Fall Festivities

I love Fall! I love Fall! I love Fall! I enjoy watching football on the weekends and spending more time outside when the weather isn't scorching. I love the vibrant colors of the trees. I love the smell of pumpkin spice and all the normal fall smells. But more importantly I love that Christmas is right around the corner. We had a busy fall. Actually, I don't even think I can say it was busy because our everyday normal is busy with two little munchkins running around. But what I can say is we did a lot.

What I can say about our  time the past few months is that it has been centered all around family. We've spent a ton of time together the four of us and also spent a good amount of time with our extended family...haha. I've been off of work since the end of September and as scary as that has been we have tried to make the most of everything and spend as much time together as it isn't very often that both the mom and dad are home with their two small children every day for almost 2 months. It has definitely been a blessing, maybe not how I would have liked it to be, but I can't deny the fact that I was able to spend so much time with my family.

We had some visitors over the past few months as well. My brother-in-law Phil was in town for work for almost 3 weeks so we were able to spend some time with him and he was able to do his laundry at our house in exchange for back breaking labor of "trimming" some trees in the backyard and chopping up wood. Now it wasn't all work. We fed him and took him to church and he was able to play with Chloe and Levi so it was a fair trade...right?!?!? The kids loved having him around. Chloe warmed right up to him as if he was always around. We were surprised how well she did so quickly since she can sometimes be a bit shy. She talked all about Uncle Phil and how he was going to go to church with her, pick her up from her class, get her out of her car seat and pretty much anything and everything Phil was going to do for her. And then Levi he would ask where Uncle Phil was and waller on him when he was here.

All three kids wanted to be outside cutting down trees.

It was quite the calculated task.

Chloe with her uncle Phil after dinner.

After Phil's visits were over then my mom came in town for a long weekend. We celebrated her belated birthday with a purple cake...I wonder who's idea that was. We played outside and went to Boo Zoo. As always we had a great time and the kids did not like to see her go. Levi calls her Papa or Mapa. He can't quite seem to understand Mama. He will say it after you say it, but when he is talking about or to her it is some variation of Papa or Mama or both. He would wake up the next few days looking for her and whenever Chloe would wonder where she went she would go through the whole story that Mama and Papa are coming for Christmas. It was like she would reassure herself that she would see Mama again. We also painted pumpkins while my mom was in town. I think Levi had more paint on him than his pumpkin, but he had fun and the paint is washable so we were all good.

Getting some ice cream before Mama arrives

Boo at the Zoo

When we weren't having visitors we spent a lot of time playing outside in the backyard. Levi loves to swing. I think he could swing all day and all night. Chloe enjoys swinging too and she always wants to go higher and faster, but Levi he is just content swinging back and forth. Like I said, we had a great Fall and I can't wait for Thanksgiving and then CHRISTMAS!!!