Election Day

Yesterday the kids didn't have school because the schools are voting centers. It was nice to have a day off in the middle of the week! I got all of my Christmas decorations and trees up, with a little help from the kids. 

In the afternoon, we had to take Janae to work at the student election site for Beta Club. The boys got to vote while we were there. I asked them to stand in my daily pictures. Easton wanted to put his arm around Talan.

 Talan pushed him away from him! Typical fifth grade boy behavior, I suppose. 😑

He did pull him in for a hug at the end though. That's my sweet Talan I am used to! 😊

 This handsome fella doesn't like having his picture taken. Doesn't stop me from taking them! 😁

 Me and my boys. 😊

When we got home from the school, Brett had a large box of samples waiting by the mailbox. UPS here is quite annoying. If it's a small box, they drive it up and leave it by the door. If it's a large box, they leave it by the mailbox. What sense does that make?! FedEx leaves everything by the door! Luckily we have strong boys who like to help. Talan carried the box and Easton tried to push him up the driveway. 😂

Then they decided it would be easier if they each took an end. Those boys! 😊

Last night was a loooooong night. I slept from about 11:30 to 1:00 and then was up until 4:00. Wow. I really didn't think Trump would end up winning but I do believe in the power of prayer and I think this was proof that prayer does work! Regardless of who is president, Jesus is my king and He has our country wrapped in His arms!

I, like many of you I'm sure, did not want to get out of bed this morning!  Today was cooler here, around 60 degrees. It's still hazy from the wildfires and smells like smoke up at the school. Luckily, we can't really smell it at our house. They've had air alerts on and off the past couple of days. The forecast called for rain today, but we never got any! I hope they did wherever the fires are!

After lunch, I was thinking about getting in the hot tub but then changed my mind. I was in the bedroom putting clothes away and Brett came running up the stairs, saying the bear was on the bottom deck. We went out on the top deck and saw him headed toward the house above us.

Then I looked down and saw he had tried to get in the hot tub! Brett noticed that he had left a water trail down by the cars, too. What a stinker! The other day I found a tear in the cover and one of the straps was ripped apart. Looks like we are going to have to find a way to latch it down so he doesn't get in it! And here I was sad when he was gone. 😑

By the end of the day, the haze had lifted and the sky was beautiful. Still praying for that rain though!

I am not a fan of this time change business. It feels like bedtime at 6:00 at night! I always forget how much I hate it until it's here. 😁 Can it just be spring already?

Fall Festival

Saturday was the Fall Festival at the school. This was the conclusion to the only fundraiser the school does for the year. Each grade had a prince and princess running for king and queen. Their responsibility is to set up little fundraisers for their class, such as bake sales, t-shirt sales and after school movies and dances. They also collect items for the silent and live auctions that took place at the Fall Festival. The festival began with a turkey dinner. We than walked around bidding on the silent auction items. There were SO many items. I have never seen so many things, especially at a small school! I ended up getting quite a bit of Christmas shopping done. And maybe a few things for myself. 😁 I love this centerpiece I got for my table. Nobody else even bid on it! It's hard to see, but it has little twinkle lights inside the jars. It had a string of regular Christmas lights in it, but it had to be plugged in, so I switched it out with these battery-operated lights that I already had.

After the silent auction was the live auction. There were a lot of things I would have bid on, but the two things I   really wanted were near the end, so I wanted to save my money! I ended up getting everything I wanted, including a Christmas present for the boys. They were sitting right there and had no idea! I also got a bench and fire pit. Our deck is pretty much empty, so this will be a good start! Unfortunately, we are under a complete burn ban where we live, so we can't use it yet. At least we have it for the future though! 😍

Next up was the crowning of the king and queen. Brett wants our kids to run next year because he thinks he could set up some really good fundraisers. Talan and Janae both said no way, but Easton had the best response. He said he didn't want to give a girl a rose. 😂 Here are the representatives from our kids' classes.

2nd Grade

5th Grade

7th Grade (They had two girls because no boys wanted to run. They also had to have an 8th Grade boy escort them because no 7th Grade boy would do it. Boys! 😂)

The king and queen were kindergartners. Their class raised over $9000! In total, the school raised over $43,000. Not too bad for a little school!

