Closing out October...

Since our first half of October was nothing short of a whirlwind of doctors visits and lab tests, we were so glad to rebound from it all midway through the month. After some catch up sleep, some catch up housework, some catch up grocery shopping, etc, etc, etc....we finally had a chance to just enjoy this month. And what a fun month it is! We get awesome weather where we finally get to play outside comfortably and we get a fun holiday to look forward to.

A few days last week granted us the opportunity to NOT do laundry, NOT clean the house, NOT run errands, NOT put on makeup :), NOT be bombarded with to-do lists, and let us do the following things:

Assume the position on the favorite stool to help make some festive sugar cookies (opted for regular ol' sugar cookies this time instead of our butter cookies since I didn't have 5 sticks of butter on hand, lol! They were still super yummy!).
Help in the stirring, because this is the best part you know.
Intently watch the mixer as our heavenly cookie dough concoction was mixed together.
Taste it just to be sure.
Cut out all sorts of spooky shapes in the dough.
Ghosts, black cats, and pumpkins galore.
Prepare them to be baked.
Let them cool and wait for a family night of decorating.
Enjoy this awesome weather and take the Get Well present from Grandma T. out for a spin.
Dig out Tyler's old clothes and proudly don the good old Drake Law School t-shirt (and be so dang cute in it).
Practice that ever-so-adorable wave.
Discover how to take off your shoe and throw it on the ground before Mom has a chance to notice. And then move on to the sock.

Blow bubbles from the pumpkin bubbles the ghost brought us.



Pop the bubbles that Tyler blows.
Find out how they taste when one pops in your mouth. Yum.
Enjoy going at our own pace, doing our own thing.


Decorate the festive cookies all together as a family.

Eat the cookies faster than they are frosted.

Make your cookie the spookiest cookie of all (because more black frosting means it's much spookier than any other).
Consume more frosting than you put on the cookies.
Convince Dad that your ghost cookie is much more spooky than his.
See? Don't you agree? Because Dad, one armed ghosts just aren't very spooky, sorry.
Be proud of our beautiful masterpiece cookies.

I'm glad we got to enjoy October and have some great memories from it. And we get to trick or treat tomorrow to go out with a bang! And we already anxiously await November with two rounds of visitors coming our way. Such a great time of year, we're loving it!

The Cutest Spooks in Town

Ok, so they really aren't very spooky, but they sure are cute! But again, it's not like I am even a little biased or anything. I stressed over Halloween costumes this year since I was wanting to get some sort of theme with the two boys, but that didn't happen, and in the end, I just loved my little cowboy and skeleton to pieces. And Tyler's costume doubled as pajamas, so it's a total score there (and it glows in the dark--totally sweet)!
Not exactly the spookiest skeleton I've ever seen. But Tyler said he didn't want to be a spooky skeleton, he just wanted to be a "regular" skeleton. And I've never seen such a dashing 'regular skeleton' in my life!




Uh oh..., I'd dare say it looks like our little cowboy had one too many to drink at the local saloon:
And unfortunately, our poor cowboy has not-so-cowboy-friendly feet and we couldn't find a pair of boots to fit him for the life of us, but he does have an authentic pair of Wranglers (thanks to Grandma T & Tyler's old wardrobe--probably my all time favorite pair of toddler pants), and that's what's REALLY important, isn't it?
Who doesn't go nuts for a {diapered} Wrangler butt? I know I do. :)

Happy Halloween, y'all!

Fall Family Fun at the Farm

Well, I am happy to report that Mr. Sandman answered my plea and everyone in our household slept the entire night on Friday night. Apparently, I had a 24 hour bug of some sort and was relieved that's all it was. We woke up Saturday morning feeling like new people. Seriously, it was the best feeling in the entire world! So I knew exactly what we needed to do that day. We had to head to the Northshore to Red Bluff Farm for Pumpkin Festival. They only have it open for this three Saturdays and we missed the first one and we can't go this coming Saturday, so this was our only chance. All the more reason to be glad we were feeling good! This is our third year we've gone and I thought a lot about our trip last year and how it was our first outing with Sam and how I had anxiously looked forward to a much needed day together as a family. And this year ended up being quite the same in a lot of ways. In the last few weeks, I just longed for a sense of "normalcy" and some real time together as a family. And it did not disappoint! We had a great time! So here are some pictures and a little recap of our day. What kind of blogger would I be if I didn't post pictures of our trip to the farm?!

We first started off by watching the blacksmith work. It was really fascinating.
But it wasn't long at all until the boys in the family were all very well aware that there were several of these ALL OVER the farm:
There were several red ones and green ones, but it seems we generally spent time on these green ones.
Talk about little boy heaven! They played and played and played on the tractors until we had to pry them off. Both Tyler and Sam thought it was the best thing ever!
And they got some instruction from their dear old dad on what was what and all that good stuff.


And I can't help but include a picture of Sam's adorable new little wave he does. He does it all the time and it's the cutest thing ever, if I do say so myself. Not that I am biased or anything. But really I can't get enough of it and I try to get him to wave at me several times a day. I'm sure I'll wear it out soon.



This is pure Boy Joy here, people. Seriously.
And Tyler was demonstrating to me how hard it is to shift gears on a tractor. Bet ya didn't know it was that hard, huh?
No, he's not walking yet, but we're working on it. :)
Not exactly the perfect picture I had envisioned, but oh well--we tried!
And we spent most of the day not seeing Tyler's eyes since he insisted on wearing a hat and he insists on pulling it down as far as it will go. I don't know where he picked that up, honestly!
And then we (or Tyler, I should say) got lost in the rows of corn (literally).
And pet some of the many baby animals.
And we went for a hay ride.
And then we worked on picking out the perfect pumpkins.



And yes, in Louisiana, you wear shorts and sandals to the pumpkin patch. We were just thrilled that it was a day of low humidity and was only in the 70's since last year we BAKED, it was so hot. It was such a pleasant day, it was truly the icing on the cake. It's about the closest thing to fall weather we'll get this time of year. Our "fall weather" usually comes in the winter. :)
And we enjoyed not being sick, being out of the house, and spending some quality family fun time at the farm! I just love this little family to pieces (even when I can't see Tyler's eyes)!
And then we got home and I realized too little too late that my ISO setting was still WAY high from the last time I took pictures, so that combined with the harsh sun made for some pretty scary looking pictures. I couldn't figure out why all of my pictures were looking over exposed while we were there, but I didn't even think to check. I guess that's the risk of having my camera in manual mode. Oh well, I'll just blame it on feeling under the weather--my brain was still in a fog! So, if my pictures look kind of off, it's because, well, they are. :) Live and learn, I guess!!!