Saturday night we had a group over for pumpkin carving! It was such a fun evening. Most of our friends had never carved one before but they all dove in and seemed to have fun.  We covered the dining room table with a plastic table cloth and newspapers and told everyone to bring a pumpkin and a knife!

I set out a few appetizers to munch on while we carved and then kept dinner super simple!! We had hot ham and cheese sandwiches (thanks for the recipe, Amy!) and a fall salad. We followed it up with homemade pumpkin pie and a friend brought some cake! I must say that might be the first and last time I make pumpkin pie from an actual pumpkin! It was wonderfully delicious and better than from a can but I must say took waaaay more time than I had! Another friend brought Gluwein that simmered on the stove!!! Maybe this week I will try to post some recipes for that so you can try it in whatever corner of the world you are!

Here are some pics from the festivities…

caramel apples…darn things stuck to the buttered wax paper but they looked pretty!

a little hesitant to pull out the “guts”!

it was serious work folks!

most of the kids showing off their creations!

thanks for a fun night, friends!

For those of you that are on facebook these pics will be BORING!  But for those that aren’t I thought I would share a few pictures from our little woods adventure last Sunday evening. Around 3 pm we decided that our kids were far too Guh-rumpy to take to church. They were both run down, over-tired and not quite nursery and Sunday school material if you know what I mean. An evening service just sometimes doesn’t jive with tots, though we make our best effort to be there as much as possible. So we stayed home, took a hike into the woods in our neighborhood and made some spaghetti because that is down right soul food for Jackson. It was a very calm evening and just what we all needed.

Side note: growing up in a pastor’s home we NEVER missed church unless we were really sick. There wasn’t some strick law set it was just that that is what our family did. I am thankful my parents set an example for us of being plugged into a group of believers.  As an adult I am learning that it really is okay to take times of rest with our family. It feel unconventional and I debate, but there are evenings when it does our family, and our souls good to step back and rest!

this was just before Seth yelled “you can let go!”, anticipating that Jackson is all of his 4 yr old wisdom would know how and when to drop. It wasn’t pretty but he brushed it off.

Have a nice weekend! Get outside if it is nice!!! Fresh air is doing us so much good! (esp knowing the snow is coming soon…we can see the white getting lower and lower on the mountains)

Most of you have probably read the article about drowning and how speaking is a secondary function so when someone is drowning they aren’t able to call out. It’s awful….don’t think about it too long or you will be depressed or be terribly scared to let your kids swim. Well, Seth would vouch for the fact that I haven’t been completely silent lately….so I must not be completely drowning, but I am at least treading water.

About a month ago I learned that I would be added as a writer to World Moms Blog.  It is such a neat opportunity and I am getting up and running.  I am one of a group of women living around the world writing on motherhood and such. Again, a good thing. But I am a tad bit stressed with the addition of deadlines and feeling the stress of meeting expectations. All normal feelings with something new but still not energizing feelings!

Add to the above new gig: multiple friends looking for jobs and discouraged, a cancer scare with my mother-in-law, a friend with an abnormal nuchal fold test for her growing baby, another friends baby in the hospital, my husband bidding on jobs (ie NOT sleeping well),   and two little boys that are battling it out to learn to enjoy one another one minute and wildly shrieking because life is so exciting the next, and reading some heavy books that are making me dig deep. All of this adds up to feeling a bit tired. Okay, honestly, A LOT tired.

I feel like I am working towards some exciting new projects that require more juggling of things around here as well as carrying the burden for friends and family going through tough times. Is it possible to be too empathetic? Ummmm, probably not but two baked goods that lacked baking soda in the last couple of weeks with vouch for the fact that my empathy often can distract me. I love my friends and family so much and so often wish I was closer to do more tangible things for them. I am trying to learn how to not stifle that empathy but also to find some balance!

People ask how we are doing. We are doing well. We are all healthy and life is good. I am so thankful that my mother-in-law is cancer free, that my friends baby is out of the hospital, and that bidding season is ALMOST over. The list of things to be thankful for abounds. I just have to stop myself sometimes and give myself a break from the feeling that I have to be all things to all people and solve the world’s problems. How prideful am I that I think I can?!

Whew, thanks for letting me vent. The crockpot is bubbling with my mom’s stew! The sun is shining after a very cloudy, grey morning so we are heading out for a long walk with a friend!

I received the neatest email yesterday. I was in touch recently with a long time family friend because I had had a dream about her daughter and thought it was so random I should tell her.  I expected a reply about the dream, which I got, but most of her message was telling me how she has prayed for me throughout my life and how she continues to think about us. She described knowing me as a child and watching me grow up. She is someone that knew me as my personality was developing, shared her kids as playmates with me and was and is a dear friend to my mom.

I have expressed here in the blog before how one of the downsides of our lifestyle is the struggle of really knowing people or them knowing us.  Yes, we are busy and we are social and we have gotten to know people wherever we have lived. But in terms of lifelong, you know me well enough to call on a bad day kind of friends, they are far more rare.  I feel like it is so important for our kids to have people that really know them as much as it is for Seth and I. People that see their personalities forming, quirks and all and take joy in them.  My blog is my effort to help friends and family stay connected so that in some small way they might share life with us and feel like they somehow know us even though we live far away.  Catch me on a bad day and I would for sure let tears fall feeling my efforts don’t quite cut it. Catch me on another bad day and I would cry equally about feeling far from my nieces and nephews and friends kids, wishing I could be more a part of their daily lives, hearing about the little things and the big accomplishments. I don’t blog because I have lots of free time or because my kids are well-behaved enough to entertain themselves happily so I can have a hobby. In fact at this moment Owen is screaming next to me, drooling on my leg because his brother just yelled at him to get away from his masterpiece building, yada, yada.  It doesn’t slow down around here yet I feel like this is an effort I want to invest in for the sake of relationship.

As I went through my day yesterday I was thinking about friends we have had along the way in Dallas, DC, Bogota and now Bern.  Each step of the way we have had friends and family that have filled this role.  It’s always a risk to open up and allow people to be close, to share my kids (even on days when they embarrass me to death with tantrums and such), and to do it all knowing we will only be in close proximity for a short amount of time.  As we continue on this FS path I will admit that although in some ways it becomes easier to meet people and make plans the vulnerability and investment part becomes harder.  As we are already into this final year in Bern I am trying to be focused on knowing and being known despite the distance and time line.  And I will cherish that sweet message from a friend who was able to remind me where I came from and looks on to where we are headed.