Happy Halloween!!

Our 'little lady' wishes everyone a very Happy Halloween full of lots of treats!

We went to the Fayetteville square this afternoon for the big event with local businesses, and it was packed!! I heard something like there were 2,000 kids there. There was a huge line stretching around the square, or the side with the businesses, and we just walked around in the street and across the road from the gigantic line of kids. We hit up some of the side streets and Sara Kate did get a little bit of candy, not that she can eat any of it yet. She wasn't sure what to make of it all, and was a little freaked out by spooky noises outside some shops. I'd say it was definitely sensory overload for her! But she was great and just held our hands the whole time.

Tonight we stopped by Ali's...Sara Kate got invited to the big kids Halloween party! Ali is so sweet. Chris took a really funny picture of her and her boyfriend in their costume but he hasn't uploaded it yet. We also made a stop by Meme's to say hi. Sara Kate was a little freaked out at first by Meme's witch hat and the noise making pumpkin by her door but she got used to it and was mesmerized by it by the time we left! We have picture of Meme and Sara Kate too that hasn't been uploaded yet. So more Halloween pictures coming soon!

We've had a great afternoon/evening and are all exhausted! Time to hit the sack! Hope everyone had a fun night!

Low Key Weekend & Family Pics!!

We had a very low key weekend. Not much was going on and we definitely took advantage of it. We did get the opportunity to take family pictures, combined with Sara Kate's 18 month pictures. The weather was just perfect and the leaves are changing right now so there are some really pretty places around town. I'll come back to that in a second.

Saturday morning we headed to Chris' parents house and had pancakes. Sharon has been inviting us over alot on Saturday mornings, and she says it's something she's always wanted to do with the grand kids. Since we live right down the road, we've taken advantage of her invite a couple times now. Sara Kate loves Meme's pancakes, of course!! Chris had to head off to a photo shoot right after breakfast, but Sara Kate and I stayed back to play for a bit. It was chilly outside, but we went outside anyways and took advantage of the sunshine!
We came home just in time to watch the Razorback game (OF COURSE!!!), and oh my goodness were we shocked at the ending!! Our team played like crap but a win is a win!
Today we have done alot of nothing...church, played outside, played inside, laundry, grocery shopping, ya know, normal Sunday activities. I have a yummy recipe to share of something I made for dinner tonight. It was a delicious soup, and I'll just leave ya hanging for now and try and get the recipe posted later. :-)
Check out that sweet hair!!
Ok, back to our family pictures. Chris is really into photography now, is setting up a little side business, and has taken some absolutely great snaps of Sara Kate, but I thought it just wasn't possible for him to snap our fall family pics. I contact our photographer Beth Hall, who we have used in the past, but her prices have gone up and it's just not in the budget right now. Onto Plan B!! Chris is really into photography, but he's been teaching some stuff to our friend Ali (who is Sara Kate's favorite non family babysitter and who Chris has been working on taking her Senior pictures), and she's getting into photography, too. So we called on her to use Chris' camera and snap for us. We also called on Meme to be support for Sara Kate!! We decided on the Old Main lawn on the U of A campus because it's really pretty there right now. Because it's so pretty at the moment and the weather was perfect Saturday, us and tons of other people had the same idea! There were families getting their pictures taken all over that place!! But we found some great locations, and Ali did a fantastic job of snapping for us. Chris has been editing today, and we are just thrilled with how they turned out. I'll leave you with a few little peaks!
Like I said, these pictures doubled as Sara Kate's 18 month pictures, and we did the same thing last year...our fall family pictures doubled as her 6 month pictures. It just so happened that we did these pictures on the exact same weekend, on the exact same day, exactly a year apart.
Sara Kate at 6 months...
And Sara Kate at 18 months!
My how things have changed! I love going back and looking at where we were at year ago. I love that little girl, and I love my little family!

Feeding Herself

I think I mentioned in Sara Kate's latest monthly post that she's very much into doing things herself, as far as eating goes. When we feed her things off our plates with a fork, she still lets us do it (and I don't want to let her do it because I don't want her to stick herself!), but if I have her spoon out, she wants to do things herself! I took this video a week or 2 ago while she was finishing up her dinner. She decided that she wanted to eat the apple sauce HERSELF, and you'll see that even daddy trying to adjust the spoon for her was just not going to happen!! It was cracking me up. She doesn't get the 'scoop' yet so it's just kind of like a dip. Last night she was eating apple sauce and she ended up turning the spoon upside down and was dipping the handle part in instead of the spoon part. After a while of that, she decided that using her hands would just be easier. Yep, that was a fun dinner clean up, ha!! Anyway, enjoy this video of Sara Kate feeding herself!

Not much else is going on this week. Chris and I had a date night Tuesday night to go to the Walton Arts Center to see 'West Side Story.' It was great!! Before it started he asked me what I knew about the story line, and I told him that in 9th or 10th grad AP English, we watched the movie (which was from like the 60's or 70's). Any classmates remember that? Think maybe it was in Shofner's class. Anyway, the show was updated and it was really good! Meme came over to stay here with Sara Kate (thanks, Meme!!), and they had a great night.

