Blog Hop And A Pile of Leaves.

I have officially failed at the 31 for 21 challenge, now that I've missed posting for two days.  I really do have good reasons for not posting...1) The internet in our hotel was down on Wednesday.  and 2) Dr. C and I were driving the 12 hours back to reality all day yesterday.  I'll try my best to finish out the rest of the month.  To make up for it though, I'm participating in a Down Syndrome Awareness BlogHop today. 

Today we were trying to tame the millions of leaves that have been having a wild party on our lawn for the past week while we were away.  So while you blog-hop, enjoy some of our leaf-hopping.

A Lovely Day

Once again, I'm late posting.  This time, I fully blame my tardiness on Pinterest, which is my new favorite website.  It has all of my favorite things that I didn't even know I loved on there.  And, it shows me all of my friends' favorite things...and let me tell you my friends have good taste.  Every time I open it up it's like jumping into the deep end of a big pool of the loveliest things you can imagine.  One day all the craft/quote/style/food/decorating inspirations just might make my head explode. 

(P.S. If you're not on Pinterest yet, you should be.  Let me know if you need an invite and I'll send you one.)

Before the kiddos went to bed and I got sucked into the Pinterest overload of loveliness, I actually lived some loveliness while playing outside with the kiddos.  (How's that segue?)

We are currently experiencing some of the most fabulous weather possible.  Clear blue skies, light breeze, 70s and 80s during the day.  Lovely.  Simply lovely.  The fall weather here deserves its own Pinterest pin.

Miss B's favorite thing to do outside is to run as fast as her little legs will carry her to one of our neighbors' porches. 

One of her brothers' favorite things to do outside is to chase her down and bring her back.

Miss B's second favorite thing to do outside is getting rides on her brothers' scooters.  Or try to swipe a scooter for herself.  Fearless was not into sharing with her today.

Miss B's face when she doesn't get the aforementioned scooter ride.

T-Man insisted that I get this shot.  He rode up and down the driveway over and over again, stopping to critique my work until I got it just right.

Unfortunately, homework and piano practice and bedroom cleaning and chores and dinner making called us in long before we wanted them too.

Thankfully tomorrow is supposed to be another beautiful day...and who knows what new loveliness it will bring?

See you tomorrow.

Welcome October.

If January is the "New Beginnings" month, December is about Christmas, and November is about Gratitude, then October is the "Let's Just Start Celebrating Now" month.  It's like October knew that November and December had some major holidays in their favor, so October upped it's standing by being full of cooler weather, football games, General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Down Syndrome Awareness Month, beautiful leaves, yummy baking, sweatshirt-hoodie wearing and then caps it all off with the just-for-fun holiday of Halloween.  I think of October as the warm-fuzzy month to help kickoff the next two months of celebrating goodness.  I mean really, what's not to love about October?

Today and tomorrow my brain is focused on General Conference--one of my favorite weekends of the year when all around the world, members of LDS church gather together to listen to the prophet and apostles speak to us.  Our family watches from home--the kiddos work on Gospel related activities and get to eat treats every time a speaker says "faith" or "prayer" or "Jesus Christ"or "service", etc.  Dr. C and I lounge on the couch taking notes and getting answers to our questions. 

It always seems that at least one of the talks was meant just for me; today there were two that really hit home and I'm sure tomorrow there will be more.  If you want to listen or watch and hear some words meant for you, you can do that here.  I highly recommend it.

Also in October, to celebrate Down Syndrome Awareness Month, I am going to try the 31 for 21 Challenge issued by Tricia from Unringing the Bell.  The goal is to blog DAILY in October (hence the 31) for Down syndrome or Trisomy 21...Miss B already has the 21 part covered--which just leaves the 31 part to me.  I'm not sure if I'll make it, but I'll give it a try. 

(In announcing the fact that I'm taking this challenge, please remember that I'm the girl with 432598672 craft projects that I was really enthusiastic about starting, but now sit half-finished in my craft room patiently waiting for days weeks years forever to be finished.  But, I'm also the girl that trains for and runs long distances...so we'll see which commitment-to-a-hobby side of me wins out this month!)



