35 days!

I suppose it's time for a post from me, eh? Its been quite awhile. Over a month since the previous post and even longer since I wrote anything of substance. Sorry, friends! Life has been keeping me on my toes, thats for sure! This probably won't be the most comprehensive post, but I'll do my best to review the highlights that I've missed along the way! How about we start with some pictures? A little trip back to Halloween, maybe???

Our Halloween festivities began at school that week. Luke was SUPER excited to wear his costume for the parade the school puts on the last schoool day before Halloween. Luke chose to be a "knight in shining armor" this year (though many people mistook him for an astronaut!). The costume came with a neat sword, and Ty even got Luke a special christian cross decal to put on the front to signify he was wearing the Armor of God! For days before and weeks after Halloween, Luke was obsessed with playing in his costume, pretending to rescue 'princess Ellie' from the dragon and defending whatever was rightfully his! :) Super cute!

Here's my little prince...ahem....my BRAVE KNIGHT with his preschool teacher (whom we simply adore...she is so wonderful!)


And my little pumpkin not dressed up yet!


On the actual day of Halloween, we met Krystal, Will and the kids in downtown Redlands for their annual Safe Trick-or-Treat. Ironically, (or maybe not if you know how similar Krystal and I are) Matt and Luke had the exact same costume! Lol! They both had a BLAST sword-fighting in the streets and showing their bravery to all who would watch!





Ellie was my Itsy-Bitsy spider this year...opting to revive Luke's costume from a few years ago! She was a head-turner while we were out with those big, blue eyes and dimpled chin peeking out from her costume! She was the cutest spider I have ever laid eyes on!


She really took to the whole concept of trick-or-treating this year too! She was delighted to charge ahead of us on the street and shove her little pumpkin out to collect her candy after she flashed her sweet little smile and offered her squeaky, adorable "Tick-r-teet". Love her!



Snapped this cute one of Matt & Megan loving on one another! Megan LOVES playing the part of the princess...you can almost imagine her little foot raising off the ground here and sweet music playing in the background! Lol!



After their pumpkins were filled to the brim in the afternoon, we all headed back to our house for a yummy chili & cornbread dinner, some more trick-or-treating around our neighborhood and finally, a sleep over! The kids' first-ever one! Luke was SOOOO excited to share his room with Matt and Megan that night, though having all three of them in his bed like he had hoped didn't pan out! Krystal and Will stayed over too in our downstairs make-shift guest bedroom, and we enjoyed having our home full of giggling kids and good friends!

And then it was onto November. A month full of being ill (a not-so-fun case of the flu made it's way through each of us), lots of photography work for me, lots of training for Ty and I, a blessed Thanksgiving with family, and our 7th wedding anniversary!

In terms of the running, Ty and I completed our first 10K race as a team on November 22nd. We are now halfway through our 18 week training program for the half marathon in February, so this race was a good chance for us to see how we would run side-by-side. It was fantastic! The race was organized by some good friends of ours (the parents of our NICU buddy, Brayden) in conjuction with the Redlands Fire Dept. and Loma Linda Medical center to benefit the Childhood Cancer Foundation. There was a police helicopter fly-over at the start of the race, which, combined with a timely song playing in my Ipod and the presence of my dear husband running beside me, actually got me all teary-eyed! Lol! (And who said I wasn't very emotional?) The race itself was so much fun! Having Ty there beside me pushed me to run faster! I had set a personal goal of finishing in less than 55 minutes, but was very pleased at the finish line to see that we actually came in nearly 4 MINUTES faster than that! Our finish time was 51:23 and I was quite surprised to discover that I placed 2nd for my age-brakcet! The race proved to be a great motivator for me, as training up until that point had kinda become mundane and boring for me! I was very happy to see that all the effort I have been putting into specific training runs to improve my speed are actually working!





Thanksgiving followed just a few short days later and we spent this year at my mom's house with Ty's mom, brother, my parents and Jennifer and Adam. It was a smaller gathering than in previous years, but wonderful nonetheless. I was thankful that my mom graciously offered to host this year (it has been at our house the previous 2 years), as life had just seemed a little too chaotic for me to host this time! Here are some pictures of the kids that afternoon, along with one very special shot that I got of them with Meemaw! It is the first and ONLY photograph I have of her with her two, precious grandchildren! She hates being photographed, so this one is one I will definitely hold dear!



Along with this one... :)














On the 30th, Ty and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary. Seven years! Its hard to believe its already been that long! They have all been so wonderful! We are so blessed! In line with our tradition to steal away together for at-least one night, we headed out to the desert area for a night at a local hotel. They were offering an amazing deal on rooms that we just couldn't pass up! Since we saved a lot on the room itself, we treated ourselves to massages at their spa in the afternoon and went out for a nice, quiet dinner afterwards. Soooo nice! I haven't felt that relaxed in awhile! We spent the entire next day out there too, wrapping up our Christmas shopping and just hanging out. We had another great meal and headed home around dinnertime to relieve Meemaw, who graciously stayed with the kids while we were away! I think more than anything, Ty and I just enjoyed the quiet. :) Lol! We hadn't realized how the constant jibber-jabber, the barage of questions and the occasional fits really do send the stress level up a notch (or three!!) We love the kids desperately, but to have some time alone was priceless! Here is the only picture we took while we were away...just before heading out to dinner.



And since we are finally into Decemeber, here are just a couple of pics from the night we decorated the Christmas tree. Nothing fancy, but we sure had a great time unwrapping the ornaments and talking about the story behind each one! Luke was intrigued to say the least! And even Ellie, with her chubby, clumsy little fingers was able to hang some ornaments on the tree quite well! :) Happy times! Again, we are so blessed!