The Days of Fall

Just as Pumpkin Pie goes with a Thanksgiving feast, so does the days of fall go with falling leaves and unfortunately some work to pick up those fallen leaves. The greatest thing of all is when you can take those moments and make a little fun while the work is being done. Jeff was outside raking while the boys were playing some football and that is just a moment in this beautiful day!

Here is Tristin, Jacob, and Austin running some plays and trying to score.

Here is Tanner joining in the game. This was a flashback moment because Tanner and his friends used to play in this very yard.

Of course here is Jeff raking the leaves around the boys.

But then the next thing you know there he is getting in the plays.

Here is Tanner playing all time quarterback!

Here is Austin going out for a pass with Tristin and Jacob ready to try and get an interception.

Of course after the game and the leaves were raked up Jeff took the kids and put them in the leaf pile to jump around!

Here Emilee and Jaden are trying to throw the leaves up in the air.

Then finally of course Jonathan found his way into the leaves for his moment of fun.

Just remember there is always work to be done but it can always be mixed with fun. Every moment is another opportunity to make another memory. Of Course the days of Fall would not be complete without a Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends.

Above is only the beginning of what we cooked for Thanksgiving That we laid out on my new Wood Cook stove.

Here is a Pumpkin pie that Jeff decided he wanted to make! Looks like he did pretty good for an amateur chef…lol

Here are some home made Yeast rolls.

Above are some of the snacks we put out to hold us over until we ate.

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Above are some of the family and friends that came to join us.

We read the kids some Thanksgiving stories before we ate to teach them what thanksgiving is all about.

Here I am reading one of the stories.

Here is Jeff reading another one.

Here are the little bundles of Joy listening to the stories.

We have been so blessed this year and we are so very thankful for all that God has blessed us with and the friends and family that we are so thankful for. We pray that your days of fall were filled with friends and family as well and as we are almost at Christmas I am sure we will have more moments to share.

Being Thankful!

Almost a year ago we started a whole new journey in our life and the path we began has taken us to a whole new place. Had you asked us a over year ago if we would have 5 new children in our home the answer would have been NO! That being said a little over a year ago we started taking Foster Parent classes not knowing where that would lead us or who would be lead to us, but now a year later we not only have been foster parenting for a year but we have adopted as well. So if I was to think of something that we are thankful for it is ALL of our children! We have 4 children that are grown and moved out on their own and we are thankful that they come to visit us as much as they can. Just the other night quite a few of our children came over to eat and we had a ball playing catch phrase and just spending time together. It is such a blessing that they all live close enough that we can do that and with those special moments you can build such awesome memories that will be talked about for times to come. These are the moments we live for and that we are thankful for. Being that we are lovers of Thanksgiving and of course Christmas we decided this year to get our Christmas lights up before Thanksgiving so we could spend our time off enjoying more little moments like we talked about rather than working on lights the whole weekend. So we took some time over a few days to put up all the lights outside and also decorating the inside. We are so glad that we did that because it may be a rainy couple of days and now we don't have to do it.

After we finished everything up my husband gathered us up on the front porch and took our picture!

The funniest thing of all is that the kids all lined up according to age and we didn't even notice that until later. How funny!

Here is Jeff setting up the tree.

Mallory helping me decorate.

Tanner being himself...lol Oh by the way Tanner is on the right.

Here is Mallory helping Jonathan.


Of course we talked Desmond into helping too.

We are so Thankful for all God has blessed us with and we owe it all to him. Enjoy this season with us in celebration of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ making memories with friends and family!

