"Thanks for America"

I took a moment to clean up my Halloween decorations and put out my Thanksgiving ones.

I have had these items since our first couple of years in Texas.

Of course the keyword is "Thanks" and it seemed very appropriate for this past week when we consider the great opportunity we had as citizens to vote for President of our great country and also that we celebrated Veteran's Day as well.  We are so lucky to be part of this great Republic and to have the privilege of voting for those who will represent us hopefully in the way we wish to be represented.

And while there is great concern over our nation due to Donald Trump being elected (as there would have been if Hillary Clinton had been elected), I have been calm because I believe in the checks and balances of our government and our right and responsibility as citizens to make our thoughts and needs known in behalf of ourselves and also those most vulnerable around us--"the poor and needy, the widows and the fatherless,"  We must be a part of the solutions not the problems.  So grandchildren and great-grandchildren of mine, vote, be involved in your community where you are able, and pray for the leaders of our nation and all nations that liberty and justice might spread to all.

And we decided (and Gary did) posted the flags in our neighborhood both on Veteran's Day and on Election Day as a reminder to our little part of the world that we are Americans.

The light from the rising sun highlighted the blue
sky and our beautiful flag on Tuesday morning-Election Day.

How appropriate that these two great days of our country--Election Day and Veteran's Day fall in November--the month where we are reminded to be thankful and grateful for our many blessings. Hopefully like me, being an American is one of those great blessings in your life.  Truly, God bless America.

Fall is hanging on......

and I love it so much.  Despite the fact that I spent all last week except for Wednesday at my internship (2 days regular stuff and three days of all day training for "The Incredible Year"  a treatment model for aggression in young kids--and yes, that counts Saturday!), I have loved the moments I have been outside in the great fall weather.  I ate my lunch outside at our picnic table at The Children's Center and it was perfect--blue skies, slight breeze and temps. around 66 degrees.  It was so nice after being in a conference room for most of the last three days.

There is a change coming in the weather and they say we might get snow so I went around the garden and took some pictures.  When I was winterizing the garden a couple of weeks ago, I couldn't bear to trim back the bushes which had some many blooms still on them.  Look how many flowers we can still enjoy (at least until Wednesday night!)

 Of course, it is fall for sure.  The leaves are falling from the trees and filling our yard.

Dawn over the mountains and through the trees to the east. 

   

 We have to keep a broom outside just to sweep the trampoline before jumping on it.

I love the fall and wish that we could go from fall to 2 weeks of winter and into spring right away.....but I guess why we like spring so much is that winter was there first to make us truly appreciate the spring (I know there is a wise lesson in that, but I will skip the commentary.)  Seasons are all great in their own way.

Progress on our little Library...

The Library is now in Syracuse...actually in our kitchen as we work on painting it.  I am so excited that we are getting close to having it ready for our Grand Opening.  I am hoping to get it ready for the Tuesday before Thanksgiving as I don't have school that night, but the glass for the doors hasn't arrive yet.

I am excited to have this little library and I hope it becomes a fun spot in our neighborhood.

I have completed the red and the sealant over the interior (as I wanted to keep the wood look there). Tomorrow we will begin work on the white trim.  Gary then will do the "roofing"--thanks to John Nelson for donating some shingles for us.

In addition to a signed copy of my sister's book "Ideal High", I have had another donation for my library.  A friend of Vonette's, Kitty, attended Nikki's farewell a couple of Sundays ago and happened to have a couple of Christmas Children's books in her car that she was going to donate so she gave them to me.

Exciting because I will be having a month of Christmas books to read in the library!!!  Did I mention that I LOVE books?!!!!

Happy Halloween

We had the traditional Chili and Scones at our house this year.  And for some reason I didn't really take any pictures after things got started.

We did a tiny bit of trick-n-treating with Liam

I already posted the final pose of Jena and Liam on the rock (in one of the prior posts on Down syndrome), but here Elessia is helping Liam get settled on the rock.  Notice Jena's new Lephrancan shirt--I found one on the internet and ordered it as a surprise for her.  She is already thinking she will wear it to school on St. Patrick's day.

You can see the orange pumpkin hiding the base of the Little Library.  So you can get an idea of the location east of our driveway by our big rock.

Scarlett and Liam trick-n-treating together at one house
(The Frances)

Jessica took and posted these comparison pictures of last year and this year.
They claim they didn't encourage such similarity in the poses!
I guess this is going to be the tradition of sitting on the couch for a picture.
We will have at least two more little boys on the couch.  We need to crop Niki
into these pictures.  Jessica, can you do that if we get one of him sitting in his costume.

And since I didn't take pictures on Halloween of the families, I took them off their facebook pages.

Jessica actually wore a cute sweatshirt with a skeleton and a skeleton baby as well on Halloween, but I didn't even get a picture of that.

Jessica, Liam and Elessia at Gardner Village Witchfest

Scott, Chantel and Fairy Princess Scarlett

And from across the ocean:

Niki, Austen and Tosha

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY!  See you next year!