Life is beautiful

Right now, we are in school.  We are poor but boy are we happy.  I think so often that we are going to look back on these days and just long for them.  Life is crazy busy but at the same time, so simple.  Sometimes I just want to pause time and stop my kids from growing up any more but obviously I can't so I just try to enjoy them and enjoy the time I am in right now.It's not hard to enjoy the time when I have such wonderful people around me, especially my amazing hubby man.  My birthday was last week and he really spoiled me.  He brought me this awesome breakfast in bed.  You can't really tell by this picture but the french toast and eggs were heart shaped.
He also found a cake he wanted to make me.  He started 2 days in advance to make this cake and it was AMAZING!!! He has set the bar pretty high for himself now....and for me :-/

It was a chocolate raspberry buttercream cake.
yes those are dark and white chocolate shavings sprinkled on top and around the masterpiece

I was one happy girl

So were all our guest who got to try this amazing cake.  There were several layers of  chocolate ganache in between the cake layers.  HEAVEN!!!!

After that, we fasted for a week to make up for the calories of one slice...just kidding.  But we should have.  Instead we took a trip to Kansas City and ate more food.  On the way down, we stopped in a cute little Amish town and enjoyed driving around seeing the lives of the Amish.  We drove by several homes with their laundry hanging in the front yard but it was hung so nicely (sounds lame I know but I know my laundry never looked that neat hanging to dry) so I made Ammon drive really slow and I had my camera ready to take a picture...and then I realized that they were out there still hanging stuff and I felt like a fool and we quickly drove off, hopefully without kicking up to much dust. 
We stopped at the local grocery market and it was interesting to not have any electricity in the store but we did get some amazing knives and there were beautiful mums outside.

I had the kids sit on a bench to take a picture and for the rest of the trip, whenever Avonlea saw a bench (which there are many, by the way) she would run and sit on it, tell us we need to sit with her and take a picture.

We were able to get a picture of one of the horses and carriages

The Amish town was about 10 minutes away from Adam-ondi-Ahman so we enjoyed some wonderful family time in one of my favorite places.  The Fall colors were wonderful and the weather perfect but  the best part was the company.

My most favorite people in whole wide world

ahhhhhh....

I guess giving that camera to Addie for her birthday has paid off with her photography skills. (Even though she was rather loud with her "ewwww" as we snapped this picture)
perfect day

The next day, we went back to the Deanna Rose Farmstead and enjoyed life in the good ol' days.  The kids got to go to school and were at the top of the class

 

 

Well, most of them were ;-)
I LOVE THIS PICTURE
 

 

We fed the goats again

 

Avonlea was still not crazy about the goats....enthusiasm

We did a little fishing 

Addie did a little "worming"

We decided to leave the farm early :-( so we could go to a Children's Museum in Kansas City, only to drive a ways to get there and find out it was closed.  I wish we could have just continued driving but we already had hotel reservations for that night so we stuck around and realized that 1 night in a hotel is a treat but 2 nights in a hotel is torture.  Oh well, the kids had fun eating popcorn in bed and watched a video (and jumped from bed to bed) while Ammon watched the presidential debate. 

Once we got home, we started dog-sitting one of our friends dogs that was such a hoot.  He is a bassett hound and kept us laughing and the kids continuing to run around playing like crazy.  We took both dogs on a walk in the forest and they were both pulling on the leash so hard that we were afraid Chloe was going to kill herself.  Really we had to come early because we were honestly afraid Chloe was going to die.  I was afraid she had damaged her wind pipe pulling so hard on the leash but once she was able to rest and calm down a while, she started breathing okay again but she scared us.  We got some cute pictures anyway at the beginning of our walk.

 

 doesn't Chloe look so relaxed?

Little cutie pie

Kimball with Murphy

Ammon and I with our walking sticks that Avonlea got for us...so thoughtful

 Avonlea got pretty pooped on the walk but daddy was there to save the day. 

And those are some of the reasons why life is beautiful.