They picked Minnie Mouse and a an astronaut this year. And Gavin didn't have a choice. He wore the same costume Taylor wore for her 2nd birthday party and Halloween when she was 2.
Mason's costume was pretty fun to make. Thanks to a sweet neighbor friend who found a cheap snowsuit at a 2nd hand store, she bought it for me so we'd have something to paint silver.
The hat was borrowed, the patches were printed on paper from online images and duct taped on, the boots were covered in duct tape and I found a tutorial online for the jet pack.
We attempted to go to one of the "Trunk or Treats" at a local church. Since I'm still not over my pneumonia, walking around was not an option for me. But I'm pretty sure the entire town was in that parking lot, so we just drove on by and headed back to our own neighborhood to join our friends. Trick or treating is much more fun with friends anyway!
I was thankful to at least be able to leave the house, even if I sat in the car and followed them around. No complaints there.
And just for fun, here's a peak back...
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
I will say, I was quite sad about that little cow costume not being able to be pulled out this year.
It's not a perfect fall without being able to get to at least one K-State football game.
Thanks to Dave's sister...we got to use their tickets earlier this month. It was the most BEAUTIFUL fall day for football!
We left Gavin, knowing he wouldn't have so much fun sitting in the stands.
We started in Aggieville for a quick stop for new K-state gear. Taylor wanted a picture with mommy in front of BWW...the place I worked for several years in college, and Daddy and his friends used to come in to have me serve them when we first met. He asked me for my phone number there. And I guess I gave it to him ;-)
One of my most favorite places on earth.
It was our first look at the new part of the stadium. So awesome!
Our Cats didn't win, but we still had a blast. We ended back in Aggieville at one of our favorite restaurants in the whole world...Coco Bolos.
Then a PSL from Starbucks, a stroll through Aggieville to see the changes that are always happening (Pat's Blue Ribbon CLOSED! We couldn't believe it!), and the obligatory drive through campus and past the places we lived, seeing where Daddy walked Mommy to class, our dorms, the greenhouses where Daddy worked. They always love hearing our stories, ...I'm sure some day that will be different. And we always love reminiscing in that awesome little town.
And then home to Gavin. It was quick, but perfect.
My Facebook Status from last week read... "This
has definitely been a week full of yucky things....Monday, Dave's Uncle
Jim, 77ish years old (who is like a grandpa to us and the kids) fell 12
ft. from a ladder. It was a scary scary call and a rush to the ER, but
the Lord definitely cushioned his fall and he walked out of the hospital
the next day with a concussion and broken arm. Miracle. I am
currently laying in bed hardly able to even move...bronchitis/pnemonia...can't
remember a time I've been this sick. And today, my mom was in
emergency surgery for about 8 hours due to complications after a heart
cath and echocardiogram (sp?) she had earlier this week. She lost all
blood flow to her leg because of a collapsed artery and blood clots.
She is out of surgery now, and recovering. Please pray that her leg
doesn't have any neurological damage and recovers 100%. "
I don't like broadcasting all of our struggles all over the internet. I don't want to complain publicly or post things to make people feel bad for us. But I do know that there is a huge support system in social media. I've seen that first-hand in several situations. So sometimes I'm slow, and don't say much right away, and sometimes I debate many many times as I'm writing a post and delete it 10 times. But I also know that God can use the circumstances of our lives to bring glory to Him. I know that when I'm weak, He is made strong.
And I can't make a post like that and not conclude it with more...
As heavy of a month as it's been, it is so good to see God's hand in every part of it. I could sit and go on and on about how stressful and tiring, and hard this month has been. But yet I know it doesn't compare to what others are facing. And part of the struggle is just overloading my own plate, plus dealing with life when it happens on top of that. I could give my sob stories and complain and make you feel really sorry for us. But yet, you probably have the same stuff going on, wrapped in different packages. We all do. But what I don't want to miss is God's faithfulness and grace. Because all you have to do is open your eyes, and it's there. It just finds us.
Uncle Jim's fall was scary...but he is doing GREAT! Arm in a sling, and that's all.
My mom had some serious scary complications in the hospital...emergency surgeries, fear of permanent damage to her leg. But she left after 2 days, she's home recovering well and doesn't even need physical therapy.
Sydney returned to the hospital with a fever. A scary thing when your immune system has no ability to fight anything off. But it went away quickly and she's doing well.
The Lord is doing amazing things through the bone marrow drives that are taking place in so many places. There are little and big drives happening in Michigan, Kansas City area, Newton, and Wichita all done by family. And now friends who have just followed Sydney's story are beginning to step up and hold their own small drives where they live too...Kansas City and California and probably other places too. I just know God has a big plan for this. Our prayer is that Sydney's match is found. But I know that many other lives could be saved because of these efforts as well.
Our cars are fixed! Praise God! After praying and not knowing the answer...the big dilemma about whether to continue fixing them or not. It stinks to have to dip into what we've saved for a new car, to fix our old ones. In the end, it all worked our perfectly and the Lord showed us once again that he will provide ALL the time. Both are fixed, and we didn't have to dip into our savings one bit. That still baffles me. I told you that one of Dave's jobs paid the exact amount that we needed to put a new engine in his truck to buy us LOTS more time before he needs a new one hopefully. We did this thinking that we might still need to head down the direction of a new family car. Then when we took our SUV in, the guys at the station said that they were pretty sure it was their fault from the fixes they had done the month before and they would take care of it. We are so thankful for their honesty. This is a brand new place we just started going to and we have been soooo impressed with them! We are so thankful for God's hand in every detail. We're glad He had a plan when we didn't know what plan to go with.
