Yesterday was costume day at school. I was surprised that not many of my students dressed up this year, but I suspect it’s because Halloween is still several days away. My own kids get to dress up on Halloween. I’m not sure why we chose to do it this way this year, but alas, it certainly makes the distractions fewer when only a few kids have a costume on. We still had learning to do :)

The girls made these little Halloween shapes on popsicle sticks and have been having all kinds of fun with them as shadow puppets. I broke out the Lensbaby to capture a few and thought this one turned out cool :)

This is a little out of focus, but it was a busy day and I didn’t take very many pictures.

On Tuesday night Jared and I got to go on an unexpected kid-free date :) After all the craziness of the days prior, it was a nice little break to sit and talk and decompress.

It was Red Ribbon Week last week. The girls were asked to say “No” to drugs. Which of course begins the conversation about ‘what are drugs’ and ‘why do I say no.’ Not easy things to try to explain to small children. My kids didn’t know about drugs until their school told them to say “No” to them. HAHA :) Anyway, they wore red on Monday to show their vow to say “no” to these drugs that they have no exposure to. I guess it’s better to pound it into their heads early…

Sunday morning was a slow one indeed. Lots of cleaning up and stopping occasionally to eat leftovers…

Our much anticipated wedding day went off without a hitch. Well, I guess just one hitch happened (hardy-har). It was a wonderful day filled with lots of people we love and we’re so thankful for all of the support received from family, friends, and colleagues :) I took about 6 pictures the entire day. It was nice to leave the photography to the ‘professionals.’

We asked family and friends to help us collect glass jars for holding candles at the wedding. In just a couple of months we were able to collect over a hundred of all different shapes and sizes. They took forever to scrub the labels off of and clean, but I sure was proud of my frugal little collection :)

These are wedding favors. If you’re reading my blog and coming to the wedding, pretend to be surprised :)

I labeled this “cactuses,” because I feel silly using the word “cacti.”

I’d much prefer to say ‘cactuses,’ and I do so often, and it is technically also correct, and it also doesn’t make me feel like an elitist jerk. So if you’re out there saying “cactuses,” you’re my kinda people. Don’t let would-be grammarians correct you, either — make sure you tell them that ‘cactuses’ is just as acceptable as ‘cacti.’