Musical Dave

After a fun night of Halloween fun, why is Hope so excited for church this morning?

Because, big brother David was performing with the children's choir for the first time today! David has been going to church on Wednesday nights for childrens choir and today they sang and played the handbells.

David was hilarious-he waved to the crowd, tooka huge bow when it was over, and even motioned for me to take pictures while he was singing.

He started out on the back row and then kept scooting farther back so he could be seen better:)

During This Little Light of mine, he decided that Addyson needed his "help" and sang to her instead of the crowd! Choir is such a great experience for him and he loves it!

We were so thankful and surprised when Ashley and her mom, Pat showed up to watch David. We are so blessed to have her-she loves David and is so invested in his life.

Pat, Ashley, and David smiling after it was all over:)

Here is a video that I shot with my flipcam of some of the performance:)

Halloween

We have had such a fun Halloween this year. Hope has gotten to wear three different costumes and we have had a lot of fun. I downloaded pictures in the wrong order, so here is how Hope ended our fun night of trick-or-treating with friends in the neighborhood!

Bless her heart-she is filthy, wet, and exhausted!

This girl insisted to get out of her stroller and walk like the big kids! I think she looks so cute with that big pumpkin!

She found the candy in the back of her stroller-smart girl!

Hope trick or treating at her first house!! The boys were so sweet and excited for her!

For several years now, we have done Hallowen night with our neighbors the Grubbs. Tonight it was so nice out, that we had an outdoor pizza party before we left for trick-or-treating! Doug is such a funny guy, and he decided to surprise Toni by throwing her in the leaves!

Our gang heading down the street. We are so thankful to have fun neighbors-it is always more fun with a group of people. We made the kids stick together and WALK this year (verus running) and it was way more fun for us all.

Kelsey and Hope eating some pizza at the princess table.

Ninjas Tanner and Kyle-Doug started a fire in the fire pit and I think that smoke looks neat behind them!

This is how cute they started the night out! Hope was suppose to be a kitty cat, but her little cat tutu would not have kept her warm enough, so I pulled out this Eeyore costume from when Kyle was a baby to keep her warm:)

Friday night is really when the weekend began when we went to David's school for a Monster Mash! It was a fun little dance they had at school. Hope went as a princess, David was a monster and Kyle started out as a ninja. Just moments before we left to go, however, Kyle took off his costume and said that he was too embarrassed to wear it?! My boy is at that age:)

Princess Hope and Ninja Kyle

Monster David and Kyle posing in the yard!

Princess Hope had my lipstick and was trying to get into it! She is obsessed with my makeup.

David is such a character at all times. This weekend he finally got fitted for his new bifocals and we are trying to help him adjust to those. Overall we have had a wonderful Halloween "week" and now Mike and Kyle are shifting through the candy weeding out all the "peanutty"candy that Mike will take to work:) Peanut allergies are no fun, but Kyle is super responsible about it. This Mommy is ready to put all her monsters to bed and call it a night:)

Plan B

I am really not sure how much more fun we can handle this week! Today Kyle was suppose to have two friends over to work on scrapbooks from their zoo field trip. Well, we had some picture malfunctions and instead of putting together scrapbooks, we fell back on Plan B.

Plan B consisted of Kyle having his two friends, Grace and Caroline over and David having Tommy over to play.

They played some fierce football with Grace and Caroline taking turns cheering for them.

Then we laid out our trusty tablecloth and the kids ate some good pizza and other snacks. I love our backyard with this maple tree that is gorgeous during Fall. It makes me so happy to see my kids enjoying being outside with friends.

Then the kids decorated black tote bags for trick-or-treating this weekend with neon puffy paint. This was Plan B and it was perfect. The kids can work on their scrapbooks later in the winter when we cannot get outside and enjoy a pretty fall day. I so wish that I had pictures of their completed bags-they were so cute!

David perhaps is going to be a photographer because I love this picture! He stole my camera and started clicking away. I love this-I know he was probably clicking as I was grabbing it from him, and this picture is purely unintentional, but it is gorgeous to me.

Hope enjoyed the chaos of the kids being over and she especially loved these ranch Pringles!

Grace was so cute making her bag because she worked so hard to make it perfect!

David chomping on some pizza-we had no paper plates or napkins outside with us and look how dirty his shirt was!

I love this picture of Tommy playing on our playground!


Hope has not had a good appetite all week, but between the Pringles and the pizza, she definitely made up for it today!

On another fun note, I have found a mother's helper for Hope one morning a week. Our sweet twelve year old neighbor who is homeschooled is going to come over once a week to play with Hope while I get some stuff done. I know as the holidays are approaching this will be such a blessing. She took Hope downstairs to play while I did some heavy cleaning today. I am so thankful.

This weekend is packed full again, but it is mostly Halloween and family stuff. Mike is teaching again but thankfully this is his last weekend. Kyle has a soccer game and David is singing Sunday morning at church with the children's choir! I am excited/nervous to see how he does:) Happy Halloween!

