November 1

It seems that I have been MIA for the last couple of weeks. No reason really, other than the busy-ness of life. In our world, September picks up speed with new or re-starting programs in our church. There is also some kind of internal alarm that goes off inside of me telling me it's time to start getting ready for the holidays. I love to make many of my gifts and I have to get an early start if I want to get all I want to do done.

So, life marches on. Funny, I always thought when the kids grew up, the crazy pace of life would slow down and I would have all kinds of time on my hands to be organized and competent and together. Ha! Not so much! But to be honest, I wouldn't trade the days of my life for any other life. I know how blessed I am. God has been so good to me when He didn't need to be and His love and mercy simply overwhelm me at times. I have done nothing to deserve it, indeed quite the contrary. But He loves me. And I am blessed!

This weekend was busy and fun. Our church hosts a fun Harvest party every year. It caters to the children who get to wear fun costumes and play games to earn candy. We have cake walks and random drawings. We serve chile and have apples and caramel dip. Then we all join together in the fellowship hall and play bingo. There are kid prizes and adult prizes. The people who are in charge of this get the most incredible prizes - nights in hotels, dinner certificates, tickets to sporting events - it's amazing and they get it all on donation. This was the first year that Tyler and Ava Claire were old enough to participate and we had such fun with them!

Ava was a sweet cupcake and won the costume contest for her age division! Tyler was a Bronco football player and he was SO excited. Sweet Aiden was his football! I knit his little costume as well as Ava's hat. Ava's hat literally came off my needles minutes before we walked out the door to go to the church! We invite our community to attend this party and we always look forward to Sunday morning to see new people who came to the party.

Saturday ended up being a very busy day as well. Our MOPS group at church had a presentation last month on once-a-month cooking. Some of the moms, including two of my daughters decided to give it a try. They decided to use the church kitchen which was a very good plan and they spend the entire day cooking. I donated a few hours to their efforts. It was fun but lots of hard work. I was so impressed with their efforts. They also cooked food for their MOPS leader, who is a young mom of two and having some problems with her third pregnancy. That really blessed me. Here is a link to one of the girl's blogs who gives a run down of the day. I was really proud of them!

Today is my birthday. I have made a decision that I never intend to go to work on my birthday again - a sort of pre-retirement benefit! So this morning I drank two cups of coffee in bed, read some blogs and watched a little bit of news. Perfect so far. I plan to spend some time in my sewing room and tonight my family is going to treat me to dinner at a local Mexican restaurant that I haven't tried yet. See what I mean about being so blessed? Having a husband that spoils me, children who love me, and grandchildren who think I hung the moon - what more could I ever ask?

So there's a re-cap of my weekend. The days keep rolling by. Fifty two years old will only last for a short time. I hope to make the most of it.