This year was SO fun. As a general rule, I am not a huge fan of Halloween. Especially since having kids and them getting freaked out even going to the grocery store because of all the scary decorations everywhere. But this year, we finally have it down and we pretty much avoided all the parts of Halloween that I hate. 😉

Nathan got the Wild Kratts (his favorite show!) costumes for his birthday, so they have been planning their Halloween costumes since July. Ha! Nathan was Martin, Parker was Chris and we could not figure out anything for Eisley until the day before Halloween when Aunt Nicole found her the CUTEST ladybug costume for $2 at the thrift store. So thankful! We were so happy!

Two very excited boys to FINALLY be the Wild Kratts!

Oh this picture is just one of my absolute favorites! My heart – I love these three so much! We went to the same Fall Festival we’ve gone to for years – it just gets more fun (and chaotic keeping track of everyone in the crowds!) every year.

Gabriel came with us again!! The boys were SO excited to see him and Parker about died that he was Mickey Mouse. He just kept saying it over and over again. 😉

Some love from the ladybug. 😉 She was very content to just be held and carried around and watch the insanity. We ran into several friends there too! Such a fun night! Afterward, we went and trick or treated at Gammy and Pops’ house and then took three very, very tired but sugared-up children home. And we missed all the scary trick-or-treaters coming to our door! It was such a good night. 🙂

Nathan’s school put on a 5K and Fall Festival the day after the pumpkin patch! He was up and dressed before I even opened my eyes that morning. 😉 Ha! There was a Mile Run option and since we figured a 5K was a little far for Nathan, Jon and Nathan ran the Mile Run instead. He was so excited.

Parker and I felt like it was a good decision to stay back and eat apple fritters while they ran. 😉

Showing off their Finisher Medals! Nathan was SO PROUD of his necklace, it was adorable. They did really well!

After the race, Bryant, Nicole and Gabriel came and met us at the festival! We had the best time going to all the different booths! There was delicious food and games and a dunk tank. Nathan hit the bullseye his first throw and dunked the high school basketball coach in the water and he was so happy. Ha!

Little love getting a football face paint. He sat so still and was so cute.

Nathan told me he was going to sleep flat on his back this night so his face paint would stain his face and he would be a Ninja Turtle forever. Lucky for all of us, it barely made it into the car to go home. 😉

Afterward, we all went home and took naps and then Bryant, Nicole and Gabriel came over for pizza and pumpkin carving. Such a fun day with our family!

None of the boys were grossed out by the ick factor. 😉

Cutie heads. 😉 They cleaned out their pumpkins while Jon and Bryant worked on Eisley and Gabriel’s.

This year, Jon decided Nathan was old enough to use the pumpkin carving kit and cut out his design by himself (cue me panicking). He did so well! He was so careful and other than having a little trouble with one part, he did almost the whole thing by himself. He was SO proud. After I stopped hyperventilating, it was really cute. 😉 I worked on Eisley’s pumpkin while Jon helped Parker and honestly, I stopped worrying as much after I did that because there was no way he could get hurt with those $1 tools. 😉

Four little pumpkin heads!! Oh my goodness, this picture!! <3

Such a fun night!!

We finally had a free day to go to the Pumpkin Patch! We snuck in during the last three days they were open and went after Jon got off of work one day – and there was no one else there! It was the best time. We ended up spending almost two hours playing there.

Love seeing how the kids have grown year to year. And this was Eisley’s first time at the patch!

We all love Pumpkin Patch day!!

My biggest boy! We first brought him here when he was three months old and we have done this same pumpkin patch every year since. It’s one of the things we look forward to all year!

Last year, Parker was just a baby at the patch, so he had the BEST time. He has not stopped asking to go back to the “Corn Festival”. 😉 Ha!

Precious girl. It was a miracle getting her to stop picking at the pumpkin at smile at the antics of her mother. 😉

My babies!! Oh how I love these little faces!!

This was the boys’ favorite part – the corn pit. I find this completely disgusting, just for the record. I couldn’t really watch them, it grossed me out so much. Corn pits are not for people who are in any sort of way germaphobic. But we found corn in places that corn should never be when we got home to get them in and out of the shower. Gag.

