Farewell to October

They say that the holidays are the busiest time of the year, but it always seems that for us, October is even busier! Maybe it's because of the ages of the kids and activities they're involved in, but this month has flown by and I want to take a minute to catch you up and show you a few fun pictures.

October 24th, Louie celebrated his 40th birthday. That just seems hilarious for me to even put in writing. Are we really that old? (Well, not me... yet) We went to dinner with his family and had a great time. His sister baked a cheesecake and we all sang to him- since we were at a Japanese steakhouse, his mom decided to try to sing Happy Birthday in Japanese... I thought Louie was going to crawl under the table. But a good time was had by all.

One thing the kids have always, always loved to do is carve pumpkins. And they're funny about it. Garrett's always has to be kind of humorous. Hannah always picks a really intricate pattern. And Becca was old enough to carve her own this year without (hardly any) help. Becca also really dislikes scraping out the pumpkin. Hannah, however, has no trouble with the nasty 'pumpkin guts'. This year, Becca decided she could handle it-but she didn't have a very good look on her face!

We live in a neighborhood where everyone likes to come to trick-or-treat. And it's understandable... if you live out in the country, it's impossible (and dangerous) to go door to door. So about 30 minutes prior, we start to see cars lining up along the road. Louie and I walked around with Becca while Garrett and Hannah passed out candy. I knew they would run out of candy before trick-or-treaters, but I thought I did pretty well- I bought over 100 pieces. Well, they were out of candy in 30 minutes! Becca always trick or treats with the same buddies from her Sunday school class that she's known since kindergarten (some earlier than that). They were a strange crew this year... they dressed up as Michael Jackson, a WVU football player and my personal favorite- a blind referee. Becca, my sweet little angel, was a cute little ladybug last year. Not this year. Her exact words were "I don't want to look cute". (Sigh) So instead, she was some kind of scary zombie girl.

Garrett and Hannah are in the youth praise band at church and twice this month they were asked to sing at church events. Last weekend, they sang at a conference for teenage girls. There were over 300 in attendance. They did so well! There are some really talented musicians in their group. In a few weeks, they're going to sing at an FCA rally for a large crowd again.

Let's see what else... Hannah's volleyball season wrapped up with a loss (unfortunately). She didn't seem too broken up about the fact the the season is over- actually I think she's tired!

Hannah and Garrett had a costume party last Saturday evening for their friends. It was pretty funny. They ate, listened to music, and played games in the youth room of our church. Hannah was some type of woodland fairy and Garrett dressed up as Edward from the Twilight book series- with a steak through his heart. It wasn't until 2 days before the part that we realized one of the the real reasons for the party was to invite a boy named John who is 'smitten' with Hannah.(John's mother's word)

Then tonight, our school was having a fundraiser. It was Mc Teacher night at Mc Donalds and Becca HAD to go see her teacher bagging french fries. Hannah's journalism teacher took their dinner order and the headmaster delivered our to go order with a smile. Each teacher was being assisted by a Mc Donalds employee. The funniest part was when we got in the car, Becca pulled out a fry and said, 'This takes just like a regular Mc Donalds french fry'. I have no idea what she was expecting!

We are a little more than halfway through the New Testament Challenge and I'm really enjoying it. As we read through the NT, I've only gotten behind once- so far! It's funny- as I'm reading, I'm noticing so much more emotion in the writer's words than I have before. These were real people living out their faith in real life. And I have a lot to learn from their words for my real life.