Gingerbread House Decorating 2019.... with a special visitor!

We did our annual Gingerbread House decorating super early this year, and for a really good reason! Gammy Becky had a special visitor coming. 

Yep- the Big Man himself dropped in!! 

It started just like our normal-but-much-larger Gingerbread Decorating always does. Cameron and Jeanice were busy making icing and I was late :-) 

I was pretty proud of Griffin this year- he did the whole thing practically by himself! He didn’t do the best job of letting his brother help much, so we will definitely need two next year, ha! But our house turned out great and he designed and did it all! 

While we were decorating, guess who walked in?! Grady was super surprised and excited. Griffin seemed like he expected it but was still glad to see him. 

We all got to take pictures with Santa, then the kids each visited with him too. 



This picture is such a look at our reality these days, haha









Santa sang some songs with the kids, then told them the Night Before Christmas. 






Here’s our house: 





Some of our icing was just really runny, but I was so proud of them for doing the whole thing and sticking with it. 

Grady did get bored at one point (his brother wouldn’t let him do anything else on the house, ha!) and decided we should do a photoshoot with some of the trees! Ha 


 

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas🎄🎄🥰! 

Pumpkin Carving 2019

Right after the Fall Festival, we headed out to our annual Pumpkin Carving! Due to the last minute cooking issue, Mr.Pate couldn’t make it. 

Griffin cleaned a ton of the pumpkin out this year! 

Harry Potter! Not our best work, but it turned out better than I thought. We got into it and realized the glasses were just a huge whole and had to figure out how to keep them from falling out🤦🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️! 

Griffin still won Cutest Pumpkin, which made his night. 

And cute Cameron won most detailed I think🤣🤣



All our winners! 

It was raining, so no fire and s’mores this year. 

Overall, I hated we were late, Mr.Pate wasn't with us, our pumpkin wasn’t the best it could have been, and we missed out on s’mores in the fire patio we got engaged in, but I love a good tradition anyhow and we got to see sweet friends that we don’t see often enough, had time together working and persevering on a project, and  Griffin got an award and gift card so I would say the night turned out pretty well! Ha! 

Bristow’s Fall Festival 2019

This one was quite the busy Fall Festival! First, the Food Truck planned for dinner back out at noon. So, Redeemer ended up cooking and serving for the PTA! Our church is amazing, if you didn’t know. We had several people come and help grill and serve with only a few hours notice! So thankful to do life with these people! 

Second, Griffin was in the “Fall Pageant” again- this time in the running for “King”. So we had to get there early for that. Our friend was also in the Pageant and needed her hair curled, so I got some sweet girl time doing that too. 

None of these Redeemer Kids won,  but they sure looked great and enjoyed themselves! 

After the pageant, a friend took my kids around while I worked some PTA shifts. Then I took the boys to the rest of the games they wanted to go to. The teachers all did great on fun and themed games this year. 

Some of the adorable Redeemer kiddos there: 




And the boys even ended up winning 2 liters! Haha 


It was a crazy busy but crazy fun night! 

Oh, and Kim and I showed up using the same cheap vacation bag, bahahaha! 

Grady’s Ninja Warrior 5th Bday Party