Obsessed

I have two new obsessions that I must share about! The first one is a new song by Mercy Me called Beautiful. I tried to upload the video to the blog, but I am having technical difficulty today. Check it out on Youtube. There is a line in that song that is amazing and I must get it tattooed on my forehead and my daughter's .

The line goes you are treasured, you are sacred, You are His. How life-changing of a line can that be for some little girl (or big girl) that needs to be reminded how precious she is.

Another current obsession I have is with pillowcase dresses for little girls. They are amazing because they grow with your child and can be wore solo in warmer months or layered with a turtleneck for chillier months. I got this Elmo dress off of Etsy for Hope and we are both digging it!

You are treasured

You are sacred

You are His!

I pray that that God truth sinks into my little girls soul. I desperately want my daughter to know how she is sacred and valuable to not only us as her parents, but to the most High God. Her life will be so transformed when she realizes that He knows how many hairs are on her head and that He desperately loves her. Check out that song and share it with the beautiful people in your life.

Gearing Up!

We are gearing up for Halloween this week in our household! The cupcakes for school parties are cooling on the racks, costumes are being gathered, and today we finally carved most of our pumpkins. Let me clarify, Ashley did most of the carving while we cheered her on! HA!

Hope cheesing for the camera! We did it inside today because it has been rainy here today:)

Hope waited so patiently for AShley to get the lids off to start carving!

David digging out the guts.

Me and Hope scooping out the guts from her sweet little pumpkin.

Kyle thought the guts stunk and was too into the TV show Ghost Hunters to do much with his pumpkin:)

God love Ashley!

Sweet moment of brotherly love.

David's pumpkin. I think it is precious but maybe looks like it has had a stroke?!

Mommy and Hope photo op with our big pumpkin! This was such a fun way to spend a rainy afternoon inside.

Hope has already gotten to preview one of her costumes Tuesday at storytime! She dressed up in her cat costume to go to Tuesday morning storytime:)

Cheese!

Sweet little face!

My happy little kitty cat:)

She loves to play puzzles after storytime is over while I check out books. This is our Tuesday morning tradition and I love it!

We have our weekend plans all made for the big Halloween day! This year we will go trick or treating with our neighborhood friends and have a pizza party before we head out. The boys are going to finalize their costumes tomorrow and we will be all ready for some spooky fun!

The Concert

I just had to post a very homemade video that I made with my Flipcam at the Chris Tomlin concert. First off, I had a total blast out with a group of ladies from church. I love that I got to eat and spend an entire evening with some great and funny ladies. I really think my stomach muscles are sore from laughing!!

There is so much I want to remember about this concert. I have literally been waiting years for Chris Tomlin to come somewhere near me and this was my chance!! He was so humble and amazing on stage-I love that after a song he would clap with the audience to redirect the applause to the One that is deserving of all of our worship. I love that one minute the place was rocking and then it would be the most mellow and heartfelt worship experience.

So, here is my humble video of my favorite christian worship leader. Do not worry, I did not sing and video because that would have been tragic to have this great video with my voice being heard over Chris Tomlin's! HA! So, enjoy this video:)

Ok I also have to add that you need to scroll down and pause the blog music so you can hear Chris Tomlin. Around 1:45 into the video you actually see him step away from the microphone and you can only hear the crowd singing. That must be so humbling and amazing to hear thousands of people sing back to you your songs. It gives me cold chills...

Fun Times

This weekend delivered all the fun that it promised. The swim meet went very well and Kyle actually attained another BB time in his 50 free! Sometime I will do a post on swim team and all the lingo. In the meantime, just know he has been working hard to earn BB times in his events to qualify for Lynchburg later in the season.

While Mike and Kyle were at the swim meet this morning, I took David and Hope to church. When we came home, we played in the leaves while we patiently waited for them to come home.

Hope loves crunching up the leaves and it is convenient because this week in her "school" we are studying leaves:)

David had a ball chasing me around with a pile of leaves to throw at me!

Hope has heard her brothers scream "cheese" at me for pictures and this is now what I get when I ask her to smile at the camera! HA! I love this picture and I love that you can see her sweet little teeth:) I know when it comes time for Christmas pictures this may not be so cute.

She is currently obsessed with pumpkins. That is great except for the fact that they are everywhere now and we must stop and feel each one. She can also sign orange and even say it. The cute little setup I had on the front porch is rearranged daily and I have just given up.

I am really enjoying playing with Hope's hair these days. It is getting really full and long, so it is fun to experiment and play beauty shop. This morning before church I gave her a bath and then I put the diffuser on my hairdryer and dried it. I love how her curls get wild and then I just clip her bangs back. I really do not know if she will truly have curly hair, so I am enjoying them for now.

I love that I caught this cute picture of David literally jumping in the leaves. Virginia in the fall in just gorgeous so we have tried in this busy weekend to enjoy the colors of the season.

The highlight of the weekend for me was a girls night out to eat at Cheddar's and then the Chris Tomlin concert! I was so excited and over the top about this that my friends got tickled at me. It was everything I thought it would be plus some!! I have several videos that I will try to post later today. It was just nice to be out without kids and to enjoy fellowship time with some ladies I really like and a chance to worship our Lord with an amazing Christian artist.