I absolutely LOVE this time of year. The air gets crispy, the leaves change colors, the crock-pot stays plugged in and it’s very acceptable to drink coffee all day if I want to. 😉

Goodness, I love this girl. In so many ways, having a daughter has been everything I hoped it would be like and in so many ways, some so intangible I can’t even describe it, it’s far exceeded my hopes and dreams. I always hoped she would love playing with dolls and it’s SO cute to me to watch her love on them the way I love on her. She saw a video of a woman wearing a Solly Wrap the other day and wanted to carry her baby the same way – just like I carried her.

Warm afternoons call for a game of backyard football (with uniforms and a cheerleader) and then during halftime, you have to swing on the tire swing.

They built a fort while I tried to furiously drink as much coffee as I could one morning. 😉 Ha! I love Parker’s face here!

Baby girl’s first ponytail was about the cutest thing ever for the few minutes her incredibly fine hair stayed in the elastic! 😉

So, basically, we are buds. I just love my Sammy. His cheeks are possibly the cutest, chubbiest things on the planet right behind my Parker Bear’s. And he’s just got the sweetest little personality!

How does she even sleep like this? Do you see her foot sticking out the other side too? I’m scared for the day when she’ll be on a mattress with no sides to keep her on it!

Annnnnnd failed at the daily goal of keeping Eisley out of the markers. But, she can do a pretty great fish face. See what I mean? MESS.

You know what? The whole lot is just one giant mess. 😉 Ha!

It was early one morning before anyone else was up, but I think it really did feel a little chilly for a couple of minutes there. 😉

If it’s going to be warm, we’re going to soak it up at the park! We took all the kids the other day to the park with the duck pond. Parker kept wiggling a stick around to try and lure one home to be his new pet. I said that might not be the best idea. 😉

Kid loves himself a giant slide. 😉

We put her in the car right after nap, so I spent most of the time at the park trying to corral her long enough to try and fix her pigtails. 😉 Ha! Nathan was basically a blur the whole time we were there. He brought a metal detector that he got for his birthday from Nonnie and Papa O so I don’t think I talked to him the entire time we were there. At one point I looked over and there was just this giant crowd of kids following him around. He was in heaven. 😉

I came downstairs one morning after my shower and found this pile of boy on the couch.

Someone else felt the chill too! Ha! It’s finally starting to feel like fall!!

So, it’s technically fall, but goodness, it still feels like summer. We’ve had some record heat this year so we are all crossing our fingers and hoping it cools off quick so we can have a white Christmas. 😉 Which NEVER happens, so I don’t think we are expecting it to this year. But still. It would be nice!

Nathan entered the Lego competition in the State Fair this year! He’s been talking about it since we saw the Legos there last year and we finally did it. He was so excited that he won second place in his age bracket!

It started raining really quickly after we left the Legos, so we didn’t stay for very long, but we had to go by the baby animals like we always do. The kids all got to pet this tiny little chick and it was SO cute. Bless it’s heart.

This one. Y’all, she is a MESS. She got oatmeal all over her shirt, got into the markers while I was doing school with Nathan, kept picking fights with Parker….I finally got her to sit for three minutes and stick Minnie Mouse magnets all over the fridge but it did not last long. She’s definitely falling head long into THAT STAGE.

Parker got his Cubbie vest and he was SO proud! He came barreling over as soon as we got there to pick him up and jumped straight into my arms with this gigantic smile. So so cute!! He loves Cubbies with all of his heart!

Every night, I go in and check on all the kids before I go to bed and I often stop and pray for them. Tonight, she just looked so big. She was just my little tiny baby and now she’s such a big girl. Where does the time go?

 

We are so excited to welcome another precious baby into our family! Samuel Jude is just the snuggliest, chubbiest little dumpling and we just adore him.

He’s just a little baby doll!! He has a cleft lip and palate just like his big brother did.

Basically, family dinner nights have become a game of who can get in the house fast enough to get to Sammy first. Ha! WE love our newest little man!!

 

Way, way, way back in the day, Jon played football for the Lobos (which is actually how he ended up here!). We started dating the winter of his junior year, dated all through the start of the season and then got engaged right before the last game of the year. So, Lobo football will always have a special place in our hearts.

This year, they did a special dinner for the alumni the night before the opening game and we got to have a little football date. So much fun! It was so fun to see a lot of the old team and find out what everyone has been up to. A lot of them we haven’t seen since the college days. We poked around the complex and the field and I reminisced with the other now-wives about standing around the porch of the complex, waiting for our then-boyfriends to get done in the locker rooms so we could finally go eat something other than nachos for dinner. 😉 Such fun memories!

Right before the game, they honored the players of the 2008 season since they won a bowl game that year. Nathan and Parker got to go on the field with Jon and it was SO cute.