It's going to be a great month, folks.  Welcome October!

Fall Means Football!!

Fearless took this picture.  Not bad, eh?

I don't know when it happened...must have been sometime during college and Dr. C's graduate school, but I have come to love football.  When Fall rolls around and the leaves start changing and the mornings have that crisp-chill feeling...I find myself paying attention to Dr. C's reports from ESPN.  Maybe part of it has to do with the thrill of Game Day...the throngs of people, the roar of cheers and applause that follow a big play, the camaraderie with random strangers all united in supporting their team...it all adds up to happiness in a big football-shaped package.

Although Fall is just barely upon us, we have been partaking of the Football-frenzy for the past few weeks.  We started the season by watching our Alma mater--Brigham Young University--beat Ole Miss.

Fearless found some random sand/dirt to entertain him during the pregame tailgating. 

Um, yeah, they were dirty before the game even started.  Dirty, but happy!

Nice funny faces, kiddos.  I bet you both are going to love this picture when you are older.

WooHoo!!  GO COUGARS!!!!

BYU was doing well in all the stats except scoring until the 4th Quarter...when BYU scored twice within a couple of minutes to win the game.

I'm pretty sure the Ole Miss fans were fairly disappointed...you could practically feel the enthusiasm for the game drain out of the stadium with BYU's second touchdown.  Except in the BYU section, where the crowd went wild.  I love when my team wins!!

Check out THAT final score, baby!  BYU by 1!  Holla!!

T-Man is starting to love the game as well--this fall he decided to skip playing soccer and play flag football instead.  I must admit these games are pretty funny to watch.  It's a whole lot of kids running around essentially clueless about what they are supposed to do.  T-Man's team did manage to score once in their first game though--at which time the sideline erupted in wild cheering.  



"What am I supposed to do?!?"

 

And our most recent football excursion occurred last night where, after scoring some free tickets, we went to the Mississippi State vs. Louisiana Tech game. 

Miss B is all about football--or at least all about yelling and cheering when everyone else does!

Our seats were in the third row, all the way in the end zone.  So that last play, during overtime, when MSU scored a touchdown to win the game?  Yeah, that happened 30 feet in front of us.  I'm pretty sure you could see our feet on the JumboTron when we jumped up to cheer.  LOVED IT!

Thank you JoAnn for tickets for Dr. C, T-Man, Fearless and I.  Thank you Paul for the ticket for Miss B so we could all enjoy the game together.  It was SO much fun.



And we've still got more of football season to go!  Holla!!

The Last Day of Winter

Have I ever mentioned how much I love winter in The South?  I REALLY REALLY love it.  It's chilly enough some days to wear a coat and gloves and then a couple of days later, you hardly need a jacket.  It's just a nice little taste of the winter season without being frozen-through for months.  How fabulous is that??

The Thursday before Valentine's Day was really the last day of winter.  (Winter ending on Feb. 10th?  Nice.)  But before winter left, it had one last winter-weather-hurrah and dumped 3-4 inches of snow.  School was cancelled and of course we spent the morning playing in all that white stuff.

My poor bushes!  Wasn't sure if they were going to make it through after this!  But when it melted, they perked right back up.  Nature is amazing, isn't it??

The boys were fascinated with the crazy-huge icicles we had.  They thought they were THE. COOLEST. THINGS. EVER. (No pun intended.)

T-Man shooting me with is "ice laser"

Not to be outdone, Fearless had to shoot a "double ice laser"

Which led to an "ice laser fight" which I had to stop before someone lost an eye.  (Even though they were having fun.)

Poor Miss Banana--it was only about 20 degrees out (and who knows what the wind chill was) so she had to stay inside and watch the fun from the window.  She was NOT happy about that!

And after that wild (for The South) winter storm, winter left.  Two days later it was 65+ degrees and we were all wearing flip-flops.

Goodbye winter and HELLO SPRING!!!!

P.S. I am guest posting today over at Things That Keep Me Sane.  Go check it out!

P.P.S. My sister and I have started a food blog--Out of My Sister's Kitchen...we are just getting started but my chocolate fondue recipe is there and much more yummy goodness to come!