Promised Costume Pics

We're back from Texas and settled back in. Halloween was awesome. Heidi, Meredith and I took the girls downtown for "Merchant Trick-or-Treat" in the afternoon. The girls did great and quickly picked up on how to best fill your bucket! Then it was the boys' turn to herd the kiddos and Chris met up with Corey and Jim to take the kids around the neighborhood. They were awesome! We had expected an hour or so but it was more than two hours before Chris and the girls got back. We had lots of kids come by the house and Ella came back with a bucket full of candy. Ella was a skunk; Mia a jalapeno pepper.





Try and see how full the buckets are in this picture!!!

As soon as Chris got back for good with Ella we put the girls in comfies, and loaded them up in the car. We got on the road at about 8 and made it to Joplin, MO before 2 am. We had a smooth transition to sleep in the hotel and were up and on the road again on Thursday before 10. We made it to Texas at about 3:30. We made a quick stop at the clinic to say hey to our good friend (and hostess for the weekend). Upon her removal from her car seat we discovered Mia had crapped ALL OVER herself. It was her first real blow out. Good timing Miss Mia. After we spent a little while with Jill at the clinic we took the car (yes the new car) to the Chrysler Dealership cause the freaking cruise didn't work. You try and drive from Iowa to Texas w/o cruise control and NOT get a ticket. Let me assure you it was not the easiest thing I've ever done. Chris and I sat through an ENTIRE adult league soccer game Thursday night with the girls. After that it was mostly hanging at the Breeze ranch for me and the girls, and fishing for Chris. Highlights of the trip included Chris dropping Shane's truck key in the lake, and my discovering Mia had an ear infection. Aye aye aye. Tragedies aside we both had a great time.

The ranch is such a great place for the girls. Mia doesn't know it yet, but Ella does. There are horses, a goose (two geese now actually...we were a part of acquiring a pal for squeaky), lots of dogs, and we even got to watch the tractor cut down the hay. Good times. We caught an art festival on Saturday and got to go to Church on Sunday. I love that Church. It's a breath of fresh air to be in a church where there are all kinds of people, and each one of them knows they are loved exactly as they are. No one is asking them to change...they just want them to know that since Jesus loves them as they are, then we will too.

Ella caught a small stomach bug upon our return to Iowa, but that's all cleared up now and we're moving on full steam ahead. Mom and dad are coming up to visit at some point this week/weekend and some combination of the six of us will be at Nikie's wedding. I can't wait!

On a more somber note, we have good friends - Cory and Meredith Bargfrede (Lainey's parents) who are going through some family adversity. Corey's grandfather suffered a massive stroke recently and is struggling to recover. If you have room in your prayer list please consider them. And if you don't have room in your prayer list may I pass on a bit of wisdom Linsey shared with me: Never be too busy to sit at the feet of Jesus.

Mostly Pictures

Addie and Lainey came over to decorate Halloween cookies...and for some general good food and good company. These are the resulting pictures - suprisingly the girls stayed mostly clean. Not a single one of them picked up a cookie to eat it....who needs cookies when you have tubes of frosting on hand!!!

I promise to post costume pictures...but not until we get back. We're off to Texas for almost a week!

MY new favorite You Tube!!!!!!!!

Ella's New Favorite YouTube

De Car! De Car!

I'm an official lessee of a metallic black Chrysler Pacifica with light tan leather interior. LOVE IT! It's so much more than I thought I'd be getting and I love every bit of it. The kids seem to like it too. Ella is much appreciative of the DVD player, although the small ones were good enough for her, they were a pain in the neck for mom and dad to hold/move/not lose/etc. And Mia just likes the way her seat sits....or so I think.

We babysat Delainey again today, our prayers continue to go out to the Bargfreded family. Lainey and Ella played great, we spent some time outside, some time inside and even some time over at Grandma Terri's on the trampoline. Ella's indoor slide and little trampoline made the trip up the stairs and outside again for the girls to play with outside. I much appreciate time they spend NOT in my house. :)

I did some gardening over the weekend...I put a few hostas around our house and planted a handful of tulip and dafodil bulbs. Ella helped me put a few hostas in front of our neighbors porch, and we transplanted a Yew Evergreen bush for him too. I plan to add some bulbs tomorrow or maybe Wednesday. The gentleman who lives there lost his wife and daughter in a car accident well before we moved to Webster City - he has one son, a 12 year old, whom Ella adores. He's an excellent father, and between running the 12-year old to various sporting events has not been able to find the time to finish up his landscapping....we were glad to help out. I just hope everything lives and it doesn't look like trash in the spring!!! :)

Saturday was Pre-school Trick-or-Treat day at the local rec center. The girls were the cutest rascals in the place. Ella was a skunk, Mia a hot pepper. Very cute. We're excited for "real" trick-or-treating on Wednesday....should be fun.

