November is here.

 

Wow!  November is here and the holiday season is approaching!!!  The shopping malls and stores are filled with Christmas decorations and the Amish grocery stores that I love so much have thanksgiving plates and fall foods available!  November is the month of thanksgiving!  Giving thanks!  Remembering where all our blessings come from ... from God above!!!!!  It's a time to gather with family and eat turkey and filling and pumpkin pies!  It's cabin time as the hunters walk through the woods in hopes to shoot a deer!  School has a special thanksgiving party!  Leaves are still falling!  The weather is lovely and it's time to finish up any outside work because it won't be long until the ground will be very cold and freeze.  

This November is election month also.  May God have His way and may His grace shine on our nation today!!!!!

Walking through the park each morning gives me exercise, catch up with our daily chat with my friend Linda as we walk together and see the beauty of the day!!!!  There has been one stunning morning view after the next!!!!

The sunrises and sunsets are just the best in the fall!!!!

Autumn splendor!!!!!

It's so golden and fills a teeny bit like I think heaven will feel like!!!!!

Matt and Lena have lab puppies and this one was so cute when we pulled in to pick up Austin the other day!

We cheered loudly on the sidelines as Hadassah coached the Lady Warriors in their Districts Finals!!!!!  VS Ephrata and they won!!!!!  This is so much fun!!!!

It went to game five but they WON!!!!!

We are so proud of you!!!!!  Hence the cheerleaders!!!!

Arise Collective came around to perform the show PILGRIM the musical once again.  We are excited to have them showing at LBC this time.  It holds a much bigger crowd and many more can come watch this powerful showing!

We helped with a snack on Saturday.  It was wonderful to work side by side with Darlene and Geneva!

Thank you for coming back to our town Arise!

Arie had puppies!!!!  All five puppies came over with Arie on Sunday night as we watched football and Arie got exercise with Mike in the back fields!  They are so cute and the kids held them so much during the evening.

Christmas movies have begun and with puppies and a Grinch sweatshirt and popcorn ... life is good!

Every year I try to not get into Christmas moods until after Thanksgiving because this is how I feel too!

However, the past few years I realized that we can still celebrate Christmas in November and get started with all the fun festivities because when I wait until December to decorate and 'do all things' .... I feel so rushed!  I'm trying to prove to myself that it's OK to work ahead on Christmas cards, etc!!!!  So, this year we might be listening to Christmas music way before the radio begins playing our favorite songs!  This year we might be buying some gifts earlier!  I let the kids decorate their bedrooms last night with wreaths and lights because they asked if they could!!!!  Typically I would have said NO way!  Not yet!!!  But it's OK to have hearts of gratitude all the while preparing for the best holiday season of all!!!!  I think we need the holiday Thanksgiving to remind us of our blessings and really give thanks to God but I also now that one day of thankfulness is really not the goal.  It's a heart posture of gratitude that the Lord is honored with!!!!  All year around!

Happy November friends!  May you have much joy as you prepare for the holiday season that is upon us!

For King and Country + cabin time.

 We have been so busy and we thought about not going to the cabin after all to stay home and attend Pilgrim workshops and worship but we all voted to stick with original plans and go!  One main reason why I wanted to go was to REST!  We've been living a full life and it's all been so fun and so inspiring and honestly so tiring.  When I have demands on my calendar for days on end, I get tired!  That's normal and even though I really do like events and happenings, I was excited to go the cabin and do nothing!!!!

We bought tickets for the King and Country Concert weeks ago and plans were for Mike and I to take the kids and then drive to the cabin after the concert.  Mike last minute backed out and decided to ride up the cabin with the guys and let us ladies do the concert event.  We got tickets right beside Jody and her girls and that was a blast!  Colson took Mike's ticket and the boys loved their first real concert!!!!!

Here are some fun photo's the girls captured in the gorgeous mountain woods!

She's growing up so fast!!!! ❤️

Mike is really gettin the grill thing!  He makes breakfast for us by frying up scrapple, eggs, pancakes and bacon and sausage!  

The boys spent endless time in the woods by the tee pee once again!!!!!

Ashlyn had my phone during the concert and really captured some good videos.  Here are some photo's to prove we were there!!!!!

We stopped for Chinese food before the concert with Jody and her girls.

The show was incredible and we drove off to the cabin as soon as it was over.  Seeing the GPS say 1 AM for arrival was not great but I managed to stay awake and we were happy to be at in our beds after 1 in the morning!

I love concerts and music and this was a really fun one for the kids!

October views.

October has been dry.  The grass is turning brown and we really need some rain!  But, the sunrises and sunsets have been so beautiful!  I capture the morning views on camera and Ashlyn gets the evening sets!  I just love to open the front door for the children we they head out for the bus.  This view will never get old!

The garden is cleaned out.  There are still herbs out there and they will stay all winter long for us to use but the tender plants and veggies are now pulled out.  We are enjoying this fall lettuce.  The tomatoes will get juiced and the peppers I cut into strips and canned them.  We really love these and Matthew loves them in his sandwiches in his lunch.

Austin did a book roport and Im proud of him for his efforts!!!!

I cut up all the peppers from the garden and stuffed them into jars.  I boiled a sugar, vinegar and water mixture and topped in each jar.

Don't let this fool you but it's good to have the Christmas cards ordered and ready to stuff into envelopes.  I'm proving to myself that Christmas things don't all need to wait until December.

We are surrounded by so many pretty fall scenes!!!

Mike knows how much I love fall time and seeing all the leaves change colors just fills me with joy!  When he asked if I would take a drive with him up to State College, I said YES!!!!  It was a beautiful drive, we watched the high school boys golf and drove back home!!!!

Can you believe it????  Ginger is now fourteen years old!  She's aging and barely has any senses left but she seems to be living a good life!

I planted Dahlias in the garden for the first time this year and now it's time to dig them out and put them in storage until next year!!!!!

My morning walks at the park are very stunning right now!!!!!  Look at this beautiful phone photo!!!!