Our first overnight guest!

Ruth came to visit us! :) She was the first one brave enough to venture out here to the east coast and spend the night with our crazy family! We enjoyed learning how to cook GAPS-style, and took her to the Life and Science Museum (the outdoor portion) and went hiking. And ended it with style- with three sick kids! ;)

 The only part of the inside section we hit up.

 They had a farmyard with a cow, goats, chickens, pigs, owls, a donkey and alpacas.

 Aiden's favorite part was the butterfly house.

 We took advantage of the only dinosaur they could climb on.

 Digging for real "fossils" (aka shark teeth, shells, coral, fossilized leaves that were imported from a mine near the ocean).

 Poor Ruth read a LOT of books. Callum hardly ever paid attention, but every once in a while, he'd go over there just to "cheese" it for the camera. Literally.

 Hiking at Eno River State Park.

 Like I said. Every once in a while he will strike a pose and say "cheese", telling me I need to take his picture. This was one of them. 

 He had to be like his big brother with a walking stick. Although he thought it was more for hitting the ground with each step.

I love that Liam is starting to notice things and be so observant. He saw this tree and asked me to take a picture, because it was so unsual and like a rope. :)

Ruth's stay also coincided with Halloween. So we all know I'm not a Halloween person. Never have been. Probably never will be. Liam on the other hand declared this past week that he "loves Halloween, because he loves sugar, even when eating too much makes [him] sick." Oh my.

And that is what I had to combat with, dear ones.

And once again, I was missing Detroit, with their saavy idea of redeeming the Halloween by having the children dress up and visit the nursing home, where the elderly and staff hand out treats.

And so, although the little friend he's made was going trick-or-treating (in a spiderman costume that scared my son when we were over for a playdate earlier that week), I was trying to come up with a "harvest party" to make us forget about the fact that we weren't engorging bags filled with candy. And I didn't even have to build it up. He did it all in his mind! But I had made plans... and then all three were sick by that morning (well, Callum had been sick since the previous Friday, and Aiden began his cough the day before). And our Halloween came quite close to scarily ending with a trip to Duke's ER, when Liam became unable to breathe that evening. And my plans of...

Decorating small pie pumpkins... Short of going to a pumpkin patch, I could not find them anywhere near us in the stores.
Pumpkin donuts with harvest sprinkles hanging from strings...   too much sugar.
Bobbing for apples...  with congestion and germs going around, I nixed this idea pretty quick.
Hiding candy in balloons for the boys to pop... Too much sugar, so I decided it'd be too hard to explain to the younger two why they had to wait days (until they were better) to eat it.
Homemade apple cider... forgotten with the whole ordeal.
Making sliced caramel apple "lollipops"... Again, too much sugar so it was improvised.


So what did we do??

Well, living in a subdivision this year, I realized I would probably be getting children at the door for the first time since we've been married. And they might not notice that our porch light has been out for two months. So I begrudgingly bought candy, and after my husband talked about passing out tracts (where do you get tracts in the eleventh hour?), I went online, got an idea and Ruth and the boys took action. And sure enough, we did get visitors. Though not many. But Joel didn't want our "hard work" to be wasted, so he actually changed the light bulb. And suddenly we had many. And Liam had fun passing it out, not complaining about not being out once.

And Liam was excited to get something he could get a special gift from his Aunt Ruthie since he wasn't able to have candy that day.

Aiden slept through it all, after not having a nap that afternoon.

And Callum ran around, cheesing it... his usual self.

And because they were all sick, they didn't have too big of an appetite, but still managed a bit of a fun with apples dipped in peanut butter and sprinkles (because I'm not that mean). ;)