Our friend Laurel bought our family tickets to see Disney On Ice. What a treat to see it together as a family. The girls dressed up for the show, Julia as Sleeping Beauty and Emily as Cinderella. Julia spent the whole show sitting on Mama’s lap. Each time a new character came out Julia would shake with joy. Emily had a million questions about the characters and stories she didn’t know. If she knew the story she would tell us about what we were seeing. They both loved the show. Thanks Daddy for getting some photos!

Emily shared the evening with Daddy.

Julia was just transfixed with the show.

She couldn’t hide her emotions about what was happening. When Julia saw a character she recognized she would announced their entry.

Mickey and Minnie showed up between all of the parts to the delight of the girls.

Our girls favorite part was every part that has a princess in it.

Our annual fall trip to the pumpkin patch had to be moved once so that we could have a beautiful warm fall day. We enjoyed the sunshine, friends, maze, tractor ride, pumpkin picking, goat feeding, and a picnic. We love this playdate!

There were no photos of all of the kids looking at the camera so I picked one with no one looking at it. Why fight kid-nature.

Aiden enjoying the gravel.

Maeve and Lincoln being sweet together.

Elena having fun among the cornstalks.

Emily bringing in her pumpkin. I wonder if she gets that tongue thing from her Mama?

Emily collected flowers from everywhere we went at the pumpkin patch and made herself a flower bouquet. I think she was pretending that she was a bride and that was her wedding bouquet.

An excited Julia!

Julia kept picking flowers and smelling them and then offering it to Mama to smell too.

Julia was proud of her pumpkin.

Kenzie and Heather picking out a pumpkin together.

Maeve feeding the goat.

Natalie found a rock in the pumpkin patch. She was headed over to meet the goats.

Baby Rose hanging out in the sunshine.

Julia picked her birthday party this year. When given her choices she excitedly started jumping up and down saying ‘Jum Ouse”. Every time we asked her for the next week she said the same thing with the same level of excitement. After a week of that it was pretty certain she wasn’t going to change her mind.

Our friends joined us for our play date party. We first went to the bounce house and then to Chick-fil-a for lunch. The kids all had a great time bouncing all of their energy out. Julia was brave to try everything over and over again. A few things gave her trouble with the climb, but she didn’t give up.

We enjoyed our lunch together and for dessert we had bowls of icing with different toppings. Who doesn’t want to pick fun toppings to eat with icing. The mama’s got cookies, but the icing looked pretty good.

Julia had a blast at her party which is the most important thing for ones birthday party. The only bummer for the day was that Mama’s camera battery ran out so the photos of moving kids in a low lit room from her phone isn’t ideal, but still a great way to remember the day.

We were checking out a new local market in town, it is October, and Emily finds Santa. There wasn’t a sleigh, there wasn’t a red suit, or a reindeer in sight. Forgive the backlit photo, but I didn’t want to miss the moment in an effort to pose a photo. This gentleman was sitting in a booth talking with a woman and Emily announced that he was Santa. I asked her how she knew he was Santa and she couldn’t really tell me, but she knew it was Santa. He got up and came out to talk to her. Sure enough it was Santa. I guess Santa sports a Santa apron when not in the red suit. They talked for a while and Emily put in her request for her stocking this year. She was so excited about seeing him that she visited him several times while we were there; fascinated with talking to him. Fun memories to remember!

A Cowgirl and her trusty Cow.

Our friend, Sarah, invited us to join her neighborhood & church Harvest Party they have every fall. She has two children just a couple of months younger than both of Emily and Julia. We dressed up in our Halloween costumes for the party. Some years we have had costume issues when we went to put them on, but not this year. They loved them and loved being in them.

At the party there was a scavenger hunt, pumpkin decorating, yummy food, a story, and a pumpkin seed spitting contest. The girls enjoyed running around with the other kids finding the baskets of treats. Emily stuck pretty close to Grace the whole time and Julia wanted to be with Mama. Therefore, Mama saw a lot of Julia and not much of Emily.

Emily had a very serious face and wind blown hair.

We got to practice the word “lollypop” a lot, because it seemed to be Julia’s favorite candy in her basket.

When it was time to decorate the pumpkins they were very serious and content to stick their stickers on the pumpkin. It was fun to watch the serious work. There is so much to learn about kids and how they approach tasks.

The lollypop stick kind of reminded Mama of the toothpick or strand to hay a cowboy might chew on while on the range.

It was surprising that so many kids would sit for a story and be quiet, but they did.

The pumpkin seed spitting contest was funny. Julia didn’t want to try until the third spit. Emily gave it her best try, but she had some bad bounces that brought her seed back to her.

The only sad faces I saw were at the end when it was time to go home with our tummies full of lunch and sweets. We had so much fun in the warm sunshine playing with others. Mama even met some new mamas. Fall is so much fun with nice weather and fun activities.

Julia “moo-ed” for Mama. If you asked her what her costume was she would tell you, “Moo-Cow”. She was very happy to moo anytime you asked her what a cow says. She didn’t keep the cow hat on much, but loved the costume so much she didn’t even take it off for nap when she got home.

We visited the Museum of Appalachia for their annual homecoming. It has been years since Mama has visited the Museum and it was a great day to visit. The weather was another wonderful fall day here in East Tennessee.

We met our friends and explored. We enjoyed the tractor corner, visiting the knitting machine, listening to some of the music, eating curled potato fries, checking out vendor booths, finding old cabins to explore, and enjoying the sunshine. The girls enjoyed playing with Elena, Maeve, and Lincoln. The girls started to wind down as we got close to naptime and we headed home.

Emily helped “Fancy Nancy” run her knitting machine. They were making hats, but it looked like a really long sock. Both girls enjoyed turning the machine crank.

Our normally shy Julia would have stood there all day turning the crank if we hadn’t moved on.

Emily liked the tiny pumpkin.

One really happy Lincoln enjoying his ride.

She looks pretty comfortable up there.

Friends just hanging out and taking in the sights.