Pumpkin Carving

I already told you that our weekends are the time were we try to pack in some family fun.  About every 4th weekend or so we end up having nothing on the calendar.  We tend to spend a weekend recharging at home.  There are always projects to do (like the garage!), and it's good to have some down time as well.

That was last weekend for us.  There were a few church festivals we could have gone to, but overall there wasn't much we had planned.  It happened to be a great weekend to cozy down inside.  We were suppose to get 7 to 10 inches of rain between Thursday night and Sunday.  I'm not sure what the exact count ended up being, but it did rain the whole weekend.  Which caused a lot of festivals to be canceled anyway.

Our lazy Saturday morning consisted of cartoons, games...

puzzles and the fall sensory bin.

There was coloring and legos, dance parties and playing catch.

We also carved our pumpkin!

Logan was definitely disgusted by the pumpkin guts, but not enough to keep him from helping out.

When we bought the pumpkin (from Target), I picked up a special treat as well.  We didn't do a ton of apple activities this year since there is no apple picking around here.  So I bought a caramel apple for the kids to eat (and then cheated and cut it up) and one for Michael and I to share as well.

I read a Franklin Halloween book while they ate and Michael worked on the carving.

Originally Olivia said she wanted a spider like last year, but then she chose a picture out of one of the carving books we had.

Our pumpkin

The kids loved it!  We love making these memories with them.

Professional Pictures--4 years/20 months

I mentioned that we had the kids pictures taken last weekend.  It was suppose to take two weeks to get the proofs back, but we received them this week!

It had been over a year since we did family pictures.  And we still could use some updated family ones, but I really wanted to get Olivia's 4 year pictures and Logan's 18 month pictures.  Poor buddy doesn't have nearly as many pictures as his sister did.  So this session was all about the kids.  I'm thinking we will do a mini session for family shoots some time in the near future.

Isn't she beautiful? :)

I love this one of Logan!

Oh, Logan... I was 100% sure that he was going to give us a hard time, and he did.  It's just who he is.  But somehow, I still really like this picture.

Olivia was a stinker herself at that age, but now she's at an age where we can reason (and bribe!) and I think she actually enjoyed the photo shoot.

If only Olivia was looking...

Can you tell he has a treat in his mouth? ;)

Big brown eyes!  It's so funny.  Before we ever had children I told Michael that I didn't really care whose features they had except that I wanted them to have his beautiful blue eyes.  Well, Logan has my brown eyes, and Olivia has hazel eyes (from my dad, I'm assuming).  Oh well...

While we were working HARD to get Logan to smile, Olivia just started posing herself on this bench.  Our photographer (who is a fellow table leader from my MOPS group!) just went with it.  I like Olivia's eyes in this picture.

I really like this one because I feel like it's a pretty genuine smile.

Logan is too cool, apparently.  I feel like in 16 years we are going to have a senior picture of him with a similar look. :)

LOVE!

Despite people always saying Logan looks like Michael, Michael is convinced that he looks like me.  He feels like this picture reinforces his theory. ;)

Oh, this sweet boy.  He sure has turned our world upside down, but I do love him so!

ha ha!

Olivia: "Seriously.  Can you just smile so we can go eat. I'm starving."

Logan: "You're not the boss of me."

Just kidding. I don't know what they were saying and thinking, but I do kind of love their expressions.

Well. I'm not going to frame this or anything, but for posterity's sake... this sums them up.

"you only need that one shot"... well, this was it.  The money shot. 

Despite the tears and sass, they are mine and I love them.  TGIF! :)

Walks, Firefighters, and Donuts! Oh my!

We got home really late on Saturday night and both kids were melting down from being overtired.  So we decided to sleep in and skip church. (Side note: we LOVE our new church!!!)

So after a slow wake up and a cup of coffee, we decided to enjoy the cooler weather and go for a walk around the neighborhood. Some of our neighbors decorated their lawns, doors, porches and trees, so we went on a hunt for Halloween decorations.

Then on a whim we decided to just keep walking and go to Dunkin Donuts.

On our way we passed a fire station.  Since the weather was nicer, they had the truck out and were cleaning it.  They waved us over and asked the kids if they wanted to get in.