We petted horses and goats, we did a giant slide over and over again. We did duck races and basketball and slingshot balls toward giant haystacks. We had SO much fun! And I barely took any pictures of the activities because I was too busy making sure we had three children with us the whole time. 😉

While the boys played in the disgusting pit. 😉 Love this man. Love this baby.

And we HAD to make sure we got our yearly pictures!!

Ha! Baby girl was just sort of propped up there. 😉 Such a wonderful day at the pumpkin patch!!

We are in crunch time for preparing for my friend Shannon’s baby shower that we are hosting, so every evening and weekend is all about painting trim, hanging light fixtures, painting trim, arranging furniture and painting trim. Did I mention painting trim? There is SO much trim in this house!!

I’m titling this one “Why Women Live Longer Than Men”. Our old dining room light was awful and our kitchen nook light was missing in action (seriously. There were just a bunch of wires hanging out of the ceiling. Nice and inviting) and while they were out here, Nonnie and Papa O gave us the gift of new lighting for a housewarming gift. So kind! We are so thankful!

Love this of my big boy reading to the little ones. He has exploded in his reading!! He’s doing so so well!

Dude has some serious style going on. 😉

We picked up Nathan from school this afternoon and it was gorgeous outside! I had heard that we were supposed to start getting much colder weather very soon, so we decided to head straight for the park to soak up the last of the warmth. Three small people were not too upset by this idea. 😉

He’s so big. So, so big. It kills me.

This kid can’t wait to be as big as his brother. 😉

We took some food to our dear friends the Hardens after their little son was born and Eisley could NOT get enough of him! She kept crawling straight to him and pulling up on the couch and just cooing and waving at him. Ha! Such a sweet little mama. She LOVES babies.

And Minnie Mouse. 😉

Okay, what is it with my youngest two and beavering up their crib? Nathan never once teethed on the crib rail, but Parker and Eisley have destroyed it! No idea. It is so weird.

But eh. She’s cute. I guess we will still keep her. 😉

 

This week was Giant Night at Awana and the kids were supposed to wear their parents’ clothes like they were a shrunken down giant.

Most kids probably don’t have a dad who is 6’2″, so Nathan looked extra awesome.

Ha! We were dying.

This picture is super dark and I still need to get the trim finished in there, but remember that weird closet thing off our family room? We originally thought we would make it a playroom, but it just didn’t work and we decided to make the big front living room a play area. So, we had this weird tiny room that would just gather junk and one day I was sitting there staring at it and a light bulb just came on.

A school room!

Nathan’s school has us do home days twice a week, so we definitely needed a place to have the kids be able to spread out and do their work. And as much as I loved doing it at the kitchen table, it was a big pain if Nathan was in the middle of something and it was also lunchtime.

I found these desks right at the end of the summer from a school nearby for two dollars each, so I figured we could probably swing it. 😉 A little paint on the chairs and sides, a little bit of a chalkboard finish on the top, our old chalkboard from our kitchen and my mom’s old whiteboard she was giving away and we had ourselves a school room!

It is perfect! When we are doing school, we pull the desks out and I can use the boards and when we are done, we just push the desks back up to the wall. The closet in there is absolutely perfect for all our school supplies and I moved the cubby bookshelf in there to hold the Bob Books and curriculum. So the space I really hated has become one of the spaces I love the most! 😉 I’ll do it justice and take some decent pictures when everything is done! We are still (obviously) painting some trim but the remodel is coming along!

Caleb was in one of his best friend’s weddings this week and it just happened to time out perfectly for him to be here for Gammy’s birthday! It was such a fun visit and I’m so glad he could come! Happy birthday, Mom! We are all counting down the days until the whole family is together again at Christmas. 🙂

Sometimes I don’t realize how much my kids look like each other until I look back at pictures. On this particular day, Facebook brought up a memory of me and Nathan right as our dear friend Sarah posted the pictures she’d taken of us on Facebook as well. And I just had to laugh – sometimes Eisley looks exactly like Parker to me, but she looks JUST like Nathan right here. There is no denying that they are siblings!!

