November Update, heh heh

Seems like I'm able to get on once a month these days. Here are some of my shorthand notes of what we've been up to:

• Andrew sick (those 2 ear infections, stomach virus, leg pain.) He's had 3 episodes where he's been unable to walk, last week being the last occurance. We took him to one of our GOOD drs who truly believes that it is a viral thing that his body is just having a hard time getting rid of. One more episode, and the doc is going to refer him to a Rheumatist or an Orthopedic person.




• Alie spunky. This girl found her personality alright. She is fiesty and brazen as one could possibly be. She swears she's 2 years older than she really is...always trying to do things her big brother is doing. Oftentimes frustrated that she can't accomplish the task. Oh, and the fights between those two are spectacular!




• ROCCtoberfest - FINALLY DONE! It went really well. Probably only 300-400 people, but that just meant we had tons of food. I was quite pleased given the current upheavel our church has been under.



• Halloween - Natalie was Pooh Bear and Andrew was Handy Manny (Playhouse Disney character http://atv.disney.go.com/playhouse/handymanny/index.html) Here are a few poor quality photos from my camera phone. Mom took pictures, but we forgot to get them from her.




• Church. We have a pastor now! He visited last weekend and we voted on him. He won't start until Jan 1st (he's from Denver, CO), but it is so reassuring to know that we are ending a really difficult time. For the next month or two, we are hiring an interim pastor who specializes in being an interim. He helps transistions churches by leading them in the direction that the new pastor will want us to go. We really should have looked into this option about 15 months ago, but hey. Who would have known it would turn out like this?




• Mom was here for ROCCtoberfest and a 9 day visit. We enjoyed the visit, and she really helped us out with the kids when we were running around like crazy.




• Back to Routine. It is so nice to get back into our normal routine again. I was beginning to forget what that's like. I've started reading again. I polished off one book in a couple of days, and got halfway through another book in one night. I haven't read a book in it's entirety in one full year.




• Knitting - I had to take a break from that becuase of the craziness. I was trying to make socks for myself (not as easy as you would think), but I finally had a breakthrough. I knit a pair of baby booties for my friend's baby shower this weekend. They're little Mary Janes. I am really excited that it only took me one eveing. (Probably should have taken me 30 minutes total, but it was more like 4-5 hours. Ha ha. I guess I'm still sub-novice at this). I have to make some boy booties too for this weekend, but I'm still searching for a pattern. Here are some pictures of the girl's:

• Meal Planning - Normally I'm terrible at meal planning. It just seems like too much work to sit down and decide a week or two's worth of meals. But, I've found a new (to me) way of cheating. Kraftfoods.com allows you to pull up any of the recipes and 'add ingredients to shopping list'. This is what I do when I need a quick menu and don't want to pull out the cookbooks and whatnot. Added perk...new recipes to experiment with.