Five on Friday - On Tuesday {11.11.2014}

I missed the boat last Friday to post my randomness, so I'm just going to do that today!

ONE.

We handed out candy at our house for Halloween again this year. It was quite chilly, so we did it from inside the house rather than sitting on the front step, but it worked! We were open for business from about 6:15 to 8:00 and counted around 179 Trick-or-Treaters. It was about 100 less than last year, but that could have been because of the weather or because we closed up shop around 8. We got rid of the majority of our giant box of Peanut Butter M&Ms, so it was successful on our end. I did the candy-handing-outing while Trent was the tally-er of the Trick-or-Treaters and Mattie just wanted to get outside to see what everyone's costumes looked like!

TWO.

On Halloween night, we left our house around 8:30 and went to Ankeny, so I could go to the annual craft fair there with the girls bright and early in the morning. Trent and his dad went hiking in the morning and then watched some football in the afternoon.

Here's our one picture from the day! The kid taking it really didn't do a very good job (like, really, dude, back up a little bit!), but we'll take what we can get!

Here's one of my purchases that I got at the craft fair from a little business called Summer Snow. I can't wait to hang it up this winter!!

THREE.

Last Tuesday was the last of the nine-week Beth Moore Bible study on 1 & 2 Thessalonians that I was a part of at Christ Community Church. I am SOOO glad that I chose to do it! I met some of the most amazing women that I am so thankful to have met. It's amazing how much life can happen in just 9 short weeks and how relationships can blossom in that short of a time! There is another Beth Moore study starting in January called A Woman's Heart that explores the building of the Old Testament tabernacle and most of us are planning on doing that one as well, so I am already looking forward to that! 

On the last night of our study, Beth asked everyone to take a pen and write on the palms of their hands - On the left hand "For not all have faith" and on the right "But the Lord is faithful". (As we were doing that - I said "My dad would NOT like this!") Those phrases are taken from some of 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 verse 2 and the beginning of verse 3. She then gave a list of about ten scenarios where something bad may happen like: a bank is robbed, someone we love is sick or hurt, someone says something unkind to us, etc. We then could answer that scenario with the words "For not all have faith, but the Lord is faithful!" It's so true that we can not put our trust in the things of this world, because those things may fail us, but the Lord never will! The Lord is always faithful!

FOUR.

We painted our bedroom on Saturday. FINALLY! It's crazy how just a coat of paint can change the way you feel about a room. It's pretty much just a lighter tan than what was in there, but it sure did brighten up the room and make it seem more clean. Much better than the flat, gross tan that had been on the walls for the past 8 years that the house has been standing!

We painted it a color called Hopsack by Valspar. It's the color that is one shade darker than what we have in our Living Room/Dining Room/Hallway, so it goes nicely!

One of our big motivations for getting the painting done was so we could rearrange the furniture in our room at the same time and make a space for another dog bed/crate that will be in there at the end of the month!

FIVE.

Speaking of another dog! Our puppy is now 5 weeks old!! We are still getting updates in the form of pictures, videos and emails each week and the puppies are getting cuter and cuter every time we see them! We will be going the Saturday after Thanksgiving to pick up the new member of our family and I'm getting more and more excited as the day comes closer!

There were 5 girls in the litter that our puppy is in and two of them have already been chosen, so after the next family picks out their girl, which will hopefully be before the next update, we will know what two puppies are going to be in the Fredericksen family (because Trent's sister's family is getting a female puppy from the same litter) and know that one of those two will be living with us!! YAY!

Here's a picture of one of our puppy's siblings at 4.5 weeks (it's not ours because it's a male) and a video of the puppies from this past weekend!