The Perry's: October

Let's see here... In October:

Brooklyn decided she didn't want to be confined to her baby bed anymore and started climbing out! After a few mornings of finding her like this in her room, we figured it was time to take down the baby bed. Something happened to my heart when we made this decision! There was something so final about the idea of us not needing a crib anymore! It was the first time in 5 years, except for a few months after we moved to Saudi before Miles arrived that a crib has not been used in our home! WHOA! It was a pretty big deal for me, but also brought on a lot of excitement thinking we were moving onto the next stage! Taking the crib apart was a family affair and the boys were so proud to show Brooklyn how to sleep in her big girl bed, which just so happens to be the bed I grew up sleeping in as a little girl! Brooklyn did amazing transitioning from the crib to a twin bed. She stayed in her bed, never got out- literally, she even waits for us to come get her out in the mornings, and loves having a BIG pillow!!

Miles has been growing up a lot the past few months and its been a joy to see how far he's come in learning the rules, following directions, and just overall being a little more obedient and having the ability to control his emotions and actions! He's two and has certainly brought on new learning experiences for us, but it's amazing to see who he is becoming and how his personality is! Miles is an extremely funny and crazy kid who ALWAYS makes us laugh! He is incredibly sympathetic and is so concerned when someone has an ouchie and is hurt. He'll get you a bandaid, kiss it, bring you ice and just sit and rub your back to help calm you down. It's precious watching him do this to Brooklyn (when he hasn't caused the ouchie) or with us and Gavin- he gets genuinely concerned. Miles is also a big helper-- it's one of the ways we've helped in teaching him things and he really has started showing signs of having a servants heart. He loves to help in the kitchen and appreciates the praise and satisfaction he gets knowing he accomplished something!

We are still working on house projects- they kinda seem never ending, but nonetheless, we are almost finished with our big lists and only have a few things left to have our house where we won't be needing to go to the hardware store every few days. When we bought our house the stairs were covered with carpet that looked like the original carpet and it was covered with an UGLY red patterned runner down the middle that looked like it had been trampled on for years. Needless to say we couldn't wait to rip it all out! Brooks discovered underneath the carpet wasn't "stairs" rather just cutouts so we had to build steps onto the stair layout. Thankfully, we found some premade treads at Home Depot that Brooks painted and stained and then he made risers out of wood that he cut to size, painted, and installed himself! I'm always amazed and impressed with the types of projects Brooks can do! They really look awesome and we love the feel it adds to the house. The kids might not like them near as much as the carpet since their preferred method for getting down the stairs was sliding on their tummy's, but they're use to them now!

We've been making friends and one day while the kids were out of school we invited some friends from church to come over for lunch and to play! I bought the kids pumpkins to decorate and paint and they had a lot of fun!

We found a local pumpkin patch in Amarillo and decided to take the kids to it! We packed a picnic dinner and figured we'd stay as long as they were all happy and having fun! The first thing we did was attempt to get a pic of all 3 kids. This was the best I got, but I'm totally happy with it! Next, we went on a hay ride out to the fields and looked for a pumpkin! The kids loved running from one pumpkin to the next and searched for their "perfect pumpkin."

Finally! A picture with mom where everyone is looking! LOVE! LOVE! LOVE!!

While Brooks took our pumpkins to the car, the kids found the slides and played their hearts out climbing up the tires and sliding down. The force from the slide was so great that the boys flew down and landed at least 3 feet from the bottom of the slide! They thought it was sooo cool! Brooklyn was into the action as well! Anything her brothers do she does!

A favorite from the farm were the bunnies. There were SOOO many bunnies that even if a few were inside the houses, there were 20 more outside running around. The boys begged me to let them jump the fence and chase the bunnies, but I refused! They managed to enjoy watching them from the other side! There were even a few requests to get one as a pet!

After we ate dinner, we fed some goats, let the kids play on this HUGE pillow style trampoline along with every other kid there, but ours loved it! They ran and bounced and jumped and slid; did forward rolls, karate moves, and more! After 45 minutes of them purely jumping, we moved onto a massive slide where they played for another 45 minutes. The slides were huge and in order to get to the top they had to climb 30-40 steps. That didn't stop them from running up, sliding down, and running up again! These are the types of family activities we missed while in Saudi and are so grateful to be in the USA and have the opportunities to take our kids to festive places!

