Fun Fall Weekend!

 Fall arrived at the end of this past week!!!  I know we will probably see some more warm temperatures, but we sure enjoyed the cool ones :)  Jackson and I went for a run Friday morning, and then we attempted to run ONE quick errand to get the last ingredients for two recipes I was planning to bake.  We tried to make Walmart our one-stop shopping store, but they failed miserably :(  I needed molasses to bake a Shoo Fly Pie for Josh.  I asked three different people for help finding it, and not only did none of them know what it was, but they were fairly rude about it.  ARGH!  So, we ended up popping into two more stores to finish my shopping before finally getting home to do some baking.  The Shoo Fly Pie was not my favorite, but Josh likes it!  I also baked a loaf of Nutella Marbled Banana Bread to take to dinner that night.  Our neighbors, the Walburgers, invited us over for dinner and provided the fixings for Make-Your-Own-Burritos/Taco Salad--it was all SOOO good!  Alyssa and Ashley are favorites with my boys because they come over as "mother's helpers" to play with Jackson and brush Pax :)  It was nice to have some adult time to talk with Aimee and Dave and get to know them.  Unfortunately, we were a bit late to dinner because Paxton ate FOUR of the six slices of bread I had had on a plate to take with us!!!  I could not believe he did that--very out of character!  Luckily the vet said the amount of nutella he probably ate for his weight wasn't going to cause serious trouble. Phew!

 We did a few projects around the house Saturday morning, including Jackson trying on his new gym shoes!  WOO HOO!!!  Poor guy hasn't had any closed shoes that fit all summer.  This was really only a problem when we went to Fantasy Playground since the base of the playground is small gravel.  Anyways, he's pumped :) He spent a lot of time playing outside and enjoying the weather!  Josh left to play golf with Joe just before naptime, but Susie and Rachel came over to go to the playground after naptime!  We drove down to our elementary school so the kids could try out that playground.  They had a really good time :)  

 We got Jackson and Rachel all squeaky clean and settled in bed before sitting down to enjoy our own yummy dinner that Josh grilled!  It was Grilled Hawaiian Chicken with grilled pineapple.  Josh thought we could try boiling the marinade down to a reduction to pour over the chicken, and it worked like a charm!  SOOO yummy!  I also went ahead and tried making coconut rice--it all went together so nicely!

 After dinner, Josh made our first fire in our new firepit!!!  It was a PERFECT night for a fire, and we all enjoyed relaxing outside in the yard :)

The above picture is of the lovely way our Sunday ended.  Unfortunately, it did not get off to a fabulous start. We had planned to head out in the morning to Cox Farms for the preview weekend of pumpkin season.  We were all loaded up in the car when it wouldn't start.  I kind of thought there was no chance of the Prius ever being dead, but apparently I was wrong...  Josh was a ROCKSTAR in getting it jumped!  Luckily I had parked in the driveway instead of my usual spot IN the garage.  Since the Prius's system is all computerized, there was no way to turn on the car to shift it to neutral.  Therefore, we couldn't move the Prius AT ALL!  We cleared EVERYTHING out of the garage so Josh could back the Xterra in and maneuver it to be at just the right angle to jump the Prius.  It took quite a few tries, but Josh did get it just perfect!  Of course, there was no guarantee that once we got it jumped that would fix the problem...  Luckily that did fix it!  It was too late to head to the farm, however :(  We had a bit of a lazy rest of the morning before Jackson took a late nap.  Josh and I decided it would be fun to rent a movie and do our first Family Movie Night!  I walked to our neighborhood 7-11 and picked up "Rio" from Redbox.  Then it was time for dinner with some more neighbors, the Bashores!  We had dogsat for their dog while they were out of town this past week.  We also offered for them to join us for dinner so they wouldn't have to worry about groceries or whatever (that first night of dinner is one of my least favorite things after a trip).  We ended up taking the chili and biscuits we made to their house so we could all enjoy the football game together :)  After a yummy dinner, we invited the girls, Reagan and Avery, to our house to watch the movie with Jackson.  Everyone was thrilled!  Jackson LOVED having the girls come over to watch his "special" movie, and the girls seemed to really like the movie.  It was pretty cute :)  I LOVE the opportunity our new house in a brand new neighborhood has provided us to make some really good friends--this weekend was a great example!