2019 OCTOBER RECAP

I can’t even believe I’m typing this out…but where did October go?! This is exactly why I do my very best to soak in every single day because they sure go by fast enough on their own. October is always a busy month for us, but we better buckle up because the holiday season starts NOW! Well, for me anyways lol.

Adam and our friends surprised me for my birthday this year! Maison lured me outside of the house to go get pizza and when we got home I walked into lots of celebration! We had a great time with the Rupp family!

October was spent with a lot of time at our kids’ activities. Aniston played 5th-6th grade Pee Wee football this year. I love my lineman! Maison is a freshman for the Ulysses Tigers and he’s in the high school musical Freaky Friday this year.

Milani is in tap and ballet AND gymnastics!

Adam coached Aniston’s football team and I’m shuffling Milani to her activities and lots of essential oil classes for my team.

Aniston’s season ended sad, and with lots of tears. Always so hard for us mom’s to see our boys work so dang hard, and come up short. My absolute favorite moments of the season were:

1. When Aniston, my adorable lineman, got a hard hit and came out of the play super pumped up. The kind of pumped up you see the college and pro’s show when they are FIRE UP. Gives me goosebumps just remembering it!
2. In the last game, the other team was running for a touchdown and the only person from our team that ran him down to the in zone was my Aniston. Seeing my lineman run that far and chase him down seriously melted my heart. He ran so dang hard to catch him.
3. Seeing my husband ans sons embrace after a hard loss.

Maison went to his very first high school dance! Homecoming 2019, or excuse me…#HOCO19….was the same day at Aniston’s last football game. We visited some friends for a birthday, had so much fun connecting, then hurried home to get Maison off to his first dance. He was so excited!

Maison and his friend had a good time and they both looked so sharp. Look at those smiles!!

Making time for family activities is very important to me all year long, but especially when fall comes! We made a fall bucket list and have been chipping away at it! I made sure we planned a trip to Pumpkin Paradise since we had never been!

We have seen pictures like this so many times, but had never been able to do one of our own!

I loved this. You had to cross over red, white, and blue straps to get from one side to the other side, but had to go in that order. So it was so fun to figure out the puzzle! Maison and I really loved this and eventually he took my hand to show me.

The maze was so cool. There was a map and luckily our entire family loves puzzles. Well, Milani not so much. But the rest of us love it! The boys loved it so much they went thru it a second time, trying to see how fast they could get it done.

Milani turned SEVEN this month and I’m still in denial. She’s the baby, and the only girl. We bond so much and butt heads just as much. Adore this redhead girl!

Every eve of my children’s birthday since January 2015, freshly home from a specific place in Texas, I would stay up after everyone goes to bed. I reflect on my memories of birthing my baby and decorate our family dinner table to celebrate and honor that child. I want them to wake up and feel special and that they belong here. That this family will clap loud and be ecstatic to share a special day with them. Here’s to remembering the night before I would be blessed with a baby girl, seven years ago this moment.

Something else I started in January 2015 was making Fruity Pancakes. It’s so easy and kids go crazy for them! Make some pancake batter (any batter will go) and add Fruity Pebbles to the batter. I’m so sorry, but I never measure this. I just add about (approximately??) a cup to the batter. Mix all together.

I use a 1/4 cup measuring cup to make pancakes. I am on the lookout for a pancake batter dispenser soon though!

When it’s your birthday, you apparently think you can just sit on the table and eat your Fruity pancakes while you open presents.

When the kids got home that day we ate supper, watched Hocus Pocus for the 50th time and made our pumpkin pretzels!

We celebrated Milani’s birthday that weekend with her friends! She was so excited to have her friends come over. It was her very first real party with friends!

After the party we got busy carving pumpkins while I made chicken spaghetti! I feel like we are constantly on the go so squeezing in any festive fun is a must!

The day before Halloween we were hit with some beautiful snow for the first time in a long time, and it was the best fall snowy day!

We had nothing on the evening agenda so we opted for a family night! I made chili and cinnamon rolls and we actually sat at the table with all FIVE of us!

We ended our night with popcorn, hot chocolate and the next Harry Potter movie on our list. (Every time Aniston finishes a Harry Potter book, we reward him by buying the movie and having a movie night. He had just finished the 6th book so it was perfect timing!)

Halloween came and it was actually wonderful weather! It was so weird that Maison wasn’t trick-or-treating with us this year due to musical practice. As he continues to get older he is so busy we see less and less of him (which is why I latch onto family nights when I can).

Our family is shifting from one season into another and it’s becoming very real. As we walked with the kiddos Halloween night I realized it was just us and Aniston and Milani and that Maison and Lundon would never be with us doing this again. This is the exact reason we celebrate every day as much as we can.

October always is a whirlwind of activities and sports, two birthdays and a holiday. Now, the busiest time of the year is here and we are HERE for it!

October had lots of amazing moments, hard moments and everything in between. But because of the GRACE OF GOD…we GET to still have the moments. Thank you Lord for October, we ask that You stay near in November and every day after.

Happy November friends! xoxo