Hope (just to the right of N in the picture below), Natasha's church friend her age, daughter of our good-good friends Philip & Marnie, created an 8-slide PP presentation asking permission to host a Fall costume party. She invited the families of her Bible class mates and a few of her friends from school. Of course, a third of the invited kids couldn't come for conflicts and sickness. *sigh* Still, a good time was had by all. Justus chose not to wear a costume, but since he was wearing a bright orange shirt we said he could pretend he was the requisite pumpkin. lol

This picture was taken right before the apple-pass challenge.



Here is the costume line-up. I was happy, though not surprised, that Natasha won the "Most Creative" prize. She used my old 'optician' lab coat (which, yes, I saved for this very purpose: dress-up) to be a veterinarian and borrowed the stethoscope from a nurse church friend. Then she added her raccoon pelt to complete the visual. [My mom said, "Wow, she'd have to be a very good veterinarian to make that raccoon healthy again!"]



Decorating cookies.







On the way out we stopped to actually READ the sidewalk-chalk welcome greeting Hope & Kristen designed.



Doesn't Marnie do a beautiful decorating job?? She's amazing. Every single area of her house looks like it's out of a magazine, about this I do not exaggerate ... and I've seen allllll the areas of her house. This woman is SUPER MOTIVATED. -wow-



Okay. Now I'm ready to start sharing some pictures from our new digs.... They're not out of a magazine!!!!! :) :) LOL! And I don't have pictures taken of everywhere, but this'll get us started.... It's just all the same old stuff, but a new location and arrangement.

This is the view coming in from the garage. The front door is 3-4' to the right of the garage door.




South living room wall (GREAT LIGHT FROM WINDOWS!)



Here is the view out our front (facing west) living room window.



This picture shows the hall toward the upstairs bedrooms (Jeremy's and mine, and Justus's).



The dining room is connected to the living room, THANKFULLY. This gives us a bit more space to spread out when entertaining....



Headed down the hall, first room on the left is the upstairs bathroom.




Next room on the left is Justus's room (no pics yet), and on the right is our room.



Just a picture of each wall....













Ooh, but you have to see inside this (lighted!) closet!



Hilariously, this is the only place where there is room for our vacuum! LOL! Whatever works! And there is still room in this closet for more storage, if I were to be motivated to use some of the space (especially top shelf) more economically!




Here are just a couple pictures of the pretty fall leaves on the ground. I wish the color came through in this picture like it does in real life. It's the REDS that take my breath away, and they were interspersed so beautifully in the picture of the leaves on the street. Alas, they barely come through in the photo. *sigh*



This is "leaf carpet"; so many leaves fell last Wednesday that our entire yard and driveway were a carpet of leaves. Mmm, pretty.



Justus lost his first top tooth. The other isn't even loose. THIS KID IS THE SLOWEST TOOTH LOSER I KNOW OF! I will not be surprised if by the time he turns 8 he will have lost only 3 teeth! LOLOLOL!



I am always thankful when Amanda posts blog pictures of the Free family's Bible times, so I figured I'd take and share a picture of ours. Hmmm, somehow not quite as cute as the Freeguys. *sigh* At any rate.... :) We have moved our Family Worship from evenings to the late afternoons. This change has been a long time in coming, and it's working GREAT for us. HAPPY DAY.



Beware what Mom finds at the library.... I checked out a book on dough crafts. Seriously, I would have NEVER actually planned to check one out, but I ran across it, and it tickled my fancy, so I brought it home and we did some! (We still haven't finished N's, but once we do I'll shoot a picture of it, for sure, for the blog. Stay tuned....)









We learned that for each 1/16" of thickness, they need 24 hours of time to dry.... I wonder how thick that rule stays true for.... Sssso, these pumpkins might get painted by about half way through November! Hhhha! We each made one.