Treat night

Our local church did a neighborhood outreach tonight called "treat night" and it was planned to run from 6-8; when we left at 7:40 over six hundred people had come through the doors! As always they did a marvelous job appealing to the kids with games, cotton candy machines, balloon animals, face painting, popcorn, and lots of love directed at each person there.

My ragtag group of kids included (much to NOBODY'S surprise) Indiana Jones, Bigfoot, and Dorothy... 

Once my little sugar monsters were safely tucked in I made sure to "check the candy" ie: get some of the good stuff while the gettin' was good! I guess my diet took the day off-?

I blame it on the newest baby in our lives - my friends headed to the hospital around 12:30 this morning so I was up getting their 2 yr old settled on our futon for the rest of the night- happily a beautiful baby girl was born one hour later! (Also, happily, at the hospital and not in my living room! That was cutting it close!)

Now I just need to get John at work and then while he is doing homework (right?! It's already 10:30!) I will sneak I to bed-

Bountiful gifts

One of the most difficult parts of our recent move was how much we had to almost stand by and watch our kids deal with all  the changes our choices brought about; over and over I have seen God reach down and provide opportunities or gifts to the kids that were uppermost on their minds and hearts, things we are not in a position to provide right now. Full scholarships to nature camp, a 10 gallon turtle tank, a turtle (!), a trumpet for band, help with a BIG field trip, pumpkins for carving and today, a wonderful old-fashioned typewriter for our budding author. There are so many more things I could add to this list but these are the things I could call to mind in ten seconds or less. Tonight we ate dinner with yummy potatoes from a nice lady at church and had bread I made with my new $10 bread maker from the goodwill; apple butter bread because we have a humongous load of apple butter we were given and I have no idea what to do with! Good thing the bread is delicious...

What I love about all of this is that none of it's truly important, meaning critical to our lives. But it's all intensely personal, which is what makes me love Jesus more each day as I see Him teaching us to change, to trust Him on this journey.

We did it!

Brenda and I totally "ran" the 5k this morning at 8 a.m. I say "ran" because we had a time of about 33 or 34 minutes - not knowing exactly is fine with me!!

But... WE DID IT.

Awana

It was dress up night at awana, which at our house usually involves finding as many pillowcases, belts and robes as we can, winding them around the boys to resemble some type of shepherd/prophet/vagabond. I got a couple pictures of Tamara's girls too- the most hilarious one being 6 yr old Addie who dressed up as 90 year old pregnant Sarah from Genesis.

Apples!!

Twin Day two times!

It's twin day here at NTBI and my friend Brenda and I decided to go for it. Much to our delight, our husbands inadvertently did the same thing!! (No egos there...)

The sly eyebrow...

The boys both brought their  school pictures home last week- Gabe's came the day before Zach's and he looks handsome, albeit rather forced (as he always does when "smiling" for the camera).

When I took Zach's photo packet out of his bag I laughed for at least ten minutes:

"Zachy," I called down the hall "what's the deal with your school picture?"

"Oh,that," he replied. "It's the sly eyebrow. I practiced it like a thousand times in the mirror."

Ah, the birthday girl

My 34th birthday has come and gone; many lovely gifts and sentiments came my way over the last few days. Katy just showed up with some birthday gifts wrapped in old homework! (We students know how to economize.)

Rilla and I spent my birthday running errand and baking for a baby shower I hosted on Tuesday; she was a good little girl, even at the DMV!

A little bit of this and that

Well, partly due to a malfunction with my blogger app and partly due to what this product of the 1980's would refer to as a good old fashioned "major malfunction" of myself as we adjust, readjust and then go back and adjust some more,I have long been absent from my blog. And I do apologize.

John is onto a new work schedule, Zach and Gabe are doing well at school and Rilla is potty trained... So now I can breathe again. 

We went to a very fun apple orchard today about an hour away; fellow married student Melissa set up a very fun fall "extravaganza!" for the marrieds and since I have never and will never pass up a chance to visit an apple orchard the kids and I (and my very brave new friend Tina) went for it. Afterwards we were all (!) invited to her parents house for dinner, where Zach caught three wooly bear caterpillars and Gabe was allowed to use an old fashioned typewriter, which was a dream come true for my literary son. (We have actually been looking for a typewriter because he loves antiques as well, and no luck yet so this was a big night for him.) Rilla had her hair in French braids for the very first time, and they actually lasted for part of the day. 

In other news, I have a new friend from Germany who was actually born in Kyrgyzstan; last week she and another new friend Natasha, who is from Russia, came over and we made pelmeni. It was so much fun.

Lucy

On September 19 Lucille Sophia came into the world as an adorable addition to the Godsey family. Jake and Abby couldn't be prouder; indeed she is beautiful!