Turkey Dinner in October

To celebrate Jake Bangstons birthday on Sunday,

his sweet wife Kari called Saturday to invite us to a Thanksgiving meal to honor him!

It was quite the spread to have on less than 24 hours notice!

Thanks for being born Jake!

Young Life Has Begun

Young Life is under way and we couldn't be happier. We feel so blessed to live in this valley and do be able to love on kids at Eagle Valley High School.

We are now doing...

Young Life club on Sundays at the Gracious Savior Church in Edwards from 5:06-6:14pm

Young Life campaigners on Wednesdays at our house from 7:15-8:45pm

Girls breakfast on Fridays at our house at 6:45am

It is a busy schedule with the planning and inviting, but if kids come to know the Lord through it, every BIT of it is worth it. We had a leader meeting last week to get things planned out and here is a picture of our team as well as our family shot!

By the way, if you didn't know already, I am working five hours a week for our area director Scott Leonard doing his organizational stuff. It is sometimes challenging to get those five hours in (think I have one hour in this week so far! yikes!) but it is helpful to Scott and our area and pulls in a little extra money for our family!

Say a prayer for our team today!

We have five high schools in the area with over 1700 students to reach for Christ!

Here is the Eagle Valley YL Team: Justin, Melinda, Macklin, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit!

(we need everyone on our team!)

Eating Out of a Highchair

Last Saturday Macklin ate out of his highchair for the first time! I gotta figure out how to make it a big sturdier for his slidding little tush, but as long as we watch him, it is working great! This is the same highchair that Justin ate out of as a child. Thanks Grandma Kathy!

Just an update: Macklin is eating a tablespoon of pureed veggies at one meal (after nursing) and then an ounce of breast milk with rice cereal after another meal!

Welcome Corbynn Sue!!!!

Last Thursday night little Corbynn Sue Leonard decided to make her debut! Our good friends,Cara and Scott Leonard, welcomed their third child and second daughter. It was so fun to hear that she had arrived as I was at MOPS with Cara that morning. They are super stars as Corbynn came home on Saturday...the same day the Leonards were moving into a new place! Wow!

We were lucky enough to go to the Vail Hospital to see Cara and Corbynn on Saturday morning before they went home. Cara was just relaxing and enjoying her time with only her baby (the other two and her hubby were off moving the house!). Here are a few pics!

Me and Cara with our babies!

Macklin is checking out his future girl!

Justin with his boy!

So darn cute...I am so in love!

EVHS Homecoming 2010

Another fall, another Eagle Valley Homecoming! This has been my favorite time of year in the past as a teacher, but as I am not in the building this year, it came and went very fast! I missed the dress up days and told Justin that he wasn't going "all out" as in the past (I think he missed his partner in crime...or maybe just the "planner" in crime!). The theme for the week was Board Games (Clue, Monopoloy, Candy Land, Battleship). I though everything looked cute from the floats to the windows, to the walls, the kids did a great job. I tried to get to school early each day so that I could catch kids dressed up. Even with my efforts to see things, the week flew by. Here are a few pics from the Friday night game and hanging out with some girls before they headed to the dance!

Some of my runners!

I missed my sweet friend!

My beautiful high school friends from Young Life!

Fall at the Brandts

Come on, ask me what I did yesterday?

Oh, what did I do, you ask?

Well, I laid in the yard with my sweet son and we watched the leaves fall off the trees!

It was awesome!

And we did something else....played fetch with Baxter :)

Here are some pics of our afternoon!

And, our sweet pup smiling pretty!

Food Is Complete!

I am pretty proud of myself! I made all of the following baby food for $8!!!!!!!

I looked back at my recipt! I can't believe it! $8 would normaly get you about 16 little cans of baby food. But, instead, I have all of this (each little mound is a tablespoon)!!!! Woohooo! I will definitely be continuing this even though I don't need to for a long time!

Food status:

Rice cereal is going great!

Avocados were a hit at first, but it looked painful when I tried to feed him it yesterday.

Today we moved to sweet potatoes and he cried when I washed the bowl because it was empty!