feeling even more grateful then when you walk in, they aren't kidding when they say Hallmark cards say it all!

To wrap up my short list I must say CONSIGNMENT STORES!
  We have a few in town now and I love them! Mainly for all the baby showers and the little kids we buy gifts for. A while back I attended a shower and I bought 20 new baby outfits, tags on them from the store yet (Kohls tags too) for $25.00! CAN'T GET ANY BETTER THEN THAT!

So in retrospect, I'm not as crazy as people think, it does pay to shop early!

Why?

So I just got back from a class I took at church tonight so I can start volunteering in the Children's Ministries and I just had to comment on a very shocking, very disturbing fact I heard on the dvd they had us watch.

There is a church (location was not released and you will see why) that has 800 sexual abuse charges in 10 years.

Why? I know some will question me posting this but I had to, I had to write it out so I could try to fathom it. I just don't, can't understand it! They told us that our church does thorough screening because everywhere else is (application process, interview, classes, background check and so forth) so these people are turning to the one place where blind trust is left....CHURCH. Is this not just INSANE!?

There is still good people!

I realized that Wednesday being the "hump" day, middle of the week, BLAH day that I am going to make it my GRATEFUL day! A reminder as to why I continue to push on through the week!

1. Praise Fellowship
              I'm so very very grateful for our church and their love for one another. We spent last weekend getting water baptized and doing a bit of outreach work. We teamed up with the Coca Cola company and did another neighborhood clean up. It was great watching Andrew and Kaleb work along side the adults, to see their excitment and telling us that not only are we helping the Earth but we are also making God happy! Andrew also amazed his Sunday School teacher with his awesome prayer at snack time...GOOD JOB BUDDY!

2. Birth to 3
              I recieved a surprise visit from our old Occupational Therapist that Kaleb had for 3 years and Zoe had for a few months. Now mind you we were done with therapy as of Aprilish. She stopped by to drop off a very nice winter coat for the boys that her son grew out of. Miss. A always thinks of us and is soooo sweet, even after the 6 months we haven't seen her she still misses us and is still a sweet lady and remembers that we have 3 kids that love to grow out of at least 2 winter coats a season! THANK YOU MISS. ANN!

3. Maturity
              This one is double sided, Zoe is growing up sooo fast so it makes me kind of sad. I was playing with Zoe yesterday and this morning and noticed how much she has changed! My best friend (Zoe's Godmother) was over last night and Zoe sat with her copying her and talking, doing big girl things. It is sooo nice to be able to just put her shoes and jacket on and walk with her out to the truck to go somewhere, no huge diaper bag, no huge car seat to carry around (we are talking about a small car ride here lol:) She is such a big girl and it amazes me all the time at how far my two miracles have come!

4. Last but not least my FAMILY
                The have been really pulling through for us lately! I am trying to get the boys more involved in church activities but due to Zoe's schedule she is in bed right after they start so I have been cashing in on the offered babysitting services and IOU's passed my way! Also thanks to an awesome family member Bill was given the opportunity to go on a Christian's Men's retreat this weekend. Going to be freezing but what a great way to follow up with just being baptized! I am heading up north with the kids and Bill next weekend for my cousins baby shower and am SO very excited, I miss everyone up there and am so excited for Zoe to take her first trip up there!

This is just what sticks out for the week, I'm grateful for everything I've been given and recieved, HE is wonderful and continues to bless our family!

Kinda blah around here

Well there isn't much going on here right now but wanted to update so you all know I'm still checking and updating :)

Kaleb and Andrew are totally in LOVE with school! Which I might say is kind of nice right now! I don't have to fight to get them up or moving in the morning. Today when I dropped Kaleb off we were going back to his class and putting his backpack away and the teacher called him over and showed him a surprise......her THOMAS THE TRAIN TABLE! He was so excited, just rambling to the other 2 boys at the table...what a way to bond for him! :) If the weather permits Kaleb's Uncle Matt and aunt Ashlie are going to be taking him this Sunday to see a bunch of real steam engines, he is going to pee himself :)

Well that's about it! Update later with or when some news comes our way lol!

Pictures!

Since there are soooo many pictures to upload from our summer till this past Monday I thought I would use my old Flickr account I used for Zoe Lynn when she was in the NICU.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26567010@N06/

The pictures do start from the most recent first but please do enjoy! I am very proud of the kids and their awesome summer!