October Odds & Ends

Here are some odds and ends to wrap up October.  

Layton and I went to have lunch with Hannah at school one day. 

I found Layton like this one day.  Just too tired to keep playing.

We had the kids' Parent/Teacher conferences.  They were both really good.  Lincoln's teacher shared this with us and said that not too many 2nd graders use explanation points in their writing, but he did.  She was very pleased with how he is doing and we were over the moon!!!

His story makes me smile.  The "dudu duuu!!!" cracks me up.

We had a Life Group fellowship night at the Lee's.  It was perfect weather and all the kids played in the backyard and had so much fun.

Layton had a fall party at his school.  I love his teacher.  He is always coming home saying the cutest things that he learns.  One day he came home counting to three in French.  :-)

Layton had to have some little warts removed.  I took him to our pediatrician and he put this cream on them to numb them.  Then we had to come back in an hour and he used a little tool to basically cut them off.  Layton was a real tropper!

I went and hung out with Lincoln at school when he got to go to a Brian and Terry Kinder concert.  They play and sing music and teach lessons at the same time.  It is a cute show.

Hannah came home telling us that they were going to start a Student Council for the 4th and 5th grades at school.  They could pick an office to run for if they wanted.  I was pleasantly surprised when she said she wanted to do it.  She decided to run for Secretary.  They were allowed to hang up 2 posters and could pass out fliers if they wanted.  Then, later they had to give a little speech in front of the 4th and 5th grades.  She had her friend Brynna come over one Saturday and they worked on making posters.  This is what Hannah came up with.  Love it! 

The morning of her speech her daddy left her this note.  It was so sweet.  He ended up surprising her and coming to hear her.

Here is her speech.  We were so proud of her.  She didn't bat an eye about getting up in front of everyone and doing it.  She can really surprise me sometimes.  I love her confidence.



And the best part was she won!!!!  She was so excited!!!

October was a crazy busy month.  On top of what I mentioned above, I had a garage sale with my friend Stacey here at our house.  I made $484 which was awesome.  The best part, though, was getting rid of a lot of junk and clearing out our attic!!  We went to Disney this month, celebrated Hannah's birthday, and Hannah and Kris went to a Tween Rally at church.  Kris helped with it and dressed up as an old man.  I wish I had a picture of him.  He went to Goodwill and bought this ancient looking suit.  He is so silly.  He really put on a show.  Also this month I was able to go on a GALS retreat with some friends from church.  We do this twice a year.  We go up to near Greer's Ferry and stay at the Woods' lakehouse.  We just enjoy eating and talking.  It is always great for me to get away for one night and do this with friends.

Visitors from Down Under and Halloween 2014

Our Halloween this year was extra special!  The Holton's from Australia came to visit us!  Kris stayed with Mark and Debbie when he was in Australia on 3 different campaigns with Harding when he was in college.  They are like his Australian Mom and Dad.  Their daughter, Alyssa, was a little girl at that time.  Now she is in her 20's and came over as well.  She actually stayed for a whole month after her family left to tour all over the U.S. with a friend of hers.  I am not sure I could have done that in my early 20's all by myself!

Mark and Debbie brought Kris some TimTams which were one of his favorite Australian things.  We love them too!

The Holton's have had foster kids for years.  They have had Jayden, Lochlan, and Noah since they were very little.  They are all brothers and are between 8-11 years old.  They were precious boys and we just fell in love with them!  The kids all got along great and really enjoyed being with each other.  They were in LR for about a week and we hung out with them almost every night.

Noah and Hannah.  Mark and Debbie told us that the boys would talk about Hannah and fight over her when they'd go back to their hotel.  Ha!

Sweet Lochlan.  He reminded me of Lincoln a bit--very engineering minded.  All three boys have quite a bit of problems and can be handfuls.  However, they were little angels with us!  Layton particularly loved Lochlan and still gets excited to see his picture.

We played a lot of Wii.

We took them to McAlister's on Halloween night before trick-or-treating.

Crazy kids!

We took them to PV's Kiddie Karnival.  It was so much fun because Halloween is not very big in Australia.  The boys had never trick-or-treated before.  They were excited to get to dress up.  Debbie brought their costumes for them to wear.

Here are our kids.  The boys were Ninja Turtles and Hannah was an Indian princess.

Noah was a Ninja Turtle too.  Jayden was Harry Potter and Lochlan was Robin Hood.

Hannah with Kenzie and Karly.

Lincoln and Jack.

Debbie, Kris, and Alyssa were cracking up at something.  There were a lot of laughs with these guys!

Layton with his friend, Brett.

Caden, Layton, and Gunnar.

What a bunch!!

Trick-or-Treating around our neighborhood.

LOVE that Mark, Debbie, and Alyssa brought costumes too.  We laughed and laughed.  They were so fun!!!

Checking out their loot.

Kris and Jayden arm wrestling.  Jayden has a birth defect with his arm, but he does not let it keep him from doing anything.

On Saturday we took them all to Searcy.  They had never been to Harding before but have met many, many people from there through campaigns over the years.  So, this was a real treat for them.  We scored free tickets to the Homecoming football game thanks to Kris having a connection to the president's secretary.

Harding swing pictures.

That night we took them to the Shrek the Musical that Harding was doing.  It was SO good.  The guy that played Lord Farquaad was hysterical.  He totally made the play.

We had a blast with this family while they were here.  I had not seen them in about 10 years.  Kris saw them a few years ago.  I met them for the first time back in 2004 when we went over there when I was 8 weeks pregnant with Hannah.  They are very special people to Kris and I am so glad that we got to hang out with them!!