Since we weren't home for Halloween this year, the pumpkins that the girls got from school didn't ever get carved! Lucky for them, they have an accomodating father. While I was gone to a church meeting Tuesday night (as were Savannah and Sarah), Kevin carved jack-o-lanterns with Megan, Mariah, Cheyenne, and Calianne. Isn't that cool? Here's the enterprising crew:

I decided not to do National Novel Writing Month this year (nanowrimo.org), because of my pregnancy, but Savannah is giving it a go! If you don't know about nanowrimo, the goal is to write 50,000 words in one month. Oh, it is a killer. It is to a writer what a marathon is to a runner -- with the same feeling of accomplishment, let me tell you -- and you can still walk at the end of it -- but other than that, it's just the same. Savannah hit 12,000 words today. She should be at 13,336. She's pretty close, though, and determined to catch up! I think it's a great project for her. I just miss my computer . . .

The days here have been beautiful! I walked outside this week to find the trees had all turned orange! And they had sprinkled their orange brilliance all along the ground as well! And the sun brightened it all and the blue sky offered striking contrast. Ah! Gorgeous! Glorious! Every day has been like that. The orange trees take a long time to fall. We worked on the first piles on Saturday and found our lawn again (as did just about every family in our neighborhood!) Alas, though, by the end of the day, our lawn was sprinkled again. Such is the glory of fall! Here are some of our hard workers:

Even Beth got in on the act and tried to figure out what we were doing. Eventually she figured it out and would carry three leaves at a time over to the truck and put them in. What a helper, huh?

We hope you all are having a glorious fall, as well!