trick or treat

What a fun night we had!
We dressed our monkey up and headed to some friends houses to get candy. Here is John Mark at Chris & Kelly's, then with Whitney & Lesley. He was so cute- he did it exactly right. Each time they opened the door he said "trick or treat" and then walked right on into the house and started looking for candy. My kind of kid! :o)


After stopping at a couple other houses, we went to a fall festival at Waterloo Road. John Mark had a ton of fun bouncing in the moon bounce. My brother-in-law was working at that spot and every time we tried to do any other fun thing, John Mark just said "i jump with jeremy" so we ended up there for most of the night. When we were done with that, we went to my friend Sara's house. She had made cookies for John Mark, which he promptly ate!
We dropped John Mark off at his grandparents, then headed to some friends house for a Halloween party. Kelly, Lesley, and I were the 3 men in the tub- the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker! You'll also notice creepy batman lurking in the background... that's cherish!

It was a fabulous night spent with the people we love, doing what we love- spending time together and eating!! Here are a few more random pics.

Happy Halloween

new offices

We moved our offices to the church campus,
which is fabulous for so many reasons.
One of the greatest things is that I now have an office,
complete with walls where I can hang things!
Here is my cute new office.

i heart fall

Fall is great for so many reasons.

Here's a few of my favorites:

my momma's birthday!

Evan's birthday!!

GREEK festival with les

carving pumpkins with my girls!

fuzzy boots

foodie friday

In honor of the holidays and all the fabulous food that I plan on eating, I have decided to dedicate Fridays to my favorite recipes. Please feel free to add your favorite recipes in a comment or on your blog. If there's one thing this girl loves, it's FOOD!! :o)

I am starting with my new favorite food in the whole entire world:
Pumpkin Crunch (or pump dump, if you are lesley)

1 can pumpkin
1 lg can evaporated milk
2 t pumpkin pie spice
1 t salt
4 eggs
1 box yellow cake mix
1 cup crushed pecans
2 sticks butter

In a bowl, mix the first 5 ingredients. Pour into a greased 9X13 pan. Top with the cake mix, then pecans. Thinly slice the butter and lay across the cake mix/pecan mixture. Bake at 350 for 50 minutes, or until golden and crunchy. Top with cool whip! Enjoy!

It's basically a dump cake with pumpkin pie in the bottom. Oh my word, I can eat the entire pan of this!!!

family photos

My sweet friend, Emily, took family photos of us last night. They turned out SO good!

I love...

*hearing "i love you, mommy"
*sonic raspberry lemonade
*early morning workouts with kelly
*putting my cold toes on micah's warm legs
*laughter
*monday nights with whitney & lesley
*office giggles with sara
*hillsong
*anything pumpkin
*middle school students
*lunch with beth
*john mark & caroline together
*wendy, amy, callie & kristin
*blog friends
*chronicles of the king
*emails from kellie
*facebook
*Sunny's blog
*VS sweatpants
*pictures
*cold pillow cases
*lazy saturdays
*road trips

In my life, be lifted high
In my world, be lifted high
In my love, be lifted high
--hillsong

blog party gift

I have to give a shout out to sweet Natalie for her awesome blog party gift! She made this adorable halloween sign and some precious fall cards of John Mark for us to send out. Thanks, Nat! This was such a fun idea! I hope we continue the tradition for Christmas!

more pictures

Saturday morning we decided to take a little hike down a nature trail we had found. It was beautiful, and hearing Micah explain things in nature to John Mark... well, let's just say that even I learned things. :o)

our hiking trail... i'm kind of obsessed with this picture

I think this is quite possibly the sweetest look

fun with the self timer

Micah's artsy picture of John Mark and me walking

again with the self-timer

he was asking us if he could jump

tired, needing a break for the walk home

you might be a mommy if your ipod has episodes of mickey mouse clubhouse on it...

a few pictures

view from the deck

sitting on the dock

checking out "big boats" at the marina

eating ice cream at the buss stop

snuggling with daddy early in the morning

the leaves were BEAUTIFUL!

family pic at the lake dam

riding the train in eureka springs

standing with daddy on the train

home sweet home

We just walked in the door from a long weekend in Arkansas.
It was a fabulous, relaxing time.
I have a million pictures and stories to post.
But for now, I sleep.

how can i keep from singing?

I have been overwhelmingly reminded of His love in recent days.