I am down sick with viral pneumonia. It's awful. I can't remember being this sick for this long. But I've been warned this could take a good 2-3 weeks to fully recover from. To be honest, I didn't quite believe my doctor when she told me that. I thought she was just being cautious and conservative. Inside I thought "oh give me 3 or 4 days of rest and I'll be fine." But here we are on day 6...and each day has seemed as hard as the day before. This is coming during the busiest time of my year with my business and just life in general. It's hard to have to cancel things and feel like I'm inconveniencing others. It's hard to make myself rest. It's hard to sit on the couch when my husband doesn't allow me to get up. It's hard to need help and have people bring meals. And it's super hard to send my kiddos off to play elsewhere. It's all so very humbling. BUT, I am soooo thankful it's not worse. People are dealing with such awful sickness and disease. Pneumonia is no biggy. I can sit on the couch, cuddle with my kids, get our daily reading minutes in, I can dry tears and help with arguments, I can tell my husband thank you a million times a day. It's when I get up and walk across room that makes me feel like I just ran a marathon. That's the hard part. To know my lungs are so sick inside, and that it's wiping my completely out. I hate that I can't do much at all, and what I have tried to do, it ruins me for the rest of the day. But my husband is the biggest blessing ever! (and to be honest he completely humbles me and makes me realize how yucky my heart can get when he's sick and I'm stuck doing everything). He has cooked, cleaned, gotten kids in bed, grocery shopped, taken off work when he could, pretty much everything! I am so grateful and so blessed that he's mine. And we are so thankful for the friends who have been so willing to help us out with meals and kids.
I needed a break. I really did. My prayer the last month was for rest. I've been pleading for some time away with my hubby...we've needed it so badly. I've been longing for December when our calendar looks much less tiring. Could it be that God has to slow us down when we choose not to ourselves? Pneumonia is no fun. But yet, it has slowed us down. I am seeing God's grace in it. Finding time to sit and read with my kiddos isn't such a struggle. I have no energy to get mad or yell or discipline (it's hard at times to even talk normally), so I've been communicating in a much calmer way than usual. HA! I've gotten to some of my "sit down" computer work that has haunted my to-do list for a long time because it's hard to find time to sit down. I've gotten some much needed, relaxing couch time with my sweet husband.
But as I read back on all of that...I feel silly and embarrassed for feeling like this is such a big deal. I want to just delete it all and just say "I'm fine", because I am. I'm begging for rest and fast recovery from pneumonia, knowing that in 2-3 weeks I should be back to normal. While our niece and her family are fighting cancer. Longing for normalcy and a full night's sleep, and no hospital stays and fearful of every bad germ that comes her way.
The hard days are packaged so differently for each of us.
But what remains constant in all of it...is His grace.
His never-ending faithfulness.
God is good. Even when tough things are going on. Hard life stuff. Sickness. Accidents. Financial decisions. These are the things in this life we have to endure. They are the things that He uses to draw us closer to Him, to show his power, to prove his love to us, and to show us that through all the yucky things...He is God. And He is Good. His grace finds us through it all.
Have you heard this song from Matt Redman? It's one of my favorites these days...
"It's there in the shadows of this life, on the mountain tops, in the every day mundane, in the sorrow and the dancing...It's the same for the rich and the poor, for the saint and the sinners...From the creation to the cross, from the cross into eternity...your grace finds me."
I don't have to search for it. Because He finds me.
I want to begin and end each of my days, the good and the bad, realizing that His grace finds me through it all. May we breathe His grace in and out. Because it's the most amazing grace of all.
And in the end, it's all we really need.
And after a heavy month...I'm thankful to look back and see it was His grace that found us.
It has been one. crazy. month. About a week before Taylor's birthday, we weren't really even sure yet what we were doing We hadn't had any time to even think about it. But maybe you know by now that I work best under pressure.
She talked about not doing a theme at all because she couldn't think of one. I was totally fine with that. But then she started throwing out some ideas...but nothing was sticking for her. So I got online to show her some ideas. I've seen camping themed parties before and always thought they looked fun. We love to camp. And we have kids that love to camp. She loved the idea of it and we decided to go with a girly twist. The actual term is "glamping" (glamorous camping). I don't know if that's a real word, but there are definitely lots of references to it online.
We had already decided that we'd let her have her first slumber party, so we thought this theme fit perfectly with that!
I think this was the most fun cake yet! But I think I've said that before. I got almost all of my ideas from a mixture of online "glamping" parties and google images.
We had a gift station that had their pillowcases and fabric markers to decorate,
Seconds before we lit the candles, Nana and Papa, and our Michigan family called in to Facetime. So they got to help sing 'Happy Birthday' and watch her blow out her candles. She was enthralled at the campfire on her cake.
Later, after all of our non-sleepover guests left, and Mason headed off for a sleepover with his cousin, we did smores...
decorated pillow cases...
watched movies and made a god's eye yarn craft...
The tent was definitely the highlight. We put up a canopy that we use when we camp, and then just started clothes pinning fabric and sheets all over. We added mini bunting, Christmas lights, streamers and hanging ball lanterns in the center. It came complete with the stench of campfire smoke leftover from our bluegrass weekend in September.
Taylor was the first one asleep. About an hour and a half later the rest of them fell asleep about 1am. I really hated to tell them they really needed to get to sleep, but at 7 years old, with church the next day, I didn't think I should let them go until they wanted to.
It was pure joy watching these girls together. 3 of them are from her class and her cousin fit perfectly in with all of them. They got along sooooo well and were so excited about every little thing. They did each other's hair, played dolls, Daddy served them popcorn, and they were all so polite and sweet. I honestly wasn't sure what to expect from a 7 year old sleepover, but we enjoyed it so much!
