3 gifts acorn small...

mini chocolate bars for those 'crisis' moments ;)
pudgy baby hands
chapstick!

Nov. 4 joy dare

A gift gathered, given and good...

Gathered... family gathered together.
Given... offering to those with less
Good... knowing the preciousness of each and every single life, in good and hurt.

And ironically, while I exercised this morning, I watched a documentary called "Happy", and one of the key scientific factors in happiness is counting your blessings. And I have many :)

Joy Dare

So Ann Voskamp does a monthly 'joy dare', and I'm going to try my best to join in.
 http://www.aholyexperience.com/2012/11/happy-november-november-joy-dare/.

Today is 3 gifts that start with N...
1. Well... November. Its a break from the busy to just have normal routine before the chaos.
2. nice...sweet Isaac is always hugging me and saying 'you are nice'
3. Noelle, our girls music teacher. She loves on my family in many ways and is a huge blessing to us.

Halloween

Well despite the fact it was rather cold, the kids had a great time trick or treating! The girls had their costumes planned for months. They had so much fun dressing up like 80's rockers! lol Reminded me of being their age once ;)

We knew Evan had to be something that 'lit up', so he decided on being Tron. His costume was so him and so fun! One guy gave him 5 candies instead of 1 because he loved his costume so much. LOL

Isaac just picked out of our current selection of costumes and decided he wanted to be a pumpkin. He went to like 10 houses and then was dying to come in to eat his candy. haha. He was just thrilled with his little stash. And after pigging out, he informed me his tummy hurt and he was done with his candy. So cute! I didn't get any pics of just him, but here is the whole gang!

I'm not a big fan of Halloween, but I tolerate it because the kids love it. But I sure love watching how excited they get about dressing up, and all that candy. Oh and also, our neighbors (they are an older couple who are so awesome) do not give out candy, but they always stop by with a treat for our kids. This year they brought us cupcakes. I'm *so* blessed to have neighbors who go out of their way to love on our big crazy family. 

Beauty

I love the feeling of being completely awestruck by our creator's beauty. What a beautiful day when we realize just how blessed we are....

Surgery

Kayla recently got her adenoids out. Easy peasy routine surgery. But not so easy for this mama! I think we wouldn't be human if we didn't fear our kids would never wake up after being put out. Ugh! But she did awesome.

This girl makes hospital gowns look cute! :) 

Dad and Kayla playing football on the ipad! They had lots of fun waiting :)

And this.... this made my day. Thank you man at the good earth coffee shop in the children's hospital. You made me smile. 

"School pics"

I've seen some of these done on blogs before, and thought it was a cute way to document a new 'school' year. So here's the kiddos...

Wyatt 9 months

Isaac 3.5- preschool

(this kids hair just kills me! LOL)

Evan 6.5- Grade 1

Madison 8.5- Grade 3

Emily 12- grade 7

Kayla 13.5- grade 8

The whole crew!