Fall 2014

Sidewalk chalk drawing with Arrow Art.

Enjoying fall life around the house.

Oh how I love fall, cooler weather, beautiful colors and many fun things to do and see!

As if fall isn't busy enough we opened our home to two sweet brothers, Emma and Connor's age one day a week so their mom can get some work done in their family bakery. The kids all play so well together and Emma doesn't seem to mind being the only girl at all.  She holds her own just fine! :-)

Our Emma girl turned FOUR in September! I find I often don't realize just how "grown up" she is becoming.

It's rare to get Emma willing to take pictures and even rarer to get her to smile for the pictures. I love her dimples smile and wish she would let me capture it more. I was very happy with her 4 year old photo shoot!

The serious side of Emma!

She wanted me to take a picture of how long her hair is getting!

These two and their big beautiful blue eyes - keeps them out of trouble and they know it! 

This year she had specific requests for her birthday party with friends.  Of course it had to be "Frozen!" She wanted a Anna doll cake with lots of Olaf games.  My mom always put together such fun homemade birthday parties for us when we were growing up.  I have loved continuing that tradition.  The girls of course always want to help and so we color pictures and make other decor the couple weeks leading up to the party.  Emma really wanted "games" and "crafts" this year.  We enjoyed coloring Frozen pictures with our friends. The boys got to wear Sven antlers and the girls wore Elsa crowns. We painted puffy snowy snowman with lots of glitter of course! :-) We also made glittery snowball play dough and enjoyed making snowmen.  The favorite activity by far was building castles with all the ice blocks we had frozen.  The kids put on gloves and built towers until the ice all melted.  Of course we had a "Pin the nose on Olaf'" and then enjoyed time on the playground.  Emma still isn't in to smiling on demand for pictures so these are about the best we could get. Along with Anna cake we had various snack food the kids could use to "build a snowman." It was fun and Emma seemed to really enjoy her Frozen party with her friends!

In the beginning of October we went camping with some very dear friends! It was so fun to get away from the business of life and catch up with them.  The kids loved exploring the woods near by and despite being a little wet we all had a good time together!

October, we also started keeping a two year old girl for friends while her grandmother was away caring for her mother in law.  I definitely got a taste of having twins for 10 weeks. At times it was a lot of fun but also very challenging as you can imagine!

We participated in the Hope for Augusta and Christ Community Trunk or Treat again so in keeping up with the Frozen theme we decorated our van as an ice palace and were all dressed as various Frozen characters.  It was a lot of fun and I particularly enjoyed seeing kids of all ages get so excited when they realized what our trunk was themed. It was harder this year to keep up with passing out candy and three kids.  Connor in particular wanted to stay on the go which meant one of us was always chasing him! It was definitely a night of "zone parenting!" I think next year we will see if another family will co-sponsor a trunk with us... any takers? It is a lot of fun!

Thanksgiving we went to Carrollton and enjoyed time with my parents, sister Katie and some extended family.  We also were able to visit Stephen's Grandpa in Columbus, GA. So thankful for the family we were able to see and spend time with!