What have we been up to?

I haven't written anything in quite a while, so this is just to capture most of the "exciting" stuff that has been going on the past five weeks or so. Here's a quick run down of what we've been up to with some pictures.

This is here A) because it's funny and
B) so the next picture doesn't show up first

WARNING: The first few pictures of this post are kinda gross!! View at your own risk!

Trent and I spent three of he last 5 weeks with itchiness from poison ivy. We came in contact with it while helping weed out some bushes. It made for an interesting time! I won't be sad if I never have to go through that ever again!

My arms after about a week and a half

ANGRY Leg!!!!

We made our first update to our bedroom and bought a smaller TV and mounted it. It is nice to have our dresser emptied!

We still have to hide the cords and stuff, but we can get that done when we paint the room and everything else SOMEDAY. This is a small change, but exciting to me!

Dresser with no TV on it!!

We started using our fireplace when it got cold. Mattie quickly discovered that she loved it!

Mattie also enjoyed snuggling up in our bed in the cold weather, too!

Morningside's homecoming was at the beginning of October. A few of us made the trip to Sioux City and reunited for the day.

Luke came to town for work. So we got to hang out with him briefly for a night. Just two more weeks until his wedding!

We went to my mom's for a weekend to help her out with some stuff around the house. I didn't get any pictures of the hard work we did inside, but Trent and Jared worked hard outside to put in some edgers around a section in the backyard. I also didn't get a good picture of what it looked like after, but I swear it's great!

Look at those handsome guys hard at work!

While we were in town, we also got to see Alex play in a football game and see him score a sweet touchdown!

 

His fan club!

Trent and I bought a new car in October, so that meant trading in his Camry. Before it happened, I got a little nostalgic about it just purely because of the memories that we've made in that car. We used to spend a lot of time driving around in his car and even had our first kiss in there! It was just pretty crazy to think that we were never going to be in that car again. Trent even got a little emotional when he realized we were getting ready to say good-bye to the car for the last time. Not quite for the same girly reasons I did, though :)

Bad picture - but giving his car a little good-bye hug!

DQ after getting the new car!

I also got my very first sewing machine in October. My mom found it at a sale for $5! It's not new by far by it's new to me and it works!! I even sewed my first things! I had to recall everything I had learned from Grandma over the years and even consult the directions, but I hemmed a curtain and sewed the ends of my table runner! Woot! The possibilities are endless now!

My sewing machine! (That's the curtain I hemmed on there, too!)

My burlap table runner

Two weekends ago, I got to go to the Rascal Flatts concert with some of my family members and we had some fun in Des Moines while we were there. It was AWE.SOME. 

I have a lot of pictures of that, though, so I'll save the rest of the details for a separate post.

When I got home from Des Moines, Trent's parents came to stay at our house. We did some shopping during the day and then carved pumpkins and watched a movie on Saturday night. Jan and Trent made some Kringla too. Yum!

  

Our pumpkins and the kringla

 Mattie continued to be cute during the last five weeks!

Using the arm rest like a human

 We had our second Halloween in our house this past week. It was a busy evening in our neighborhood with all the kids out in their costumes. We had 280 trick-or-treaters this year. It was a chilly evening, but it was fun! I started the Halloween Pandora station about an hour into the evening, so next year, I'll be even more prepared for that and get some real good tunes going!

Lastly, this past weekend, we went to Ankeny to visit Trent's family, and I went to Ankeny's big craft fair again this year with some of the girls. I bought a new scarf that I love an got Mattie a new collar, but other than that, I saw a lot of things that I said "Oh, I could make that!" I'm sure I won't ever make those things, but it's a good thought, anyway! The craft fair was a fun time and it's always something I look forward to every year!

My cute little hat that I found!

Some cute things I found that I could TOTALLY make myself!

I think that pretty much sums up the majority of the "exciting" stuff that's been going on here. Now hopefully I can get back to keeping up with posting about things close to the time when they actually happen!