Not only is she already ten months old, but with her birthday falling three days before Christmas, I’ve already started planning her party for about two weeks before she actually turns one just so we can have a party for her without it turning into a Christmas party. I usually end up curled into the fetal position clutching her newborn pictures every time I work on the party stuff.

How did it go so fast?? It goes faster and faster with each child!

Oh my sweet girl! She is such a joy. And she is EVERYWHERE.

Eisley girl is crawling everywhere, pulling up on anything that stands still for longer than .04 seconds (this includes her brothers and Kody) and eating anything that she can find (needless to say, I am constantly swiping choking hazards out of those cheeks).

She says “Dad” all day long. Yells it, actually. “DAAAAD! DAAAD!” Ha! She says “Nennon” occasionally, will blow kisses for “night-night” and saves “Mama” for 2AM. She baby talks and babbles all day long!

She wants to be held all day long and does not appreciate when she is set down if I need to do something like chop dinner. 😉 She needs to be right in the middle of the action and hates to feel like she is missing out. She loves shoes. She loves her brothers. She will hear Jon knock when he gets home and start crawling as fast as she can down the hall so she can be the first to give him a hug.

Oh how we love our sweet girl! I just could not love her more.

Days are just FLYING. I don’t know what happened to normal time! We had Nathan and things moved faster, we had Parker and things sped up even more and now, I’m trying my hardest not to blink because the second I do, I know Eisley will be in Kindergarten. 🙁

Precious sugar. I nurse her to sleep at night and I often will just rock her for several minutes (or you know, half an hour 😉 ) after she’s fallen asleep just because I know she won’t be tiny forever. It’s the wisdom of being not a first time parent, I think. The saying is true: the days are so long but the years are so, so, so short. Snuggle your babies!

Nathan NEVER naps, so when he curled up on the couch in the blanket and fell asleep on this afternoon, I immediately went into attack mode and started canceling our plans for the week because I was sure he had scurvy or something. 😉 But he woke up feeling fine. Our fall has just been a little crazy for all of us, it would seem.

Pretty little miss in her fall clothes. We are so thankful to have dear friends passing their girls’ clothes down to us!!

Oh this night was so sad! Kaitlin, Eitan and Asaf had to leave the next morning. We absolutely LOVED our time with them. Praying that they get to come back soon! Parker is still asking to see his little buddy Asaf. So thankful for dear friends and the fact that we get to raise our kids together!

And it was finally time for…

The LAST nights in all of their current beds! Nathan’s last night on the bottom bunk, Parker’s last night in the crib and Eisley’s last night in the pack and play. I may or may not have been extra emotional that night. I can’t BELIEVE how quickly they are all growing up! I feel like I just tucked Nathan into the bottom bunk for his first night in his big boy bed.

The next night, they were all asking to go to bed early. Ha!

One biggest boy.

One big boy.

And one tiny girl who wasn’t really down for pictures in her new bed. Ha!

They all slept so good! We were so worried about Parker and his new freedom, but he did really well. Really hoping that having his best buddy in there will help out when it comes to wandering the house after bedtime. 😉

And Eisley was a fan of all of the new room in bed. 😉

#ootd 😉

 

We did our family pictures this weekend! This is why I love our sweet friend Sarah – she told the boys that as soon as we were done, she would race them to the big trees so they smiled extra big so they could go play. Ha!

It was dinner time when we finished, so we dug out the gift card we’d been saving and treated the kids to California Pizza Kitchen. 🙂 Such a fun night! We sat on the patio and people watched and talked and the boys were so well behaved and so sweet.

A big perk of the patio is that a certain two people can speak in their interpreted form of “inside voices” and no one really cares. 😉

Little Miss slept through most of our restaurant experience and then woke up just in time to help the kids eat a few of their noodles. 😉 Such a fun day!

Little sunshine. 🙂 This month is always crazy and adding school and three kids into the mix doesn’t help, but we are loving the cooler weather and all the fun activities!

 

We met Kaitlin and Asaf at the aquarium this week and it was so gorgeous in the little pavilion outside and they had everything decorated beautifully, so obviously, we had to get a few pictures!

My little baby doll. I just adore her.

Sweet little love!

Middle man had to be bribed to sit for a picture. 😉

And the big. Even as a tiny, tiny baby he was great at smiling at the camera. It hasn’t changed. 😉 Ha!

