October Fall/Halloween Activities

Fall is by far one of our favorite seasons around here. My husband and I have always loved fall and all that it brings- cooler weather, football season, warmer clothes, crisp air, soups, and the oven cooking amazing smelling desserts. Payton loves winter the most and Riley is still deciding on his favorite season, but I can tell you that both kids love so much about each season and what it brings.

We live in a small community and we are so fortunate that it offers a ton of kids activities year round. Halloween/fall events are no exception. We couldn't make it to everything this year (bummer to have missed the pumpkin patch) but we also added in our own little events with friends. Here's what we have been up to this month:

Pumpking Decorating

Our local YMCA had a pumpkin decorating event that we went to. The kids had a blast and Payton was dead set on picking out the biggest pumpkin available. I was thankful my husband could attend because carrying her pumpkin would have been a bit challenging for me with my own growing belly.

I think the kids could have spent all day there. Payton keeps asking when we will be going back. I'm afraid she has quite the wait.

More Pumpkin Decorating

A friend gifted us pumpkins and acorn squash from her garden. Normally, I would process them but this year we decided to go a different route. Since Payton and Riley loved decorating pumpkins so much we asked the kids if they wanted to host a decorating party for their friends. Of course, they wanted to.

I was very brave and we had 9 kids in our house decorating pumpkins with all the glue and glitter their hearts desired.

Payton loves to plan for events. She will spend 30 minutes putting together a show, only to have the show itself last for 2 minutes. I knew party planning would be right up her alley. She loved helping me clean and prepare for the party and she insisted on baking treats for everyone.

We made spooky cupcakes and the kids helped every step of the way.

Pizza Night Fridays

It isn't a new thing for us to have pizza night and watch a movie as a family on Fridays but we got out of this routine over the summer craziness. We spent this month getting back into the habit. Both kids loved picking out Halloween themed movies (almost always Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin) to watch while we ate our pizza. This is a huge deal at our house since we don't watch a whole lot of tv and it's a true rarity to watch a movie while eating supper.

I love this picture and didn't realize until I was writing this post that Payton was giving us the naughty finger. 😒 I promise she didn't do that on purpose but does seem to use that finger a ton. We're working on that with her. It's slow progress.

In any case, we love to make homemade pizzas as a family. I make the crust in our bread machine and made the pizza sauce over the summer. From there we mix it up a lot, sometimes with one big pizza and sometimes with a bunch of individual pizzas. We also change regularly what kind of pizza we make.

Now that the kids are getting a bit older, I am hoping to slowly change our routine a bit to include family game night. Both kids are really getting into board games (like candyland, operation, gone fishing, and hungry hippos) and I think they would really enjoy this addition to one of our favorite nights.

Trunk or Treat

Picking costumes this year has been a bit of a challenge with a 4 year old that constantly changes her mind. She started off wanting to be a doctor and then switched to a fairy. She changed her mind again and wanted to be a butterfly. When we showed Riley his pirate costume (he's so go with the flow we knew we could pick whatever), she insisted she had to be a pirate as well. So, our two pirates came to be.

We try to keep our costs as inexpensive as possible so having an indecisive 4 year old was a bit challenging this year. When she ended with pirate, I actually took my pirate costume from a few years ago and just clipped it/adjusted it to fit her. It worked out really well and I am thankful most costumes are made to be fairly easy to adjust.

Our downtown businesses sponsor a trunk or treat each year and it is truly magical. There are hay rack rides, cookies, apple cider, coloring activities, trick or treating events, bounce houses, and children's games. Our family looks forward to it each year and, as our kids get older, it just gets better and better.

Snow

The day of Halloween, we got our first snow of the season. The kids really wanted to build a snowman but had to settle for catching snowflakes.

There is really something so magical about watching life through your children's eyes.

Trick or Treat

We wrapped up October with a fun night of trick or treating.

The kids really wanted Daddy to dress up with them and were so impressed when he did. Despite Payton not wanting to cooperate during pictures, I assure you she was having so much fun.  It was so cold out so we didn't go out for long but that's the beauty of having young children. They don't know the difference.

It was a busy but great month for us and we can't wait for the holiday season!

Happy Halloween! We hope you all had an amazing month and Halloween as well!

Digging Into Our Finances

It isn't too often that I talk about our finances on this little blog, but you can find the occasional post. When I initially started this blog I had planned to have a bigger focus on money management as it is a personal interest of mine. Once I got going though, I just haven't really found the time to type as much about money as I would like. Maybe someday that will change but for now, the main focus will probably continue to be on my kids and our life together.

Want to know more about our household's financial situation? I did an interview with mod Dollar this week and you will find it here. I talk more about our financial goals (both short term and long term), our rental business (including owning two properties without any loans), and what I hope my children will learn from us about money.

Have a great week!

Here's a random picture of some of the great views we have been enjoying at our house!

The warm weather, colds, and rearranging bedrooms

After wanting to slow down our life for awhile, we finally found our desire met. We embraced the slower pace of life with open arms. After a wild start to our month having a little down time makes me feel like we are, I don't know, somewhat boring. I didn't think I had much to even put on a post. Though this may be true, I have to tell you, I love having a quiet slower-paced lifestyle. I'm less stressed, more focused on what I'm doing, and a more purposeful parent. 

Never the less, I was able to find a few pictures to share with you what we have been up to in the last week. 

