Riverview's Fall Festival!

Here's what we used the cornstalks and the pumpkins for at our Church's Fall Festival. I think the photo prop area turned out so cute. This year we bought this nice backdrop that looks like weathered gray wood. I also brought our bench from our front porch, a decorative pillow and my milk bucket. Owen also let us use his orange blanket that he won at the Board Christmas Dinner back in 2022. He rarely is seen without it around his shoulders so that was a big deal! :)

The year before with our Fall Festival it was just a free for all....people could wander in and go to any game and do anything over and over...it was a bit chaotic. At one point I'm pretty sure we had over 400 people in the sanctuary...which is great, but like I said chaotic. This year we decided to replicate our Easter Adventure and have it be a walk through one way adventure. 

The Sutphin family is always my go to when it comes to the Caramel Apples. They are the best! I know I can hand this task over to them and it will all get taken care of. Love their giving and generous hearts! 

Scott and I worked together to plan this event and it really did work nicely....sadly we didn't have the turn out like we did the year before which I honestly think was due to weather. In 2022 the night of our event it was so rainy and yucky out that people were just excited that we had an event that was going to get their family out of the rain. This year, however, the day of our event was beautiful so I think families wanted to be outside enjoying the corn mazes and pumpkin patches instead. 

Micah and Scott making all the balloon animals! 

The official greeters....Pastor Tim & Melody! 

Face Painting Crew!!! 

Joy & Mike reporting for Kitchen Duty. 

We serve hot dogs, coffee, hot apple cider and lemonade. 

We had carnival games spread out in two areas off the church....the nursery and the kid's church room. Jonathen and Bronson helped with Pumpkin Bowling. 

MJ & Aaron were at the Bean Bag Toss. 

We also had shooting game and another bean bag toss game where you tried to knock over the cans. 

Our Check-In Crew....Sue is hiding! 

Upstairs in the Kid's Church room was where all the sports themed games were. Owen and Ella ran the Axe Throwing Game. They played so many times the next day their shoulders were sore! 

We had basketball. 

Skeeball...

A football game and golf as well. 

We did have one game in the hallway and that was Wheel of Fortune! 

The main event was David Harsh and his daughter. He's a phenomenal guitar player and she's a terrific singing. He performed earlier that morning during our church service. It was so great to get to hear him perform multiply times. 

The flow of the event was people came in, played games and then came into the sanctuary where could get a hot dog, something to drink, get their face painted, paint rocks or get prayer and sit down and listen to some cool music. After that they went out to get a balloon animal, get pictures in front of the photo prop area, grab a caramel apple and some popcorn and head home. 

  

Gail was manning the prayer table. 

Rock Painting was a hit! 

When it was time for the last musical set we had all the volunteers come in so they could enjoy it. 

Love this man of mine! 

There was even an interactive musical time where he called people up to play these fun tubes!

The youth table! 

For the grand finale David even played 2 guitars one with his hands and one with his feet...at the same time! It was so cool!

Corn Maze & Pumpkin Patch!

On Monday, October 23rd we headed down for our annual trip to the Pumpkin Patch / Corn Maze. 

The kids wanted to split up again this year. Owen and Jack went in one maze while Ella, Zeke and I went in the other one. 

One maze was an Elk and the other was a Bear. 

It was a gorgeous day! A little windy, but so nice! 

I had so much fun with these two! We finished the first maze and then tackled the second one. 

We ended up beating the older boys out so we had some fun taking pictures! 

They have all these cute photo prop areas set up. 

We didn't see Bigfoot in the maze! 

Ella made an awesome find....she found $20 just laying on the ground. It was actually in an area where some kids had cut through the cornstalks instead of using the trails. We looked around and no one else was near us in the maze so she got to keep it. 

Love this precious girly of mine! 

They made it and they didn't kill each other! 

I wish I had yearly pictures with these signs. 

Owen is so close to 6ft! 

We finished with the maze, picked out pumpkins, grabbed some cornstalks for our church's Fall Festival and then it was time to head out. 

Owen pushed the pumpkins to the car. We ended up using our pumpkin's for decorations at the Fall Festival and then we brought them home and carved them! 

