October

I'm not sure how it happened.  Perhaps not having a computer on which I can immediately download, view, edit, and enjoy pictures leads to me taking fewer pictures?  All I know is that October is...empty...In fact, I didn't take a single picture (not even on my phone!) until the last weekend.  What?!

I planned to take some family pictures for a friend, and Lucas and the kids tagged along.  They helped me pick some spots and get my lighting adjusted ahead of time.

I love catching them when they aren't look - Allie lounging in the leaves.

 I needed a posed picture, and Daddy jumped in to help  I kind of love the (relatively candid) result.

Then, of course, Ryan want a posed picture with Daddy and the football.  I love how perfectly posed Ryan is...and Lucas has no clue what is going on!

 Finally, a snapshot - from the top of the hill - of my favorite people playing football below.

The day before was a casual dress day at school.  The kids can wear absolutely anything (well...nothing revealing or inappropriate, but my kids don't have anything like that in their wardrobe, so there isn't any worry).  Their choice (without hesitation) - Husker gear!  The 7th grade teacher is also from Nebraska (which means he is also a Husker fan).  When he sees the kids he says, "Go Big Red!" and, as Ryan said, "We like that!"  Another one of the great influences that make me so happy with our school of choice!

So, since U of M was playing MI State on Saturday, we all dressed in our Michigan gear.  We also replaced our US flag for the first time with a very special Michigan flag.  Recently, we lost one of our newly graduated youth group members in a tragic accident.  His mom, a State fan, gifted his beloved Michigan flag to us earlier in the week.  We raised the flag in honor and memory of him.

 Of course, all of this fun was immediately followed by the twins getting sick.  It was short-lived, but the kiddos and I spent what was supposed to be an exceptionally busy Sunday at home resting and getting better.  Even though the twins almost never take naps anymore, I insisted they lay down.  They asked if they could snuggle together, and I agreed (anything to force a few minutes of rest!).  A little while later, I realized that it had been completely silent in their room for a long time.  I went in to check and found them like this...

LOVE.

The last week was full of competitions at their school.  One being a canned food drive for a local food bank - the 2 classes with the most canned goods winning a casual day (no uniform) or an ice cream party.  The other being a fundraiser competition where classes were competing to sell the most (also to win a casual day).  This competition had a daily update of class standings, and an opportunity for the kindergarten class (1/3 the size of the other classes) to win!  We sold our hearts out, and made it to 1st place just before the final weekend!

In the end, kindergarten not only won the fundraiser competition (woohoo!), but they came in second for the canned food drive competition (which happened, I think, because the kids had no clue they were 2 competitions and kept going home saying, "We are in second place, we need more canned food!"  The kindergarten class kept coming in with BAGS of canned goods!).  Considering that no one in the school can remember the kindergarten ever winning (the poor teacher!), this was a HUGE upset.  Gotta love a good underdog story :)

Since I can, I've decided to divide October into 2 posts!  We'll let Halloween have its moment to shine.