Oh Where oh where did the fall season go?

  Playing catch up! Well actually these pictures of leaves don't seem too old.  Just today we finally finished raking up leaves.  We have sooo many trees and leaves here that it has been a very long process.  Some of the kids who have been helpful have been able to earn a little bit of money for their hard work.  We had a beautiful fall!!

Okay, it's really sad that I'm just now posting about Halloween and Christmas is next week.  Our pumpkin carving this year was a new phenomenon.  Usually we just do faces, but this year I got a few of those cheap carving knives with patterns to make different designs on your pumpkins.  The kids absolutely loved this and it was the first year that we had them carve their own.  It was so enjoyable to watch them be so grown up and be so proud of the outcome.  Jazlyn kept saying that she never thought hers would turn out so well and couldn't believe that she'd done it herself.  

  Probably my favorite part of trick or treating was seeing how excited Shelten got about it.  This was the first year he was old enough to get what was going on.  It didn't take him long to pick up on how cool this holiday, getting tons of free candy.  He was cracking me up, he'd walk up to a house and say "Happy Halloween!"  It was adorable.  

Ok, so this picture wasn't at the best angle, as we one of our cute short children took it, but I couldn't forget to mention that we celebrated our 12th anniversary last month.  Where does the time go?  Not sure how we're getting this old, but I'm so blessed to have Wes as my spouse in this journey of life together.  My brain cells can feel frazzled and I can get spacey and forget to plan details, and I'm also directionally challenged.  These are two of the many ways he helps complete me and balance me out!  Love you, honey!

 Look at all of these gourds.  They spontaneously grew in our backyard, without me planting them.  Crazy huh?

 A huge highlight of last month was the girls weekend that my mom and sisters and I went on!  We have been talking for years about how we needed to do this and between having babies, etc. it just hadn't panned out.  I'm so glad it finally worked out,  IT WAS SO FUN!!!!  It wasn't relaxing at all, as we were going, going, going, the whole time but it was so enjoyable to have some much needed girl time and a break from being mommy 24/7 for a couple of days!  I honestly felt so naked and weird at first shopping without constantly looking around to see what my boys were doing, breaking up fights, etc.  But it was a beautiful thing to have adult conversations with my favorite women.  It was also so fun to get to know my new sister-in-law.  I'd only met her at the wedding and so hadn't been around her much, but she is super sweet and fits in really well.  My brother picked a good one!

Thanks mom, for planning this fabulous trip and Wes, for taking good care of our children while I was gone and giving me a much needed break.