Jack & Zeke's Remodeled Room!

After finishing Owen's room remodel in June, the only kids' room that need an overhaul was Jack & Zeke's. 

This is what we started with...a wall of bunkbeds. Since Owen had moved out of their room that bunk under his name sign was empty. 

Even though he could have moved into the upper bunk, Zeke chose to stay in his cave until we started the remodel. 

First things first....get everything moved out! 

All the books, all the toys, all the knickknacks...everything except the bed and their clothes had to come out. There was stuff everywhere...in the garage, the hallway, our master bedroom....all over! 

At one point in time when their clothes were smaller 3 boys in one room, sharing one closet wasn't a big deal. This was after Owen had moved all his clothes. 

Time for the bed to come apart. 

After that first day of work we were left with the two beds in the middle of the room. 

The next step was to patch all the holes in the wall and then repaint. I'm not sure if the boys chose the exact color that was here before. You can see a slight difference in the above photo, but that might be because it was still wet. 

When we first decided to remodel this room we asked the boys what they wanted. A drawing desk, a reading nook and a Lego table. They also wanted room for their books, but there is only so much one room can hold so we added another bookcase in Owen's room and his room is now the library. 

The Lego table was probably the most stressful part of this remodel. Michael and I usually work really well together, but we kind of got in a funk with this one. We were coming at it from different angles and honestly we just needed to sit on it for a while in order for it to come together. At first it wasn't even going to be on this side of the room, but plan changes and it turned out even better than I thought it would. 

Michael mounted the IKEA cabinet on the wall...I was a little freaked out about that, but it is anchored well...Michael held onto the top and let himself hang from it so it's good and strong. The storage under the table is made up of 4 different IKEA storage units. The table itself Michael cut from plywood and then overlaid with laminate flooring. We finished off the edging with that rubber T edging you see in RV's. 

Zeke Man helping his Daddy! 

And because I like lights I had Michael install some under cabinet lighting so the boys would have plenty of light to work on their Lego creations. 

The Lego table was where Zeke's bed cave used to be so we repositioned the bed on this other wall. At first we weren't sure if it would make it feel too crowd right when you walked it....the door to the hallway is to the left of the guitar. It really doesn't at all though. 

The drawers on the right side of the bed aren't used for clothes at all. These are filled with toys....Hot Wheels cars, BeyBlades and remote control cars. 

This desk has always been a apart of the bunkbed, but we've never really used it. For one it was always on the right side of the bed and when Michael built Owen's bed this is where his mattress was. We ended up moving the desk section to be on the left side of the bed and tada...Jack how has his drawing desk. We also bought a wall mount for his guitar because for one it looks cool being on the wall and it also keeps it out of the way and off the floor from getting damaged. 

Here's the view as you come into the room from the hallway. Honestly for as much stuff being in the room it's got a lot of floor space. 

Here's the other side of the room. We moved their dresser into the closet and that has worked nicely. It also a great place for Jack to store his BeyBlade Stadiums on top of. I bought them a saucer chair just like Owen and a little end table just like Ella so they have their little reading nook. Michael was able to customize their laundry basket by cutting it down from a 3 bag basket to a 2 bag which made it fit perfectly next to the chair. All of their clothes fit in that one dresser. We hang up all the shirts so the drawers just hold, underwear, socks, jeans and shorts. I honestly think they each only use 2 drawers and the bottom 2 drawers are filled with Pokemon cards. 

I bought a couple of high barstools on Amazon. They have backs that's are removable, but the kids seem to like the backs. They can also be used as step stools in order to get Legos down from the storage shelf. This table area is so great for building Legos or playing board games. 

Charlie had to check out what all the fuss was about! 

The boys decided to put their baby pictures and trinkets under the IKEA wall shelf. 

Zeke is no longer sleeping on a mattress on the floor, but he still has a partial cave! 

This corner was a bit dark for reading so I also bought a lamp. 

They have tons of Lego storage!!

All their creations on display! 

It was so fun seeing this come to fruition. Owen was so sweet when we were finished with this room he said that we needed to do something in our room now since we've been making things nice and new for the kids it was our turn.