Fall

It's really feeling like fall around here (except for the 80 degree weather - welcome to Texas). I haven't blogged in a really long time, so this is going to be a long one. Lots of catch-up to do.

October began with our annual LST HarvestCall celebration. It is really the kick-off to our LST year. Most of the people that will be training teams on campuses this year were at the weekend. It's really great to watch Kelsey in this environment. He really is good at his job.

After HarvestCall, our next big thing was Kelsey's mom's 60th Birthday. We got to go celebrate with her. Travis, Kelly and kids were there, too. We sure did miss Jim and Celeste, but had a great time!

Next came the Hot Dog Banquet. Leslee and I felt less prepared for this banquet than we have for a long time, but I think it all came off well. It sure is neat to hear the kids pray for the missionaries. My favorite prayer of the night was Kellan Woodward's. He was praying a special prayer of blessing for some missionaries from Africa. One line of his prayer was "please help them not to be poisoned." His grandma said it was a compromise. He had wanted to pray that they wouldn't get eaten by wild animals. Ezra prayed the opening prayer this year, the video is below. What a big man!

It's been fun to hear how Ezra's prayers have changed after this evening. Most of the RHCC missionaries are from Africa, so Ezra has really been praying a lot more for kids who don't have food and don't know about Jesus. It has made all of the planning worthwhile.

The next weekend was the World Mission Workshop in Oklahoma City. We took Ezra out of school and the whole family went up. Kelsey had to work CONSTANTLY while we were there, but the kids and I just hung out with my sister. Always fun! Our last night there we went to Boo at the Zoo. Here's a picture of Ezra and Nathan in a Shark's mouth and a picture of Uncle Don carrying Kaylen on his shoulders around the whole zoo. Thanks, Uncle Don. You're a good sport. The flash was broken on my camera, so the pics are a little hard to see, but still cute!
When we got back from there, we had our first parent-teacher conference at Ezra's school. She said Ezra was doing well. He is completely normal and is going to be a great first grader. He had all S and S+ on his report card, which means his is successful at the kindergarten level. What a great kid! He did have 2 check marks. She had checked "works independently" and "practices self-control." She said that if they were left by themselves to do work, he just HAD to talk to Janelle. We were not surprised by this. He has been social since birth, and I'm confident that his teachers will probably make similar comments for years to come. However, on the bright side, he got S+ in "Contributes to classroom discussion" and "Participates in class."

Since Kelsey and I had taken off work for Ezra's conference, we went ahead and went to the pumpkin patch. It was a fun day. There were 6 jumphouses there. The kids could have jumped all day!

As you can tell from this picture, Ezra lost a tooth! He's pretty proud of it. Especially since he's a pirate for Halloween this year. He's been standing in front of the mirror practicing his best pirate face. It looks pretty great!

Ezra carved his pumpkin all by himself this year. He was very proud.

On Halloween, Ezra had his fall party at school and Kaylen got to go with him. It was a pretty fun party. Ezra said it was the best day of school so far. Everyone in Ezra's school is supposed to dress as a character from a book on Halloween. Ezra's whole class did Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.

Last night we went to our church's fall festival for about an hour and then came home. I stayed home and handed out treats while Kelsey took the kids trick-or-treating around our neighborhood. I somehow didn't get a picture of the kids together in their costumes. But let me assure you that fun was had by all and we have more candy than we'll possibly be able to eat!

For those of you who don't have a pre-schooler, Kaylen is Uniqua from the BackYardigans.