Nonnie and Papa O came to visit just in time for the Fall Carnival at Jon’s school – the boys LOVED having them there!!

My little nutcracker and tiger. Parker could barely see but he absolutely loves his tiger jacket, so there was no way he was taking it off. 😉

 They walked like this to see more of the games and it about killed me.

Nonnie and Papa O treated the boys to an afternoon at one of the bounce houses in town – they had a total blast. Parker couldn’t make it up to the slides by himself, so Jon had to carry him up there. Ha!

Stopped bouncing for half-a-second to smile for his mom.

This little blur was not willing to do the same. 😉

My boys. I am so blessed – love these two more than I can ever put into words!! I can’t wait to see them being big brothers to their little sister!

We love fall!! It’s part of the reason I’ve been soooo bad at posting here – we are soaking up the cooler days and trying to fit a lot of things in!

My beautiful grandmother came to visit for almost a week and we loved every moment of her being here! My boys ADORE her – we had the best time playing and visiting and catching up. 🙂 We love her so much!

Nama wrote a book about her life a little while back and we pulled it out while she was here and were a little shocked at how similar she looked to Parker!! Here’s a picture of Parker and Nama about the same ages – isn’t that crazy??

This little guy and his cars. He plays with his Little People set almost every day – he LOVES cars! So fun to watch his imagination developing!! And I love that he’s started putting the people in the cars by himself. 😉

Parker Bear loves to give hugs, steal shoes and wear his jammies. 😉 And Kody is a good sport.

Backwards night at Sparkies! Nathan thought it was so much fun – though we had to draw the line at wearing his jeans backwards just for functionality. 😉 On the way there he told me that Jesus was so powerful that after He died on the cross, He rose from the dead and all His blood had disappeared into “THICK AIR”. Ha!

How I spent 90% of my time in October – writing, writing, writing. This particular day I went to a little cafe in town to work. Peach iced tea and ice cream – it was a good combination to get the words coming. 😉

Katie in Waiting releases November 20th!! Can’t wait for you all to meet her! 🙂

We have been going to the Galloping Grace Pumpkin Patch since Nathan was three months old, so it wasn’t even a question about whether we would go this year. Just when. 😉

My family this year!! My boys look SO big to me in this picture!

And just for fun, here’s some past pumpkin patch pictures:

Oh!! I just can’t believe how FAST time is flying past!!

It’s crazy how hard it is to get a picture of two kids looking at the camera, by the way. 😉 God willing, next year is going to be ridiculous. 😉 We went with Gammy, Pops and Cayce this year and had so much fun!

They loved the petting zoo and all the fun games!! It was crazy windy while we were there, so we didn’t last too long, which was really sad. They moved the patch’s location a couple of years ago, so it’s a huge trek to get there now.

This picture makes me laugh just because they both were SO tired by this point. Ha! Too many games and too much pumpkin fun!

We’ve done this little ruler almost every year – he’s getting too big!

Parker went between incredibly excited to see the “baby hee-yas”, or miniature horses, and incredibly freaked out to touch them. He finally got brave enough to pet them and loved it. 🙂

All tired out and ready to take our new pumpkins home. 🙂

I cannot believe how quickly the days are flying past right now!!

These two. They are the best of buddies and I just don’t even have the words to express how thankful I am for that! They are completely inseparable. And for the most part, they play together really well! I pray every single night that they stay close the rest of their lives. Slow mornings playing in our jammies are some of my favorite days right now. 🙂

This little love has been doing a LOT of teething again lately – we are finally almost DONE! Poor baby – his bottom gums were bleeding again. He’s such a sad, grouchy little man when he’s got teeth coming in. Not that I can blame him! His top teeth have always broken a lot easier than his bottom ones.

Baby girl and I spent most of the last few weeks like this – working, working, working!! So excited for Katie in Waiting to release here SOON!!

We were driving through town one morning looking for balloons and we were stopped at a red light by this factory. Nathan looked out the window and said, “Mom, that’s a nursery for hurt clouds. See? They fall down into that big tank and then they get taken care of and put back together and when they feel better, they send them back up that little pipe and back into the sky.” Ha! His imagination just makes me laugh.

We had an ultrasound on the 15th and checked up on Baby Sister. She still looks great and her growth looks good – so thankful! We would very much covet your prayers for her safety over the next few weeks especially!

We stopped by Auntie Cayce’s new store after chasing balloons one morning. There isn’t much better in life on a cold morning than Starbucks in your jammy pants and snow hats. 😉

Love these crazy, busy, completely packed full days!!

