Micah Tyler - New Today (Official Music Video)

Here's a new song by Micah Tyler.  It's a great song for the our current days. 

2020 Weekly Photos #43

 Another great week! 

Saturday - Halloween! 

We carved our pumpkins.  I love that both Josh and Nate can now carve their own pumpkins!!  In order picture are:  Nate's, Mine, Josh's and Darryl's. These were true Jack-O-Lantern Pumpkins.  Do you know what the difference is?  Well, let me tell you.  They pumpkin flesh is softer and easier to cut and they are drier without so much junk on the inside!  They were amazing! 

We met up with friends for trick-or-treating. 

Josh and Nate Halloween 2020!  Josh informed me weeks ago that he was about done with Trick-or-Treating.  Well, I told him he had to do it this year HA!  I said, "You have to go this year one last time so that we can enjoy your "last time"".  He's already said he is not going again.  

Our pumpkins all lit up!  

Sunday - Was our normal quiet day at home with food, football, and family. 

Monday-Friday - School.  Since we now have our friends here everyday doing virtual school, we stick pretty tight to our school schedule.  On one hand, it's great because we are moving through lessons and will get a nice long Christmas break since subjects will be done.  On the other hand, it means nothing extra - no spur of the moment trips to the park because the weather is amazing or unexpected days off just because.  Our friends have times throughout the day that they have to log into "school" and be present to count as attending so we are tied to home!  Pros and Cons  - and it is just for a season so it is ok.  I'm thankful I can minister in this way to my friends and be a help and encouragement to them.  So, there is a whole lot of school and quite a bit of modified football being played every afternoon. 

Nate had TKD on Friday afternoon.  Due to new Covid restrictions, they couldn't hold class inside the church.  Thankfully the weather was amazing so they still had class - just outside instead!  Not sure if this will happen again though! 

Weekly Menu

 I feel like I get a few "down weeks" before we hit the holidays full swing.  I'm not sure what that really means since I still cook every day but I guess maybe it's that I just cook our regular favorites and not all the fun food!!  

Here's the simple plan for the coming week

Friday - Our weekly eating out fun. 

Saturday - Our weekly dinner out at my mom's 

Sunday - Crescent wrapped little sausages, chicken wings, Cheese Ball and Crackers, -- we have to have football food!  :-)  Dinner will be super simple - Mac and Cheese and a Microwave Meal for Josh. 

Monday - Broccoli Cheese Soup, Rolls, and Ham 

Tuesday - Tacos, I mean it IS Tuesday! 

Wednesday - Chicken and Dumplings, cheese and crackers, pickles and olives

Thursday - Chicken Noodle Soup and Garlic Bread (Apparently it is soup week HA!) 

November Goals

 

As we come into November, I like to slow down a little and focus on the things most important.  I love the Holidays and have learned from my past mistakes that if I over plan, it's not fun.  In both November and December I try to wrap up my year long goals while taking time to enjoy the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of the holidays.  

Here are my goals for November.  

1. Scrapbooking - 1) Finish my nieces book (a broken record) but this time it will be done.  As I mentioned in a previous post, if I need to I'm going to change the "story" of the book so I can finish it.  2) Complete 2 pages a day scrapbooking (so 60 pages total)  3) File all of the photos I have on hand right now and, once those are filed, order the April photos 4) The Spines - my goal this month is to focus on the top shelf of my scrapbooking shelf and make sure the albums all have page protectors and decide if I'm flipping any of the album covers for others.  

2. Reading - 1) Just read.  There is nothing better then curling up with a book.  I have a lot on my kindle :-)  2) Write my reading goal for 2021

3. Cleaning - 1) The kids bedrooms.  First up is Josh's stuff.  I plan to take a weekend (or 2 if needed) and just spend hours sorting and cleaning out (with Josh's help - he says he wants to get rid of TONS of stuff so we will see!).  Once that room is done, we will work on Nate's stuff.  2) With holidays coming I just want to take time and just simply clean.  I'm hosting Thanksgiving and Christmas this year so making sure everything is nice and neat is keay.  

4. Family - Very simply, Thanksgiving.  That is our focus this month.

5. Homeschool - Our goal is just to continue on track.  Both kids are going to finish some, if not all, lessons by Christmas as long as we keep going.  I also want to find some supplemental things for them to do when they are done until the semester begins in January (fun but educational)

6. Holiday PLanning - 1) Decorate outside for Christmas.  I usually watch the weather and pick a "warm" weekend day to do it all even if it is the beginning of November!! 2) Plan Thanksgiving - the food, the decorations, and all that fun stuff!  3) Get our Grinch calendar gifts-- keeping it super simple! 4) Make my gift plan for the kids so I know what to order and when 5) Plan our December so we do what is important to us first. 

7. The Basement - This is the bonus space.  If I can find time to do 20 minute sessions in the space, I will and if not, I won't. 