 One of the firefighters were telling them about everything inside the truck.

And Olivia even got to ring the bell!

 By the time we got to Dunkin' Donuts it was practically lunch.  We still got the kids donuts, though.

Donuts are her love language. ;)

We were wishing we had the wagon on the way back.  Logan just snuggled in and was "singing" to Michael.  So cute!

We bought the firefighters some donuts, but unfortunately when we got back to the station there wasn't anyone there to answer.  We did give Olivia a good lesson on community helpers, though.

TWO HOURS LATER we arrived home for naps and then it was off to life group.  We are all loving that, as well!

Like I said, it was a jam packed weekend. But it was all good.  I love my little family. :)

Balloon Festival

Olivia and I returned home from the birthday party and started getting ready for pictures.  It's been a while since the kids have had their pictures taken.  Sadly, I didn't even get one year pictures for Logan because we were moving.  So I've been working on scheduling at 4 year session for Olivia and an 18 month (which turned into a 20 month) session for Logan.

We had to drop off a meal for a MOPS friend who just had a baby.  One more thing to add to our crazy.  Then we headed to meet our photographer.  I was pretty sure Logan was going to be a stinker... and he was.

This is the one teaser she posted.  So it looks like we at least got one of the two of them where they are smiling.  I think Olivia's will turn out good. There might be one or two of Logan by himself that work too.

As soon as our session was over, we were starving so we went to the nearest place we could find.

Then we headed to the balloon festival.  We were suppose to go to one a month or so ago, but the weather wasn't great so we skipped out on it.

Unfortunately we got to the balloon festival a little later than we had planned.  I guess we just tried to pack too much in.  Olivia could see them from her seat.

We actually did end up getting to see the glow (not pictured) while we waited in the forever long line to get in and park.

By the time we walked all the way from our parking and waited in line to get in, most of the balloons had been taken down.  Luckily there were a few left for us to see up close and personal.

The kids didn't know any different though, so they still thought it was cool.

We'll know to go earlier next year.

All wasn't lost.  Olivia spotted the rides from the car and was convinced that she wanted to go on the spinny ride.  I don't do spins. Barf!  But Michael was willing to go with her.  She loved it!

We shared some ice cream and funnel cake, watched the fireworks on our walk to the car, and called it a night.

Frozen Fun

We had yet another busy weekend!  So much so, that it is going to end up in multiple posts.

It started out with a birthday party for Camdyn.  This was our first birthday party where it was just for little girls and their mommies.  So Logan and Michael stayed home.  Which worked out well, because it was right around Logan's nap time.

Cammy had met Anna and Elsa at the craft bizarre just like Olivia did. She became obsessed, and therefore it was a Frozen themed party.

They rearranged their furniture a little and just had it in the living room.  We walked in to a table for eating and Frozen playing on the TV. Olivia exclaimed, "That is so perfect that you have the movie playing since it's a Frozen party!" It cracked all of the mom's up.  I guess she's just never been to a party where a movie was playing at the same time and she was impressed with how the theme pulled together. LOL!

After they ate, the entertainment arrived.  I happened to be the one to open the door (so others could get the picture/video of the birthday girl), but in doing so I got a great shot of Olivia.

Olivia is telling them that they are on the TV. :)

The first thing they do is crown the birthday girl a princess, and then they each read a book.  Olivia just helped herself to Elsa's book and just kept telling her things like, "Look.  You have snow on your face here.  That's funny!"  Ha!  She seriously believed that they are Anna and Elsa.

Next, the girls sat at the table and made bracelets.  While they worked, they went into the other room one at a time and got to have a head shot taken with the princesses.  Alycia's friend is a photographer, so she offered up her services for this.

After bracelets and pictures, the girls got "magic" glitter tattoos.

Then they had a snowball fight!

They blasted the Frozen soundtrack and had a dance party--which is right up Olivia's alley!

They took a break to sing to the birthday girl and eat cupcakes.

They followed it up with a little more dancing before the princesses had to return to Arendale.

Olivia hasn't been to a ton of birthday parties, but it's safe to say this was probably her favorite!

We hope we can get her to Disney while she's still into all of the princesses and while it's still magical for her. :)