Halloween!

Happy Halloweeen!  I feel like it is a little anti-climatic this year since the boys have already Trick-or-Treated three different times!  Once at my mom's campground in September, once when we camped in October and then just last week at our local Harvest Fest but THIS is the real thing!  Where we suffer through wind, rain, freezing temps - whatever the weather throws at us all of the sake of candy that, quite honestly, my kids will never eat.  It will sit in their candy buckets in their room for an eniter year when we will throw it out and start over HA! (For real!)

So here are my cuties!  Nate is Godzilla and Josh is Enderman from MineCraft.  I

If you want to see what they were in the past, check out this POST I shared just a short while ago where I went back to find pictures of them from each year since year one!  So much fun! 

A Few of My Favorite Things

I was able to enjoy some time away this past weekend which always brings me joy.  That made me think that I should share a few of my favorite things again. 

 Lake Michigan.  I was able to be on the shares of Lake Michigan this weekend and that brings a peace to my soul.  The color, the sound, the magnitude of it all. 

 The colors of  fall.  This years colors have been much more muted due to the weather pattern but I was able to see a few beautifully colored trees while away this weekend.  

 This represents some much needed time away enjoying scrapbooking.  The middle building is where we scrapbooking and eat!  The two cabins on the outside are our sleeping locations - two beautiful little homes.  If it was just Darryl and I, I could live in one of those homes and be perfectly happy :-) Especially since they are a 2 minute walk to Lake Michigan! 

This photo popped up on Sunday - One year ago we were in Texas to celebrate my niece's marriage.  These two ring bearers are just too cute.  I can see here how much they have grown in one year.  That's just crazy! 

Sunday Scripture Song and Sayings

Our Week in Photos #18

This week started out with a birthday.

Most of our week was pretty uneventful.  Monday we focused on school.  Tuesday I focused on cleaning up the mess in our basement from the shower leak.  Wednesday was school, Crazy 8 Math fun and Awana.

Thursday brought the Harvest Fest in our town which we attended this year!

 I love this photo because it shows them both in their costumes!!  I'm not sure I'll get a better one on Halloween night. 

 There are tons of games set up on main street and lots of local business set up "trunk or treat" too.  Plus the business on main street all hand out candy.  It's a pretty great activity especially when the weather was perfect tonight! 

That's our week! 

Weekly Menu

This weekend I get to attend my twice annual Scrapbooking weekend.  I'm so excited to head to the lakeshore and scrapbook with friends.  That leaves the boys on their own - well, not really, I'm planning their simple meals but they still have to make them!

Friday:  Chicken and Fries for the boys and Spaghettios for Darryl.

Saturday:  Ravioli/Spaghetti depending on who likes which pasta

Sunday:  Chicken and Noodles in the crock pot.  I'm leaving the recipe for Darryl to get in the crock pot so I can finish it up once I get home and we can eat dinner.

Monday: Roast, Potatoes, Carrots and mushrooms.  This was planned for last week but got pushed ahead to this week.

Tuesday: Cheesy Broccoli, Chicken and Rice and crescents.

Wednesday:  Our time is limited between the library and AWANA We literally have about 25 minutes to eat.  I've found that sandwiches are the easiest thing to do!  (even if the kids complain!)

Thursday: Slow cooker Ritz Chicken, Mashed Potatos and corn.

Yep, the slow cooker is getting full use this coming week.  No real reason other than I'm in the mood to use it!  (I think I'll pick up some slow cooker bags to make clean up super easy!

Plumbing

If there is one thing I hate more than anything it is water issues in a home.  Uuuugg.  I hate them because, as one very wise plumber I watched on youtube said - whether the leak is big or small, there's still water everywhere HA! 

On Monday morning, I took laundry downstairs and stepped into a puddle of water.  Now, it was pouring rain so the first thought was that we had water coming into the house.  After doing a lot of investigating, I found that it appeared to be coming from the bathroom.  Well, Darryl started the shower upstairs and I went downstairs to see . .. and we had a shower in basement UUUGGG!  The drain had cracked into two pieces so it wasn't connected to the tube anymore and that is not good. 

We survived without a shower until Wednesday evening.  I washed the kids hair in the sink and washed off with a wet towel.  Darryl worked and worked AND worked on the drain on Wednesday evening only to find that the PVC piping is going to have to be cut out and re-run in order to fix the whole situation so then, he rigged the drain with a piece of plastic with a pinhole so the water will drain right into the drain pipe.  Hey, you can just call us the Heck's (The family on the show from "The Middle!").  They are famous for rigging up everything broken in their house HA!  We figure this will at least get us through showers until we can get a plumber to actually fix the whole thing. 