8. Piano - Just finding a way to get the kids through some lessons

9) Photography - Time to read my new book once section at a time and practice :-) 

10) Spiritual - Complete my Thanksgiving Bible Studies 

11) Misc - 1) Clean up the yard and fill in the holes 2) Have Josh finish his artwork from last semester  3) Pick out camping dates for next year so I'm ready to reserve them on time  4) I have an idea brewing for a vacation next summer but in order for it to happen I have to plan now and begin saving so my goal is to get it all planned so I can start saving for it :-)  5) Clean out the vehicles and set up my new organizing bins in each one (for lysol, wipes, extra bags, etc) 6) Make sure my November flag is hung up :-)  7 I cleaned the garage last month but there are 4 bins of "donations" that I put out there like 5 years ago HA!  While pulling them down to decide what to do with them, I found a basket and two bins I had been looking for for quite awhile so I've decided I need to go through those bins before I donate them!  

Halloween Costumes

 I think it is always fun to look back through the years at Josh and Nate's Halloween Costumes!  

Josh 2009

Josh 2010

Nate 2010

Josh 2011

Nate 2011

Josh 2012

Nate 2012

Josh 2013

Nate 2013

Nate and Josh 2014

Josh 2015

Nate 2015

Josh 2016

Nate 2016

Nate and Josh 2017

Nate and Josh 2018

Josh and Nate 2019

Nate (costume #1) 2020

Nate (costume #2) 2020

Josh 2020

Weekly Worship - The Father's House (Studio Version) - Cory Asbury

Cory Asbury creates some great music and this one does not disappoint.  Enjoy! 

2020 Weekly Photos #42

 Check out what we did this week! 

Saturday - We celebrated Josh!  For birthdays, they get to pick to restaurants and two activities to do and we spend the day celebrating them. 

Our first stop was Domino's pizza.  We really don't have a great take out pizza place and we all love Domino's so this was perfect.  We picked it up at the drive thru window and sat in the car in the parking lot and ate.  We laughed a lot :-)  

After lunch we headed to TreeRunner Adventure Park where Josh and Nate "hung from the trees".  It is a ropes course hung high up in the trees.  They were all strapped in and ready to go!  Nate did one course.  Josh did two.  Josh just loved it and wants to come again.  

Josh even went on the super big Zip line.  He so loved the whole thing and was so confident with every step along the way. 

After hanging out for almost 3 hours outside, we were ready for a treat so we picked up some frappes before heading to our next adveneture. 

Josh's second activity of choice was Sky Zone.  Now, Sky Zone just opened two weeks ago - he was very happy.  We are pretty conservative with doing inside things so this was a stretch.  I honestly did not think it would be quite as busy as it was (and the manager told me the same thing when I commented that it seemed like it was doing well!) but that's ok,  The kids had a great time jumping for 90 minutes and just added more adventure to their day.  Masks and hand sanitizer were used when needed so what else can you do, right? 

Now, Josh told me he wanted real burgers for dinner - not kid burgers but burgers adults would eat.  We talked about Red Robin but didn't really want to eat inside plus we knew the wait would be long on a Saturday night.  Then I remmebered that my brother Jeff said he loves Five Guys Burgers.  I told that to Josh and he said, "Well, Uncle Jeff is an adult so that should be fine." HA!  Let me tell you something . .. . best burger ever.  For real.  And the fires?  Holy Moly - they were "Fair Fries" - the kind you get at the fair!!  Good thing there isn't a five guys closer or I might have to get a burger more often!! 

And yes, we sat outside and ate - it was 32 degrees HA!  We were thankful for this out door picnic area by the burger joint because it would have been SUPER messy trying to eat the amazing burgers in the truck!! 

He was one happy kids after "his" day! I love when the day is a success! 

Sunday was a pretty low key day after our busy day on Saturday.  We did some cleaning/pick  up around the house and enjoyed watching some amazing football games.  (I love down to the wire wins!) 

Monday  - This week brought changes.  Our friends have moved to two weeks of virtual learning so they are here all day.  This time around they actually have lessons they have to attend starting at 8:00.  So, now, my school day begins at 8:00 and goes to 3:00!!!  It actually is not bad - I don't have to do much for the other two except make sure they stay on task when their teachers are teaching via Google Classroom. 

Tuesday - More school.  Nate worked on a portfolio (a project) today. 

He made dough.  The project was on determining whether a chemical reaction happens.  His teacher made Putty on the live lesson since most kids do not have Borax sitting around at home but they made dough on their own.  Nate loves experiments and he is really good at putting his thoughts into words when it comes to explaining the process so he really excels at things like this.  

Wednesday - Just a school day.  We had the mid-week blahs and it was hard to get through the day but we all did it.  There is alot of schooling going on with 4 kids on computers most of the day!  

Thursday - Guess what we did today?  School HA!  Josh and Nate worked hard all day and successfully finished all of their schooling for the week so Friday is a free day.  This is especially a big deal because our friends still have to do school tomorrow.  

Friday - Our Halloween Festivities began! 

Nate had a special live lesson today and got to wear his costume.  He had to give three clues to his classmates and once they guessed, he got to share his web cam and show of his costume.  Activities like this fill his bucket! 

Once Darryl got home, we headed into the next town over for our normal fast food dinner out before going to a drive through trunk or treat at a church.  For this event, Josh was a referee and Nate, a Ketchup Bottle (yes, he has two costumes HA!)  Love these costumes! 

Finally, a friend shared an address of a great Halloween display which wasn't far from where we were so made the extra 10 minute drive and it did not disappoint.  

It was a great week!