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.

Pumpkin Patch 2012

The pumpkin patch...it's something that is just party of our schedule. Who cares if we have soccer games, we've been out of town, or  if I've had 7 photo shoots in 8 days while working full time.

Pumpkin patches are a priority status when it comes to scheduling. No matter how exhausted I am, we make sure to squeeze it in because that are my favorite pictures of the entire year. The kids don't even have to be looking and they're still my favorite because of all the fall colors.

 I have a slight obsession with all things fall related.

Don't EVEN get me started on pumpkins. If it even looks like it could be made of pumpkins, chances are that I've probably tasted it.

 

We have an frozen yogurt place called Orange Leaf WAY too close to our house and right now they have Pumpkin pie frozen yogurt. It's quite embarassing how many times I've been in there in the past couple of weeks and even more embarrassing how many times I tell myself Do not be tempted, Do not be tempted, as I drive by.

 But I digress. My best friend Angi has wanted family pictures and I thought the perfect background would be the pumpkin patch and maybe I could even get someone to snap a few of my family.

My kids always love the pumpkin patch and that's why it's so easy because when I'm busy snapping pictures of one of them, the others are off running and having a blast.

We piled all of our kids in the back of the old pick up truck. Dang, I wish I had this truck for some photo shoots. Too bad, this one is only available during October.

I was a procrastinator and waited way too long to order Landry an embroidered pumpkin shirt so I took a crack at it and made one. Don't look too close at the stitching but I still think it turned out super cute. It's probably the cute girl wearing it that makes it look even cuter. Here is she is with her bestie, Rylan.

The boys were sporting their ties that I bought for them. I actually learned how to make those too but these were bought, I went the easy way.

It was so much fun to get together with Angi and her sweet family. The funniest part of the evening was that we decided to go out to eat afterwards and agreed on Mooyah's Burgers. Well apparently, there are two Mooyah's Burgers within minutes of each other and we went to separate ones. Oops. Can you tell that we've got a lot on both of our plates?

I love looking at the pictures through the years of our little ones at the pumpkin patch and love even more that it's become a tradition.