Speaking of Wednesday...Only Two more days until we leave for Texas! It will be a much welcomed vacation. Chris is fishing all weekend, and the girls and I will be hanging at the Breeze ranch. Sunday will, of course, be a trip highlight as we set foot in the new Joshua's Crossing building for the first time. I can't wait!

Quote of the week (not verbatim, but pretty damn close): "The state of this (Tennessee) football program is worse than Nebraska." - Phil Fulmer. Nebraska is apparantly so bad that to be worse is unthinkable.

Someday My Car Will Come

Or so they tell me. My long trek to a new car continues. When our dealer showed up to pick it up at the lot in Council Bluffs for the swap they discovered damage of some sort to the fender or bumper or I really don't care. What matters is that they are fixing it and I'm not getting my Pacifica until Friday at least. Oh well.
Nearly 30 years after arriving on the Earth scene I am officially an adult. By which I mean there is adult furniture (furniture store style, not Target self assembly style) in EVERY room of our house!!!! Our living room set arrived today and I love it. It has completely transformed our house. We've rearranged two rooms and completed our quarterly toy purge...our house is now free of all fast food toys and other broken objects! We also tossed anything that is small enough for Mia to choke on.
Speaking of Mia, Heidi came over Monday morning and we painted her (Mia's) room. Ella got sent to Miss Patty's day care with Addie for the morning and it was a win-win situation for everyone. Especially considering that Patty told me that having met Ella she is willing to take her as a drop in if I need her. Maybe someday I'll take her up on it!
Chris is hosting Fantasy Football tonight, so there's plenty of testosterone in our house. I love entertaining, and I'm glad to be able to show off my newly furnished house!

Spending Money

It's been a big spending week around here. We've known for quite a while that we're up against selling my truck as it has nealry 85,000 miles on it. As much as we want to let it go before it loses too much value the realization that we will have to be making a car payment for the first time in our marriage has been hard to swallow. Funnily enough, as we draw nearer to making said payment I'm more nad more excited about getting my new car.
Here's how the story of this past week goes...On the eve of our first car shopping trip I spied a living room set that I kind of liked and thought would fit our needs. More importantly it was decently affordable...much more so than we were thinking we'd have to spend. Chris and I decided, in the interest of being good stewards of what we've been given, not to make hte impulse buy and to look around a little first. So we took off for Fort Dodge to check out some cars on Thursday and discovered a HUGE rebate on the Pacifica. Huge enough, in fact to bring it into our price range. The Pacifica was originally the car we were wanting, but thought it was too expensive....funny how God provides in His own way....Instead of providing the cash flow to afford a purchase, He simply took away from the cost of said purchase. Amen.
So with ambitions of a nicer car than we'd imagined we took our kids and the money we were saving due to a larger than expected trade-in value on the Trailblazer and went furniture shopping. We bought a sofa, loveseat, and chair w/ ottoman. Soon enough this house will look like adults actually live here....not just the kids.
On Friday Chris went ot eh local car dealership to see if they could offer us something int eh same price range that we were looking at on our Pacifica....they couldn't but sent us to another dealer in their family - where we went today. After an hour plus drive to Algona, IA we discovered that the dealership had no internet access, and thusly couldn't find us what we were looking for. Before I completely freaked out the salesman took it upon himself to use a friends home computer and make some phone calls in order to track down some options for us. The hope is that on Monday morning they will call Chris and be able to finalize things, so as to be able to go pick up my new Pacifica (black w/ leather interior....wow!!!) in COuncil Bluffs and transport it back to Algona, where the girls and I will at some point go get it. Woo Hoo!!!!!!!!! It's been a long trek, but I am faithful it will all work out really well. I am amzed at the Lord's provision and how He makes it available.

The girls have been great as of late. Chris took Thursday and Friday off and we've spent lots of time playing together and playing with friends. We spent most all of Tuesday evening at the Tesdahl's, Heidi and Addie came over here Wednesday evening, Thursday was a trip to the Bargfrede's so the girls could entertain each other whilst we zoned out on Grey's (still going strong if you ask me). And last night ws quiet before all three girls, Heidi, Jim and Meredith came over tonight for Chili, toys and baths. The girls were great and Ella is wiped. Mia, however is happy to watch the Michigan game with daddy. I'd much rather she watched that....the Husker's, it turns out, are horrible.