the hoskinson hotel

Our fall days have been filled with visits from friends who live both nearby and around the country. A friend of ours had surgery and stayed with us for a few days. We also had our friend come from San Francisco to stay. Last week my high school small group spent the night for a good ole' slumber party- complete with lots of food and scary movies. We also had friends over for dinner and friends over to carve pumpkins. Addelyn has had lots of fun hanging out with everyone. It has been a busy household but well worth the time we have gotten to spend with people we care about very much!

We took advantage of the great weather this past weekend and enjoyed some time outside with Addelyn. I hope that wasn't the last of our warm fall days!

Our friends Jon and Bridget came over the other night to visit with their little girl, Addison. Addelyn and Addison are three months apart and it was fun to see them together. We decided we will have many nights ahead of the couples hanging out and the girls playing together! Addison is such a cute little blondie!

*Jon and Bridget were the ones that suggested that Mark and I date each other- which sparked us hanging out after we hadn't seen each other since college. We will forever be thankful for that! :)

Markus, our friend from San Francisco (originally from Germany), came to visit and stayed with us last week. He is an amazing guy and it was so much fun to have him here with us. He is a missionary and is on staff with Youth with a Mission-http://www.ywamsanfrancisco.org/ in San Francisco. Markus and I did a Dicipleship Training School together in college and he ended up going on staff with YWAM. It is pretty cool how that connection turned into the opportunity for our youth ministry to take high school teams out to San Francisco (which we have been doing for the last few years.) Markus has made a ton of friends in Iowa now and may even come live here someday. This is his third trip to Iowa already! :)

Our family with the finished pumpkins, whoops I showed you the finished product before the carving...

Our friends Kilra and Aqualya came over to carve pumpkins with us last weekend. Each girl picked a stencil to use and worked hard on carving. They did an amazing job. Mark and Addelyn and I helped a little but they did most of the work.

Addelyn helped by chewing on the pumpkin pieces.

As you can see, Addelyn really didn't care much about the pumpkin carving activity! She was more interested in grabbing the little pieces of dirt and dead ladybugs off of the ground (and mom kept busy trying to keep them out of her mouth!). Oh the mind of a baby....