harvest party

last weekend our church had a harvest festival and it was a fun time. there was a very serious chili cook off, but i have no idea about that for 2 reasons. 1... all the chili was outside and it was pouring rain, so i was not outside. 2... beans are disgusting, therefor so is almost all chili. matt did eat chili though. also, there was a costume contest and guess who won? a very cute lion that i happen to be very close to. it was like i knew a celebrity. ha. i love halloween... it is the best time. 

lion friends

 "um... it's not all about connor guys... geez."

 misty and hope... adorbs

pumpkin shaped cookies are our favie!

babies make him nervous... so this made sense

dorothy... sliding...

he's a winner!

you wouldn't even guess how sad she was getting her hat put on 5 seconds earlier!

in the jungle... the mighty jungle...

 this play structure gave me at least 23 heart attacks when it was in explore... on top of concrete floors

pumpkin ava is serious business!

thanks for having us, lincoln!

church bbq

last weekend our church had a bbq. here are 100 adorable child pictures. okay... it's 11. also, there are a few adults. also, we got to meet new baby benji. he is very super cute... and if you read his mom's blog, he thinks we are all conspiring against him, but i'm pretty sure we're not.   

baby dedications

our church does baby dedications every year on mother's day. this year, they did them at a bbq on saturday, so we could take a real life mother's day break on mother's day. we took some pictures of the babies being dedicated and ate some good bbq-ish food. also, beckett fell down and scraped his knee and got his first ever band-aid. and i had matt take pictures of it. yeah, i'm that person. whatever... i do what i want. it's my weekend!

a garden party

on easter we went to a garden party that our church held and here is a really sad thing that happened. i brought the camera with no memory card in it! oh, the horror! i was traumatized. whitney had her camera and took lots of pictures, but i was a little skeptical about how that would pan out because she also took a picture of our family last easter and um... i never saw that picture. good news though... whitney sent me pictures! go whitney... you impressed me indeed. anyways, the garden party was very nice and we had good weather and yummy food and beckett tried out his first bounce house. he loved it at first, but then it suddenly  headed downhill fast. please check out harper's concerned face on the very edge of the picture. i also FINALLY got to hold sweet baby sawyer. what is better than a new(ish) baby on easter? not much. 

eggcellent cupcakes

two sundays ago our church had a big brunch that was egg themed. i made cupcakes and they turned out cuuuuuute. i got the chocolate cupcake recipe and the frosting recipe off of pinterest. yes... i made everything from scratch. not the robin's eggs... i bought those, but i did toast my own coconut for the top. toasted coconut is so delicious, i can't stand it. i liked the frosting and i thought the cupcakes were okay. i was kind of expecting a lot because they were called, "better than sex chocolate cupcakes." i feel like cupcakes are kind of hard to make from scratch. i have yet to find a great recipe and i feel like box mix is pretty good. i mean, it's no trophy cupcake, but it is decent... especially rainbow chip. anyway, if you have an amazing cupcake recipe you should let me know. don't give it some crazy over the top name, though. better to undersell it and let me be pleasantly surprised.

better than sex chocolate cupcakes

 (i only did step 1)

perfect cupcake frosting 

(no powdered sugar or cream cheese?!)

illuminate

our church had it's christmas service on sunday and it was very lovely. it is a candlelit evening service called illuminate. matt cooked all the food for it, except i helped a little and made gooey butter cookies, which are so delicious... i will post the recipe soon. matt made roasted chicken on sage crepes and cheese and pepper bread sticks and little apple dumplings. it was all great... every bit got devoured right up. so, every year since we started going to journey church i have missed illuminate because i was serving with the babies in the nursery. i was excited to go to service this year! like pumped! but guess what? a special someone is having terrible separation anxiety. so guess where i spent the whole entire service? in the nursery! i guess i was meant to be there... forever! i heard the service was  very nice, though. and the nursery was hoppin'. also, do you like how matt and brian wore twinsie shirts? they totally planned it.