Blogging Our Blessings: October Update

I know I have really been slacking on this whole blogging thing! I was so excited about it and then nothing...I know! There was so much in the month of October I wanted to blog about, but just never did it. Sorry. I decided about the end of the month I'd just do a big blog with all of October's happenings and now it's the middle of November! But better late than never I guess!

So first of all, I have to say October is probably one of my favorite months..a close second to December. I love everything about fall..the decorations, cooler weather, chili, apple everything, pumpkins, football, candles, fires, smores, halloween...I could go on and on! As much as I love this month, I will never forget October 2007...my Uncle Jerry passed away as well as my dog, Blackie who was 17 (we think), and my mom sold the house I grew up in. Yes I know while my Uncle passing is a legit reason to be sad, the others might not be to many people, but to me they were devastating. My dog was my "rock" growing up...sounds silly I know, but he went through a lot with me and was always there! Ironically (or not), it was my Uncle Jerry who lured him into our house for the first time one Thanksgiving as our neighbors had moved and left him behind. I love to think about them playing in Heaven together! My uncle was an amazing man and I miss him so much! And while I'm happy my mom moved on with her life and moved to a new house, I still miss my "home"...But "home" is so much more than a house and I have to remember that. Anyway, that wasn't necessary to share, but it's what I think of when I think of October. So moving on to October 2010...gonna try to post some pics and let them do most of the talking...

Watching the SIU homecoming parade with Grammy

Elly and Keith's idea of tailgating!

The game was great...we won! After the game, we celebrated my mom's birthday on 10-10-10 at her house...no pics of that, but it was a good time!

Next day...pumpkin patch!

They ran right up to this and stuck their heads through with no prompting from us whatsoever! Smart kiddos!

On the hayride!

Trying to lift them!

The next weekend started with a wonderful dinner at the Savages' and more football!

Here's a cute pic of Elly before the game :)

This was taken at Lindsay's...we went there before the game to help make cake balls for Fisher's 1st birthday party later that day

Happy 1st Birthday Fisher!
I love this little guy and his big brother is pretty great too!
You can see the cake balls we Lindsay and Krystal made in this pic!
(I never actually contributed anything to them, but it was my idea so that counts for something right?!!)

The next day we met my Dad at Patti's for lunch to celebrate his birthday. We love that place!

Elly loved this horse so much! She would laugh and laugh and when it stopped, she'd say "more". We had to keep putting quarters in over and over!

The next weekend, we left Elly with Casey's parents and got a jump start on Christmas shopping! We got some great deals thanks to Kohl's coupons and Kohl's cash! We had a great time playing outside when we came to pick Elly up and got some really cute pics in the process!

Once we finally got away, we took naps and then got up and carved pumpkins!

Not so sure about this!

Picking out which one she wanted to do. She picked the spider!

Me doing the carving!

Ta Da! Us with our carved pumpkins!

I love this picture...it was totally random, but turned out great...thanks Krystal for taking it!

Carter came over that week to help decorate sugar cookies! He wasn't quite as interested in it as he has been in the past, but that's ok...guess he's growing up! We still had fun, but boy did having him and Elly wear me out! I don't know how Lindsay does it...not to mention with a full time job and working on her masters! She's amazing!

The cookies were just one of my fall baking/cooking projects...I also made crockpot apple butter, caramel apples, pumpkin pancakes in the shape of pumpkins, and chicken & dumplins from scratch...this was my first time making all of these too! I took pictures of them when I had big plans of blogging about it all, but I think this post has enough pictures so I'll spare you those! Still had to brag on myself!

And now for Halloween! More bragging...I was so proud of myself for making Elly's tutu for her Abby Cadabby costume! It turned out really cute and was actually super easy!

This is my favorite Halloween picture because it is the ONLY one she held still for and smiled! All the rest she is running around like crazy! Guess that means she was having fun though!

At Grammy's house...you can totally see her attitude coming through in this one!

Everybody had to wear Abby's hair, including Great Grandpa Tanner! Elly loves him so much...they always share vanilla wafers and she follows him all around!