Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope everyone is having a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Charles and I have had a good one, and with everything going on the world, it is nice to take time to reflect on how lucky we are and how many things we have to be thankful for.
As usual, we started our day with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade -- I really liked the Smurf balloon and float which was added this year! Then we enjoyed a delicious Thanksgiving lunch complete with turkey and dressing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, candid sweet potatoes, corn, butter beans, squash casserole, pear salad, deviled eggs, rolls and for dessert, banana pudding! We had a good visit with Mama and Jerry and stopped by Kay's for a little Thanksgiving Day shopping before heading home for a little more football watching. We just finished watching A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, capping our traditional Thanksgiving.

Election Day 2008

Charles and I headed to the polls after work today. We expected to have to wait in line for quite a while, but we were very fortunate - we just missed the crowds and didn't have to stand in line at all. We were told that voter turnout had been high throughout the day though...now we are watching the results and can't wait to see who our next president will be!
Hope everyone made it to the polls and made their voices heard today!

Hayride

Saturday, Charles and I met Mama in Batesville for lunch and then went to Oxford to watch a little college football with the Dillons. We also got to play with Nathan and his little friend Grace. They were so cute! We had lots of fun and a great visit!
We then went back to Batesville for a hayride at the Covingtons' (Molly's Mom and Dad)! We had a great time!
We enjoyed a delicious cookout for dinner, then we all climbed into the trailer (Miss Suzanne and Molly did a great job painting it and making it look so festive!)...and found seats on the hay bales...and then we went for a fun (and at times a little scary!) hayride through the pasture...We had so much fun, and I don't think that I have laughed so hard in quite some time!
After the hay ride, we roasted marshmellows...

and enjoyed s'mores...

Delicious!!

The kids played a little bit and then told scary stories around the fire; they were too funny and cute!

We then loaded back up into the trailer, and Mr. Jimmy drove us around the pasture one more time; this time it was very dark and spooky!! We had a wonderful time!

Happy Halloween!

Jack-o-Lanterns

This past week or so has just been crazy, and to top it all off, Charles had the sniffles. I tried to make him feel a little better by cooking vegetable soup. He really enjoyed it, and I was excited to be able to finally use my new pumpkin bowls!
It must have helped because Charles is feeling much better now!

So, tonight we were finally able to carve out some time to carve our jack-o-lanterns...

We went this past weekend and picked out the pumpkins we wanted to carve. Although I found the short, round one, it's the one Charles came home with, so I chose the taller, skinnier one for my jack-o-lantern this year...

We began by putting on our Halloween CD for some inspiration and cut off the tops of our pumpkins and scooped out the seeds and stuff - my favorite part!We then each decided on what our jack-o-lanterns would look like and started carving.

This took lots of concentration...Charles' jack-o-lantern turned out great - as usual!Here's my happy guy!
After we finished carving our jack-o-lanterns, we took them out front...
They show up really well from the street!
Now our entry is ready for the trick-or-treaters this Friday!

We made a quick little stop with our jack-o-lanterns from the back porch where we carved them to the front.

Toula found the jack-o-lanterns very interesting!

She had to do a little investigating to try to figure out what exactly they were...

She was very curious and had to check them out from all angles...
She was a very brave little bunny. The different shapes, smells and warmth from the candles didn't send her under the couch for cover!

Farmer's Market...

This past weekend Charles and I felt very environmentally friendly as we took our tote to the local farmer's market on the Square to check things out. We met a lot of nice people and brought home some delicious home-made bread, pear preserves and pumpkin butter and some locally grown vegetables...

We tried out toasting the bread and topping it with pumpkin butter this past weekend and it was delicious...it was even better this morning though because the temperature is in the upper '40's! Wonderful Fall sweater weather - and I am loving it!!

A Nice Surprise...

Mama came and treated me to lunch today - Guadalajara - my favorite!! We had a great visit and a delicious lunch!
She stayed pretty busy after dropping me back off at work because when I got home from work, I was greeted by this nice and pretty surprise... Thanks Mama for the pumpkins and leaves and for making our entry look so pretty and Fallish!