Halloween Night

This year for Halloween we headed to Bartram Springs for our Trick or Treating to Toni and Eddie Ponce's house. This is Michael's sister's house. They have had us every year so it is kind of becomming a great tradition everyone loves having the kids around. All the neighbors decorate and sit outside to pass out candy and it is a closed in neighborhood so it is perfect for trick or treating. We took our wagon knowing the kids would get tired of walking so we had decided to let Emily do every other house.

Well that was not going to work every house she climbed out of the wagon dragging her very full bag of candy and went running to the door. She loved running up she took off her minie mouse shoes after about house 2! Jacob on the other hand was like a pro looking for houses with lights on, ringing door bells, and saying thank you. All together it was a great night had by all when we were done we put the kids in there P.J.'s thinking they would sleep in the car but nope got home and all they wanted to do was dump out there candy!

Pumpkin Patch

Mandarin Methodist Pumpkin Patch

This year everyone got to pick there own pumpkins out David's to carve, Mom's to cook, Jacob's and Emily's to paint. The kids always love looking around for the perfect pumpkin (Ofcourse Jacob would have brought them all home if he could).

Our Charlie Brown Tree

For so long we have wanted to plant a new Oak Tree in our front yard. What better time than when our kids are young and the tree can grow with our family. We went just to look we went to a nursery that we drive by all the time. There were only a few trees left ranging from $50 (Our great great grandkids could have climbed in that one) HEHE! to $700. It was the end of the season and they all looked pretty gloomy. But there was one sad one that the guy offered us for really cheap if we took it home and planted ourselves and ofcourse no refunds for dead trees. Luckily we had just bought a new truck for David's birthday! So we went home dug a hole BIG enough to fit the entire family in, everyone helped dig the hole! Then David went and picked up what we now call our Charlie Brown tree. We were so excited for one that we all helped plant it and for two that we would watch it grow with our family!

Mickey's not so scary Halloween party

Halloween time with kids has mixed emotions its a scary and fun time. This year we had a space man, minnie mouse, and a pilot, lets just say they were so cute!

We started celebrating by going to Mickey's not so scary Halloween party at Disney World. We made the drive down and the kids had no idea where they were going. We have learned that if we are going somewhere exciting we can not tell the kids until we are in the parking lot otherwise we hear about it for weeks "Are we going today?", "Are we there yet?". We arrived at the hotel dropped our things off and headed to the party. Crazily enough we have been to disney so many times but yet we still got lost, so ofcourse the kids were going crazy dressed in there costumes and still having no idea where we were going. We finally made it rode the monorail over.

All the charactes were dressed as halloween characters and ofcourse Disney World was decorated beautifully! They had a sort of trick or treating road that you follow giving out more candy then our 1 and 3 year old would ever be aloud to eat. The lines were awesome 5-10 minute waits.

My awesome husband does not care for parades but he always gets there early and scouts out the perfect place for the family to sit. The kids just sit in awe and stare at the beautifully lit parade with ofcourse more candy!

Where are you from? Where are you going?

This weekend the ladies of Redeemer traveled up to Epworth By The Sea Retreat Center. Kory and I (my roomie) left about 2:15pm ofcourse after a trip to Starbucks. We both felt like two college kids escaping out of town both for the same reasons. You have two fabuolous moms me ofcourse being the mother of Jacob 3 and Emily 1.5 and Kory being mommy of Elijah almost 4, Ethan 2, and Amelia almost 1, we both had reason for escaping. We arrived after lots of great conversation to St. Simons Island where the retreat was being held and checked in. Our room was nice Kory said it smelled a little like her grandmas purse but where ever we were we were happy to be there. Kory had so bravely offered to do the powerpoint so she headed over and set up. Afterwards we decided to track down Sheila (my awesome sister in law) and Denise. Not being able to get in contact with her we started peeking in windows and knocking on doors until we came to one room we looked in the window and here was this table with a table cloth and a beautiful spread of cheese crackers and other things. We knew right away that was there room! We enjoyed nice girl time before dinner. Throughout the weekend we had laughter and tears for the things that the women around us were going threw. We learned to embrace where you come from and get a good outlook about where you are going. We learned that one of the hardest things in life is waiting on God to answer our wants and needs. And sometimes the things we are waiting on are not what God wants for us, so we must give these things up to God. We learned that forgiveness can be the hardest thing in life especially when someone hurts our child or someone we love. We need to summit all to God.
My favorite part of this weekend was getting to know women I thought I knew but really did not even know the beginning. Sitting on the grass by the marsh sharing stories with women of all ages about where they come from and where God is leading them. I will never forget the advice they shared and the experiences. I appreciate them becomming vulnerable and opening up to a young woman that they did not even know. I will never forget the special moments of this weekend!