happy halloween

i love holidays. i love having family and friends around, the bustle of getting things ready, and the rush when the party begins.

this year we took the kids trick or treating at spencer's office.
olive got really good at looking at her feet and holding out her bag.
apparently saying "trick or treat" is optional, she got hords of candy anyway.

my dad resurrected the talking scarecrow at our house(the center of my childhood halloweens). he was scaled back a bit due to time constraints, but he was magical, and the kids loved it.
oh, if i could express how much joy that felt faced, yarn haired, newspaper stuffed man brings to my heart...he deserves a blog post all of his own, more to come.


we trick or treated the neighborhood with the next door neighbor kids and a couple of other families. olive followed suit and really got into it with the other kids. running from house to house and actually saying "trick or treat" this time.


she was sooo excited all day until she cried herself to sleep that night begging for more candy.
what have we gotten ourselves into?


the big day in pictures...

harrison the dragon/dinosaur/alligator

olive the cowgirl/pony

the big purple dinosaur

tv-circa 2004 and converter box=oldschool.

thank you barney, for allowing me 30 minutes of me time each afternoon (olive- the child that never naps).

creepy as you are, there is nothing more captivating to my little girl than you...

just because

pulled out the old nikon this morning and got a few pictures of the kids. 
ah, they really are this cute and sweet ALL of the time...

except when they're not.

it's october so...

we went to the pumpkin patch.

we're excited about halloween around here.

thank goodness it's laundry day.

waiting for clean underoos.

some things we've been doing

recently, and in no particular order:

i ran walked a 5k with my mom. who are we kidding we were there for the social aspect and the food, the "fitness" was a bonus, and we had a great time.

spencer ripped out a few rogue bushes in our front yard.
simple enough right...?
a borrowed pick-ax
a borrowed wheelbarrow
two punctured sprinkler lines
two trips to lowes and a yard full of neighbors...
let's just say we've officially broken the ice.

olive had her first trip to the dentist.
she saw "the fish hook on a stick" and totally clammed up; like sweaty with a quivering lip. BUT, she still got a sticker and a toothbrush and we'll try again in 6 months. (it was much too traumatic for pictures)

harrison is officially hand and knee crawling and pulling himself up to standing all in the same week.

we bought a YELLOW couch off craigslist. i'm in love.


I GOT A HAIRCUT! this is big people. it's at least 4 months overdue, and i'm a short hair person, or at least i was. why is it so hard to pick up the phone sometimes?

olive test drove her 2011 halloween costume. it passed, she hasn't taken it off since.

we can't seem to get enough of nana around here.

olive's become a pro at her hotwalk balance bike and she's fast.

her latest "thing" is leading music. she'll lead music on tv, sitting in the cart in the store, standing in the aisle at church, ever since we saw tanner (my brother the drum major) at the football game she is obsessed. it's really quite entertaining.

before it turns cold

we've been enjoying that last days of warm weather with lots of walks and meals on the patio. 

lately we can't get through a meal without food in her cup or her drink on her plate.

fall is so close, i can feel it. it's been perfect weather for sleeping with the windows open.

friends, pizza and pizookies

it's 9:30pm, i just got home from a much needed night out with friends.
spencer and olive are asleep on the floor downstairs and harrison is snoozing away in his crib.
i think this is what they call alone time?

tonight was a rare treat. my favorite high school friends were all  together (except for kelsey, why is hawaii so far away?) for 3 hours of uninterrupted girl talk. we laughed and cried over pizza and pizookies at old chicago. i'm sure we were a spectacle, even the waiter piped up here and there with a few comments, but mostly we were too enthralled in the conversation to notice anything not at our table. nothing around us mattered (carbs included) because we were together again.

as we went around the table and each gave our updates; real updates, good and bad, i couldn't help but feel gratitude for these girls. the girls who walked beside me through high school, who shaped me in so many ways, and who have influenced me and continue to influence me throughout my life. 

they are good people...such good people, and they are beautiful, in the truest most sincere form of the word. inside and out. 
they are mothers, wives, and professionals. they are capable. and they are people of faith and conviction.

we talked about marriage, work, kids and family. we were silly and serious and sincere. throughout dinner i kept having the thought that women need women. God put us here together for a reason, but so often we're all too afraid to talk about the real stuff. we exchange pleasantries and small talk, and then go home to wrestle with the hard stuff alone.

crazy,

when there are people in our lives to relate to. people that lift and lead and inspire. in those years since high school our lives have taken us down different paths and we're scattered hundreds of miles apart:idaho, texas, washington, hawaii, but we are so very much the same, and we need each other.