Halloween

Our Halloween started off bright and early.  Nate's preschool participates in a town trick-or-treat.  The kids walk though downtown collecting candy.  This is the gym crew - Grey, Nate and Ava.  They play together every Tuesday and Thursday at the gym. Ava is also in Nate's class this year.

My parents walked with us for a few minutes.  Nate loves his Pops. 

Granna (Darren's mom) works at one of the banks where the children trick-or-treat.

Happy Batman

Angry Batman

After trick-or-treating, the kids return to their classroom for a snack. 

Later that morning, we met my parents at the Pumpkin Patch. 

Cookies

Nate and I made homemade sugar cookies last weekend.  We have been doing this for the past three years.  It's pretty labor intensive and requires a lot of time.  We make the dough.  Let it chill.  Roll the dough and use cookie cutters to cut it into shapes.  Try our best to transfer the cookie dough to the cookie sheet without ruining the shape of the cookie.  Bake.  Cool.  Make icing while they are cooling.  Ice.  Sprinkle.  Eat. 

We started out making Halloween cookies, but Nate wanted to make Christmas cookies too.  They have already started putting up Christmas decorations in town.  I guess that's why he thinks we should do Halloween and Christmas together. :)

Cleaning up the excess icing.

I can really tell that Nate is growing up.  He is able to do more and more without assistance.  We had a fun morning making cookies.  He is such a good little helper. 

Fall Fellowship

A couple of weeks ago we hosted a fall fellowship for our church small group.  

We had pumpkins for carving...

and pumpkins for the little kids to decorate.

Nate was so excited to see Nathan!

Do you see the disgust on Nate's face?  He "hates" the inside of a pumpkin.  Hate has been one of his new favorite words.  I didn't bother me too much until he said he hated a person.  Then we had to say he couldn't say hate anymore.  So now when he hears me say "I hate that you've had such a bad day" or "I hate that you are sick," he quickly tells me that I cannot say hate.  I hate trying to explain words like hate to little ones. :)

I wanted to get lots and lots of pictures.  I even wanted to try to get a group shot of everyone.  But, that did not happen.  Being the hostess (and helping a five year old carve a pumpkin) does not allow for lots of picture taking.  So, I only have a few pictures of a few of our guests.

Can I just tell you how much we love our small group? They are the most real, genuine, and imperfect people.  People who are NOT self righteous or act like they have it all together.  People striving, by God's grace, to follow hard after Jesus. People who pray for us, encourage us, are examples for us, and hold us accountable. We are so grateful and blessed to be a part of this group of believers!

Tagging Cows

Sweet Faces

I cannot believe how fast this sweet girl is growing up and changing. 

Old Baker Farm

We love Old Baker Farm.  If you live in our neck of the woods, you should definitely check it out.

We were so excited that Ashlyn got to go with us.  She was home from college for fall break.

Nate absolutely, positively had to carve his pumpkin right when we got home.

Unfortunately this day had some sorrow mixed in with the fun.  Darren accidentally (I hope I don't even need to say that) ran over Nate's favorite cat.  We were all heartbroken and just plain sad.  So, in light of that, Nate insisted on finding a cat for his pumpkin.

Nate actually handled Bob's untimely death much better than we anticipated.  The first day was really hard.  I am very thankful we had already planned to go to Old Baker Farm. It was a much needed distraction. I am glad we told him the truth because it was very tempting to just pretend he was away for a few days and hope Nate eventually forgot about him. 

Humble Reminder

I needed this reminder from Sevenly today.   

"But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs."  1 Timothy 6:6-10