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!?