The last month

This last month has been incredibly long...and hard. And yet, the time has just flown by. It's a good thing I have three kids in school, and a church calling to keep me busy.  Tyler left on a business trip Oct 17 to Hamburg, Germany. We thought it would be a two week trip, but it was apparent on his arrival that it would be much longer than that. He is on his way home right now! We are all SO excited to have him back home. I can't wait to see the expression on Devon's face. 

The pictures below are in backwards chronological order. Sorry about that. :) 

 Tyler's birthday presents to me - the watch was made in Germany. He purchased it on Etsy, and we both laughed when we saw where it was shipping from. I'll take it as a souvenir over chocolate. :)

 Yummy homemade bread on a chilly day. 

Tyler can't wait to be home and not have to eat out all the time!

 I took the boys to McDonald's for ice cream on my birthday. It was fun and made the day a little more special, since it felt very un-birthday-like for me with Tyler gone. (the kids even forgot. guess I should have reminded them. oh well.)

 An unexpected delivery for me on my birthday. :) So pretty!

 I went out to dinner with some girlfriends for my birthday, and another girl whose birthday is a few days before mine. It was so nice to have a night out, and laugh and enjoy myself, without having to worry about my boys.

 I painted our office the color Ocean Pearl. I LOVE it. The purple is the old color. Kaden thought I was painting the room purple when he saw the new color on around the doors and trim. The old color didn't look that purple, until I started painting. It looks soo much better now. 

 Clayton left a dry erase marker on the floor with his dry erase board, but apparently the board wasn't big enough for Devon....

 It took lots of scrubbing to get that out!!

 These two snuggling together at night. I haven't found Devon in Clayton's bed as often as I used to. I think in the last two weeks he has been in his own bed almost every single night. I am glad that I took so many pictures of them snuggling together.  

 Halloween was fun this year - albeit a bit crazy without Tyler to help keep track of the kids. Devon would NOT put his costume on. He tried them on with Tyler one night while I was gone, but when it came to Halloween night, he would kick and scream and run away, yelling "nooo!!!" Haha...so I didn't push it. Pick your battles. 

 Pumpkin carving was fun, though. We did these with Grandma and Grandpa Gibbons after going to the school carnival. (Note to self: do not go to the school carnival ever again. Too many people, not enough games or volunteers. It felt worse than Disneyland.)

 Kaden's morph suit. Cracks me up.

The night that Devon actually put on his costume. I was hoping that one of the boys would be the man in the yellow hat, and Devon could be the monkey, aka Curious George. But they wouldn't go for it. It would have been so cute! 

On Halloween night, we went to our old neighborhood and had dinner with some friends there. Then we went trick or treating down the street. And then it started pouring. I had brought an umbrella, but that didn't help the kids any. The younger ones and I headed back after only 20 minutes, while my friend Abby took the older kids a little farther. We were soaked. Some candy was ruined. Not a fun Halloween experience this year, for sure. 

Thanksgiving is already upon is, which is really hard for me to believe. As much as I don't try, time just seems to stop when Tyler is gone. We are pretty much in survival mode, and take one day at a time. I have had so many friends and neighbors offer to help with whatever I may have needed, so we have been okay. But life is just not the same when the man of the house is gone. We are looking forward to spending the holidays together with family!!