One last look at Fall...

I realized I never posted any Halloween pictures or pictures of the leaves around our house, so, before winter and Christmas take over, I thought I'd better post them. This is, of course, more for my benefit than yours so I'll have a record of our goings on, so to speak.

I love, love, love this tree. It is just up the road from our house. It is right in the middle of a field, all by itself, and it is huge. I love the shape of it. In the summer it was full of the most beautiful green leaves, which I didn't take a picture of, unfortunately. I plan on it next summer, though, because I have a project in mind that involves this tree. I am going to take a picture of it in every season (I'm hoping to get a picture of it covered in snow) and then I'm going to blow the pictures up and frame them so I can hang them on my wall. I can hardly wait to see the end result. This is, of course, step one on the project - the tree in all its autumn glory!

This is another thing that I love - our neighborhood! This is a shot of our street as you first drive into our neighborhood. At the very bottom of the picture is a walking trail that goes all around Brentwood. We feel lucky that it comes right by us. We like to go on Sunday walks and Adam and the 2 older kids have enjoyed bike riding on the trail. We really enjoyed the fall leaves on the hill behind our house this year - especially after 12 years of not really having a fall. I LOVE where we live!!!


This is on Halloween night. Hannah was already out trick or treating with a friend but she looked the same as she did in the picture below. Here Ethan is a member of the mob (in his birthday suit :-)), Ben is a very adorable skeleton (which got him voted for Best Costume at his preschool), and Levi was "just a cowboy, not Woody." Boy did they get a lot of candy!!


This picture was taken the night of our Trunk or Treat at the church. These costumes were my favorite! Levi was Jack Sparrow, Ethan was Nephi, Hannah was a zombie ballerina (Adam wondered why she couldn't just be a beautiful ballerina?! My only answer was that she is growing up - too fast!), and Ben was Link from the Zelda cartoons. We managed to make it through another Halloween successfully. Yea!!

Wrestling Ethan

Ethan decided to join the wrestling team this year. He hasn't won a single match. In fact, he hasn't lasted more than a minute in any of his matches. We couldn't be more proud of him, though. He gives 100% every time and has stuck to it even though it's been a little discouraging and hard. We knew going into the season that he would struggle a little because he only weighs 60 lbs. He is usually out-weighed by at least 10 lbs. every time he wrestles. He also has weak muscle tone which makes it hard for him. He's been a trooper, though, and has enjoyed being part of a team. He has a great coach who has been very encouraging. Ethan is the only guy on the team who has been told by Coach Reasonover to eat as much as he wants! He told Ethan to eat a peanut butter and banana sandwich or two every night before bed and wash it down with a glass of whole milk. We'll see if we can finally put some weight on that kid!

Smokies part 2

Every day I miss our trip to the Smokies. It was so beautiful there and it was so great to spend 5 days all together, with no interruptions or stresses. So awesome! I think everyone's (except for Adam) favorite part was having Adam with us the WHOLE time and not having to share him with anyone else. So, SO awesome. I love that man!! Here are a few more pix of our trip, from day 3.

This was the view from the deck of the cabin we rented. We loved it! It's definitely a place we plan to go to again.

This is the main part of the cabin. It had a bedroom off either side, each with their own bathroom. It had a hot tub, which the kids loved, and a jet tub in our room, which we never got to enjoy. Too many kids around! We did, however, enjoy the two-sided gas fireplace. One side was in the room Adam and I slept in. I loved falling asleep with the fire burning. Lest you worry that we were being unsafe, it had a timer on it and would turn off automatically. Awesome!

Adam and the kids while we were hiking in the Smokies. It was very fun, but got a little chilly. Poor Hannah got very cold. The rest of us didn't seem to mind so much.

Ben had fun picking up the "star" leaves that his teacher talked about in his preschool class.

This picture was taken to prove that I really was there! I'm always the one behind the camera it seems. Once again, Ben has a star leaf.

Thanks to a really nice guy, we got this family shot. I love the mountains in the background!

The fall leaves were incredible, although I think we were there about a week to early. Now that we are in TN, I'm loving Fall again! It's my favorite time of year, I think.

Awwww! This picture makes my heart melt and brings back some great memories. (Including Ben's plumber bum! I had to keep pulling his pants up while he was on Adam's shoulders.)

We even got to see snow!! I love this shot with fall below and winter on top.

Another great shot of the snow.

We went to a place called Cade's Cove, where there used to be a little community. There are still cabins and so we got out to walk to one of the cabins and there were a bunch of deer in the meadow. Ethan and Ben decided they wanted to walk up to them and they actually got pretty close. I was amazed!

This is one of the cabins.

Sunset in Cade's Cove. It was so beautiful. I'm afraid the pictures don't do it justice.

Another shot of the sunset.

And... one final shot of the sunset.

On the way back to the cabin, Ben had fun making silly faces. What a cutie, even with Doritos all over his face!

Hannah, our sleeping beauty! After a day of whining about the cold, we realized she wasn't feeling well. She had a fever when we got back to the cabin and she and I stayed home the next day while Adam and the boys did some more hiking. Poor girl!

Stay tuned for days 4 and 5!!