Things are quiet at our house tonight – after getting up early to make sound check at church this morning, Kaden crashed at 8 p.m. tonight. And since he’s sleeping, I’m actually sitting & typing this on a keyboard instead of my iPhone like usual. I never imagined it would feel like a treat to actually sit down & work on a computer, but it’s really quite enjoyable 🙂 We’ve had a busy, full, & exciting week at our house, here are a few snippets of what we’ve been up to…

Last Friday I saw a craft on Pinterest that I completely fell in love with. I’d been looking at HomeGoods & TJMaxx to find some sort of cute & not scary Halloween sign, but nothing was really right. Then I came across this idea & had to have it. Funny thing is, I ended up doing 1% of the work (finding the idea) & Landon did the rest! We picked out our supplies at Jo Ann Fabrics & after several hours of long hard work involving way too much time with an exacto knife, this was our finished product. I totally love it, and am seriously impressed with my husband’s mad craft skills 🙂 Being a graphics designer comes in handy sometimes (or probably a lot of the time.)

*****

I got the most exciting e-mail of my life this week. As in I was screaming & jumping up & down like a fool along with Jenna, Faith, & Kaden (well, he was mostly watching us & nervously laughing.) You know those giveaways that you enter but at the same time wonder if it’s even worth the time it takes you to enter it? This week I actually won one! I wasn’t sure that happened in real life, but I won my dream camera bag & I’m sooo excited about it. It will be here in November, which is also when our new rocking chair will arrive, both of which will accompany our Christmas decorations as they migrate out of storage, so basically, November is going to be a good month.

*****

Wednesday evening we went downtown to watch Faith cheer in the homecoming parade, which was really fun. It was just another thing that made me fall in love with our little town that has the nicest small town feel where you run into a couple people you know every time you leave your house, but is still close enough to so many cities that you never run out of things to do. It’s a truly lovely place to live, and I feel so fortunate our life has brought us here.

Concluding homecoming week was the dance at the high school Friday night. I got to take some pictures of my sisters all dressed up, which was loads of fun.

Speaking of pictures, do you remember ever learning something you were so excited about that you’d rather do that than eat or sleep? It’s been awhile but right now I am kind of crazy about photography. I’m so excited about what I’m learning that I actually got out of bed at 6 something yesterday morning to read about histograms. What are histograms you may ask? Well, I can’t explain them 100% yet, but they have to do with exposure & are more reliable than the LCD screen’s display. Words like aperture, ISO, & shutter speed (the exposure triangle, by the way) have morphed from confusing jibber jabber to meaningful tools in my life. Photoshop has become a part of my days (it’s a big world & I’m a little overwhelmed, but I’m learning piece by piece), & in my free time I’m getting to know Digital Photography School quite well 🙂 Faith & I are making plans to start a newborn photography business & I’m really just beyond thrilled about it. More to come on this, for sure 🙂

And finally, yesterday we made a little trip out to Bass Pro Shops for Kaden to visit the Great Pumpkin. Given his enthusiasm for pumpkins & Landon’s & my enthusiasm for all things festive, it was a great time.

Hope you have a wonderful week! We are looking forward to spending time with Landon’s family & attending a much anticipated wedding! 🙂

Love!