October and November 2019

Whoo-hoo!  I succeeded in my goal of updating the blog over Thanksgiving break!  So what if I cheated and wrote less and wrote two months in each post....it'll still serve its purpose for me to look back on later, right? 

October started with a few playdates and festivals, trips to the park, sleepovers, and a wedding to mark the beginning of Fall Break.  I also managed a full day at the spa before a trip to Gulf Shores with seven other families - 30 people in all - for a memorable weekend!

We donated $1,000 from September's Meatball Night to Gilda's Club!

Trader Joe's opens near school and we've already been at least 5 times!

One of his favorite things to do is read the Liturgy of the Hours with Lola

We also celebrated Trunk or Treat, Fall Fest, and a lowkey Halloween this month!

We had a Harry Potter theme for Trunk or Treat

Fall Fest was such a success that we even had a double rainbow!

And Lissie won at the cakewalk, so we had Sweet 16 brownies for breakfast - yum!


We opted out of trick-or-treating on Halloween because of the cold temps with the promise of going all out next year (hey, it's on a Saturday!)

November started with All Saints Day, of course.  And the third grade traditionally dresses up as saints at Mass.

Lissie chose St. Veronica because she was a timid person who became brave to help Jesus. 

With the proud Lola

Lissie also lectored at a school Mass.  For such a shy girl, she did amazing!

This month was a little more hectic since our school days started to get busier with the start of basketball.  There isn't a school night that we get home before 6, and often times it's even later than that!

Two nights a week, he exercises with me on the greenway while we wait for Lissie to get out of basketball.

As such, I've tried to make our weekends a little lighter to compensate.  We did do our annual camping trip with our church friends, which was always a great time!  Other than that, aside from some gatherings with friends and basketball games, we've made it a point to just relax to gear up for our busy weeks.

Celebrating his first win in three seasons of basketball!

Trying to decipher Lola's cursive to make zucchini bread.

Even our Thanksgiving break is thankfully uneventful.  With my parents in California and Justin working the weekend, we opted to not even cook for the holiday!  I'm excited to be spending the time hanging out with the kids, watching movies on Disney Plus, and catching up on my crafting and blogging.

Since my parents were in Cali, Xavier's godmother stepped in as proxy for GrandPal's Day.


And since my parents weren't there, I treated them to Sitar afterwards!

Homemade PJs are the best!

Thanksgiving Dinner!

It's hard to believe that 2019 is winding down.  I've loved our year of memories, and the kids have already requested that we do more experiences next year in lieu of toys for Christmas.  I agree, kids, I definitely agree!

But it's still fun to look at the Amazon catalog. haha!

August and September 2019

My goal is to get all caught up with the blog by the end of Thanksgiving Break, so here goes nothing.

August and September brought the end of summer, the beginning of the school year, and lots of fun memories!

We paid a semi-impromptu visit to Lissie's godfamily in Atlanta just before school started.  On our way down, we stopped at a tasty dim sum restaurant on the recommendation from some of my mom's good friends.  That first day, we also enjoyed a trip to the botanical gardens and a tasty Mexican dinner on the recommendation from other friends who used to live in the area.  Saturday was spent hanging out with Amy and her family - we even ventured on the freezing Chattahoochie to go tubing!  We always love spending time with them that we even made a plan to go camping with them the next month!

Nuevo Cantina Loredo with my favorite people.

The start of school, as always, was a whirlwind.  Lissie started third, Xavier started second, and I stayed in first. 

With some of the fabulous third-grade moms who helped pull off an amazing Welcome Back picnic for the school!

Yet, even with all of the back to school activities, we still managed to go to the Williamson County Fair, albeit just for a little bit before the downpour began.  I did feel bad since the kids spent their own money on their unlimited ride wristband that I compromised and told them that we could go back next year on my dime.  

At least we got our annual photo before the rain!

We still had time for other adventures like bike rides to an old one-room schoolhouse, a trip to a friend of a friend of a friend's alpaca farm and some end-of-summer pool trips.  The most fun was venturing out to a waterfall swimming hole over Labor Day weekend and stopping at a hole-in-the-wall Filipino restaurant nearby.

Halo-Halo!

Switching gears to September where our weekends were filled with cross country meets galore.  

Probably the only two kids to celebrate a cross-country meet with a flu shot from their dad!

We also had our camping trip with Lissie's godfamily, which was probably the main highlight of the month.

We also went to Cheekwood Harvest to enjoy the scarecrows before I let our membership lapse, had fun at the Father Ryan Homecoming game with friends, a birthday date night, and hosted another successful meatball night to benefit the Gilda's Club in honor of their Lola!

Phew!  What a whirlwind of a few months!