Life Lately - October

As expected, this month is flying by & I cannot believe Halloween is next week! We bought a porch pumpkin pile at a silent auction earlier this year & were pleasantly surprised when they came & did it for us at the end of September. It was the perfect way to kick off fall:

The month has also flown by because the girls are beyond busy with their fall activities. They've had fun going to the Griffin & Wakeland football games:

along with Griffin & Wakeland volleyball:

And how could I forget Fieldhouse volleyball, where Sophie's team is playing this season:

Of course, FFL is still going strong & Sophie got to be head cheerleader with Sloane:

Sadie & I have done a few things with NCL. They had an awards banquet to celebrate all of the hours they served last year:

Sadie got the spirit of NCL award for serving over 30 hours, which is more than double their requirement. They also had a meeting this month to celebrate haunted harmonies:

The girls are both actively involved in KLife & meet multiple times a week but their favorite night of the year with KLife is the progressive riot. Sadie has gone twice & Sophie has been patiently waiting to go:

We drop them off at 8:00 on Friday night & pick them up at 7:00 the next morning! It is literally an all nighter where they have charter buses drive them around from place to place. The 6th grade girls went with a beach/Hawaiian theme:

While the 8th grade girls went with a black & gold theme:

They started at Ninja Nation, then went to Pin Stack followed by Fritz Adventure. With a whole lot of snacks & fun in between. They ended the night at a local church whey they got to watch a movie & play before heading home. Apparently by the time they got to the church, they were barely hanging on:

Thank goodness they had afternoon games & could sleep all morning!

We also had a long weekend for fall break & the girls both had sleepovers with friends:

and my sister came to visit with her kids. I surprised them & took them to the Haunted Castle Cafe:

It is a spooky restaurant that fit the mood this time of year. The girls got fun mocktails that bubbled & smoked:

We were going to carve pumpkins while they were here, but instead we made haunted houses instead:

We also had fun baking with them. I made pumpkin donuts for breakfast & the girls had fun making spider cookies:

Last fun note - while they were here, Sadie ran a nail salon. She literally did dipped nails on Natalie, Sophie, Zoe & herself:

It's been a busy month, but we are loving every minute leading up to Halloween next week!

State Fair 2025

This past weekend was the girls' fall break where they got Friday, Monday & Tuesday off from school. Unfortunately, we still had 1 football, 1 volleyball game, 2 soccer games & 2 birthday parties so needless to say, we didn't get to go anywhere. But we did surprise the girls when we picked them up from school Thursday afternoon & headed straight to the State Fair:

It also happened to be Texas-OU weekend, so the fair was extra festive! We still love visiting the birthing barn & browsing the animals, but we definitely don't spend as much time at the petting zoo anymore. We always go straight for the food! Bryan always starts with a Fletcher's corndog & Sophie got BBQ mac-n-cheese:

Bryan & Sophie also tried something new this year - fried deviled egg, bacon & wagyu sliders:

while I am always on the hunt for something dairy & gluten free. This year I found a hot honey & cinnamon sweet potato:

We had fun walking around the auto expo & the girls got really excited when they saw this lime green jeep:

Then we finally made our way around the Cotton Bowl & found Big Tex:

We always take a selfie with him but of course it's on Bryan's phone - I'll have to get that from him & add it here. We walked through the midway, but the girls skipped the games & headed for the rides. Sophie was so excited to ride the big swing this year:

and Sadie shocked us all by going on the Slingshot! She has talked about it for years, but it is expensive, so she split the cost with us & paid for part of it. Of course, none of us wanted to go with her so we found someone for her to go with:

My pictures do not do it justice, but we got an awesome video of it. They shoot you so high in the air & then you kind of bounce up & down for a while, all while spinning upside down:

We were not surprised she loved it! We waited until after rides to get dessert. Sadie can't have anything fried so she pretty much hits up this same ice cream stand every single year:

And I'm pretty sure I have this same picture of Sophie getting a slushie last year also:

I was jealous of Bryan the most because he went for the brand-new, award-winning cookie chaos milkshake! It looked SO good:

It was a super fun evening - great weather, not crowded & it was the perfect way to kick off our fall break!

Cowboy Cheer Pictures, Fall 2025

Hot off the press - Sophie had an early morning on Saturday because their cheer squad had their pictures. We lucked out & had a beautiful morning with the sunrise & we literally just got her pictures as I was sitting here working on my laptop. They turned out gorgeous! Here are her individual portraits:

I just love that she cheers for the Cowboys since we live in Dallas & Bryan grew up a Cowboys fan!

We also got several cute pictures with her cheer squad:

And a few with their coaches in there as well. Liz & Misty have been amazing & we are so fortunate they were their leaders the past several years. Not only have they had fun in FFL, but they have really done their best to get them ready for middle school try outs in the spring:

Only one more month with this great group of girls before the season ends & that will be the end of the FFL era for Sophie. Hopefully she will still have more years left to cheer when her season with the Cowboys end!