Book Parade & Halloween Happenings

The end of October as always so busy and this year was no exception. We started off with the Book Parade for Mark at school on Friday.  It was so neat to see all the different and creatively costumes! Mark wanted Daddy to be there so Daddy was there to see him in his astronaut suit!

My little astronaut! He loves anything that has to do with space and when I saw this customer I knew that I had to get it for him. It's a little on the roomy side, but I couldn't pass it up.

He was so proud to be in the parade with the big kiddos.

His book was "Why, Why, Why Do Astronauts Float in Space?"

His squinty smile!

The next day, he wore his costume again to his friend Reagan's Halloween party. These two are so sweet together! They've been friends since before they were two.

 No party is complete without cookie decorating!

And sampling the decorations...

On Sunday, we met up with Reagan again to check out Monster Mash which is a local Halloween?Fall Festival.

We posed for some pictures.

Kept cool with some snow cones. These two are the cutest and love each other so much!

We decorated some frames.

And played lots of corn hole.

Pumpkin Carving 2016

Another first for Mark is pumpkin carving. I can't believe that we've never carved pumpkins with him until this year.  The other two boys were also into it so it was so much fun watching them. We discovered that Matthew was terrible at getting the pumpkin guts out and Michael was really good at it.  Mark was just an all-out mess!

I don't know why Matthew decided to put on Michael's glasses.

Love these boys. Matthew does not like to wear his shirt so 99% of the time he's home, he is shirtless.

Love this boy's chubby cheeks!

This was pre-meltdown.

Cleaning pumpkins is hard work so the shirt must come off. This big brother helped clean all 3 pumpkins for his little brothers.

Pumpkin Patch 2016

We have not been to the pumpkin patch since Mark was born so I decided that we need to do it this year.  Mark was super excited but the other two were not so much. With that in mind, we stayed closed to home and made it a quick trip. We also bribed them with Chick-fil-a.  Anything to get some pictures!

The sun was too bright for Mark!

He loves to pick out pumpkins that we won't buy.

Love this boy so much but I'm not a fan of his fake smile...

We took a selfie while we waited for the boys to finish going through the maze.

Matthew did such a great job taking care of his little brother during their maze run. I was watching them as they came out of the maze and my heart melted because Matthew was holding on tightly to Mark's hand to make sure he didn't lose him while they were scanning the place for us.

He loves his little brother so much even though at times they fight like cats and dogs.

This is my favorite picture from that day.

OK, this one is pretty good too. These two are so sweet.

The Big 4-0

I turned 40 this year! Do I feel different? Not really.  Do I look different? Probably. My waist is a little wider and my face is a little droopier but I'm OK with it.  I don't do a lot of reflecting during my birthdays, but I'm going to take a little bit of time this year.

I can honestly say that I'm in such a good place in my life and I give thanks everyday to those who have made my life as good as it is. I am so fortunate to have such strong and hard-working parents who have worked so long and hard to give me the life that I have today.  I am lucky to have found a best friend and a loving partner to go through life with. I am especially blessed to have 3 strong-willed and healthy boys to raise.

So, there's my moment of reflection. How did I celebrate? I had a girls' weekend with a few good friends! Thanks to my lovely hubby for taking care of the reservations for a night at the Dallas Fairmont and a wonderful dinner at Tei-An.

We drove into Dallas and got pedicures to start off the day. Then we headed to Klyde Warren Park and had lunch from one of the food trucks. It was such a perfect day to relax and chat with these girls.

It was the Red Rivalry Weekend and they had the game on on a big screen - this is Texas football, people!

We saw a trolley and decided to hop on and ride through Uptown Dallas to explore. What a great way to see Dallas! I can't believe we've been here for more than 7 years and I didn't even know there was a trolley.

Then we decided that we needed some retail therapy and made a stop at Northpark Mall. I haven't been to the mall just to walk around and window shop in a very long time. We had to change our dinner reservations because we spent more time there than we anticipated.

After some cardio at the mall, we went and checked in to our room and got ready for dinner! We ended the weekend festivities with brunch at one of my favorite restaurants.  It was such a fun weekend and I'm so grateful to be able to spend it with some good friends.

Love these lovely ladies and am so grateful for their friendship!

Tailgating and Pink Out Football Game

High school football in Southlake is pretty insane. It's definitely Friday Night Lights. We have not been to a game in a couple of years so I decided that the Pink Out game would be a great one to get some friends together and enjoy some Dragon football with some good company. And I've never been tailgating so I organized one before the game.

This is how insane Dragon football is - tickets went on sale online Sunday night and by Tuesday it was sold out.  Then they had standing room only tickets for sale - sold out in one day.  Even the visitors side was sold out by the night of the game. BTW-our stadium can hold 26,000 people.  That's almost the whole population of our entire town!

My friend Sarah saw that people were holding parking spots for tailgating so she went and saved us some spots too.  This was Wednesday afternoon - and the game wasn't until Friday! Insane.

We had BBQ for the adults and pizza for the kiddos!

Our group had about 9 families with tons of kids running around and having a great time! And 3 tableful of food.

These cuties played the whole time while we were at the game.

Love these two!

Even this guy had fun.  We didn't see Michael the whole night.  He ran off with his buddies and hung out at "The Pit" so I don't have any pictures of him.

So much fun.  And of course our Dragons won against a very hard team - Trinity.