Still here!!

I'm barely getting this blog post done before November ends... just in the nick of time! This past month went by super fast. Let me backtrack to the end of October first.

We dressed up like the Incredibles for Halloween this year! It was actually Sean's idea and it was super fun. We went to our church carnival and then took the kids trick-or-treating down a few short streets close to home. We got a lot of stares and comments on our costumes. Lots of fun...

The kids and I attempted to make our own bath crayons with glycerin soap, food coloring, and soap scent. Was a really good idea. Didn't turn out so hot. They wouldn't color at all! But it was a fun thing to do with them and now we have a good soap supply in the form of tubes for quite a while.

Lots going on in our lives right now.....put our house on the market and getting ready to build in the summer. We will finally be on the river. A long time dream of Sean's will come to fruition! Before we listed the house though, we (ahem, I) did alot of cleaning and re-organizing. We had a garage sale and the kids sold lemonade and homemade pumpkin cookies. They made around $21 doing it and had alot of fun. Grayer was hiding his face, silly boy.

The weekend of Nov. 13 we went to San Antonio and took Nana along. Sean and I ran in the San Antonio Rock'n'Roll Half Marathon Race. But not before we had fun on the Riverwalk and went to Sea World. The first night there we took the boat ride. Sophia and I posing for a picture.

We picked up our swag bag from the expo which was at the Alamodome. It was awesome! Huge! Tons of vendors were set up, and I even got to see some past contestants from the Biggest Loser!! That is one of my favorite shows. Despite Sean having some stomach issues, he toughed it out and ran the race on Sunday.

Grayer covering his face again. What is up with this kid not wanting his picture taken??!!? Sophia was all smiles and posing though! I finished the race in 2:10 and Sean in 1:56. It was a really fun course with bands set up every mile. Other than the humidity and being pretty hot for November (85 degrees) it was a great race.

Face painting at Sea World! Grayer called his the "wizard" (aka lizard). He still doesn't have several sounds, and it literally drives Sophia crazy. She is constantly correcting him. He doesn't have the beginning hard C sound, beginning G sound, beginning L. So, his name comes out as Drayer, cookie would sound like tookie, and lizard is wizard! He also has been talking ALOT lately about an apple tree house with a friend, whose name changes constantly. His "friend" has been named airpwane, darf vader, and other things. He talks about this friend and this apple tree house every day almost. The boy has an imagination!

Trying to get a little touch of the dolphins. Their favorite part of Sea World was the dolphin/acrobat show.

While we were in SA we even got to see Namrata! She happened to fly in the last night we were there for work and we got to hang out with her and have dinner. We love our Namrata. She's like an aunt to the kids. They call her Rata!

A sample of Sophia's art work. She draws ALOT of rainbows. She writes her first and last name perfectly as well. Mrs. Garza told me a funny story at the end of the first 6 weeks. She was assessing Sophia and asked her write her last name (not expecting her to be able to). Sophia was stressed that she couldn't and asked Mrs. Garza to spell it for her. She told Sophia it was okay that she couldn't do it, and Sophia kept asking for help. Mrs. Garza kept reassuring her it was okay not to do it. When she turned her back, Sophia was lifting up her pencil box and looking at her name spelled out on the bottom so she could get it written down! Sneaky sneak! She's ambitious for sure.

Doing some art with Mom over Thanksgiving break. It was so nice to have her home all week long with us. We slept later, stayed in jammies later, and put up all the Christmas decorations.

Grayer was painting a rainbow too!

Comfy clothes!

Sophia was teasing them with some food. I love how they are sitting so patiently. Every year I do a Thanksgiving post, and this year I didn't get to it. We have so much gratitude in our hearts though for what God has done and is doing for us daily. His mercies are new every morning, and when we fall He picks us back up. He keeps our marriage strong, our parenting strong (most days:) and our lives full of His goodness. I pray we are living examples of His love in us. Love is the most important thing. That is what will carry us through not only this season of the year, but the rest of our lives as well. Love mercy. Mercy always triumphs over judgment (Micah 6:8). These are words I keep coming across and they are so simple yet profound. Love mercy. That is what we are striving to do in our family.