Carving Pumpkins!

Sunday evening was a perfect night for carving pumpkins! Adi, Cam and I went to Nana and Papa's house for dinner followed by a fun evening of messy pumpkin carving. Adi got to work straight away.
And this year she wasn't afraid to get dirty... or gooey.
And what's better than getting gooey on you-ey? Getting goop on Papa of course!
And thanks to Mama clearing up the myth that pumpkin can't be eaten raw (right in line with my raw food eating ways of late) Adi decided everyone should try some raw pumpkin. Maybe not exactly by will, but everyone must try some!
Here are the three ladies of the house, working away.And what would pumpkin carving be if we didn't have a pumpkin headed monster show up?
And for the grand finale, here is the fruit of our labor. Aren't they great?
The pumpkins were carved, from left to right, by Stacey, Papa and Nana. If you'd like to see the glowing version and the tasty roasted pumpkin seeds head on over to our Urban Homestead blog :)

Happy Birthday to Stacey

On Saturday, October 18th I turned 32. Cam and I spent the day with our friends Seth and Alicia at Fireside Winery in Williamsburg, IA. The scenery was beautiful, the day was beautiful, the wine was wonderful and I had a very happy birthday.

After wine tasting we enjoyed a bottle of wine and some spinach artichoke dip. Seth willingly took this photo, actually posed for it, and therefore I am posting it!Here we are. Cheers! Thanks for celebrating a very happy birthday with me, friends :)

Fall Colors

Adi and Cam went out on a fall color adventure. Their first stop was the "waterfall". Adi found some beautiful purple flowers and is showing one of them off here:

The seagulls were flying free and Adi is such a lover of animals, particularly birds, that Cam really can't resist getting photos of the birds for her.

Here's Adi with a feather she found. I love the way the wind is blowing her hair...

And finally, fall colors, in all their glory. Gorgeous!!

I'm Not Stupid, I Was Just Grieving!

So now that I've been back to work for a few weeks and things are starting to get busier, I'm feeling hyper-sensitive to things going on around me. For instance, the project manager of my main project has been giving work that I could be doing to a co-worker on a different project. I assume this is because he doesn't think I've been trained on the "new" process using the Mac instead of the PC. This isn't true, I learned the process early this week. So I wonder how many hours I've spent dinking around and waiting for work the past few days when I could be working on my assigned project?

I'm also noticing that as tasks are assigned and shared, I tend to get the mindless ones. If I were to, for example, build a book (sorry for the publishing references, I don't know how else to explain what's going on...) the people giving me the work sort of hesitate, like their thinking, "are you sure you can handle this?" The normal healthy me would be offended by this, and I was. But what is coming to light is my state of mental and emotional health over the last couple of years that I've worked in this department.

During that time I've had two miscarriages, finished massage school and accepted a full-time position in this department that I'm not really qualified to work in (no college degree). While in the process of grieving the losses of two pregnancies (and the build-up of having lost 4 total) I most certainly have NOT been functioning at full capacity over the past couple of years. Why this just hit me today, I don't know. But it feels like I need to somehow communicate this to my team. I doubt it's appropriate, though. I want to shout, "I'm not stupid, I was just grieving! I feel better now, Jesus is healing me more every day and I can think and I can learn and I am a valuable team member!" Surely I will never say these things, only exemplify them.

So now for my own sake, I just say thank you Jesus for the work you've done in me. To heal me and to help me move on, past the shadow of the valley of death, past grieving, and on to many things new.

Bloomsbury Farm

Last weekend we went to Bloomsbury Farm in Atkins. It has a huge pumpkin patch and several other attractions, such as the barrel train pulled by a tractor.

They also had this huge jumping pillow which was a huge hit for the kids. On the left is Adi's cousin Kayley and Uncle Travis.
Papa braved holding 3 grand kids in one lap. Myles, Kayley and Adi :)
I totally want to put one of these tube slides in my backyard.

Who could resist the goats? There was also a llama or two. Funny animals.

So overall the place was a lot of fun for the kids. I found myself struggling to keep up. I felt like it was a bit expensive, but I suppose it's the owners livelihood. If you feel like making the trip, be prepared to do a lot of running around and take my word for it, do NOT go in the corn maze!!

Raptor Center Adventure

This was my first week back to work from my 13 week leave. When I returned I learned that I will no longer have a partial year position, so this was the last year to have my summer off as far as I can tell :( The transition is going well for everyone. I'm getting used to my new 24" Mac - the biggest available. The sucker is bigger than my t.v. I guess there's one benefit to doing my current job and learning another one on top of it (I currently do electronic form design and will be learning the paper form design process as well).

So, Cam and Adi have some quality Daddy/Adi time on Mondays and Fridays since the peanut isn't in preschool on those days. This week they went to the Raptor Center.
One of the owls in captivity at the Raptor Center.
Adi outside one of the large cage structures which house the birds and a cool photo of one of the raptors (maybe a falcon?)
Chasing shadows - Adi and Daddy's shadows on the path.

Baby Myles' Baptism

Our nephew Myles Travis Harney was baptized last weekend and I'm just now getting around to posting a few photos of his special day. Here the little man is:

I was careful to include Jesus in this photo of the Harney family (Travis is my little brother). Krista, Travis and Myles are here together with Jesus.
After the ceremony Adi had a little time to run around and have some fun!
Here's the little piggie bank I sort of made for Myles' gift. The bank was store bought and I used stickers to customize it for the occasion.
And there will never be any confusion over who this little piggie belongs to :)

Our nephew Myles was baptized last weekend and I'm just now getting around to posting some photos of his special day.

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