Fall Y'all (Speed Round)

I know we still technically have tons of fall left, but in my universe anything worth talking about in November gets lumped in with Christmas, so fall ends with Halloween.

Maybe that's part of the reason fall seems to fly by.  In honor of the fastest season of the year, you get the fastest blog post of the year.

Some minor setbacks and a few big decisions we needed to make caused us to bare bones things a little bit, but the State Fair is definitely a never miss.

Holden's birthday party is also a given.  Plants Vs. Zombies was the theme this year, complete with a Garden Warfare salad bar, a Pinata Party and the most disgusting looking brain jello I have ever laid eyes on.

Holden must have known the theme for Fall this year was simple, because his actual birthday request was a lot of arcade games and boxed macaroni and cheese for dinner.  Done and done.

Reo and I snuck in a couple of days in Vegas.

Before we halfheartedly celebrated Halloween and the madness that accompanied it.

P.S.  Harper was Daniel Tiger.  Which is not easily recognizable, nor can she say very well, so it was interesting.  I'm about 99 percent sure that next year she will be full blown into the princess craze, so we went with the obscureness of it all.  

We also spent a whole lot of time just living life, which is pretty good these days.  

A Midsummer's Night Blog

Summer is flying by, you guys.  And while we are literally running ourselves ragged trying to have the most fun possible (nothing like having a list to hold you accountable to having fun), I know I won't regret it come January.  

I won't regret going out as a family

to feed the ducks--

                 

or go to a baseball game--

And I also won't regret the times we stayed closer to home
having Lego building competitions--

or (semi-successfully) making taffy--

or getting our care package ready to send--

or even our half hearted attempt at a "science project."--

You know I never regret anything involving food
like our breakfast picnic--

or grilling pizza--

or various frozen treats--

 

(and yes, in case you were wondering, we are the mean parents that strongly encourage our kids to get the light colored snow cone flavors).

And I obviously never regret living in the water

at Lagoon-a-Beach--

 

or the Daybreak Pool--

No regrets on the 4th of July either

at the parade--

the candy aftermath--

barbeques galore--

and Holden's favorite, fireworks--

I do regret this lackluster attempt at a blog post, and I'm sure you are regretting reading it. What can I say, the siren song of Instagram makes blogging seem like a whole lot of effort all the sudden.  But rest assured, our Manning mini epic summer of awesome is coming along nicely, and mayyyybe the next update will be slightly more clever.

No promises.

In Summer

Summer is here and we are pumped!  Year round school looms in the not so distant future, so this is the closest thing we might get to a full blown summer and you better believe we are taking advantage.

We made it official by attending our very first graduation.  Some might say preschool graduation is overkill. Maybe it is.  But it exists for suckers like me and I will buy into it every time.

With pesky school out of the way we are ready to get down to the business of summer fun, and we take our fun very seriously.  Also, I love lists.

We are already making a pretty good dent in our list, too.  You missed out on some seriously amazing homemade snickerdoodle ice cream, if I do say so myself, and I hope to be up to my ears in zucchini in a month or so.  Also, who could forget our much anticipated "roadie" to Las Vegas.

We started off strong.  The kids were troopers in the car and we made an overnight pit stop in St. George. We were first timers, so we weren't quite sure where to start, but figured a visit to the temple and a splash pad couldn't be wrong.

Holden immediately bogarted the stairs in both locations, apparently. 

His adorable grin was gone the next day, however, when a stomach virus attacked him at both Target and the longest possible stretch of desert road before you hit civilization again.  Both ideal places to throw up.   Except for that they are not, in case you didn't catch the sarcasm. Luckily our Las Vegas hotel was pretty swank, because we holed up there the majority of our first day so Holden could recuperate and Harper could take a million baths in the tub and binge watch Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood.  

We were able to happen upon an old friend who was also visiting Vegas.  We live two towns apart and never manage to get together, so this was a fun treat!  Guess we just like to do things the hard way.  

Holden felt better the next morning, so we figured the best thing to do would be to hit up the breakfast buffet, obv.  Luckily it didn't backfire.  Holden's stomach was fine and Reo and I got to relive the magic doughnuts we've been dreaming about since our last trip to Vegas.

We hit up the pool early and praised the 105 degree weather.

Harper got a good nap in at the Pinball Hall of Fame.

Other people were more excited.  Reo was stoked they had the pinball machine of his youth.  And Holden lives for arcades, so you can imagine his excitement level.

Despite losing a day, we were able to hit up a few of the highlights of The Strip.  And let's be honest, a few of the highlights is usually more than enough to tide you over.
We saw the fountain show...

And tasted some interesting Coke creations...

And then we blinked and it was time to go back home.  Ready to cross more things off our summer fun list. 

But really, having fun in the summer has never been our problem.  Winter is when I am a mean, unfun mom. Our real goal for summer is having slightly less fun, and spend slightly more time working on streamlining our morning routine from a leisurely 2 hours or so (complaining about doing your 4 chores is time consuming, Holden can tell you all about it)  to something slightly more manageable.  Or else morning kindergarten could be a struggle.  Which is ironic since my kids wake up before the sun every morning.