October 29 - Clear Lake Pumpkin Patch

Autumn means pumpkins! Jillian and I headed to our local pumpkin patch after a trip to the library to pick out a pumpkin. She loved running around the pumpkin patch! This past weekend, we headed back to the same pumpkin patch with Julia, Luke and Kaleb. Waiting until the weekend before Halloween to get more pumpkins proved to be a challenge. They were almost completely out! That's okay, we managed to find decent pumpkin and snapped some cute pictures. Halloween is almost here folks, Houston is expected to have the coldest weather since 1925!

Pumpkin Patch Fun

October 24 - Class Picture

Jillian's preschool pictures were a few weeks ago. She was dressed in the most adorable denim dress with cowboy boots. I expected a fall background and thought it would be the cutest thing ever. Imagine my surprise when they switched photographers and her pictures came back like this. I thin it's a wrinkled grey sheet/drop cloth? And a half painted wall? Turquoise/aqua is my favorite color but an odd choice for autumn pics. Hehe! They are so bad I can't stop laughing!

Love this little person and her big personality!

October 23 - Cross Country

Julia & her friend Brayden

Julia competed in her first ever cross country meet last weekend. Saturday was such a gorgeous, cool day that I kept telling her "It's going to be a perfect day for a run tomorrow!" Well, that perfect day ended up being 90 degrees with sunny skies. Sunny skies are normally great but not optimal for a 2pm afternoon race. There were 9 girls in her age group and she placed 2nd. Fantastic job Julia!!

October 22 - Zoo Boo

Some of my favorite Halloween memories are taking Julia and Luke to the Houston Zoo for their Halloween celebration, Zoo Boo. Last Saturday we had a rare, gorgeous cool day and decided to hit up the zoo! Jillian put on her adorable Owlett costume and we headed out. Parking was a total nightmare but we finally made it into the zoo which was not crowded at all. The kids had a blast dancing, doing a hoola hoop contest, riding the merry-go-round and seeing all the animals. Jillian's favorite animals were the elephants. We went to that area multiple times! Jillian told us she wanted to take an elephant home, we said we didn't have room. 

Our one day of autumn weather was short lived, it was 90 the next day!

Zoo Fun

October 21 - Happy Birthday Luke!

One week ago, our little curly man turned 9. Happy birthday Luke!! We celebrated as a family the night before his birthday and opened family presents (and had a delicious ice cream cake). Luke was thrilled to open gift bag and find a water bottle...and then a giant cage. His hamster dream was finally coming true (thanks to Dad, I was not on board with this..nor did I even know JD was buying him a hamster until the day before when Julia accidentally opened an Amazon package). On his actual birthday, we went to lunch at McDonald's (his choice) and then JD took him to PetSmart to pick out a hamster. He came home with a male Fancy Syrian Bear hamster, known as the 'gentlest' hamster.

The hamster when through multiple names until Luke settled on Peter Parker, as the Peter spent a lot of time swinging around the cage like SpiderMan. Welcome Peter!! Luke is SO EXCITED!!

This past weekend, we celebrated with Luke's friends at Jumping World, a trampoline park. We invited his class and had about 15 kids total. Jumping, pizza and cake-they all had fun!!

Thank you to all the family and friends who reached out and wished Luke a happy birthday. Happy Monday everyone!!

October 9 - Blitz Softball

After begging me to sign her up for softball, I finally caved. Julia and Kennedy are playing on a tournament team called The Blitz. She loves it and is having a great time. I am not loving it because it's extremely unorganized (no tournament schedule and everything is done by group text). Last weekend was their first tournament. They played 4 games (they won one and lost three). This is a kid pitch league so there are very few hits. In softball, there is a rule that states if the catcher drops the ball on the 3rd strike, the batter can run to 1st. That is how almost every batter gets on base. Julia got on base by that method her first at bat, hit the ball the 2nd at bat (that was exciting) and struck out at her next at bat. She played 1st base in game 1, 3rd base in 2 and outfield in the last 2 games. Unfortunately she had zero action in any of those positions. I think the funniest moment for me was when several experienced softball moms told me they would never sign up for swimming because the meets were too long. Um..we spent 11h at the tournament from start to finish! Longer than almost any swim meet I've ever been too. 

Julia at bat

Team Blitz