Fall Misc

 Some miscellaneous photos and events from October and November...

Home Depot Workshop

I love seeing Adley's enthusiasm and growing independence at these monthly kids' building workshops. She and I have become a regular at both Home Depot and Lowe's each month. November's project was a cute scarecrow napkin holder. Adley was quite proud to display it on our kitchen table all month.

Cody's Piano Songs

Cody chose to join the handbell choir at school this year and really loves it. Because he doesn't have a personal instrument to practice at home, however, we've still been having him continue with piano lessons. Here are a few songs that he enjoyed learning this fall. First, a fun Halloween song called. "The Spook."

The next two songs are part of a new book we bought for Cody, featuring many songs written in minor keys. Cody says he loves the sound of them. These two songs were part of a medley, so they bear some similar themes: "End Game"

and "Game On."

Adley's School

This fall, Jason took a trip to New York for a conference with our other two pastors. This little sweetie missed her daddy while he was gone and drew this picture for him at school. I was so thankful to her teacher for capturing this sweet photo.

The kids' school honored veterans on Veteran's Day with a school-wide event. The students dressed in patriotic colors, created decorations, and stood around the school campus while veterans drove by. Adley's teacher sent a few photos of the kindergarten class that day.

Grandparents' Day

Just before school let out for Thanksgiving break, the school held a special day for grandparents. We were disappointed that Grandma was unable to join in on the fun events, as she was getting over some yucky sickness. Grandpa, Grammy, and Papa spent the morning with the kids, moving together in family groups through various rotations. 

They all played games, interviewed grandparents, and took a tour of the school. These kids sure are blessed with some amazing grandparents!!

Grandparents' Day was capped off with a school chapel service-- led by Cody's 5th grade class! These kids had to be brave to speak their lines and act out their parts in front of an extra-large audience. Their skit was a cute one, talking about the love of grandparents and the love of our Savior. The class did a great job!

Cody had a couple of speaking parts. He spoke very clearly, and we were proud of him!

Family Photo Shoot

In order to get some photos for our Christmas card, we had a photo shoot of our family in mid-November. One of Chelsea's friends took our photos and captured some sweet memories for us.

Halloween Events

 Fall is such a fun time of year! I'm still getting used to doing all these fall activities in shorts and T-shirts here in Texas, but hey, at least the ground isn't covered in snow! Close to Halloween, our family did our annual pumpkin carving. The boys helped with a lot of the pumpkin-gut scooping this year.

Then, we affixed templates onto each pumpkin. Jaden found his template at our favorite website (thepumpkinlady.com), while Cody and Adley designed their own.

Each child then poked holes along the lines of their design with a push-pin, creating a sort of dot-to-dot picture.

After that, the carving begins! All three did a majority (if not all) of the carving fully independently this year.

Here are the awesome finished products!

The kids had two opportunities to collect candy this year-- once at our church's Trunk or Treat event on the weekend before Halloween and then trick-or-treating on actual Halloween night. Each of the kids helped me with their costume designing and even some of the sewing, so they were all especially proud of their costumes this year:

Adley the sunflower

Jaden as Torchic from Pokemon

and Cody as Snoopy

We are always so wowed by the trunks that our church members creatively decorate at Trunk or Treat. It makes the event so fun!

This family even handed out candy using scoopers out of Chick-Fil-A buckets. So creative!

A highlight for the kids is always seeing some of their friends, their cousins, and even their teachers, from school.

Halloween was on a Monday this year, so grades K-2 held a book character parade on that day. It gave the students a fun and educational reason to dress up at school. Adley used part of her sunflower costume to dress up as Fern, the Green Fairy from the Rainbow Fairy book series. Adley discovered this book series over the summer and loved having Jason and me read it to her. She listened to so many books from this series! It was only fitting that she dress up as a character from these books.

Here is Adley's sweet kindergarten class in costume before the parade.

Parents were allowed to line up outside the school that morning and cheer on the kids as they walked by. It was such a fun parade!

And that's a wrap for Halloween 2022!