friends

every time the smith's stay with us (usually twice a year for the past 4-5 years) they have the boys down with them for a meal.  they are brave beyond words.  the boys look very forward to this.  they get sooo excited around this couple, so getting a good picture wasn't expected.  let's call it a special picture instead :)

They left Saturday and our lady from Arkansas is coming back in, accent and all :)  I really enjoy the variety of people who have been in and out of our apartment.  we often don't see the people a whole lot, but it's nice knowing someone is down there, who can use the space for a time.  I hope it will continue to bless people. 

lately

Well Fall has arrived!  Monday was so pretty, but I looked at the 10 day forecast and I see what we're in for.  My mom got me a perfect gift for my birthday....she's knows me. 

and Rod knows I like a little excitement, which is why I loved his birthday gift to me this year.  Most of you have seen it, as well as 1/2 of Lancaster county :)

We are enjoying our IL friends who come in twice a year to volunteer at GAIN warehouse.  I took the boys into the warehouse this morning to volunteer.  What a neat experience.  We worked on school kits and also labeled some seed packets.  The variety of things they collect and ship overseas is impressive. 

 

Rod's sister came in for a visit this month also, and Clay and I had the chance to ride along as she drove back to the airport to fly home.  This was Clay's first time in an airport, it's a rather boring airport but he did see one plane take off!  And he did several escalators which trumps anything in the whole world. 

I'm picking through the garden, getting the last goodies of the season before we get hit with a real frost.  This was a picking from Monday.   I love the variety with these, I will miss gardening.  I do have some spinach and lettuce underneath my cold frame.  And hopefully soon our greenhouse will be complete and I can garden year round.  I thought it was going to be done 7 months ago, so what do I know! 

 

Life as always is plugging away, lots to be thankful for.

Church picnic

Our church came out for our annual pig roast this past sunday.  It was neat to see many newer faces from our church.  Settings like these make it easier to chat with people then Sunday mornings sometimes. 

I was so thankful for a gorgeous night, when only 2 nights earlier I laid awake listening to the rain, and more rain, and wondered if we'd have to cancel. 

 

The musical entertainment for the evening was this band organ, which played carnival and polka music for a good 3 hours :) 

 

Yup, candy man came..

 

 

We have a sweet lady living in our basement right now, from Arkansas.  She was kind enough to take lots of pictures, a couple interesting ones of my kids during mealtime standing on the table and licking ketchup off his hotdog!

The girls....and Ben

No pictures of Adam, who I believe was skate boarding the whole time with the boys.  But don't worry.  I'm sure he took a break to get an ice cream cone about half-way through :) 

One more fall event this weekend, then I think we're done for this fall.  I'm happy that the boys are getting more helpful with these and are starting to know the drill.  It did flow very smoothly thanks to a lot of helpful hands at home and from our church.  We feel privileged to host such events.

parade

Clay and I had the privilege of being in the Manheim parade tonight!  It was very last minute, but I really wanted to do it so we made it happen.  Our neighbors were winners of the baby parade the night before so they got to be in the big parade tonight.  But they needed an extra person, or scoop of ice cream :)  Clay made a perfect scoop of vanilla.

Our neighbors have been working a long time on this banana split.  It was amazing.  Hard work went into this, all was hand made.  The banana, outfits, cherry on top.  So cute. 

I can't say I've ever been in a parade before. It took one hour to walk it.  I'm glad we were toward the front, when we were done there were still lots of people who hadn't even started yet. 

My mom gave one of the boys a really neat book for Christmas called A Perfect Pet for Peyton.  It's a story about love languages.  I read it this week to the boys and we got into a nice discussion on love languages.  I could never have initiated a conversation like this and have it go smoothly.  It's best to wait till they are engaged and then run with it!  We discovered that between the 5 of us (excluding Clay) we have every one of the 5 love languages covered!  I thought that was interesting and wonder if that's unusual for everyone in the family to have a different primary love language.  I might write them up nicely on paper and display them so when the boys are fighting we can have that reminder of how that person best feels loved.  Sounds good in my head, not sure how it will play out :) 

Really don't know what Clay's Love Language is..so I made up one on my own.  The new 6th language is "talking one's ear off". 

When other 3 were Clay's age I did so much with them.  Parks, library, crafts, puzzles, baseball.   With Clay it's just easy to go about my business and let him follow me around, chatting and helping.  So I do try and remember he's only 3, and he likes to do fun things too.  This week we went to the library one day, and sold lemonade one day.  He is a very good business man!  Sorry if you already saw these on facebook.  As soon as my mom gets facebook, I can stop blogging. :) 

Clay didn't really need me, I could have sat in my chair and let him do everything, but I was afraid he'd spill it inside someone's car.  He was very confident, and got right 'on it' when someone would stop.  When he got paid, he'd immediately exclaim "Piggy bank!"  One old lady passed by, then turned around and stopped and said "I wouldn't have been able to sleep tonight if I didn't come back.  Kids this young don't need rejection".  Well he was so cute when he'd get rejected.  Slumped shoulders much...

That's better Clay

We were out for less then an hour and got about 6 customers, $4.00. everybody 'tips' when you make the price extra low :)  It was fun to do this with just Clay, I got to see him in action much better then when all 4 are competing for the job.