AbCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

I'm thankful for banners and balloons.

LaVor was gone all week on a business trip and it sucked. We missed him so much!

But when the banner and balloons went up, we knew it was almost time for him to come home. And home, he is.

aBCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

I'm grateful for America.

The Government may not always make decisions that I agree with, we may be the most overweight country and everyone else in the world may hate us but I'm proud to be an American.

I'd take the issues in our country over any other countries, in a heartbeat. We're still the land of the free and home of the brave.

Now let's play ball.

Perhaps A Piece Of Heaven

I think I've had a churro once or twice in my lifetime. And I'm not sure why that number isn't higher. How can you go wrong with fried dough, drenched in cinnamon and sugar?

For some reason, we're getting a free viewing of the Cooking Channel right now. Saturday morning, they had a show on that featured Rick Bayless and one of his restaurants, XOCO. They shared one of his Tortas that instantly got my mouth watering (the Ahogada to be exact). As if the Torta didn't look good enough, they had to feature his homemade churros and hot chocolate. Rick explained that they make their hot chocolate with ganache and we all know how I feel about ganache! If that's not heavenly, I'm not sure what is.


These two items alone, I believe, are worth a trip to Chicago. Even perhaps a layover.

Trick or Treat

We waited 31 days to celebrate and now it has come and gone.

Everyone came over last night to enjoy some dinner and Halloween festivities. Before you could enter, you needed to guess the number of "seeds" in the "pumpkin" (white chocolate chips in an orange balloon). Once in, we gobbled up some Cincinnati chili and chicken tortilla soup. After dinner, the winner of the guessing game was revealed...HC with a guess of 26! Total number of seeds was 27.

The kids played for a bit and orange rice crispy treats were eaten. Before we headed to the neighbors for a quick candy consumption, the brave guests dipped their hands into a mysterious bowl of goop.

Growing up, a Sunday activity we would play was "Haunted House". Now that I think of it, it wasn't the best way to keep the Sabbath day holy but we weren't fighting so that was good. We would put a blanket over the end of the hallway so it was dark and turned that 20 feet into a Haunted House. One thing we always did was make a bowl of goop that we had to put our hands in. The goop from last night consisted of grapes, maraschino cherries & juice, cheese, flour, spaghetti, ketchup and mayonnaise. Amy won that game too, guessing 4 of the correct items.

I originally wanted to dress The Lime up as a Lion but that fell through last week. The next costume idea was a Garden Gnome.

At one point last night, he did have red suspenders on. And surprisingly, he didn't rip the beard to shreds.

I'm sad it's time to take the decorations down, especially because I don't have any Thanksgiving ones to put up. But in just 3 short weeks, Christmas decorations will be coming out of the wazoo!

Dogs Driving?

Although it appears the dog's driving, believe it or not, there is a man behind that fur.

75% of this dog was hanging out the window and I'm not sure how the man could see the road because the remaining 25% was right in his face. And there's laws about not driving while talking on your cell phone?

One more thing that makes this situation wrong? The owner was stroking the dog. Not just petting, stroking. It was creepy.

That's The Feeling!

If you'll remember a year ago, I could hardly wait for the Primary Program to be finished. This year, I was looking forward to completing it but not as much as last year.

We've spent the last 9 months learning several new songs, one of which I just HAD to share!

This is the official music from the church website. In my humble opinion, my Primary kids sounded 10x sweeter. Their little voices were so precious, especially when they came to the chorus of, "I know He lives!"



The theme for June was the Holy Ghost. Each week, stories were shared about feeling the Spirit and ways that we can recognize it. You sometimes wonder if the kids are comprehending, even listening, to what you're saying. But that feeling of the Holy Ghost can't be denied and I really hope they were able to recognize it on Sunday, because it was strong!

I have a whole list of songs I can't wait to teach the kids and Christmas songs are just around the corner. So much to learn in 2 short months!

Born And Raised In The Pumpkin Briar Patch

Anyone else a fan of Savannah Smiles?

I couldn't think about either trip to the Pumpkin Patch without singing that little song.

LaVor's sister and her family were in town a couple weeks ago. We were having amazingly hot weather but with it being Fleet Week and assuming the beaches would be packed, we decided to stay away from the coast. Not too far from us, there's a gigantic farm that has become quite the attraction. I've driven by it many times but had no clue how involved it was. There was something for everyone!


My sisters and I had thrown around the idea of going to a local pumpkin patch with the babies. Amy called yesterday afternoon to see if we were free and by golly, we were!


Have I mentioned how lucky I am to have my sisters so close? And how lucky The Lime is to have cousins to play with? The closest cousins I had growing up, were 2 hours away and none of them were my age. Is it possible to be envious of a 9 month old? They'll have so many fun memories together!