Halloween or Harvest

Hello Fellow Bloggers and Friends!

You're welcome for a break from my usually lengthy posts over the past week. Ha!  Honestly, it wasn't intentional, we have just been busy and away and busy.

But here I am to wish you a happy Halloween or Harvest -- depending on your beliefs about this day.  I, personally, don't really like Halloween, but I love our church's annual Harvest Festival, so I kind of celebrate that.  My mom-in-law usually sends treats for our family each year at this time, too, so we also celebrate that.  (Thank you for the cookies!)

One More Thing

This year has been such a challenge for our family on the health front.  I don't remember another year where we have faced so many illnesses and emergencies and of course, it's a year when we decided that we weren't going to the doctor enough to justify our high monthly rates to have lower deductibles.  So a lot of what we've been through this year - medically and dentally - has been out of pocket for us. 

Needless to say, we'll be switching back to a higher monthly rate and lower deductibles next year.  I'm hopeful that means that none of us will get very sick in 2013.

Anyway, with just over two months left in this year and our elections already made for next year, I was hoping and praying that we could all just hold tight till January.  But, no.

Anticipating Next Weekend

Our family enjoys traveling.  Because of the number of us, we usually go by car -- even long distances.  But this year, between health issues, job issues and just generally feeling overwhelmed by life on many days, we have not really traveled anywhere beyond day-trip local.

So when I heard that my nieces have a day off from school next Friday, I scrambled to make a three-day weekend out of it for our family and we are going to head up to Colorado Springs (never been) for the weekend.  It looks like there will be a lot of awesome autumn color, as well as a whole slew of fun activities available for our family.

Conversations with Our Favorite Kindergartener

I love my niece, N, mostly because she is so adorable.  And five.  Three and five are my favorite ages for kids.

Disclaimer:  I love my kids at all ages, but I like them better on particular days and at certain ages ... and so far, that's three and five.  I have a hunch I might like them a lot at 30, too.  But we'll see.

Anyway, so N and I were chatting it up this morning and I wanted to capture some of the best moments and record them here for me to reflect back on when she's nine or 14 or whatever.  It was a lot to remember, so hopefully I've captured the gist of these stories from earlier today and you'll excuse me if I'm a word or two off on anything.  I'm pretty sure I'm close though.

Courageous Women: My Sister, Jessica

How can one person be so lucky as to end up with two sisters so completely different in personality and yet, both such courageous people who inspire others daily?  Only by the grace of God.

I am one such person. 

Oh, Z...

I've missed blogging while relatives were in town.  So today, I'm going a little crazy here.

I have two good Z stories to share with you today...

This morning, we went to Target.  We had several items in the cart at checkout, including some ponytail holders S had thrown in there for a couple bucks.

Birthday Weekend, Belated Photos

Okay, so I am running behind in just about everything -- especially where writing is concerned.  My therapist gave me a writing assignment two weeks ago and I have yet to even begin it.  Oh well.

But here I am, finally posting some random pictures from my birthday weekend, which was last month!

Scary Moment

C always calls me when he's on his way home from work. It's a 45-minute commute on the best days.  He's got a Blue Tooth hands-free device set up in his truck so he can chat about the day (or listen to me as I rattle off everything about mine).  It gives me a good sense about when he'll be home for the evening (so we can cram to finish up some of the housework) or if he has any suggestions or plans for dinner that I need to prepare for.

Today, he called me and as I sat there yammering on about random stuff, suddenly, he started hollering, "Whoaaaaaaaa!"

Courageous Women: Grandma M.

Today, it's my dad's birthday.  We had the good fortune to have him here in New Mexico, visiting for several days -- including this one.  It was so much fun to be able to celebrate him and what he means to our family.  He was surrounded by two of his daughters (the third was here on her visit that overlapped Mom and Dad's by a day -- but left Thursday), a son-in-law and all nine of his grandchildren.  That's a party for sure!

C did all the cooking and started Dad's day with Rice Pudding for breakfast.  He made pumpkin soup served in bread bowls for lunch.  And for dinner, my dad had joked that a rack of lamb would be nice, but anything barbecued "would be fine."  So C surprised him with both a rack of lamb and burgers, along with French green beans and sweet potato mash.  For dessert, C baked some delicious pumpkin pies -- Dad's favorite.  It's only been a couple hours since we ate and my mouth is already watering just writing about the food today.

Mom and Dad on 10/14 - Dad's birthday - at our house.  It's always fun to have them over.

10/11/12 + More Balloons

I love fun dates like 10/11/12.  I knew of someone who almost had their baby today and that would have been such a cool birth date ... but alas, this baby was in a hurry to be born and she came at 10:59pm on 10/10.  From the picture I saw, she looks cute.  I guess we'll forgive her.

Anyway, today, my sister, Jessica, went back home to Oregon and we went again to the Fiesta -- this time with my nieces and my parents.  But again, it was too windy for balloons to inflate!  Crazy weather.

So, since I didn't have any good balloon pictures from today, I decided to post some taken last Sunday evening when our family and Jessica went down to Fiesta Park. 

A Little Later

Like the crazy person I feel like most of the time, I willingly got up in the middle of the night for the second day in a row to go down to the Fiesta with my sister on Sunday morning to try again to watch the mass ascension.

A Little Early

This year will be our fourth experience with the International Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque.  Every year is so fun and exciting.  This year is extra fun because both my sister, Jessica, and my parents will be here for different portions of the big event.  It's my parents' first time!

A Couple of Funny Quotes

Yesterday was rich with humor from our youngest two.  If you haven't checked out my Step-by-step post, you can read a lot of good humor there.

However, I would be remiss if I didn't sneak in these quotes somewhere (sorry these are repeats for you, Jessica, since I texted them to you) for record keeping and entertainment.

Step-by-step

I was working with our seven-year-olds in school today and talking about step-by-step processes.  So for fun, I started asking them their idea of step-by-step processes of things they do (then I added in some things they probably had no clue about just to see what they'd come up with) and I made sure to record their answers precisely.

Here are the questions and their step-by-step instructions.  I'd like to recommend you don't actually follow their processes and use a more reputable source if you need instructions.  But it's still fun to read their responses and this survey gives you a little window into our kids' personalities...

A Gift of Love

Some husbands lavish their wives with jewelry, flowers and chocolate -- or so I've heard -- and while my own husband has given me set of sapphire jewelry once (my favorite & birth stone), gives me flowers on occasion and definitely knows my chocolate preference (dark), his gifts usually lean towards the more practical and unique.

Zoo Pictures

We went to the zoo today.  I took some pictures. 

Here are my favorites...

E was more fascinated with the animals than ever before.  She's growing up so fast!

Africa!

I'm trying something new here at Mama Flock.  I've joined an affiliate program and put a link to a site selling a notebooking set for a study on Africa over there on the right (you may need to scroll down a little bit).

We are currently studying Africa in geography and this is the perfect complement to our studies.  I was so excited to order it for our school.

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