Halloween Fun

The day before Halloween it was finally time to carve pumpkins. We can't carve them earlier in the month because it is still hot here and they will get "suck face". LOL We only did 3 pumpkins this year. Previous years we have done as many as 6. But it always starts out the same; the kids are all excited they scoop a few seeds out, tell daddy how to carve it and then they are done and daddy is left at the table by himself to carve them ALL. :) So this year they were happy with the 3 and they scooped them out and watched daddy carve (at least for a little bit).

(Note: I don't have a new camera yet, we are trying/having to make due with Anastasia's old one. It sucks batteries dry but it works for now in a pinch)

As you all know Halloween was on Sunday this year...so we went to church, came home and the kids took naps. Then for dinner we had Mud Soup and Dirt Dessert. It was finally time to get ready.

Our Mud Soup

Jasmine

Tink

Princess Dora and Anakin Skywalker

Alice Cullen

When "Dora" realized she was getting candy from all of the neighbors, there was no stopping her!


I think that is the only picture I got of our completed pumpkins.

The State Fair

We were very excited to go back to the State Fair again this year. We went on a home school day so we were able to get free parking and free admission. It was $1.00 ride day to top it off so we were very excited. We missed the fair last year since we had just gotten back from Disneyland at this time. We spent part of the day there with the Roger's family.

We were even blessed by one of the food vendors. Jay went to get a corn dog and some of the kids wanted one (we packed our lunch to help save money so we could buy some treats) The food guy noticed all the kids and asked if they were all ours we said yes, except one. He said he grew up in a large family and loves large families well he then proceeded to give us five extra corn dogs at no charge!!! Wow! So then later we went back to the same booth to get some lemonade and he only charged us half price for them. That was such a blessing.

Now as you can see if you look through the rest of this post there are NO PICTURES!! That is because someone stole my camera. The camera we just bought in July using some of our tax refund money !!! I was so upset. It happened toward evening and it pretty much put a damper on the rest of our evening! I just can't believe people! Thankfully though I had just downloaded all my pictures just a day or so before.

We did have a good time up until then and now I will have to figure out a way to get a new camera quickly with all the holidays coming up.

The Pumpkin Patch

I think we have finally found another pumpkin patch to go to each year. Our favorite (Young's Farm) closed down about 3 or 4 years ago and we have been searching for a new one ever since. There are a few local ones but we like to travel and go further north where the weather is cooler and it actually feels like fall in October.

So Saturday morning we ventured out with the Roger's family and we had a great time. There was a corn maze, hay ride, train ride, petting zoo, carousel, and of course the pumpkin patch. ;)

The kids getting ready for the corn maze

I got some really good pictures of the kids in the Pumpkin Patch (If I do say so myself) I was very pleased with how they turned out. However, this first one is the only of of Natasha I got. She was too busy running around looking at all the pumpkins she wouldn't slow down for a picture.

There were these cute things to pose with and the kids loved it:

Of course I couldn't resist this last one: hehehe

Me and my honey!

It's Jadon's first trip to a Pumpkin Patch!

Happy Fall Y'all

Family comes to Visit

We have been blessed with family visiting these past couple of months. This week my Uncle, Aunt and cousins from Minnesota made the long drive out here. It was so great seeing all of them. We have not seen them since Jay and I's wedding (almost 16 yrs. ago). Jonathan, the one in the middle holding Jadon, was the ring bearer for us. We were able to spend sometime with them visiting at our house and then a day of site seeing. We had a great time and the kids all acted like they had been life long friends instead of just meeting for the first time.


My Aunt and Uncle.

At the Fountain in Fountain Hills.

Cute picture of Joshua and grandma.

We really enjoyed the visit and are praying it will not be another 15 years before we see them again.

AWANA

Our Awana club resumed in September. This is my second year being the commander and it is such an awesome ministry experience. I have a wonderful group of directors and leaders who are great to work with and the clubbers are of course fantastic kids. Our year is off to a great start and I never cease to be amazed at all the Bible verses that the kids memorize so quickly!

Savannah earned her first Sparks patch!

I love how creative my Sparks leaders are. These are two pictures of them acting out the story of Jonah and the Whale.

Battle of the Bands

Our church hosted it's 2ND annual Battle of the Bands and it was a great success. It was an enjoyable evening for the whole family! I however, only got two (and not that good) pictures. I was so busy selling hot dogs, chips and soda the entire time! :)

Battle of the Bands is designed to be an outreach event for our community. We advertise in many different ways for bands to come and compete. They can be secular or Christian the only requirement is family friendly music. This year for the competition the bands had to write a song based on Psalm 40. We had 8 bands competing with over 750 people in attendance.

This is a not so good picture of all the bands on the stage at the end of the night waiting to hear the judge's results.

My kiddos had a great time and kept themselves well fed and entertained!

Da...Da...Da....Dora!

What an exciting morning in the life of a 2 year old! Natasha and I went to the zoo for a special breakfast with Dora The Explorer. To say that Natasha LOVES Dora is an understatement so when I found out she was coming to the zoo we just had to go. We had to sign up and pay extra (but we got a discount with our zoo membership) and this allowed us to show up to the zoo before it opened (at 7:00am, yes I said 7:00am which means we left our house at 6:00am) We had a breakfast, pictures with Dora and then fun playing with Fisher Price Toys. They sponsored the event. The best of all was that they had a raffle for about 12 baskets of toys and we won one!!!

Here is Tasha giving Dora a high five!

There was a whole area set up with toys and this is the one that Tasha went for! A guitar, guess you can't tell her daddy is a worship pastor ;) We might have to look for one of these for Christmas.

Here is the basket I won. It had a xylophone, kid tough binoculars, a magna doodle and a huge thing of Trio blocks.

Natasha loved petting the bunny and goat.

There was even a little course set up where the kids could pick a power wheel to ride around on. She of course picked the Dora Jeep.


What a great morning we had together!