Brody's Debut

Last Sunday at church was Sunday School appreciation day - they had put together a video which featured interviews with different kids from different age groups. Brody, being himself, providing the 'comic relief'!! It's about 5 minutes long, but to see Brody's debut, watch from about 1:30 to 3:00...

Fall fun in Iowa!!

Fall has arrived and we're enjoying every moment of it! The weather has been beautiful - highs in the 60s and lows in the 30s/40s. After working for almost a month straight, Billy had last Friday and this past Monday off, making it a four day weekend, and we made the most of it. Saturday we headed out to a pumpkin patch in beautiful Madison County with our church.




We took a wagon ride down to the pumpkin patch and explored the corn maze, completing the scavenger hunt for shapes. The place had a great gift shop and we picked up some fall decorations for our front stoop - some cute little hay bales, mini pumpkins, and indian corn.










I thought it looked pretty festive, but we didn't really think it out fully...you may remember from previous posts how much I love all the wildlife that lives around our house...apparently that same wildlife equally loves indian corn...by the next morning, three of the six had been completely devoured while two of the others had been nibbled on! The corn is now safely on display above our fireplace!

Sunday we hit the Wold Food Festival in downtown Des Moines and enjoyed sampling a variety of cuisines! That evening, we decided to tackle our pumpkins! The kids chose to decorate theirs with paint and markers, while Billy and I tried carving. It was Billy's first time to EVER decorate a pumpkin (or so he claims - Linda, you'll have to correct him if he's wrong!) We had fun, and even roasted the pumpkin seeds for a snack. I don't know what it is about the fall that makes me more ambitous in the kitchen, but I'm even going to attempt making pumpkin bread out of the carved pieces...we'll see how well that works since I've never attempted ANY kind of bread!!



Monday we headed about 40 miles north to Ames, Iowa - home of Iowa State University and the Reiman Gardens and butterfly house. The gardens were amazing!! With it being a Monday and a work/school day for the college and most of the city, we felt like we were the only ones there! It's definitely a place we plan to visit multiple times during our time in Iowa! The kids loved the children's garden which included a "zoo train", a covered bridge, and a wooden path to a gazebo, among other things. We couldn't leave Ames without eating at the Korean Restaurant, especially since its the closest one to our house! After lunch, it was bowling, since Alexa had earned 50 stickers on her chart and had chosen bowling as her reward.




After such a fun weekend, it was hard to return to the "real world" on Tuesday, where work and school once again became the priorities and fall frolics were relegated to another day...hopefully a day like tomorrow...

Here's the rest of our super cute photos from the weekend!