Halloween 2016

Look at me posting about something that happened just two days ago!! It's a Halloween miracle!!

This Halloween was so great! It was full of emotion and the cutest little puppy you've ever seen!! I am already looking forward to Halloweens to come because I just love seeing Samuel have so much fun!

I didn't feel super inspired about what Samuel should be for Halloween this year, so I searched Pinterest and Amazon for some cute ideas of costumes that would be something that Samuel would actually wear. I found a cute puppy costume on Amazon a few weeks ago and decided that would be a good idea for this year. Since Samuel has two puppies of his own, we thought it would be perfect.

The Wednesday before Halloween, the costume came in the mail. That night, I got it out of it's package and put the body of it on Samuel, he didn't seem to like that very much and got mad and cried until I took it off him. I wrote that off that he was just tired because it was getting late in the day, so I put the costume away and thought we'd try again another day.

In the days that followed, I'd occasionally pick up the costume from its place on the dining room table and show it to Samuel and he'd get a  really scared look on his face and run away from me. 

Finally, on Sunday night, we decided we just had to go for it and put his costume on as a practice run and make him work through it. And, right on cue, he cried and cried because he was so upset about having the costume on. It was so sad but it was the cutest thing ever to see him crying in his puppy costume!

After some snuggling and positive talk, Samuel worked through it and was distracted enough to start playing again - with his costume on!

He played for a while and even interacted with the dogs since they were all one kind for a little while before Millie got excited and knocked him down and Samuel remembered he wasn't happy to have the costume on any longer. So we called it a night and hoped for the best for Halloween night!

 On Halloween night, we got home from work a little early and ate supper and then started to get Samuel into his costume. We started slow by just putting on his leggings and onesie that would go under his costume... And then it was the moment of truth - when we would find out if Samuel was going to be a puppy or a brown turd for Halloween this year!

 

Luckily Samuel was in a pretty good mood after eating supper, that everything seemed to be on the right track!

 

 

First we put on his feet and let him walk around in those for a while and then Trent picked up the body of the costume and Samuel ran in the other direction! That's about as dramatic as it got, though, Samuel put on the body of the costume and then the head of the puppy and he was ready to go!

 

We gave him a bag to hold the candy that he was going to collect, which he loved  to hang onto, and we headed out the door to start our Trick or Treating!

Our first stop was across the street at Jim and Anne's. Anne had made Samuel a special treat bag with some chips and crackers, which was very thoughtful!  He was a little shy for a few minutes, but then started to get more comfortable, waving at the cars that were driving by and giving Anne some smiles!





We went to two more houses to get candy and show off Samuel's costume before heading back home to start handing out our own candy in the driveway and watch the kids go by. Samuel got compliments on his costume from all the kids and parents that came up to get candy from our house!

Samuel caught on to the whole trick or treat thing pretty quick - pick up candy and put it in the bag! He practiced by taking candy out of our bowl and putting it into his bag :) It was pretty cute!

 

Halloween went way better this year than I ever thought it would have! I think Samuel really had fun exploring the neighborhood, putting treats into his bag and just watching all the activity!

He was the cutest puppy I've ever seen and I can't wait to see how his excitement grows each year!

 

Soon, it was bedtime for Samuel, and he slept soundly - I'm sure all the Halloween commotion helped with that! We handed out candy until a little after 8:00 and then we retreated inside as well. I didn't count how many trick or treaters we had this year, but I'm sure it was a couple hundred... We were prepared enough this year to not run out and we actually have some leftover for us to enjoy as well :)

 



Hocus Pocus Halloween Party

Back on the weekend before Halloween, my mom and sister, my aunts, and my girl cousins all came over to our house for a Hocus Pocus Halloween Party! It was a beautiful fall day and a perfect day for a party!

After everyone arrived, we got right to work carving pumpkins around the dining room table. Everyone got creative making different faces, animals, letters or designs in their pumpkins.

A few weeks before the party, I came across this blog post on Facebook titled "How to Carve a Pumpkin in 15 Minutes" and she was giving away a Rockwell Sonicrafter F30.

I immediately sent the post to my family and said we needed some power tools for our party! I then entered the giveaway and kind of forgot about it. Lo and behold, a week or so later, I got an email from the author of the blog saying I should check out who won and it was MEEEEE!!! I was probably way more excited than I should have been when I saw - jumping around all giddy at work because of it! It showed up at our house the day before the party. It was fate! :)

I didn't use it to carve my whole pumpkin, but I did use it to make mine and Kenzie's openings so we could scoop out all the guts. It was pretty crazy and definitely added some excitement to the evening!

When it was all said and done, here's what everyone's pumpkins looked like. It's a pretty good looking bunch if I do say so myself!

After the pumpkin carving, we all ate some Chicken Tortilla soup and sandwiches and Jocelyn also made some "Mummy Halloweenies" to get everyone in a festive mood!

When we were done eating, we all gathered in the family room to watch Hocus Pocus to finish up the night! I don't think that movie will ever get old! It was the perfect ending to a successfully fun day!!

Sisters!

My mother and I

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!

Covered Bridge Festival and Apple Orchard

Last weekend, we went to the Covered Bridge Festival in Winterset and to an Apple Orchard outside of Adel with Trent's family. We had a great time going through all the stores, seeing the girls get their faces painted and we enjoyed some cheese curds, corn dogs and kettle corn at the festival! These two events were also a great time for me to try to get better at using my camera. 

Jenna got her face painted like a butterfly and Taylor got hers painted like a cheetah, which was fitting since that was the theme of our outfit for the day!

At the orchard, it was so fun to see how excited the girls got while looking at the chickens and goats, going on a hay ride and going all through the pumpkin patch trying to find the best ones! 

Trent attempted to find the biggest pumpkin in the field to try and break the record for the heaviest pumpkin found by anyone, but we didn't have any luck finding one that was quite that big. The heaviest objects that our pumpkin cart had in it that day was Taylor and Jenna! Him and I did each get our own pumpkins, though, and we walked away with over 50 pounds of pumpkins between us! So I'd say that was probably big enough!

Here's the four pumpkins we left with. The girls were searching for the perfect small ones and they definitely found them! They look very tiny next to Trent and I's, though!

After we found the pumpkins that were going home with us, we went into their little shop and bought some apples (with which I've made apple crisp this week and it has been a great snack each night!), got some apple cider, and tried some of their apple wine and donuts!

Then, we got in line for the hay rack and took a ride around the property before calling it a day. 

It was a fun weekend and it was great to be out and about enjoying some fun, fall activities! 

The weekend ended with one more piece of exciting news!!!!! I can't wait to share about it on here so I can document all about it!! I want to be sure to tell everyone that I want to tell personally before they would find out here, though, so hopefully that happens soon. (And, no, it has nothing to do with a baby.)