The Most Beautiful Day for Carving Pumpkins

Johnny and I took Saturday and Sunday off last weekend because Hope had a gymnastics meet (1st place all-around!  Woohoo!) and we needed some good old fashioned Fall family time.  We kept ourselves so busy last year that we totally missed the apple orchard AND the pumpkin patch.  NEVER AGAIN!  Sunday we went and snagged pumpkins and carved them on the most gorgeous afternoon.  It was one of those times in your life where you step back, look around, and the gratefulness just pours out of you.


This perfect weather and these Fall feelings can stick around for as long as they'd like!  No complaints over here.  :)
 
Happy Tuesday, friends!

We Made it to the Apple Orchard!

Now that fall is officially here, a visit to the apple orchard was a must!  We accidentally missed it last year and I was not going to let that happen again.  Here are some photos from our afternoon on the farm:


As per usual, Poesy chomped apples the entire time we were out there.  It was a really fun time and I love this fall tradition we have.  Now, let's see if we can make it to the pumpkin patch this year and we'll be golden.  Happy Monday, friends!

Our Easter

Easter was pretty great this year, and it was nice to break out of some of our normal routine.
I decided to skip out on buying new Easter dresses-- a tradition I was ready to put down.  Each year we slap some cash on the counter for dresses the girls will wear once or twice, just because it's what we've always done.  I'm definitely not taking a hard stance against it, but this year I was really just feeling like it was unnecessary.  Plus, those kids could wear paper sacks and still be darn adorable.

Anyyyyywayyyyy... let me back up a little.

Our band played out of town on Friday night.  I ended up coming down with a fever and flu-like symptoms in the wee Saturday morning hours, so Saturday was weird.  I can't even remember the last time I was miserable with a fever.  (Are grown-ups even supposed to get fevers?  That's rhetorical, but I still thought the fact that I had a fever was pretty dumb.)  We picked up the girls and decided to stay in a hotel Saturday night so we could be closer to our Sunday morning destination (for church, family gatherings, etc.) since we live an hour & 1/2 away and we'd basically been traveling the whole weekend.  So, the girls opened their baskets in our funny hotel room, and though for a second I looked around the room feeling like a bad mom, Hope swears it was the best Easter ever.  Kids are easy to please-- give them a swimming pool and a vending machine and they're in heaven.

Over the course of the day we had four different egg hunts, the girls got Easter baskets three times, and I ate my weight in Cadbury mini eggs.  I justified that last thing by telling myself it was okay because I felt crummy.  I can be so kind to me sometimes.  ;)

It was a wonderful day spent celebrating with the ones I love.  I'm not sure how Johnny weaseled his way out of photographs... he can be pretty stealthy when he wants to be...

Oh, yeah-- and just because I can't stop cracking up over it:

Poesy telling us to "fly" our dresses.  I love that kid.
I hope whether you celebrated Easter or not on Sunday, your day was absolutely lovely!  xo. Katie

**My dreamy dress is from Family Affairs and my shoes are from Bali ELF.
**You can peek at our Easter from 2013 and 2012 if you'd like.  It's pretty much the same, but the girls are leeeeettle.

Easter Traditions

Our Easter weekend was a little untraditional this year.  Yes, we did make time for dyeing eggs and Easter baskets and all that, but we ended up traveling for almost the whole weekend.  More importantly, the Easter bunny had to come and find us in a hotel in a different town.  Good thing he's good at tracking.  ;)

Poesy was a really fun age this year for just about everything.  The egg dyeing was magic for her.  She's very much into painting right now, so when she discovered the painting set, it was all over... in a good way.  She sat and meticulously painted one entire egg after another with a tiny paint brush, until all the eggs were colored.  Three is one of my very favorite ages.

Hope's an old pro (of course) so her main concern was dyeing all the eggs and then finding the least lovely ones to eat.  It was a good evening for egg coloring and it gave me a good excuse to keep the egg dye away from my new dining room chairs.  Hooray for outside.  ;)

I was feeling a little under the weather on Thursday when all this was going down, but really didn't know what was in store for the weekend until the next day.  I'll share more about that and photos of our Easter very soon!  xo. Katie

Apple Picking

As it turns out, we almost missed apple picking season this year.  We've been planning on going for weeks now, but haven't found the time until this week.  I'm so glad we made it before the apples were gone because this was seriously one of my most favorite days EVER.

Poesy didn't stop chomping apples the entire time we were there.  She was in heaven.  Hope's tree climbing skills came in super handy, as well as her extreme pickiness when it comes to choosing the perfect apple.  ;)

Apple picking is a definite must for us from now on.  Next year we'll start earlier so we can go more than once!  I'm looking forward to making apple pie (we make a mean one) and trying my hand at apple butter this weekend.  Hello, new traditions!

**Dress: ModCloth;  Jacket: old;  Boots: Minnetonka