Love this. Our friend Eric took this when I was still trying to get into the stadium (LONG story – thank you to a particular lady who let me cut in line so I could at least make it in time to see them on the big screen!). The boys felt so big getting to do the special thing with Dad.

Love these two.

Afterward, we found our seats in the quickly packing-out stadium. Little Miss looked especially Lobo cute that night!

The whole crew! Bryant and Nicole weren’t there but we all spent most of the night thinking about them, because they were in the hospital with Gabriel’s new little brother and my new nephew!!

Such a daddy’s girl.

I started laughing so hard at this. Parker is typically a pretty reserved kid (never at home, always in public). The Lobos were down and all of a sudden, he just pops up on his seat and starts flashing the Lobo sign, trying to get the crowd to cheer them on. Ha! It didn’t work, but it was a good effort. 😉

Such a wonderfully fun night!!

I don’t even know where the days are going. On the one hand, homeschooling has been AMAZING because I feel like we have so much more time to get things done, but on the other hand, I blink and it’s time to get dinner going.

Little Miss loves herself some Snapchat filters. Ha! And I need to figure out how to do that eye shadow in real life. On myself, not her. 😉

They were supposed to be cleaning up… Riiiiight…

Sometimes, I find it’s just better not to ask.

We painted Eisley girl’s toes for the first time and she was SO excited. She would just randomly plop down and stare at her toes, ooing and aahing the rest of the day. SO cute.

All right, people. We get approximately 56 pieces of junk mail every single day. Most of the time, I just chuck it straight in the trash. On this day, Nathan asked me if he could open a couple of the envelopes, so I handed him some of the junk mail and he totally found two dollars inside one of them. WHAT? He was ecstatic!!

One of the things that we’ve had a hard time with is finding books for Nathan that really hold his interest and make him want to read more. We finally found a series that he loves the “Hey Jack” books by Usborne Books. There is seriously no greater joy for me than to see my son reading and loving it!! So thankful!

Well, after the panic and second-guessing and breathing-into-paper-sacks that was our first week of school, I’m excited to report that things are going much smoother. I’ve at least been able to put away the paper sacks. 😉 I’m even getting excited about the rest of the year!

Our sprinkler system hasn’t worked since we first moved in, so anything green outside is either because of the rain or the hose. 😉 Jon fiddled around with a bunch of stuff and got the sprinklers on briefly and the boys went NUTS. Screaming, running, laughing…it was really cute. Eisley was screaming too – but not out of joy. She immediately ran to the patio and that was it.

Little Miss looked extra adorable on our way to church the other day. THOSE BOOTS. THOSE CHEEKS. #amiright

Nathan is learning about Venus right now in science and we got to do a little experiment about volcanoes and how volcanic rock hardens. The boys were SO into it. It was really fun! I’m learning a ton as I teach it, so it’s been really interesting for me as well!

Someone has been waiting for this day since Awana ended last spring and it FINALLY came! Parker is officially a Cubbie! He was SO excited. It was so cute. He gave me an extra big hug as he left and then did not stop talking the entire drive home about all the fun things they did.

And just because I apparently like to make myself cry:

Both of my boys on their first day at Cubbies. Nathan was 3 here too – look at how big Parker is and look at how tiny Nathan is!

Excuse me while I go weep in the corner.

Jon had to work that night so it was me and the Little Miss at Trader Joes. Where she spent most of the time singing, “No, no, no” in the cart and then hamming it up for the cashier so she ended up with 12,000 stickers to then adhere all over herself and the car. The cashier asked her name and she just smiled at him, so when we got outside, I asked her name and she gave me this duh look and said, “Moana.” I said, “No, it’s Eisley,” and she cheerfully said, “No! Moana.” Pray for me.

Bless her heart, she just has no personality. 😉 This is what I get within seconds of asking her to say cheese. 😉

We looked outside after dinner and a rainstorm the other night and there was a full double rainbow! The kids (and Jon) all went a little (lot) bit crazy about it. Ha!

Sitting on biggest brother’s step stool, wearing middle brother’s jammies and drinking her mother’s coffee. Isn’t the sign of the youngest that they think everything is theirs? 😉

Jon had to work all weekend and a lot of nights the whole week before, so when he got home late Sunday afternoon, I decided that we needed  to end the weekend with something fun and so we ate a quick dinner and then took the kids to get frozen yogurt. They had the best time.

Three busy little beavers. These are the best kind of school mornings!

He was so proud of how well he traced his numbers!

Sometimes Eisley morphs into this tiny, old woman and just wants to walk around the house with her blanket wrapped around her the whole day and it just makes me laugh. I need to get her some curlers and slippers to go with it. 😉