Fall overload...

Man, I LOVE fall, but it seems like once it's offically fall, it's offically BUSY to no end. We've been on a whirlwind (this time of year always gets this way, then we roll into November- MAJOR birthday month for us, then the traveling to MO, then HELLO CHRISTMAS.. it never stops, as I'm sure you guys are feeling the same way). Our church has an annual pumpkin patch, so we have been there quite a bit working. Our Family Fun Festival is this upcoming Saturday (TONS of planning and doing), and we're also having a church yard sale the same day. So, this week you will find me sorting through tons of stuff to donate, tagging, then hauling it over there. We have set-up on Friday, Events on Saturday, church service sunday a.m, set up for the God's Creation Party after service, then the event is from 5-7pm. Sunday is our Halloween Alternative party at our church so needless to say... it's been busy-busy-busy.

I am organizing a "Coat Drive" for the homeless at our church that I'm excited about. When it starts to get cold around here, my heart breaks for all those in need so I thought I would organize a coat drive where our church family and communitity to bring in their no longer wanted coats to give to the shelters, and D and I are also going to drive around downtown Louisville to hand them out to those that we see on the streets. I announced it on Sunday, and there's already tons of coats coming our way- I'm excited!

Aspen had a field trip last week "Squirrl Boone Taverns" which was really cool. We got to go far in the cave, check out all the awesome formations, etc. We had a great time.. . I have TONS of pictures that I will share soon. :)

Weds. is Addi's "Project Pumpkin Day" at school, and I'm in charge of making the molding clay (should be interesting:lol sure hope it comes out) and the pumpkin hats with the kids, so... that will be fun. Thurs. is Savannah's field trip to Hubers Apple Orchird- suppose to rain, so we'll see how that goes.

Sis had her EEG (I took pictures :lol and will share once they are resized.. what? That surprises you? We had to take them for Aspen, she requested them :lol) and everything came back A-Okay. Funny thing was that Addi & Aspen both have best friends that are sisters (Annabelle and Issabelle). I'm good friends with Beth, their Mom (Naturally- lol) and come to find out, her husband was the one who read Sissy's EEG results (her's a nuroligist- only spelled right :lol), so he called me the very next day to give me the results :) Her Peditrician didn't call until 4 days later :) But, everything was ok and he said that it was a "Provoked Seuizure", and that they have been seeing a lot of them due to the H1N1 virus. Sweeeet.

We've looked at a couple of homes... one D fell in LOVE with (you're on 5 acres surrounded by nature preserve- BEAUTIFUL- has two very small ponds as your landscaping with huge gold fish in it-- talk about a park setting- the outside is BREATHTAKING, we ALL loved it. And the BIG bonus was that it was just HUGE (7200sq ft.) but unfort., it doesn't work for our family. It sounds nuts, but it's the same problem we run into in our current home. We have the SPACE, it's just not "usable" space for our famliy needs, ya know? D wants to go out and look at it again... but it's SOOOO far our from where we are now. I'm in the car all the time with bussing the kids around, I can't imagine adding MORE time in the car. Louisville is SO spread out, so it can take you 45min. to get to one side to the other- and that's not including traffic. So, that was a deal breaker for me. Plus, the whole first level has a formal living room (not really a room that you can see our big entertainment center in), the kitchen that opens up to a very small "family room" (it's connected as one), the master, a VERY formal dining room (which we NEVER use), and the VERY small laundry room. That's it. That's your entire first floor. Now the bedroom upstairs probally takes about 900sq. feet of your space- it's HUGE, BEAUTIFUL- FULL of awesome windows, but we just need the space in other parts of the house. The bedrooms are all fairly small, the basement is great- but one of the bedrooms is down there and I can't see any of my kids sleeping down there (Chelc already claimed the "massive" room so all her friends can hang out in her zone-- it has it's own door which scares me to death, too- lol- remember, the girl is ready for her "offical licence" in just 3wks). It has 2, double car garages- one has heating/cooling because the owner stores his Fahria car in there (wow!!!!).. so D thinks we can convert that into a big room for the 3 little ones. I don't know.. I just don't feel it. Beautiful home, but SOOOOOO far out. Plus, LOTS of critters from the nature preserve-- my cat would get eaten the first night. AWESOME price- the guy is in real estate and lives in FL, he's already dropped his price $400k (WOW!!) so we think we can basically steal the thing. It's in an awesome re-sell area (very prestigious part of town), but I'm more comfortable on THIS side of town. It's closer to everything, we've just MINUTES from church (we are there 4 times in a week, sometimes more if D has a board meeting)... I just don't SEE living that far away. He loves it. Chelcey loves it. I'm just not sold. Anyways....

I swear we've been running around every day doing something. :) I love this time of year (colors) but just wish there wasn't always something going on. I've found that I'm quite the homebody at heart but with a big family, it's hard to get into that role anymore :lol darnit.... :) :) oh well, wintertime will be here before we know it... then hopefully I can hybernate like I always do.

Ok, need to hop in the shower to get ready to get the kiddos. Aspen saw something scarey on TV last night on a commerical. We don't allow our kids to watch ANYTHING that is questionable- but even Disney at this time of year has things on it that I don't want my girls to see. As we were flipping through the channel yesterday, there was an image of something scarey and Aspen was scared to death last night so, she slept with us. I'm sure this will probally be the drill until Halloween is over. I HATE Halloween--- if it was all innocent and didn't worp little kids minds into being scared, then that's one thing.. but all the grosstess, scarey, "Dark" side of things... WE WILL PASS. I don't even think we're taking the girls trick or treating around the block this year and we'll just stick with our church halloween alternative and another church up the street on Halloween. Our neighborhood gets crazy at this time and there is just TOOOOO much out there that I don't want my girls to see. So, we'll see what happens.... last year, this house had this chainsaw, chasing little kids- he was dressed up HORRIBLY... D and I looked at each other and both agreed we were done. People just take it WAY too far... I just wish the rest of the world would get back to INNOCENT fun with kids.... don't get me started though or we could be here all day. :)

I'm out. Pictures coming soon. If I have some already resized, I'll add some here in a bit. :) See ya.