Now, if only someone could figure out where the random ceiling leak in our bathroom comes from . . .it's come and gone for 13 years and no one has ever been able to figure it out other than replace the whole roof which is not going to happen for about 15 more years ;-)

The Birthday Boy!

This past weekend we celebrated Josh and his 9th birthday.  He's such a great kid with a sweet, tender little heart.  He is a rule follower and is always concerned about others.  We are blessed to have him in our family and we got to do some special things with him this past weekend!

I have some traditions for birthdays and sometimes I feel like no one else notices but, just the week before Josh's day, both boys mentioned some things matter-of-factly that happen on their birthdays.

 One of those things is their birthday shirts.  The boys talked about getting their shirts to wear on their day.  I love these shirts and might make them wear one every year until they are 18!

 Josh chose to do his "stuff" on Saturday, the 21st.  We started our day at a place called Glow Golf where we got to play golf in the dark with a black light.  It was awesome!  We had never been to this place and it was so much fun.  Once done golfing, there were video games and an Air Hockey Table to keep us busy for a bit too.

 Josh also got to pick his lunch restaurant and he chose a Grand Rapids staple - Russ's.  For whatever reason, he loves their chicken strips, fries and applesauce.  To top it off, he got a free hot fudge sundae for his birthday too!

 Josh second activity of choice was to go swimming at the Kroc Center.  It has some water park like activities with a lazy river, a water slide, and more.  We spend about 3 hours there and had so much fun.

After all of that swimming we were hungry and Josh's choice for dinner was . . .Checkers (or Rally's depending on where you live). Yep, a drive-through only hamburger place HA!  I should be grateful my kids are in their "inexpensive food taste" stage right now!

 Of course, another tradition is the balloons.  I get them one balloon for each year - thank goodness for the dollar store and their balloons!

 Normally, I'd be a stickler about waiting until the actual day for cake and gifts but Josh had his heart set on doing it all on Saturday so we decided that since it was just the night before, we'd let him do it this time.  He picked out a dirt cake with (gummy) worms from Meijer (another tradition - they get to pick out their cake at the store!) .

 Enjoying his delicious cake and ice cream!

 Gifts are always fun!  He started with opening his gifts from Nate.

 These were his two favorite gifts at one point - a Minecraft Sword and a thing to grow cat grass for the cat.

 But . . then he opened this science kit that he has wanted for an entire year and it became his favorite HA!

 One last photo of my cute 8 year old before he turns 9.

 All of the fun decorations that go up after the kids go to bed.  Those balloons - another tradition that was talked about very matter-of-factly.  "Mom, I will wait until my actual birthday to pop the balloons with my money". HA!

 On Sunday, we met Nana at Arby's (Josh's choice) for lunch and gifts.  Nana had the whole restaurant sing Josh Happy Birthday and then, when we ordered, the guy taking our order payed for Josh's lunch since it was his birthday.  Seriously.  It was such a nice thing to do!

 Josh finally got to put his "money balloons" ($1.00 for each year stuffed inside balloons!)

 A little photo shoot with my cute 9 year old.

Such a fun weekend with a great kid!

Our Week in Photos week #17

This is really 2 weeks worth of photos since I didn't share anything last week!

Last week, we had kind of a quiet week so I looked for some new and unique things happening.

October 10th - Nate pulled out all of his power ranger toys and set them all up (They are still living in the living room as he plays with them every day).  I love to see my kids play with toys!

 The cat also wanted to play . . .

October 11th - I had a chance to take a some photos at the Crazy 8's Math club that Nate is in - they got to test their decibal levels while screaming. (Sorry these are blurry - they are from my phone!) 

Of course, we attended Friday School!  Nate enjoys the cooking part of cooking class but he stll won't taste the food. 

 They had fun in their Stem class figuring out what combination would melt ice the fastest.

 Josh loves the cooking class and even enjoys some of the food :-)

Our weekend was filled with camping which I shared more about HERE; 

Tuesday, October 17th - We participated in a field trip to an Historical Village not far from where we live.  It was a fun experience for the boys. 

 Listening to the history of the village. 

 Getting a tour of the Inn. They learned about Spit-toons and Chamber pots . . .and were grossed out by both HA! 

 They got to churn butter and peel veggies for homemade soup. 

 Listening to the store keeper teach about the general store. 

 The kids were able to dip their own candles. 

 Josh even ate some of the homemade soup - after he picked out all of the green beans ;-) 

The candles that they made. 

This week ended up being really busy with Camping, a field trip, Crazy 8's, AWANA, a Library Event for Homeschoolers, and Friday school.  Throw in the fact that I was fighting a migraine Sunday-Wednesday well, it was quite a week.  I'm kind of looking forward to a much slower week next week!