Sunday morning we went to church. Mom and Dad took us all to Texas Roadhouse for lunch afterwards. We had a great afternoon at home and then we walked downtown to do some Christmas shopping. Selfie Queen found my phone apparently. 😂

Me with my handsome hubby! 

He's so cute waving to us from the deck as we were walking downtown. 😊

Mom, Dad and Grandma left for home this morning before school. It is going to be weird not having them here! They were here for 17 days but it sure did go fast!

It was a beautiful fall day today. However, you can really see and smell the smoke everywhere. There are fires in counties around us, but none in Sevier. We desperately need some rain!

You can really see the smoke in these after-school pictures. Please pray for rain for Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia. These are the states I know of that have wildfires right now. There may be more.

I started getting Christmas decorations out today. Both trees are up with lights, but no ornaments yet. The kids don't have school tomorrow, so I'm hoping to get some help! I have a feeling we will be watching some Christmas movies too. We watched Elf tonight. That movie never gets old! It's hard to believe it came out before any of my kids were even born!

I'm off to bed early tonight. I am sure we will be up late tomorrow night watching election results.😑

November!

Wow, I guess it has been a few days since I've blogged! Brett has been in South Carolina and Alabama for work this past week, so our schedule has been a little different. I've either gone to bed early or stayed up until 1:30 watching that crazy awesome Cubs win and post game. Let's see if I can remember what we've done this week!

I can't believe it's already November. We have been here for three months now. We sure have done a lot in such a short amount of time! The weather has been beautiful. It LOOKS like fall, but it's been up to 80 degrees almost every day until about Wednesday of this week. It's still getting up to almost 70, so it's still very nice!

Janae has been wanting to get a pair of attitude glasses. We walked downtown one evening this week so she could get a pair. They were having a buy two, get one free sale, so she bought two pairs and I got one. I didn't buy these fuzzy ears, but I thought they were cute!

Brett thinks I'm trying to look scholarly. 😁

The views up at the school in the mornings have been absolutely stunning. The pinks in there are my favorite!

The afternoon views aren't so bad either. 😊

We've been seeing Pumpkin the bear (named by my cousin Mandy😉) a few times this week. I'm so glad nothing happened to him. He was gone for a while and we were worried!

Easton wanted to see how he looks in glasses. Kind of like Harry Potter, I think! I can't believe he's eight years old. He seems so little! He will always be my baby, I guess. 😊

My mom and I walked downtown with the kids another evening after dinner. These instruments are at the beginning of the strip, fairly close to our house. We've seen them many times, but never stopped to play them! We had a blast. The kids really got into it.

So did my mom! 😂

Talan had a rough night Wednesday night. He has been complaining about pain in his tooth for several days. He had chipped it this summer and had a temporary put on it, but it fell out. He was up all night Wednesday night and felt even worse Thursday morning. I called a dentist right down the road from us as soon as they opened and they were able to see him at 10:00. His tooth was infected and he needed to have a root canal. Thankfully, they were able to fit him in at 2:30. Poor guy! He was in so much pain. We loved the dentist though. I'm so glad we found one so close to us that we love!

This is after they numbed his lip. He looks pretty droopy! He felt better almost instantly though. 😊

Easton had a better Thursday than Talan! We got a message from his baseball coach for him to be at the Civic Center in his jersey at 6:00 if he could. We got there and found out that the team was going to be interviewed to be on the news!

Each boy got a turn getting the mic put on and interviewed. I was beyond shocked that Easton did it. Those of you who know Easton well know he rarely talks. For real. He sometimes just stares at people when they talk to him. Drives me batty! I was so proud of him for doing the interview!

Here's a link to the video if you would like to see it. Easton is at the very end.

Talan was feeling much better on Friday and was able to go to school. Woo hoo! He even came home and said he had a math test and got a 100 on it. Thank goodness he was back to his normal self! When we pulled up to the parking lot, Easton's class was at recess. For telling us at the beginning of the year that there was no recess, they sure do spend a lot of time at recess! 😂

Brett got home from Alabama Friday night. He was so excited to hear that we wanted him to drive us to The Island. 😂 They have it all decorated for Christmas now. It's so pretty! They have a huge tree that you can walk under. That was pretty cool!

Here's my handsome hubby. So glad to have him back! 😍😘😍

I'm really going to have to get back to blogging every other day or so. It's hard to remember what we did all week! Plus I get all these angry faces in my texts from Madi every night! I can't have that. 😊