Last night certainly ended on a high note.

And you all should have seen Makenzie’s excitement to have her daddy back home. It was such a sweet thing to witness. I love my little family.

It felt amazing to sit down and talk again. I had so many things I had to tell him – about Makenzie, the writing stuff I finished, how much I missed him, excitement over getting things finished and setup for baby B, etc. I also had so many things to ask him about his trip. He went on a church retreat and attendees can’t share specifics, so that way when other people go they can have the full experience. I couldn’t go this past weekend, so I have to be patient for when my time comes and live with the secrets until then. I think I can do that because I can see how much the weekend meant to him.

After talking for a long while, we both felt like snuggling on the couch before heading to bed. So we watched a tiny bit of TV with a sweet treat. I had gotten us some cream cheese brownies to enjoy together. So good and fudgy!

I can hardly believe its already back to Monday since this weekend felt more like weekdays to me. It sure does feel like a Monday though. Of course I woke up feeling tired. And I hurt. A lot today. Groceries, tutoring, mothering, and everything else still must get done. However, that really is not something to complain about. Even though I woke up in quite a bit of pregnancy pain, I still felt this incredible peace and overwhelming sense of blessing.  I love my life and thank God for it today. He does pretty amazing things and loves us so much.

Now that I have spent some time chilling with the little bean and had my oats & coffee, it’s time to tackle the day! Wish me luck. It’s a long one with tutoring.

• What types of weekends make it hard to believe when Monday rolls around? For me, weekends when I don’t have Peter around much. Also, those weekends that go by in a blur but I don’t really know WHAT we did.
• How do you feel blessed or appreciative of something today?

Good morning! I can hardly believe Halloween has come and gone and now it is November. Hard to believe we only have a little over three weeks until Thanksgiving here in the US and then only a little over 50 days until Christmas! Before we move on to prepping for other holidays, though, I must recap our Halloween night.

I could sum it up in two words – fun! And exhausting. That would not make much of a blog post though, so I will add a little more detail. After church and relaxing some in the afternoon, my parents arrived to hang out with us. They wanted to see little M all dressed up and have dinner together. Plus, they would be our candy passer outers while we were out with M (to the total SEVEN kids we had show up – lots of leftovers to handle).

We got M all dressed up, for the third time, and were ready to head out at around 6 pm. Except no one was out yet. No one. So, we did dinner first! I made a crockpot vegetable stew from a recipe my friend gave me, which I slightly modified. You can figure it was easy and healthy with me making it. Fortunately, it was incredibly tasty too.

Italian Vegetable Stew

• 1 red onion, diced
• 2 zucchini, diced
• 1 small package frozen vegetable soup mix
• 1 can Navy beans (or other white bean)
• 1 can Italian seasoned diced tomatoes
• 1 can vegetable broth (low sodium if you can find it)
• 1 can condensed tomato soup
• 1 packet pesto mix

Simple place all the ingredients in the crockpot. Stir to combine and cook on high 4 hours or low 8 hours. I think it could have gone without the condensed tomato soup. Or I would try to find one without HFCS as the 3rd ingredient.

After dinner, we began to head out. Peter, Makenzie, & I…

…and of course the little man came along for the ride as well.

How do you like my “costume”? 😉 I didn’t get many pictures trick or treating because it got dark fast. We started at 7 in the neighborhood next to us. It took a lot longer than we anticipated. We only hit a very small section of it, but there were so many hills and each house had a ton of steps to climb up (or down) to the front porches.

Holy leg workout! Plus, the entire neighborhood consists of one big hill after another. After making the small loop there, we headed back to our neighborhood. We considered just going inside since it was already 8:15, but knew we had to stop by Peter’s brother’s house to say hello and a couple of our neighbors. So we hit up 4 or 5 more houses to visit them, then came home around 8:45. I was beat! Lugging a 25 lb kid around that long gets exhausting. And we can’t forget the jack o’ lantern I was hauling either.

We spent a few more minutes talking with my parents and then quickly went to bed after they left. By the way, I love my mom! She did dishes and cleaned up some to help me out while I was gone. Thank you, mommy!!!

Alright, that was our night. But I can’t leave out the one creepy moment. It was Halloween after all. After visiting one house, we turned around to start heading back down the driveway only to look up and see this…

  [source]

…standing at the end of the long driveway, somewhat across the street, under the street light. Freaky!!! He just stood there staring like Michael Myers until we were down the driveway and moving down the street away from him again. If he started walking after us with the creepy Michael Myers walk or if I had seen him again that night, I think I would have screamed. There’s my Halloween moment for the evening. Now, have a great Monday!

• Do you like scary movies? I used to love them a lot more. They scare me more now than back in the day. I don’t do gory ones at all now…only the psychologically freaky ones.
• Look for my first day of the Q + A series in tonight’s post. ASK ME ANYTHING if you haven’t already.
• Congratulations to Julie on her wedding!!!! Love her and I wish her the absolute best. 🙂 Next time I see you, Julie, you will have been married over half a year! And to think, we talked wedding this past summer. Time flies!