I am backdating some posts because I have been terribly behind on
here thanks to a deadline and company coming and a few other things that
have been going on! But I didn’t want to miss writing about our super
fun fall!

This year was Parker’s second Balloon
Fiesta (and Nathan’s SIXTH – what is happening??!). It was SO much fun!
They loved it! And we had absolutely perfect weather for it, which never
happens.

 We usually try to go sometime the first
weekend, but this year we waited and went the second weekend. We did go
chase balloons that first weekend though!

 Me and my balloon chasing crew. I love these mornings! They are some of my very favorite fall traditions.

Jon’s
aunt and uncle came into town for the Fiesta and we chased down their
balloon one morning. Nathan got to stand in the basket! He was so
excited!

We were nuts this year. We went to a special
shape Balloon Glow on Friday night and then were totally crazy and got
up the next morning at 4AM (after not even leaving the park until after
9PM the night before!) and went to the Mass Ascension. Not sure we will
do that again, but we made it work with the help of lots of Krispy Kreme
donuts. 😉

Friday night, we went with Bryant, Nicole and sweet little Gabriel. So much fun! We love their sweet little family!

Nathan’s all-time favorite balloon – Spider-Pig!! We always have to find him and pose just like this. 😉

And my favorite balloons – the Bee family! Love these balloons! I make my family take a picture in front of them every year. 😉

This kid. He makes me laugh, he makes me crazy, he is just the funniest little stinker I know.

Parker was still in awe of the balloons at this point because they hadn’t really been too loud yet. 😉

Us and our crazy boys!!

Love
this – this doggy balloon was Parker’s favorite! He talked nonstop the
whole next week about the doggy with the blue hat who didn’t say “woof”.
😉

 Sweet boys. 🙂

Parker
loved everything before the actual glow started but he did NOT
appreciate the sound of the propane tanks. He spent most of the glow
like this. Sweet boy. Jon and I were soaking in the snuggles though. 😉

We
watched the fireworks, got the kids changed into their jammies in the
car and both boys were out by the time we got through traffic and got
home. Jon and I got stuff ready for the next morning and then we were
both up at 4AM to leave by 4:30 and get to the park before the traffic
got terrible again.

 Donut
picnic before the sun comes up – I’m pretty sure the boys thought we’d
never left the park since they went to sleep in the car and woke up the
next morning back in the car. 😉

Dawn
patrol! These balloons inflate and rise first to make sure the winds
are good up higher. Love that they send up the flag and play the Star
Spangled Banner. 🙂

Next to a balloon!

And we found Spider-Pig again! Told you about the pose. 😉

We met this cute girl there – we love Aunt Cayce!! So excited that she came with us!

Love this girl so much!

I’m pretty fond of this guy too. 😉

I love this picture.

Parker is a big fan of Auntie Kiki. 😉

This baby is huge now – I can’t believe how big he’s gotten even in the past few months!

We
had such a wonderful time at the Fiesta this year!! The weather was
absolutely perfect and we loved going with our family. 🙂 Love that my
kids are growing up with this tradition just like I did. 🙂

I have no idea how this happened, but somehow, we are 25 weeks along with this sweet little love.

All in all, things are going great! According to the books, she is about one and a half pounds now. We’ve also passed the “age of viability” of 24 weeks – so thankful! She is not super active during the day but as soon as I get the boys in bed and sit down, she starts wiggling around in there. 😉 I’ve also wondered if she is active when they are up and I just am so distracted with the boys that I don’t notice. I don’t sit too often when they are up but that is about to change – I’ve been getting so tired lately! I also still carry my twenty-five pound Parker often (and he now has to sit on top of the bump) and that’s going to have to not happen as frequently either – I am just achy at the end of the day.

Since we have the same cord issue that we had with Parker, I am going to be doing more frequent ultrasounds again and so our next one is in two weeks. So excited to see that sweet face again!

I still haven’t been sick (SO thankful!) but I’ve been having heartburn the last two weeks and my poor ligaments are just done. Third child is painful! I am too old for this now. 😉 I have been loving all things sweet and baked lately and really loving milkshakes again. Just another reason that I’m gaining more weight again. 🙂

I’ve been pinning all kinds of baby girl things on Pinterest and I started working on her baby blanket this week during the evenings. 

So thankful for this precious girl! There are still mornings where I wake up in shock over this sweet baby. I’m so blessed with my boys and now this little one. So grateful! Jesus is good.