Give thanks in all circumstances... 1 Thessalonians 5:18

We gave thanks for all of the wonderful blessings that have entered our lives. 

Which probably included many of you!

Happy Thanksgiving! 

I made the whole Turkey Dinner shebang, but this cheese ball won the show! 

It was delicious! 

Our Smart Cub Scout

Ethan accepting his award for earning a spot on the A/B honor roll!  

The pictures below are of Ethan and his fellow cub scouts showing off two days worth of hard work. They passed out bags to every house in one community on one Saturday and picked them up the next Saturday to take them to a local food pantry.  It was a lot of walking and hard work, but they seemed to enjoy themselves and learned a couple things along the way. 

We're pretty proud of our little guy!

Frozen Swamp

Gracie, like most girls her age, wanted to be Elsa the Snow Queen for Halloween.  Seeing how Elsa has a younger sister, we just knew Lexie would be the perfect Princess Anna. Well once you have two characters from the movie, you might as well add another to play the cute snowman. Eli's as cute as can be so he got the job.  Ethan wasn't going to have anything to do with our little grouping, and went for the more scary route with Swamp Creeper.  I want to say we walked about 6 blocks until the kids had full bags of candy. This was the first year that Lexie walked a good majority of the way.  She has been doing much better transitioning from one surface to another and doesn't try to crawl as much.  We had a tricky time going up and down steps, but she hung in there.  Which surprises me because I was sure she would demand to stop and eat the first candy bar or freak out that we didn't get to go into the houses.  Thankfully both of those things didn't happen.  She did try to go in the first couple of houses, but once she realized what was happening, she was good to go.  Another successful Halloween full of happy kiddos! 

Halloween Breakfast 

 
                          

Little touches of Fall

I'm pretty proud that the only thing I purchased for my mantle was the acorns. I re-decorated the wreath from last year using stuff I already had, printed out the signs, and added items that I had laying around the house. 

Give Thanks Printable

Give thanks in all circumstance. Beautiful and fitting!

I think this will be the last year for the Ashe pumpkin. It needs some new paint. 

It doesn't seem to be holding up too well, but it has been a couple years so I should cut it some slack. 

Here is link from when I first displayed it. 

Autumn has arrived!

Few things we can check off on our fall bucket list:

 Obligatory pumpkin patch pictures....✔

 Throw down some Apple Cider doughnuts like there's no tomorrow.....✔

Sling shot an overpriced pumpkin across a field ....✔

Ride a barrel train....✔ 

and finally hug a goat......✔

The last one isn't really a fall item, but we don't want to make Lexie feel awkward. 

We will let her think it was something we needed to check off. ;) 

Eli turns 2!!

This little guy has all of our hearts in the palm of his little hand.  He almost makes me want to have another baby.  Eli is laid back and always has a smile on his face.  He is growing more and more everyday, but we are still trying to put some weight on him.  His tongue aversion is making it a little difficult, but like all of his accomplishments so far, he will succeed.  He has transitioned from army crawling to crawling on fours and just two days ago, he showed us that he has no problem walking along side the couch.  Shocked mommy, but it was a good shock.  His favorite thing to do is unravel the toilet paper and he absolutely loves his bed.  We never get a fuss out of him whenever it is bedtime. He grabs his pillow like he's been missing it all day and passes out within minutes.  Must get that from me because I feel the same way about bedtime.;)  He, like most babies, loves to be tickled, is pretty much into everything, and absolutely adores his siblings.  I don't know if Eli has preferences on which one he enjoys being around more, but Lexie seems to get the most laughs out of him. We are still working with his speech therapist, but Eli seems perfectly happy only saying, DADA. Speaking of Daddy, Eric wants to cut his hair short, but I can't allow it. Once that happens, Eli will suddenly look older and it will remind me that we technically don't have any more babies.   Well I guess since we are done, we sure did end on a great note! 

Ice cream cake! 

Peanut and egg free, of course.

As you can tell from the last three pictures that Ethan and Gracie 

thoroughly enjoyed "helping" Eli blow the candle out.   

I just love how it doesn't even bother Eli.  

Giggles and The Dark Side

**Disclaimer** 

Regarding the last video.. I didn't expect that ride to look that intense.  Eric showed me the video afterward and said the wind makes it look ten times worse, but this momma's heart jumped up into my throat.   Lexie met the height requirements and we try let her lead us on what she can handle.

From the video, you can see she absolutely loved it, so I didn't freak out too much. 

Plus, the way she throws herself around on the trampoline, I shouldn't expect any less.  

           Ethan absolutely LOVED fighting the Dark Side and I know he will remember this forever. 

                       Be sure to read the hilarious commentary that first appears on the screen. 

                                                        Courtesy of Eric, of course!