It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.....

I know all my followers have been wondering where I have been!! (all 3 of you) I have just been in a blogging rut and I am hoping to get out of it soon. Kevin and I celebrated 1 year of marriage on November 15th! We took a delayed anniversary trip to Branson this past weekend with some friends. It was so much fun. I love going to shows and shopping. I got a lot of Christmas shopping done. We put up our tree the day after Thanksgiving! This is our new tradition at the Strom house. I am so proud of all my ornaments....I didn't have very many, so my mom took me to Hob Lob to get some. Kev and I give each other one every year. I also have a few homemade ones from friends that I cherish.

I love this time of year and I always try to make it go as slow as possible. I hope that it will go slow this year. At school we have been making some pretty cute Christmas crafts. I told the kids that I make daily reports to Santa, so hopefully they will have some good behavior! We will see!!!

1 little, 2 litte, 3 little pumpkins....

I took my kids to Motley's Pumpkin Patch in October! It was so much fun. I wish we could take a field trip once a week. I think it is such a wonderful learning experience. As you can see from the pictures we had so much fun. I had my kids draw pictures about their favorite part of the field trip. By far they loved riding the school bus (they are not allowed to ride the bus to school) and the pig races. The pig named "Jimmy Dean" won all 3 races this year. We got to have pumpkin juice and pretzels while we watched the races. I felt like I was at Nascar! I was also so thrilled to have about 15 parents go with us. If you are a teacher you know that good parent support makes for a successful year. I can't wait till next year!

Operation Christmas Child!

Operation Christmas Child is something that I found out about at my church several years ago. It is project that Samaritan's Purse does every year that allows people to make shoe boxes full of goodies for children in other countries for Christmas. My parents and I have always gotten involved because it is something that is very important and it is so easy to do. I watched a video at church on Sunday about a girl that is now in her 30's from Bosnia that received a shoebox when she was 11 years old that changed her life forever. She was very poor and was embarrassed to go to school because her shoes were so old and torn up. She tried running away the very day that the shoe boxes came, she saw a commotion and went to see what it was...low and behold a man said come and take a shoebox and what do you think her box had in it? You guessed it a brand new pair of shoes. She prayed to receive Christ that very day and now works for the organization and delivers boxes herself to children....now tell me God didn't have a purpose for that little 11 year old. I thought this story was so overwhelming I just sat with tears in my eyes. You see not all the shoebox have shoes in fact most of them don't they are filled with toys and games and socks! God knew that she needed shoes and that is exactly which box she received. My church will be stuffing 1000 boxes on November 22! If you feel like you would like to do a box please do it is such a blessing!

BOO-kly!

This is Halloween week! My kids at school are having so much fun talking and singing about Halloween. We have a song called Witches Brew that has some really neat hand motions. They pretend that they are making some witches brew and stirring it in a cauldron. TOO CUTE! I went to Wal-mart and got one of those pumpkin carving kits. It is so neat. I had never seen one of those before. I let my kids vote on which design we would carve. They decided on a ghost. They each got to take some of the seeds home! I think they enjoyed it. We also voted on his name. They threw out some names and then we voted. The top 2 names were BOO-kly and Little Bitty Pretty so we had a runoff. BOO-kly won! Today I spotted several of them going up to him and having some conversations....wonder what they could possibly be talking about?!?!?!

I am ready for Halloween! We are going over to some friends house to play cards and welcome the trick-or-treaters! I always love answering the door and seeing how all the children are dressed. I can't wait till I have a baby and can take him/her trick-or-treating! What are you Halloween plans??

What we have been up to

I love lists so I am going to make a list of some things we have been doing or are going to do in the next few weeks:

• fall cleaning
• watching college football and NFL GO HOGS!!
• kevin got a new ps3 game, so he has been playing this A LOT!
• hanging out with all the new babies that entered the world last month
• we went to a high school football game with our friends Tiffaney and Aaron
• watched the proposal (kevin loved it)
• Robin Williams (left early he was really over the top and his mouth was terrible!)
• Mama Mia (AWESOME)
• we got our wedding album after almost a year of marriage (so worth the wait) thanks Corey Gillum!
• made Martha Stewart pumpkins with my kids at school.
• made applesauce with the kids
• ARKANSAS STATE FAIR -had a corndog it was yummy!
• getting geared up for CITYFEAST!
• biggest loser
• we are going to Abby Anne's 3rd birthday party on Saturday!
• sunday school/church we love our class

What have you been up to??

My Signature and My Wonderful Hubby

I am so excited my friend Effie showed me how to make a signature on the the bottom of my blog. What do ya'll think??? Not many people comment on my blog and that is ok (well really it isn't)! haha! I hope everyone is having a wonderful week this week! I am having a great one...the hubs has made this week so much fun for me. On Tuesday night he called me after school and said to go home and get changed we had to be somewhere by 7. He wouldn't tell me where we were going. We pulled up to Robinson and he took me to see Mama Mia!!! It was the best show I have ever seen. The movie was not good to me but I love the show! Then today at school I was eating lunch and he sent me flowers. WOW! I am super impressed. I am so very lucky to have a wonderful husband! Thanks Kev!

Arkansas Traveller 100 Mile Marathon

This weekend Kevin and I helped work an aide station for the Arkansas Traveller. I thought Traveller was misspelled all weekend but that is how they spell it. Anyway, it is a 100 mile marathon around Lake Silvia and the surrounding areas. Our station was called Pumpkin Patch and we had pumpkin pie, potato's, crackers, pretzels, and other goodies. Kevin's job was to fill up their water bottles with HEED, Gatorade, or water. My job was to cheer them on. I think I did pretty good...Lord knows if you are going to run 100 miles, you need some cheerleading. The race started on Saturday morning at 5:30am and the last runner came in 30 hours later. The winner ran it in 17 hours at the age of 43!!! Now can you imagine running 100 miles at this age....I can't imagine ever running 100 miles and the oldest person was 75 now that is just amazing. I can't get over it. I checked the results and he finished finished the race, where as only 1 twenty something finished the rest dropped out. Kevin and I have talked all weekend about how this is more mental than physical, don't get me wrong you have to be in good shape, but this is a very rocky area and on trails, not on pavement. Not to mention you are running throughout the night in the dark woods where bear, snakes, and spiders are lurking. Sounds like a horror film to me.

Kevin has been inspired to run a marathon! He has always been very athletic and enjoys running,(he ran a 4.5 40 in high shcool just to brag a little) so I think he is going to start training so that he can do it! I will be there to cheer him on. I am not a runner, but you never know maybe one day I will run a 5k. Small steps here people, don't laugh! Did I mention that we camped out on Friday night, I am not a camper, but I will say it was the best camping experience I have ever had. We slept in K's avalanche and that was fun we looked funny and I coudln't stop laughing, but it was a great time. I hope we can work it again next year.