Happy Slacker Mom Halloween

I'm usually on it when it comes to Halloween but this year I was a slacker for sure. I had all these grand ideas for costumes that I kept thinking of for months and the closer Halloween got, the more and more I realized that coming up with three costumes and all the effort into putting them all together was a little bit more than I could chew off. So it was the Halloween of hand-me-downs. I'm telling you....slacker mom.

 

So the only real effort that was put into this year's costume was Nolan's surfboard which was 100% done by my husband. I know that my girl fish looks like a boy fish so that's why we slapped a bow on her.

 

Years ago we were invited to be on Good Morning Texas for the boys' costumes. So why not reuse them if they got us on tv, right?

There was absolutely no way that anyone was getting that candy bucket out of my baby girl's hands. She was holding onto that sucker even if she had to drag it.

We were fresh out of white face paint and sunscreen soaked into his face. So what do you do in a pinch? Oh if you could have only seen Nolan's face when I told him at the end of the night that he had diaper cream on his nose all night. Priceless.

So as I walk around the neighborhood feeling guilty about how I should've put more effort into their costumes, I look at my sweet babies walking up to each house and guess what? They could have been wearing sheets with holes cut out for eyes and been every bit as happy. Seriously.

Having Gram and Pop here from Kentucky made it even more special because it's the first time ever that they've been able to join us. They stayed with the kids while Justin and I went to New York. I owe them my life for that one!

Here's some fun we carved up the night before Halloween. What fun!

Landry was into it the most, believe it or not!

 

And here are a couple of my favorite. I didn't get one of Campbell. Probably because the kids had to be super still! Which it's a miracle I got one of Landry!

Knowing how long it takes me to accomplish things, I better start working on next year's costumes!

Dallas Arboretum

I figured I better blog about this before it's Christmas time. My parents and I packed up Landry and headed to Dallas to go check out the Dallas Arboretum. I've always wanted to go to check out if I want to use it for one of my photo session locations.

 Even though Dallas is only an hour away, sometimes it seems like it's across the country now that we have kids. Even when we went this particular morning it took us nearly two hours with traffic.

 

But all traffic complaining aside, it was amazing. And 100% worth it. I'm totally sold on using it for locations. It was seriously my fall fantasy land.

All my favorite colors exploded everywhere. I don't know what it is about fall that gets me to this ultimate happy place but it does it me every single time.

The funniest part was that there were literally hundreds of pumpkins a gourds and my daughter always seemed to find the ugliest ones that had warts and hold them for the pictures. It made me a little happy though that she didn't judge based on beauty.

We had lunch there and it was literally the perfect fall day. I'm so glad we made the trip. Love that we discovered a new little jewel not too far from us. I'm just sad that Justin and the boys weren't with us. We wanted to go back over the Thanksgiving break but this nasty weather has pretty much ruined those plans.

 

Landry felt right at home and even threw a princess fit over getting out of the carriage. 

So eternally grateful for the memories made doing things like this.

Pick of the Patch

Everyone at this point knows that I'm psycho for fall. If you didn't know, you will soon be convinced.

I torture pump my family up about the patch every year. Actually, usually if there's anyone being tortured it's usually me and my husband, who's a good sport to every session that I drag him along to. He seriously deserves a medal.

We've gone to a patch I think every year since Nolan was a toddler but Halls Pumpkin Patch is our absolute favorite patch. They have the best fall setup ever and the kids absolutely love it. It's like fall threw up everywhere. My fall spastic meter is off the charts. I can smell pumpkins a mile away. It's my party trick.

While I'm loving every single second of my new role where I work from home/am a full time Mommy/designated chauffeur/full time photographer, the only bummer is that October is full of soccer games, practice twice a week, photo shoots galore, and it all coincides a little with my fall freak obsession. And all this rain is really literally raining on my fall parade. Seriously, why can't it rain at night only?

So we changed things up a bit and headed to the patch during the week which is a first for us because this family knows ain't no one keeping Mama from her pumpkin patch. But now, I gotta say I won't do it any other way. It was a ghost town compared to what it normally is on the weekend, where you have about 50 people photo bombing every photo. Your kid screaming because he wants a ride on the tractor and people giving you stare down because you want a picture of your kid's 8 seconds of fame on that tractor. But wait, they're not looking. Look over here kids...oh, just forget it.

The food is delicious. Don't believe me?

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

 

Exhibit C:

There was no getting that corn out of the grip of her chubby dimpled hands. Here are the other 1,957 reasons why I'm obsessed with fall.

 

 

 

 

 

And just when we were headed home, I got my biggest fall fix with this.

And that's a wrap on Fall Obsession 2013.