In our area, many of the local farmers are harvesting or wrapping up harvesting their crops. We are fortunate to have a field next to us and across our road. My kids LOVE watching this process. They will sit and watch the farmers all day. I am amazed at how much they are already learning about farm life and where our food comes from.

Payton begged me to take this picture of her. She's so silly.

We knew the cold weather would be coming soon so we spent one of the last warm days wrapping up outside projects. My husband made a bird feeder for the kids to paint and there it sat on our counter for about a month. I decided to procrastinate until the absolute last warm day. Sometimes, that's just how I roll. 

In any case, I hauled the feeder out and let the kids paint as they wanted. They had so much fun. While they painted, my husband sealed our new campfire sitting area. We are so excited about this area and have already made s'mores a few times. Eventually (probably in the spring) we plan to make some outdoor benches or chairs for what we have already named "our secret spot."

We also took a quick trip to our apple tree and picked apples for the last time this year. We spent a few days harvesting what we picked and now have a freezer stocked full of apples from our 3 trees to get us through until next summer (or they may only get us through January). Riley found joy in picking 1 apple each time and spending the remainder of the time eating that said apple. He was a lot of help!

As I mentioned in this interview, we are preparing for baby #3 by rearranging our room situation at our house. This meant moving our two little ones into one room while we took over the room Payton was in. The 3rd bedroom on the main floor will be used as a toy room for the time being but will become the baby's room. 

We are only on our 3rd night. The first night went really well. Too well. Both kids were out within minutes. I had taken my family to my hometown for a few days to see extended family and celebrate one of my friend's 30th birthdays. While we were gone my husband moved the kids into their room together so it would be ready when we returned. They were so tired and excited about the transition to sharing a room that they both fell right to sleep that first night. The next two nights were not so easy. I'm hoping we survive this transition...

With moving and rearranging 3 rooms, I pulled all the pictures down to redistribute them. It is so crazy to see the pictures of my babies. What a bittersweet time for me as we will be adding 1 more before I know it and time seems to go faster and faster. Babies don't keep but thank goodness photos continue to linger.

When the weather got colder we turned to one of our favorite things of all, coloring and art projects. The kids have been working hard on making cards and letters for family members, creating fun art projects, and coloring in their coloring books.

The other day, I caught this beautiful picture and had to share. Riley loves his daddy so, so much.

And, unfortunately we kicked off the weekend with 2 sick kiddos. The common cold didn't want to miss our house this year. Despite feeling cruddy, both kids were fairly happy and Payton really perked up with some homemade, warm apple juice. 

Both kids are worn out but definitely seem on the mend. We will continue with a quiet week this week and will hopefully get plenty of rest.

We hope you enjoyed your weekend!

The Saturday Sit-Down

This last weekend was really crazy busy (more info here) but I wanted to share that I was interviewed by Erica Despain on her cute blog, Whimsical September! I love her blog and how honest she is with what is going on in her life. She continually inspires me to be a better mother to my own children. You can read my interview here and maybe learn something about me that hasn't been shared personally on my own blog. 

Have a great Thursday!

A Milestone Birthday, a Wedding, and A New Baby in Our Family

Holy cow, our weekend and start of our week was extremely busy. Like, super crazy. It was a milestone birthday for me (the big 3-0), the kids and I were in a wedding for our close friends, and my sister had her baby on my birthday! My sister chose to have her baby at a local hospital for us (which is several hours away from her house) so we kept her other daughter and my mother at our house during this time. The baby wasn't due quite yet so it was quite a nice surprise that she chose to come on the same day as my birthday. I'm so excited to spend the rest of my life celebrating the same birthday date as my niece.

With all these life events, I had tons of pictures and videos from the weekend. I felt the best way to get them up on here would be through a YouTube video. So, today the kids and I put one together:



My husband gave me a surprise birthday party and I had absolutely no idea. None whatsoever. I think that's the beauty in being pregnant as I tend to be a bit oblivious to everything going on. He wanted to keep it really small but was sure to bring in 3 of my friends from high school. It was so great to see them as I still talk to them all the time but rarely actually get to see them. I'm sure it goes without saying but this was just another opportunity where I was reminded of just how my husband means to me and how good he is to me. After being surprised with the party, I was able to think back and realize how stressed he must have been with all of the extra work of planning, cleaning, and preparing on his plate. So, thank you hubby for making life so good for me!

Most people who know me well would probably guess that turning 30 would be quite hard for me. In the past, I have struggled with most birthdays and the whole concept of getting older. It even surprises me to admit this but I really didn't struggle with turning 30. In fact, I have pretty much embraced it. Sure it's bittersweet but I'm also excited to see where life will take me in the next decade.

My 20s were full of learning, personal growth, and challenging experiences. I had many beautiful milestones such as graduating college, becoming fully licensed as a counselor, getting married, buying our first home, starting a rental business, having 2 children, and learning about parenthood. There were also so many hard moments including moving, infertility, death, financial struggles, exhaustion, jobs I absolutely did not like, sickness, and marital issues. There were many ups and downs but I have learned a lot about who I am and what I want from life through these periods of time. I still have so much to learn and am excited for my journey to unfold.

My family all returned home this morning so we plan to take the next few days and recover! Our household is definitely in need of some down time!

Hope you are enjoying your week.