A Month of Fall Fun

Wow, I can't believe October is already over! Fall just never lasts long enough. It's cooled off quite a bit this past couple weeks. The week of Halloween they even got snow in the Valley, but we lucked out on this side of the mountain and only had rain:) The days start out in the 30s, but have been warming up to the mid 60s by afternoon. Nice!! Since it is so cold in the morning I have been driving the kids to school, with their bikes in the van, then they ride their bikes home in the afternoon.

We waited until the Friday before Halloween to carve our pumpkins, so they wouldn't be all shriveled by Halloween. Addie's favorite part is cleaning the "guts" out of the pumpkin. Of course it is necessary to sit ON the table while doing this:)

For Halloween we went to a party at the Wilson's, as is tradition. Homemade chili and apple dip, I'm So There!! The rain started up in the afternoon and was really coming down when the kids headed out for their first trip around the neighborhood. They weren't out long and were all soaked, though that didn't keep them from going out again once the rain slowed down. All in all it was a fun Halloween night.

It didn't even cross my mind to take pictures of the kids in their costumes this year, so all we have is this shot of Addie playing Rock Band at the end of the night. She insisted on painting her face to look like a horse, just in case you couldn't tell ;)

Unfortunately, Addie woke up with a stomach bug the day after Halloween, which she attributed to too much candy. I don't think that is it, since Austyn had the same bug 2 days earlier, but she won't eat her candy now because she thinks it is going to make her throw up again. Silly girl! (More candy for me:)

This is just Addie being silly. She is always ready to pose for a picture.

I had to take a picture of this sign posted at our orthodontist's office. I can't help noticing when people use the wrong words or wrong spelling in public places or professional advertising. The gas station down the street was "excepting" applications for a few days last week. Addie's preschool teacher keeps writing "the kids will come back 'hear' after the field trip." I know I am guilty of misspelling on occasion too, so I don't judge, I just laugh:)

With this beautiful fall weather we've been having, we have also had a few storms roll through. I just LOVE to look at the clouds on stormy days, weather can really make or break my mood.

So coming back to the discussion about my hair . . . . straight or curly? Here are a few more pics of my looks. I think I really like the straight hair look. I never thought I could pull it off, but I've really been enjoying the attention and comments I've gotten on my new look.

Well, it's that time of year again . . . . REFLECTIONS! Our new school doesn't seem to be as big on Reflections as our last school, but the girls were excited to enter just the same. Without all the hype, however, they didn't try to go all out and both decided to try their skills in photography for this year's entry.

Here are a few of Ashley's pics.

Here are a few by Alexia.

I think they both got some pretty good shots, so now they'll just have to narrow it down to one to enter.

So my day job has dropped off completely now. I've had no work for several weeks. To make up for it, I have been trying to increase my evening work, but it has been SOOOO HARD! I just don't work as well in the evening. Late morning and early afternoon are usually my most productive working times. I am not really disappointed in my day job dropping off, as I had no intention of working 2 jobs indefinitely, I just need to work harder at my other job to make up the difference now.

Ryan is also going through transition at his work right now. All of their McDonald's routes have been sent back to Denver, so Ryan has had to start training on a new route. The route he is training on now would be a perfect fit, but it may just be a temporary takeover while another employee is on disability leave. We'll have to see how things work out. He really doesn't want to start looking for work with another company as he would probably end up having to take a long-haul route at first, which would be hard on all of us.

October is "Pie Month" at our local Marie Calender's restaurants, so we've been eating pie all month! We don't get the French Apple pie until the end of the month, as my traditional birthday pie, but the rest of the month we try everything else. My favorites this month have been the Double Cream Blueberry, Double Cream Lemon, German Chocolate and Razzleberry:)

My 36th birthday was a pretty uneventful day, in fact most of the day was down right boring! Ryan had to be up at 4:00 a.m. to get to work, so he was pretty tired when he returned home just after noon. With Addie at a friend's house and Ryan sleeping for a couple hours, I just didn't know what to do with myself. The house was clean, the laundry done and with Ryan sleeping I didn't want to get on the computer in our room, so I was bored. I texted a few friends, but no one was available to carry on much of a conversation that afternoon. So, by the time Ryan finally got up and the kids got home from school I was a little depressed. However, after a short nap I felt a lot better and the rest of the night was quite enjoyable with pizza for dinner and pie for dessert. My sister JennyLyn came down for a couple hours and we had a fun visit. Hopefully our Anniversary next week goes a little better:)

On a positive note . . . . FOOTBALL IS OVER!! YAY!! I've even been motivated to make dinner every night this week, knowing EVERYONE will be here:)