Happy Birthday!!!!! (KayLeigh)

  We spend our latest Saturday enjoying a time of celebration! This particular celebration was for KayLeigh’s 6th birthday. We decided that we would have her birthday party at a Lake near our home because when you rent a pavilion you also get 10 arm bands so the kids can do everything they want. Some of the things they had was a choo choo train that takes the riders all the way around the lake and back for a relaxing view of all the scenery. They also have putt putt golf, paddle boats, and many other things that don't cost anything. KayLeigh was looking at a magazine the week prior and she saw a three tier cake and said “I want a cake like that for my birthday”. Well needless to say we wanted to try and make that happen so we asked a friend to make us one and at first thought she could, but then realized she would not have time. We thought about it and decided that no task would be too big to at least try so we bought all the materials it would take to make this cake and got to it. I baked all the cakes during the day and once that was done Jeff and I cut them as level as we could and started stacking pieces and icing them. Once we finished that we put them in the fridge over night and then we pulled them out in the morning and stacked them all up and iced over the whole thing together. After that Chasity came over and we started adding all the fondant flowers that we cut out previously and it really started to take some shape. Here are a few pictures of the process and please keep in mind we have never done anything more than a single layer cake.

 

Here we are making sure it is getting done evenly.

 

We added a little icing to the back of the flowers to help them stick.

Here is Chas setting all the flowers in place on the cake and making sure we disperse our colors correctly.

And here is the cake finished ready for transport.

Once we were done with the cake it was time to head to the park. here are all the kids waiting for the cake to be cut.

Here they are filling up on their sugar for the day.

Oh we are really making a dent in that cake.

 

Here is Tanner taking to Emilee.

 

Here is the train way across the lake with everyone on it.

Here it comes

Now were back!

Here they are about to arrive at the station.

Here is Gabriel, Tristin, and KayLeigh getting ready for the paddle boats.

And off we go!

Whew it is not easy paddling those boats.

Here is Garrett and James hanging out too!

Here is Sadie, KayLeigh, Gracie, and Lilly!

We are so glad that we chose to have the party here and we are so grateful that everyone could come and join in the celebration. We had an awesome time!

A Day Of Fun

This past Saturday we decided to make a day of fun and just do whatever we felt. My husband and Tristin went to men's prayer and when they returned we were all ready for our day out.

First we went to our local farmers market to get some fruit and vegetables, then we were headed to the park to play for a while.

On our way there we came upon a yard sale and they had a chair I just had to have, and the amazing thing was it was only 3.00 I could not believe it. Here are a few pictures check it out!

The kids were very patient with me because you could see the park from the yard sale and they never rushed me. They just let me look and never said a word. Then we were off to the park and what a awesome time we had. The kids loved it! We started out letting them feed the ducks:

Here are just a few of the many ducks that came to the feast. I think they see kids coming and know they are going to get a lot.

Here are the kids feeding the ducks. It was so funny because most of the duck food ended up on the dock instead of the water. Oh well as long as they got most of it in there.

Here is Jeff and Tristin throwing the food off the dock.

Here is Jeff and Jonathan. Jonathan was too busy feeding himself to worry about those ducks…lol

Once we were done feeding the ducks then off to the playground we went.

Here are all the kids on the bridge again. If you remember we took one of these a while back so we thought it would be neat to do another one.

Here is Emily!

Here she is coming down the slide!

Here is Jonathan!

Here he comes!

And here he is!

Of course he just had to get on the swing too!

Here is Jaden!

He decided to go down the big boy slide!

Here is Hagan!

Here come Hagan

Here he is!

Here is Tristin!

Here he is!

Of course Jeff being the big kid that he is had to get in on the action.

As a disclaimer KayLeigh never would go down the slide…

Here are Jeff and Jaden racing back from the bathroom…Jaden won!

Here we all are together1

It was such a nice day because the weather was very cool that morning and no one was there yet so the kids basically had the whole thing to their selves. After the park we took the kids for ice cream and then headed back to the house. The kids took a nap and Jeff and I began working on the yard and putting out all our fall items. Later that afternoon Tanner, Mallory, and Desmond came over and washed and waxed all the cars. Jeff and the kids were all running around the flower bed and being silly.

Here are the kids running around the flower bed and doing sit ups and push ups. It was fun to them.

Here are the three rug rats sitting together on the porch.

It was a great day and we had lots of fun and family time. God Bless and have a safe weekend.