The past several months have been a sort of blur...honestly, it's been a challenging time.  Adam got laid off from his job of seven years the beginning of October.  It was not done in a respectful way and it took some time for us (maybe just me, really) to accept it.  He's been trying so hard to find another job, but can't seem to get anywhere.  Even part-time, retail jobs aren't working out.  It's extremely discouraging (and scary) to see the days and weeks and months go by with nothing to show for it.  And now, with Thanksgiving and Christmas approaching, we've accepted that nothing will probably happen until the new year, though he continues to apply to everything and anything.  We have seen God's love and provision throughout, and have been so grateful for that.  And I consider it nothing less than God's grace that we're holding together so well (me, especially, since minor breakdowns aren't a foreign thing for me!)  Prayers are definitely needed, please.

But despite the lack of income thing, it has been nice having him around.  I've been picking up extra work, so it's been helpful to have him play with the kids.  The kids are loving it--Lennon is never apart from Adam's side, his favorite place to be. 

 One of Lennon's silly faces and poses, a new pastime of his, that his sister is picking up on as well!

 Tesla is a character...as I'm sure I've stated before, but she is all over the map.  Happy and giggling one second, and then giving you this "death glare," as we affectionately call it, the very next second.

....And then there's this sweet, melt-your-heart face.  She's a smart one and definitely knows how to play her cards right...

Tesla loves the camera--and because Tesla loves the camera, now Lennon loves the camera  But they seem to feed off of each others' silliness and these are usually their default smiles for the camera.  We have to sneak the camera away because Tesla will cry every time we put the camera down. 

We convinced my parents to come out the beginning of October, and it just so happened that it was going to be my mom's 60th birthday while they were here, so on the morning of their arrival, we brought out the paper and paints and made a giant birthday card:

...followed by a bath....

The banner was a hit, and Tesla's birthday cuddles didn't hurt either:

Lennon helping opening presents, while Tesla tried to eat some of the presents!

We stayed put for her birthday, but we did have a small party that night, with Adam's parents coming over.  And it just so happened that Patti was also in town visiting another friend, so we got to spend a couple days with her!

Lennon loved having Aunt Patti visit.  She brought him a Buzz Lightyear movie that he has to watch every.day.  He talks about watching it like it's his duty, "I haven't watched Buzz Lightyear yet today, I better go down and watch it," he'll say!

As always, Grandma and Grandpa's visit passed by too fast, but we had a great time with them.

On their last day in town, my mom and I took the kids on the Hammond's Candy tour--so much fun!

Lennon is looking as he should, like a kid in a candy store!!

It was nice saying goodbye to them knowing that we'd would be back in Wisconsin for Christmas in just two months.

After they left, we had one more birthday to celebrate...Dad's!

We took advantage of a warm fall day and used a groupon for mini golf that Lennon had been talking about for months.  He took his game very seriously.  On the way home, he asked when we could go play real golf.  We said when he got older (which to him, older means when he starts kindergarten).  I said maybe he could play it as a sport in school, if he still wanted to, and he immediately cut in and said, "I will!"  Somehow, golf seems to fit his introverted personality well.

Tesla also got into mini-golf.  But she mostly liked to go around pick up the golf balls...that, unfortunately, were still in play!

Halloween!

Lennon stated months ago that he wanted to be an astronaut for Halloween and that he wanted his sister to be an alien--I think their costumes turned out great (though Tesla got mistaken for a monster and a bug several times, but oh well, she was cute nonetheless).

Aunt Patti brought them some pumpkin stickers, so they painted their pumpkins, while I only had to carve one pumpkin, which I appreciated.

Trick-or-Treating with the Dow's--it was really cold this year, the coldest it's been since the kids have been trick-or-treating.  We don't know if it was because we were in a new neighborhood or if it was because of the cold, but people were giving them huge handfuls of good candy!

I feel like Tesla understood the candy thing much more than Lennon did at her age (probably because Tesla has consumed much more candy than Lennon ever did at her age).

Lennon has a hard time when he gets really cold.  We were a couple blocks away from the house when the weather was starting to get to him, so to speed things up, Adam carried him.

Combining two of Tesla's favorite things:  books and animals: