Fall in Flippin, Hayride, Awards & Fairy House

The first weekend of November the kids and I decided to make a trip to Mom & Dad's.  We had actually been planning to go visit Candy and her family in Louisiana that weekend, but sadly her 4 year old got sick that Friday morning and had to come home from school.  :( We hated that it didn't work out (and of course hated for E to be sick), but we decided it would be best to postpone our trip there.  Since we were already packed up, we went to Flippin instead.  My sister, niece and nephew were going too, so it was fun to all be there together.  And the leaves were so pretty there this year--the most colorful fall I remember seeing in a long time.  It was a beautiful drive home!

The kids had so much fun playing in the front of Mo's horse trailer.  They spent most of Saturday there.  My sister and I spent many hours playing dolls in Mom's horse trailer when we were kids.  (Sidenote:  The three dolls I remember playing with the most were "Heidi", "Tara" and "Swing-set".  Heidi and Tara were my dolls, and Swing-set was Micaela's.  The name Swing-set still makes me laugh!)  

A beautiful fall day--my favorite!

Saturday morning Dad cut down a tree, then the kids helped him haul some firewood to the house.

That night we had a fire in the fire pit and made s'mores.

Dad & Lex

I love sitting by a fire!

Sunday lunch at Pizza Hut after church

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Other recent happenings:

October 30,  3rd-5th grade honors assembly.  

Rhett received a Principal's Award for all A's the first 9 weeks of school, a Citizenship Award and a Kids With Character Award for the character word of the month:  Responsibility.  We're proud of you, R!  Here he is on stage getting his award from his teacher.

One night when Lane was working, Rhett and Alexee wanted to have a sleepover in R's room, but they didn't want Crosby to join them.  I felt bad that they were excluding him, so I told C he could sleep with me.  Then Alexee started crying and said that wasn't fair because she'd rather sleep with me than Rhett.  Then Rhett got upset and said he wasn't sleeping alone.  So...I slept sideways across the foot of my bed.  I'm pretty sure Bogart even had more room than I did.  :)

November 5, Preschool Hayride
Crosby's class got to go on a hayride around the church parking lot.  He told me he didn't want me to go on the hayride with him, but I went anyway.  :)

 With some of his buddies

 November 7, Park Play-date with a new friend in Alexee's class.  We had a great time.

The girls built this fairy house with things they found at the park (and a little glitter that Alexee just happened to have in her backpack).  I'm thankful for this new friendship!

Halloween

Crosby's preschool had a farm party for Halloween, and the kids were asked to come to school dressed as farmers.  Here's our cute little farmer in his jeans, boots, John Deere shirt and cap and work gloves.  

Alexee is interested in the Rainbow Magic fairy books right now, so she wanted to be "Alexa the Fashion Reporter Fairy".  I found a cute little denim dress with hot pink trim on sale at Belk and wings at Party City.  I couldn't find solid gray knee socks anywhere! She had a yellow notebook, a small purse and a wand that she used.  The only blue wings I could find were really large (and REALLY glittery--I'm still cleaning up glitter around the house)!

Crosby was all over the place with his costume planning.  First, he was going to be the red Power Ranger.  Then he decided he'd be Batman instead because he already had the costume.  But shortly before time to go trick-or-treating he changed his mind again and decided to wear his policeman costume.

And Rhett wanted to be something scary but couldn't decide exactly what he wanted to be.  We made a last minute trip to Party City on Halloween morning (they didn't have school that day), and he first wanted to be some sort of evil clown thing.  Luckily that was sold out.  Then he thought he'd be a werewolf, but after trying on that costume he quickly decided it was way too itchy.  So he decided on this gorilla mask.  The teeth were coming unglued, so we got it at a major discount!  We brought it home and hot-glued the teeth back to the lips and it was good to go!

The gorilla, policeman and reporter fairy...What a crew!

We always go trick-or-treating with neighbors, which is great!  The kids love running from house to house with their friends!

It was a fun night!

The Sharks' Last Game

Crosby had so much fun playing fall soccer!  And we loved watching him (and all the Sharks) play! 

Last game of the season, 10/26/13

After the game, Coach Adam gave everyone a medal.  I thought it was so cute how he received his medal, looked at it, then turned to show us with a big sweet smile on his face!!!  He was so proud of it!

Sweet friends.

Love these boys.

Thankful for our happy, energetic four year old.  He is such a JOY!

California Trip: Golden Gate and Alcatraz

Last California post...

On Thursday we spent the day in San Francisco.  We drove down famous, curvy Lombard Street.  It was a fun thing to see.

Next we drove over to the Golden Gate Bridge.  It was very windy and cold, but we walked out to the first tower.  What an amazing structure!  So glad the fog had cleared so we could get a good view of the bridge and see the city from there!

Brrrr!

Alcatraz Island

The Bay Bridge

That evening we had tickets for the Alcatraz Island night tour.  I was honestly a little nervous about going, but I'm glad we did.  The ferry ride to and from the island provided an awesome view of the bay. 

It was creepy yet very sad to me to think that we were walking the same hallways as some of America's most notorious criminals.  What a lonely, hopeless place.  I kept thinking of Chris Tomlin's Amazing Grace My Chains Are Gone as I looked into the tiny prison cells.

My chains are gone

I've been set free

My God, my Savior has ransomed me

And like a flood His mercy reigns

Unending love, amazing grace

Lane in Isolation in D Block

(I didn't even want to step inside)

 I usually don't like audio tours, but this one was super interesting. 

The communication center

It surprised me to see how pretty the landscaping was on the island.

The lights were beautiful from the ferry at night.

We grabbed a quick to-go dinner from Boudin and went back to the room.  We were tired of walking around and driving there just seemed too complicated--it took so long to go anywhere and find a place to park, etc.  We had a wonderful week, but we were both ready to get back home and see the kids.  They had a lot of fun with Grammy & Bobba while we were gone!