Falling For Fall

Oh my goodness! We are having loud thunderstorms right now, I lit my marshmallow pumpkin candle and my house is quiet.... ahhhh- this is the cozy Fall day that I’ve been waiting for! A perfect day to blog.

However, I think my blogging days will come to an end soon. Not because I don’t love blogging (which I kinda don’t) but because I simply feel too busy to do it now! My kids will be sad. And part of me feels bad for Sully because he has only been in my blog books for 4 years, whereas Lucy has had 9 and Piper almost 8. But it’s hard to spend so much time blogging when you have 3 busy kids! I think I’ll get through the holiday season, but after that it might be time to retire the blog... or at least press pause on it for a bit.

Today I want to blog about Fall break though. Because that was the highlight of our month. We were busy, but it was so much fun!

First we went camping Wednesday through Saturday. One of our favorite places to camp is Dripping Springs ‘cause it’s so close to home, but gorgeous anytime of year. We camped right at the waters edge and every morning ate breakfast on the rocks above the lake. 4 days and 3 nights of quality family time without screens to distract us. Nature is so good for my soul💛

The kids are in heaven every time we camp. They never complain and they’re never bored. They love everything about it. We get dirty and smelly and there are bugs everywhere, but we love it. We have a really big tent that we give to the kids while Shawn and I take the small tent and they LOVE sharing a big tent together. They each have their own twin mattress so they sleep really good at night, and they just have a blast! Plus, some of our favorite family memories are made around a campfire.

On Saturday when we got home, we showered and cleaned up, did the standard 12 loads of laundry that you have to do when you get home from camping, slept in our beds for a night and then headed out to our friend’s Ranch in Inola to stay for a night. It’s about an hour away from here. They have like a thousand acres. They lease part of the land to a soybean farmer who in turn, gives them 10% of his profit- cool huh? I didn’t know Oklahoma was a good place to grow soybeans- I want to try! They have huge ponds to fish in, tons of cows, 4 wheelers, donkeys, and even a Cow graveyard.... yikes! It’s beautiful! Technically, it’s Steve Largent’s ranch. We have surprisingly become really good friends with his daughter (and her husband {Casie and Jared Stockard}). I say surprisingly because we’ve known them for 3+ years because our daughters are friends but never formed a friendship until this year when we moved into their neighborhood. They are so fun! Anyway, her dad is the LEGEND Steve Largent. Hall of Famer for the Seattle Seahawks. And it’s his ranch, but it’s willed to her because it’s her sanctuary and she goes out there as often as she can. She actually used to live out there by herself before she was married. It’s a super cool house (log cabin- if you know Mary and the late KC Hansen from CDA, it looks like their old house) and has a separate cabin next door for the kids, which is a dream (until they’re older and less not allowed in there together, haha)! The kids’ cabin has bunk beds and also a loft with a tall ladder (that is hand carved), so that about 10 kids can sleep in there. They have 4 kids and we have 3 and they’re all around the same age, so it’s fun for everyone. It was such a nice getaway. (By the way- we are not friends with them because of who her Dad is. She is a little guarded, just because a lot of people throughout the years have tried to be friends with her because her family is famous, but I think that’s why we have so much fun together because I don’t care and she knows that. Even if her family was “regular” I’d like them just as much. They’re so much fun and we’ve become really good friends.)

In other news, we’ve had some visitors come and watch Piper cheer! Her current teacher, Mrs. Poston, came to support her and she was soooo excited to see her in the stands! The next week, Mrs. Sumler (and her family) came to watch Piper cheer and their reunion made my eyes water😍. Piper RAN into her arms! We haven’t seen her since Spring and it’s been hard so getting to hug her meant the world to all of us! 

Lucy won the Spirit award 2 weekends ago- it’s for working extra hard each game. She was so proud of herself and it was well-deserved!

This is Mrs. Poston, who used to work with Lucy in small groups (even though she is currently Piper’s teacher) so Lucy knows her too!

Speaking of cheer, the girls had their annual Showcase last night! Once again- Covid made things inconvenient but THANK GOODNESS we were still able to have Showcase (even if it did have to be outdoors on a freezing day!) because the cheerleaders have been working on their dances all season long. Those poor girls were miserably cold but got out there, cheered loud and pulled off great performances!👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 Proud of my cute cheerleaders!📣 

(Piper’s squad let them keep their leggings on, but Lucy’s squad does too many stunts and they need to balance on bare skin, not leggings, so they weren’t allowed to keep their leggings on and it was soooo cold!)

Also on the topic of cheer, they had their cheer pictures taken where they both looked adorable!

Sullivan finally had his school pictures taken and even though I haven’t gotten them back yet, look at these ones I snagged of him. He is so cute- I can not even handle it! I wrote this on Facebook and feel it should be pasted here as well😆

“BEHOLD! THE POWER OF BRIBERY! I didn’t get a picture of him before school looking cute on picture day like I usually do, so I asked him if I could take a picture after school when he was tired and cranky. The first set of pics shows how mad he was at me. The next set is what happens after a successful bribe.😎🍬

And finally- we made it to the Pumpkin Patch. It was so hot outside that day- we were melting. It was sticky and itchy and smelly and just. so. hot. But my kids had fun and we crossed it off the list and that’s all that matters! (Also- check out my sweet matching PJs with Shawn😍) Back in October 2010, Shawn and I went to my parents house wearing matching Halloween pajama pants.... While we were there, my parents had some friends stop by. My Mom introduced Shawn and I to them and then pointed to our PJs, winked and said “they’re still newlyweds. That’s why they’re matching.” As in, once the newlywed phase wore off, Shawn would never choose to match me again. Well! Fast forward 10 years and this guy of mine will still wear matching pajamas with me.... I don’t know if he necessarily WANTS to, but he does. Because he’s the best.😍🤗😁 (Swipe to see the original picture! I pinky promise it’s us😆!)

And now we gear up for Halloween! Yaaaay!!!!