O Christmas Tree

After much debate, we put up our Christmas tree; a fake Christmas tree.  I always loved going to the tree farm and cutting it down, but my parent's offered us their old tree (they downsized).  It's a good size tree and goes well with our vaulted ceiling in the living room.  I have to admit, it was easy to assemble and the fact that the lights were already on made decorating fast and easy.  The boys were hanging ornaments faster than I could unpack them.  Mark wanted to put them on and take them off to play with.  All the boys got to get on Dadda's shoulders to hang some ornaments and attempt to put the star on.  Eventually, I was able to get the star on somewhat straight.  It turned out nice and now it feels like Christmas!

Making Candy

To kick off our holiday season, we made chocolate candy today.  The boys were very helpful and once Mark got over the fact that he couldn't eat them, he helped too!

Lunch with AJ

Jeff was off today so Ty and I took a trip up to AJ's school to have lunch with him.  Ty thought it was really cool to go to the big school.  We had Chic-fil-A and the boys shared an ice cream.  They went to go purchase it together.  We stopped by AJ's classroom and noticed his turkey that he made and the story he wrote about it.  They were all so funny!

Dress for Success Day

AJ had dress for success day at school today and I snapped his picture before I dropped him off.  He dressed the part for a future engineer.

Halloween

We gathered together with a lot of our church friends to go trick-or-treating, and have a driveway bonfire.  The kids all looked adorable.  The boy's homemade Lego costumes turned out pretty cute, but AJ and Ty didn't like that they couldn't run as fast as they wanted to in them.  The neighborhood was packed, but there were lots of houses participating.  The boys got so much candy!  Mark was in the back of the pack most of the night; each time he went to a house, he wanted to eat his candy immediately, which slowed him down even more.  Jackson and AJ were at the front and we were constantly telling them to slow down.  We hit a lot of houses before heading back for some treats and hot chocolate.  It was so much fun and we all agreed that their neighborhood was a great one to go to!

Pumpkin Patch with cousins

We decided to take the kids to a pumpkin patch in Athens.  It was a beautiful day and there were lots of different activities for the kids at the farm.  It was huge!  They loved the jumping pillow; they also had play grounds, bikes that they could ride on a paved path, a hay ride and sand to play in.  On our way out we picked a few pumpkins to take home.

5k in Athens

Kylie and my brother ran a 5k last year and I promised Payton that I would run it with him this year.  Jeff, AJ, and Wyatt jumped in to run as well.  Jeff and I were training for our half marathon, so it was a good opportunity.  I was concerned about AJ running by himself so my brother agreed to run with him.  It was a small race (about 50 people) and the weather was beautiful.  We took off and Kylie lead the pack and never lost her lead.  Jeff and I ran together most of the way and we passed AJ at one point without his uncle.  He said he was okay running on his own.  We tried to catch Kylie, but she was too fast- I was so impressed with her and when she finished, she wasn't even tired.  She took first place over all with a time of 26 minutes Jeff and I came in shortly after at 27 minutes (Jeff- 27.20, and Me-27.45) both Personal Bests for us.  As soon as I finished I turned around to look for AJ and he wasn't too far behind.  I was so proud when I saw him turning the corner towards the finish line.  Jeff went back to finish the race with him.  He finished in 31.22 minutes.  Both of us were blown away.  He never walked and finished faster than we anticipated.  Wyatt, Payton and Uncle Marcus all finished shortly after.

These are the top 3 boys and top 3 girls in order.  AJ took second place and was probably the youngest kid who ran.  The other boys (1st and 3rd place) were 10 and 11 years old.