The next morning we took our family pumpkin and deseeded it, cooked the pumpkin seeds, then carved a face. After Brooks had the kids draw the face they wanted on the pumpkin to get some ideas, somehow it was decided our pumpkin needed to be a pirate so daddy went to work carving the pumpkin. Gavin was really into the whole creation, but the little ones were over it after a little while!

A few days a later one of my very good friends, Cherie, from Saudi was in the USA and driving through from Waco to Colorado so she and Tucker and her mom stopped at our house for a night! It was soooooo good to have familiar friends around to play and hang out together! We got to visit while the kids played their hearts out! Gavin was soooo excited that his friend Tucker was at his house- he wanted him to stay forever! Cherie and I stayed up late catching up and felt it was so strange to be together in the USA!

The next day I had us all packed up and we headed to Arkansas to spend the weekend at Brooks' moms house. A few weeks earlier, I got together with the wives of several of Brooks' guy friends and we all planned and registered our husbands for a Men's Seminar up at Brookhill Ranch. Brooks' Uncle Tim puts it on twice a year and I thought it would be something great for Brooks to go to, get filled up, be rested, and have time for worship! Brooks got to play with us Friday morning before he left with his friends for the weekend. While he was in Hot Springs, the kids and I stayed at his moms and they played with Grammy and Papa John. Like always, Grammy had the kids time with her jam packed with all the usual activities-- tractor riding, feeding the horses and donkey, painting, new toys, time in the tree house, dinner and smores outside, a hayride under the stars, and sparklers. We brought Gavin's BeBe gun with us so he could shoot out in the woods, but instead Grammy blew up balloons and used those as "targets". All 3 of our kids took turns shooting and popping the balloons! It was a lot of fun and actually very impressive to see them shoot!

Since Halloween was next week, Grammy thought it would be fun for the kids to carve pumpkins with her! It ended up being a huge mess since she got 3 huge pumpkins and eventually it was only the adults tending to the pumpkins but it was still fun!

After pumpkins, we took the kids outside to light sparklers. With safety goggles and cups to protect their hands, the kids watched in awe of their "fireworks" going off in their hands. We taught them how to make designs and swirl the wands around! It was cute to see their faces!

After our 2 1/2 BUSY, BUSY days we loaded up the car after lunch Sunday and made our 9 1/2 hour trip back to Borger!

Thankfully, we thought ahead and Brooks took Monday off to rest and recooperate after such a long weekend.

For Halloween, we took the kids (our little owl, a Transformer, and Buzz Lightyear) to our church, which was having a Trunk or Treat and let them get candy from some familiar faces. Afterwards, we headed back to our neighborhood since we heard it can get hectic and filled with traffic, we didn't want to risk not being able to get home since we live in the back of the subdivision. We brought the kids around to some of our neighbors houses and took this opportunity to finally meet some of them. Brooks and I were surprised by how few neighbors actually came by to introduce them selves or meet us when we first moved in, I guess people don't do that anymore?? We still wanted to meet them, and actually got to know quite a few of them that night. Several go to our church, several work at Brooks' plant, and one couple is actually from Lake Charles!!! Who knew?!?!? It didn't take long for Brooklyn to catch on what was happening with the whole getting candy thing and Miles took it upon himself to tell EVERY.SINGLE.PERSON he saw Trick or Treat, while Gavin made sure each house gave him and his siblings candy! They had a lot of fun trick or treating, but eventually, we were ready to start passing out candy at our house. Gavin and I made our way home, while Brooks and the little ones hit a few more houses! Like I said earlier, I had heard how busy our street gets with trick or treaters and tried planning ahead picking up bags of candy over the weeks leading to Halloween, but nothing could have prepared me for how many people we REALLY had! By 7:30pm our streets were packed, sidewalks were lined with people, and driveways were covered. For at least an hour and a half we kept our front door opened because of the constant stream of people coming in! The kids LOVED, LOVED, LOVED passing candy out and were very amused by all the different costumes. We had a fun night and enjoyed making the memories with our kids!