I went on two very different retreats over the weekend-
one with the staff I work with,
the other with lively 7th and 8th grade students.
Both of these retreats were beautiful reminders.
THIS is my calling- to glorify Him.
whether that is making copies for Amy,
filing PO's or mailing postcards...
whether I am laughing with friends,
crying over hurts or praying fervently...
whether I am teaching 7th grade girls,
worshiping or sitting in silence-
this is where I belong.

How can I keep from singing Your praise
How can I ever say enough
How amazing is Your love
How can I keep from shouting Your name
I know I am loved by the King
And it makes my heart want to sing
--Chris Tomlin

bloggy buddy

Lauren, your gift is in the mail!

little rock star

John Mark has become our own little rock star. He loves to "pay-tar" (play guitar) and uses anything he can find to be his very own guitar. It might be a hairbrush, a vacuum tube or book. He doesn't care! We hung out at our friends house the other night playing rock band. John Mark had a GREAT time playing a "real" guitar and wouldn't give it up to let the grown ups play!

But his REAL treat came last weekend when he stayed with mom and dad... they got him an actual guitar that plays music! Here is a video of him dancing and playing his guitar. Enjoy!

Each time He said, "My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness." So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That's why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

love one another

John Mark spends all day Monday and afternoons Tuesday and Thursday with my sweet friend Jamie and her little girl Caroline. Caroline has a little mermaid v-smile game where kids sing songs and push buttons. John Mark's favorite song is "I'm friends with the crab, snap-snap-snap..." it goes on and on listing different sea animals.

Anyway, last night we were reading our bible story and then looking at our bible verse. The verse was "Love one another", so we were talking about what that means. I said something about loving our friends and I asked John Mark, "who are your friends?" Without skipping a beat he looked at me and said "the crab."

i CAN be crafty!

I have to admit- I am so jealous of people who are crafty.
I try. Really, I do.
But usually my crafting experiences usually end sadly.

For example, the very first time I met my dear friend Jamie, we were at a girls sleepover in college and we were painting terra cotta pots. Lets just say that was a tragedy I would like to forget, but Jamie will never let that happen...

Anyway, I recently decided to try my hand at crafty-ness once more.
I have been wanting to paint my bulletin board to hang my necklaces from.

So I went to hobby lobby.
I bought brushes.
I got paint and stencils...

Behold, my treasure!

night, night

We have a routine that we try to do with John Mark each night.
It's so sweet and he is always so precious.
I decided it would be fun to walk you through our "night-night" routine.

We start with a bath. Now, I have to make a confession- I am not a fan of giving John Mark a bath. I don't know what it is, but I am much happier when Micah gives him the bath, which is usually.

After bath time comes lotion (he always says "put the lotion on skin, mommy"... yes, my 2 year old quotes joe dirt. Thank you Micah & Chris Wehunt), diaper and jammies. He is pretty particular about his jammie choice. His favorites are Cars (obviously) and his new "monkey pay 'tar" (sock monkey playing the guitar). If those are dirty, "most-0-cycle" jammies are the next obvious choice.

At this point, the whining (I mean, sweet, perfect asking) for "MIIIIILK", "nigh-nigh" (his blanket), "eeyo" (eeyore) and "nemo." Those things get gathered in his arms (Nemo is HUGE) and then he chooses one of us to "hold you."

We go into his bedroom and sit in the rocking chair. Someone gave us a sweet, sweet picture bible with stories and cool pictures, so we read a couple of stories from there. He always asks Micah to pray ("daddy, paaay to Jesus") and then we turn out the light and lay down on his bed. This is usually preceded by the announcement "mommy snuggle non nart big boy bed."

(I am totally getting teary thinking about this... it's so sweet!)

Now for my favorite part- singing songs. He always picks songs for us to sing and he sings along with us with all his heart. His favorites are "Jefuh love me" (Jesus loves me), "tikle, tikle" (twinkle, twinkle little star) and "spiduh" (the itsy-bitsy spider). After we sing a few of those songs he starts to sing "How Great is Our God." And oh my gosh, nothing gets to me more than hearing him sing "how geat our God... sing me how geat..." I have been singing that song to him at night since he was a baby. I love it.

Usually at this point he is getting sleepy. We say goodnight, give kisses and hugs and tip-toe out. Some nights he goes right to sleep, other nights he talks for a while. Either way, bedtime is quite possibly one of my favorite parts of each day.