You have to watch this...

Ryan's cousin, Leslie, emailed us this link! You must watch it! This is one of the most powerful messages I've seen/heard in a long time! What an awesome Father we serve!

http://www.rhchurch.org/pages/cardboard-testimonies/

Who knew Rae Rae was a photographer, too?

About this time last year, we found an amazing babysitter for Brooks through some mutual friends. Ryan and I feel so incredibly blessed to have Rae (or Rae Rae as the kids call her) in our lives!! She loves Brooks so much and I can't even begin to explain how comforting it is to have someone love your child the way you do. She keeps Brooks along with two other little girls and they are always up to something! Earlier this week, Rae took the kids out for some fall pictures and they turned out precious! How she got the three of them to cooperate...I'll never know...but I am so glad she did! These are some of my favorites...

"Candy!!! Yay!!!"

Ryan and I started getting pretty worried earlier in the week when Brooks REFUSED to wear his costume. He picked out a Lightning McQueen outfit from a picture online, but once it got here, he didn't want anything to do with it. Our first battle with the costume was for a costume parade at Brooks's preschool. There were definitely crocodile tears at first, but he got into it once he saw all of his friends in their costumes. Then, just to keep us totally confused, he refused to take it off when the parade was over. Go figure! After the little costume fiasco, Brooks had an awesome Halloween! He figured out that people were giving him candy for absolutely no reason at all and he was overwhelmed with excitement! Everytime he would visit a house, he would throw down the candy he was eating and say, "Candy!!! Yay!!!" Then, he insisted that we "ope it!" Luckily, we had no candy left to take home because he ate little pieces of everything before he threw it away AND he was so exhausted from all of the going, that he zonked out pretty quick that night! We were very proud to be "Brooks's Pit Crew!"
He was not happy!

It got better when Daddy got there!

Lightning McQueen!

Downtown Trick or Treating

Balloons are always fun!

At the Spinks's Family Halloween party

Ryan enjoyed wrapping me up in toilet paper WAY too much!

The daddies had to eat a doughnut with vampire teeth!

Brooks liked trick or treating, but his little legs couldn't keep up!

We dropped him off in the driveways because he wanted to run like the big kids!

Brooks and his pit crew!

Brooks's SCARY Jack-O-Lantern!!

Ryan and I opted against a stencil for our pumpkin this year. Instead, Brooks chose how to carve our pumpkin by choosing shapes for the eyes, nose, and mouth. (I know, I know!! Sometimes you just can't escape being a teacher!!) Brooks, being all boy as he ususally is, chose a scary pumpkin. Ryan and I could not stop laughing at him. The whole time we were carving the pumpkin, he would roar like he was some kind of monster. Seriously, where did he learn that?! Our little brave man wasn't so tough with the lights off though. When we lit the candle in the pumpkin and turned off the lights, he buried his head in my chest saying, "Lights on, mommy! No scary...no scary!" God love him!