Fun Times in October!

With Autumn in full-swing, we're having such a fun time in October!

We have all the kids' costumes ready. R's a cowboy. C's a knight. K's a butterfly fairy - she calls herself a princess fairy. I don't like the term princess, so butterfly fairy is what she is. The end. Mom has the last word.

And of course I'm dressing up too! I'll never get too old for it. Not a year has gone by that I didn't dress up. Even if it was something I dressed up as the year before. I've repeated 'black cat' and a 'pumpkin' multiple times. But who cares - the kids think I'm fun and that's what matters! This year, I'm a pumpkin fairy. I don't know what a pumpkin fairy is or does, but I imagine she's a fairy that watches over the pumpkin patches and helps them grow =)

This season is packed full of fun stuff! We did the Hoover Dam trip, and for weeks now I've been helping out at R's school for the Fall Festival - which is finally happening tonight!! For the first time in our living-in-Vegas history, I'm praying it stops raining. It's been raining for like ever. I love and welcome the rain... usually. But the Fall Festival is outside and there's so much to set up out there... it just can't rain. I hope that even if it rains everyone has a great time. For some reason, when it rains, the people in Las Vegas run for cover like it's raining fire. Yesterday at soccer practice, there were only 3 parents sitting out there. Me and then a husband and wife couple. It's ridiculous! Lol... literally.

So anyway, back to the Fall Festival... the kids who bring in bags of candy or baked goods are thanked with a little incentive of food/game tickets. Of course, R begs me to go buy candy and I buy 4 bags of the good stuff - like skittles and twizzlers, etc. I find out yesterday that we've got soooooooo much candy at the school but hardly any baked goods for the cake walk booth. So instead of the candy, we decide to bring cakes and stuff. At the last minute, I run to the store this morning and pick up a Pumpkin Roll, Lemon Coconut Muffins, Banana Nut Muffins, a Double Chocolate Pudding Cake, a Raspberry Pudding Cake, and an Apple Pie. It was way too much fun picking out what to buy! I wish we could bake stuff, like in the good 'ol days, but everyone has allergies now and it's just too risky.

Now we have a bunch of candy to give out on Halloween! Rather than go out on Halloween, we're going to go to a special event this weekend and do our trick-or-treating then. On Halloween night, we're going to decorate the heck out of our house - spiderwebs, pumpkins, green lights and all - and give out tons of candy like skittles, twizzlers, tootsie rolls, fruit chews, starbursts, kit kats, and we got glow sticks, skull & spider rings, pixie sticks, and omgosh the list goes on!

I'm really looking forward to hanging out with the kids on Halloween night and giving out to others. Halloween becomes all about "what do I get" and not much about giving. So eventhough candy isn't my favorite thing in the world to give out to kids, it'll be a fun time being with the fam and our neighborhood. ♥

Also, I'm loving what our church has going on! Last Sunday, the kids each picked out their own construction paper leaf that had an item written on it - R picked sweet potatoes, C picked bags of beans, and K picked bags of rice. We then bring those items back to the church and they're going to assemble around 150 bags of food, along with giftcards for a turkey, to needy families. Of course, it's not just bags of rice, beans and some sweet potatoes. There were other items too, which were picked up by others. I love doing things like this. Giving, especially food, is my gift. I just have such a huge heart for serving people and for the love, comfort and nutritional need of food. There's a natural need for food to survive, and when you provide that to someone who couldn't do it on their own, it's an incredible blessing. Even if they don't appreciate it. You have to give with a giving selfless heart. Food is my "giving language" I guess you could say. I appreciate when other cook for me and I speak my love through food. Soon, I'll write a blog about what the Lord has placed in my life for December. I'm super excited!

Well, I'm still waiting for some leaves to change and fall to the ground. I love doing leaf projects with the kids. Soon enough! There's still lots of Autumn left.

What are you doing to enjoy Fall?