Birthday

This year I turned 31. I guess that's not a super exciting year because my birthday was pretty low-key. It was on a Sunday which meant that we were home all day watching General Conference. I love general conference (sometimes I don't love that I have to share my birthday with it...haha, too many good things) I did love that i got to spend the whole day with my family no one had to go off to work or school or meetings. It was just us all day, together. Those days are rare and it was a treat that it happened to be on my birthday.  We started the day with a cream of wheat and strawberry breakfast. then enjoyed some cuddly time watching conference from our couch.I'm pretty sure we ended up cleaning in between the conference sessions and then I spent some time working on my old cow carpet with Charlie during the last session of conferrence. (My mom gave me a kit to make a cow carpet when I was a teenager...I still haven't finished it but I'm getting close. Charlie asks to help finish it every conference-time.) Sorry I don't have photos of the cow carpet..

Anyway, after the final session of conference we cleaned up a bit again and then headed to our secret garden. It was on my birthday 4 years earlier that we discovered this garden so we thought it would be fun to go again on my birthday and try to find some glimpses of fall. And to take photos of course. And get some fresh air and time to run around. So, that's what we did. And we enjoyed the crisp weather and the few fall colors we saw.

  

 

 

Running through the maze...

And trying to get a family picture next to the one tree that had fall colors.

And they were being charming for a bit!

Charlie loves to be the one to make you smile for a picture...He is a great little assistant. While Max was taking the pictures Charlie was there next to him pulling out all the stops to get Miles and me to smile.

And we did find some more fall leaves to play with...and it was a blast.

My goofy boy that loves to be a clown (More like his daddy each day)

Some final races before we needed to head back to our car...

And a couple more family photo attempts before getting in the car.

After getting back we made a quick bean dip dinner that turned into my birthday cake. 

Post dinner, I opted out of a real cake and we made and decorated chocolate covered strawberries.

Such a delicious treat and a fun activity. I don't think we'll be going pro with our decorating skills anytime soon though.


We got the boys in bed nice and late and I worked on some photos while Max cleaned up the kitchen.

A couple days later we were able to enjoy an out-of-the house date with just the two of us, filling up on crab and shrimp.  Perfect if you ask me!

And those were some birthday celebrations. Also, the day after my birthday, I got news that I had been awarded a scholarship for a photography class that I had been looking into for awhile. I'll probably have more on that later but the class has been amazing and I only have 2 weeks left. It was an awesome birthday surprise!

Pumpkin Heads

I think we started a tradition of busting out the pumpkin hats on October 1st. I'm not opposed to getting them out earlier it has just been so warm that I took them out anyway and tried attempting some photos and the boys cooperated less than usual. It will be really fun trying to get 3 boys in a photo. Haha! Anyway, here are some photos from the sunshine in our yard.

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Minute to Win it Pie Party!

Since we weren't able to celebrate Max's birthday much, we decided to throw him a little casual party that ended up being incredibly fun. Some of Max's favorite things include, social gatherings, competitions, and pie. So that is exactly what happened for his 30th birthday celebration. We invited some of our great friends and some of Max's local siblings and told everyone to bring a pie to share. We spent the evening playing "minute to win it" games. Since I was hosting the party, I struggled a little with the photography but I think I took enough to help us remember the event and was able to be present for it as well. In the invite it said that bringing a pie was optional. I figured people that knew how to make pie would bring one and others would not. So I made 3 to make sure we were covered: Salted Caramel Apple, Blueberry, and Lemon Meringue...

But then it turned out that every family brought at least 1 pie and we had a whole lot of options!

Then the games began...at least the pre-games.

 We had a kids table with their own style games. They played, put the cheerios on a pipe cleaner, move M&Ms with a straw, (or stuff as many as you can in your mouth) and some others I can't think of right now. We basically gave them the supplies from the adult games to play with when we were done.

 The adult games included make a cup pyramid as fast as you can, move the M&Ms with a straw, move as many marsmallows as you can with chopsticks, Find the red popcorn kernal (needle in haystack) Cookie face (you put a cookie on your forehead and have to try and get it in your mouth without your hands, Charlie loves this one) And hit down the water bottles with a ball in panty hose....Actually I think there were more games than that but that is just what I remember.

 

 Charlie's blurry photo of doing cookie face!

this was the best one to watch...they had to wear the pantyhose on their heads to knock down the water bottles. 

The kids love this one too, we played it multiple times before the dollar-tree pantyhose ripped to shreds. 

 

It was a wonderful party and our whole family had a blast. Max loved it! Our kids were well behaved and we got to try a bunch of different pies while spending time with friends! WIN WIN WIN! Best of all, it was a fun way to celebrate Max's old age with something he would truly enjoy! (And i apologize that he is barely in any photos...but I sure have taken a lot of photos of him in the past so I should be covered.) Anyway...Happy Birthday Max! We all feel so incredibly blessed that we have you! And here's to our next decade of life together...

Tryon Creek

As the Summer was ending we made a trip to the forest. We hadn't gone much during the summer since they were remodeling the parking lot and there was no place to park, we kept busy with plenty of other summer activities though, so we survived. We ended up going one morning to get some exercise and to explore and see some of the leaves starting to change color. I was bummed I didn't bring my camera since it was so beautiful and still had a morning mist. Oh well, I took some photos with my phone and we all had a great time exploring a new trail and bridge.

We (the  boys) like finding slugs. Miles doesn't really say his S sounds so when he gets excited about slugs it sounds like he is enthusiastically yelling DRUGS!!











"HEY..." 




And that's that. We will be going back now that there are places to park!