Pumpkin Carving

We were able to carve most of our pumpkins after all! Mark carved a resemblance of "Bob the Tomato" and an angry alien. I carved a silly face and a house with a full moon above. Nathan wanted nothing to do with the gooey pumpkin guts but Anne was enamored with the texture! We sifted out quite a few pumpkin seed and toasted them in the oven! SO YUMMY!

Here's Mark working hard on "Bob."

Anne working hard on her design...which ended up all over her hands and face... in permanent marker! Ooops...
The carving crew working overtime.
This is so much fun!!!
Nathan's handy work, which he wanted wiped off about 3 minutes later.
Nathan showing off the silly face pumpkin.
We had a lot of fun working on this project Sunday night! It was good to have an old fashioned family night at home. We all ate dinner together too! Such a rare and fun occasion!

In other news: I had been really sick up until the weekend and had lost a lot of weight in just 10 days. I am feeling much better and have since put some weight back on but need to get healthy sooner than later. Having a depressed immune system and then being around all the kids at school puts me at a huge risk to contract yet another virus, illness, bacteria, or whatever!

I really love my job and am very much enjoying all aspects of it! I am considering going back to school in the Fall of 2009 to get a Master's Degree in School Counseling however, in the mean time I really need to get my current license under wraps. I found out Friday that there is a hang up in getting my Oregon Teaching License, grrr! This is such a frustrating process. After speaking with my District Officers I think I have it under control and will hopefully be sending the correct piece of documentation out in the mail tomorrow. This is super important because I will lose my current position if it doesn't go through.

In the midst of being sick and the whole licensing deal I feel an overwhelming sense of peace. Normally I would be stressed to the brink of insanity by now. I really know that God is in control and will totally work it out for good regardless of the path I am taken on. I can do my best, but after that, it's up to Him.

Mark is doing great. He is doing fantastically on his new team and his swimmers are swimming well and improving at almost every meet!

Nathan loves preschool and started his gymnastics class this week. He did really well! He loved jumping on the trampoline, swinging on the rope and running around. This evening at dinner he showed me the American Sign Language sign for 'f' and said "Look mom, I did it." "F" was the letter of the day today. I am impressed at how much he is learning!

Anne finished her class at the Rec center today. She will start another the week after next and then in mid November she will start the same gymnastics class as Nathan. She was content to watch Nathan's gymnastics class from the sidelines. By the time her class starts up I am sure she will be ready to roll, literally & figuratively, ha! It will be fun, all of us will participate as neither of us work in the morning! She is doing really well. She knows all her colors accept black & brown which are interchangeable and she knows almost all her shapes!

That's all for this post. Thanks for looking in on us! I will try to post a picture of our completed carvings soon. I wanted to get lights for them all first!

Love,

Mark, Joy & the Kidletts