No words for how much I love these three little pumpkin heads. They are crazy, silly, creative, feisty and never cease to make things fun.

And with our sweet Asaf!! Note that it is impossible to get a picture of four children all looking at the camera but I figured three out of four wasn’t bad. 😉

It’s Balloon Fiesta season!! I love, love, LOVE fall and all the fun there is to do here!

Nonnie surprised the boys and flew into town to visit! 🙂 Papa O was driving, so he got here that afternoon. I told the kids we’d accidentally left a suitcase at the airport after our visit to see Nama, so we had to go get it and the entire way there, Nathan kept saying, “But I counted and we had them all!” Ha! He was SO shocked to see Nonnie!

We went to the Balloon Fiesta that night for the Balloon Glow!

This was little miss Eisley’s first Balloon Fiesta and she LOVED it. Girl after her mama’s heart. 😉

All of us!! It was beautiful weather which means it was completely PACKED. The crowds never used to bother me but with three small kids, they start to get to me after a bit.

I think by this point, the excitement over Nonnie and Papa O being here and the crowd and everything else had made the boys both reach levels of exhaustion that they rarely reach, so even Nathan was getting freaked out by the loud propane tanks with the balloons. Parker pretty much started out upset by them. 😉 Eisley though LOVED it. She loved the warmth, she loved the balloons, she loved the sights. She was just a happy girl.

We decided to just skip the fireworks and head home so we could get the kids in bed at a decent time since morale was quickly plummeting. 😉 It ended up being a really good decision, even though I was sad to skip the fireworks!

The next morning, Jon and I got up early, saw the balloons were taking off, so we got the kids up and dressed and we took Nonnie and Papa O to do our favorite Balloon Fiesta activity – our Helping Balloon Fiesta Day, like the kids call it. 😉 We found the BEST park this year! They got to help put three balloons away and we had the most beautiful view!

Nathan got thrown on top of the Yoda balloon to help pack it down into the bag. Ha! He thought it was hilarious.

Looking at balloons with Dad. Love this picture!

The pilots and crews are always SO kind but this particular pilot went way above and beyond! He gave them cards, he answered all of Nathan’s 283 questions about how the balloons work and he even dug out little foam airplane guys for the boys to have. They were so excited. He was so sweet.

Afterward, we were all starving so Nonnie and Papa O treated us all to breakfast at Cracker Barrel. So sweet! We had the best time and Little Miss got to try pumpkin pancakes for the first time. She was quite the fan. 😉

We love Nonnie and Papa O so much!! So thankful they got to come stay with us! They always spoil us rotten and we all cried the whole way home from the the airport. 🙁 Can’t wait to see them at Christmas time!

Goodness. We have been BUSY.

This little miss is just getting more and more animated and it’s so fun to watching her personality start to come out! She was being so cute and funny playing with Pops at family dinner the other day. She was just trying to get him to laugh. 😉

And she’s officially outgrown the baby tub and is in the big girl bath! She was SO proud of herself! She loved playing around in there!

My dear, dear friend Kaitlin lives in Israel with her husband and precious son, Asaf, and they came to visit for a few weeks! They stayed with us for some of the time and we LOVED it. Parker and Asaf are like the best and worst of buddies. Ha!

Asaf is right smack in the middle of the two boys and it was so fun to watch the different dynamics over the week. We were so excited that they got to stay with us! One of the things we love best about our new house is that we have a little bit more room to host friends and family – we are so thankful for that!

Just a bunch of jammied blessings right there. Love those kids.

And this little squirt started pulling up in her bed! Bless her heart, she still doesn’t have her own room or her own real bed. 😉 I have to laugh when I think about the differences between the kids – with Nathan, we had his entire room – bedding, crib and all – done by the time I was about 24 weeks pregnant. With Parker, I was about 35 weeks pregnant before it was done. With Eisley, she’ll be about nine months old. Ha! Poor neglected third kid. We have Nonnie and Papa O coming soon, so they’ll stay in what will be her room. And then we need to get Parker transitioned to a big boy bed. And THEN she will have her own room and her own crib. 😉 Soon!