Tomorrow at Sara Kate's school they are having a little Halloween party, and I'm supposed to bring her costume so they can take pictures for the walls outside her classroom. Until this week, there was still a picture of her on the wall in her giraffe outfit from last year. So cute. Here's a little sneak peak of what she is this year. :-)
We had a cold front come through yesterday/today with some rain and our temperatures have dropped!! It definitely feels and looks like fall! We even had to kick our heater on. Think we're going to try to get some fall pictures of Sara Kate and the 3 of us this weekend. I'll leave you with a picture from Monday morning before school of Sara Kate in an adorable little fall dress from her Gran. Crappy cell phone quality picture (dress is navy), but oh so cute!!

Weekend Trip to El Dorado

Over the weekend, Sara Kate and I took our first solo trip. Just me and her. No husband, no parents, no pets. Needless to say, I was very nervous about making the trip alone (Chris had to stay back to judge a choir event on Saturday, plus I left Friday morning and he couldn't miss school.). What was I going to do if she started started screaming because the sun gets in her eyes (she HATES that!!!)? What if she gets fussy and tired of riding? How was I going to make a bathroom stop and have her with me? Just a few of the things I thought of. I did have her 'Baby Einstein' videos on my iPad and that was my go-to/last resort trick. We left Fayetteville about 8, after making a very important stop at a certain bakery in town (Rick's) to pick up a certain something for my dad (cake), which he knew nothing about. Didn't Sara Kate look super adorable and fall-ish?? And you can see her hair was sticking up everywhere!!
We headed south, and she eventually took a little cat nap for about 30 minutes, somewhere between Clarksville and Russellville. My plan was to stop in Conway for lunch and possibly find a park for her to run around in. We got to Conway a little earlier than I expected so I searched local parks on my phone, we ran into Wendy's to pick up a little lunch make a diaper change/bathroom stop (which went wonderfully!), and to the park we went! It was still a little cool, but we ate our lunch at a picnic table under a pavilion and then I let Sara Kate do her thing as far as walking/running and playing where she wanted.
She was having great fun and of course, got upset when it was time to leave. We left Conway around noon. My plan of eating and playing worked like a charm because she fell asleep around Little Rock and slept for about an hour. We made the rest of the trip with absolutely no fussing. My girl was just perfect on the trip down!!
Once we got to El Do, we made a quick stop by my parents house to drop off the cake (at which I time I set of the house alarm, which I was told was not on...lovely...), and we went to the new high school to meet mom.
Gran was so excited to see her Sara Kate and wanted to carry her around and show her off, but she got really shy and unsure of her surroundings and just wanted me. So I carried her around and we showed her off! :-) And I got a tour of the new school. It's very nice compared to what we graduated from...old and busted verses new and fresh!!
We spent the rest of the evening at home, just hanging out and enjoying family and a little bit of this!!
You see, I told mom not to make any kind of dessert because I was bringing dad a Rick's cake (he LOVES Rick's!!), but I didn't tell her it was for them both. I had Rick's make it half chocolate and half vanilla to appease both of their tastes, and it even worked out that it said 'mom' on the vanilla side and the chocolate side said 'dad!' Of course, Sara Kate worked all of us for some cake. :-) She hasn't met a sweet thing she doesn't like...definitely her mama's daughter!!
Sara Kate slept in so late Saturday morning!! We set the pack n play up in my brother's room, and I heard her babbling at 7:30. I fell back asleep and woke up at 9 and she was asleep again and didn't get up until 9:40!!! Go Sara Kate!!! Check out her sweet mohawk she woke up with! :-)
We spent the day relaxing and hanging around the house. We read some books, worked a new puzzle (which she learned how to do in 1 day!!), chased the new kitten around (Maggie, the kitten, liked to get in the pack n play!), played ball, played piano, and of course, watched the Hogs play!
Sara Kate even 'talked' to her daddy on the phone!
Then my mom gave her the cordless phone and she would push some buttons and walk around the house 'talking.' It was so cute.
Saturday night my dad grilled burgers and my uncle and aunt came over. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of them with Sara Kate, but she pretty much was just wanting to hang with me. However, she knew she had an audience, and she did ham it up!

Sunday we went to church and then headed to the Arboretum at the old high school to try and take some nice fall pictures. Kind of like our trip to the pumpkin patch, it was quite difficult to take Sara Kate's picture because all she wanted to do was run around and explore. She kept yelling 'didide,' which is 'outside.' I do think I got some cute, though. I'm no pro like my hubby so I was just snapping, while chasing, while trying to pose a busy 18 month old! :-)

First, a look back at Sara Kate in the Arboretum in 2010, when she was 7 months old (and one of my absolute favorite pictures from her first year)...
And at 18 months in the Arboretum in 2011! And the one and only time I got her to sit by a pumpkin!! :-)
A look back at me and Sara Kate in 2010....
And here's me and Sara Kate in 2011! Not real sure what her look is all about. Probably a 'put me down mom, I wanna go explore' look, ha!
And now for a few more cute shots.
I love this picture...the way it's framed, the lighting, the color...go me! :-)This picture is a little blurry but it's too cute not to share. In all her running around, she ran up to this pumpkin to pat it (of course she was only by it a second) and I snapped as quick as I could, hoping the image was in focus. Alas, it was not but it's still cute from afar.
After our trip to the Arboretum, we had lunch, packed up and hit the road. We left about 1:30 and I was just as nervous about the trip back. I didn't know if I should stop and if so, then where, but Sara Kate was asleep as soon as we left my parents neighborhood and she slept all the way through Little Rock (a good 2 hours). And yes, she wanted all her stuffed toys on her! And she cracked me up using that little white cat that was one of my Beanie Babies as a pillow!
She was content when she woke up so I just pressed on. And we made the whole 5 hour trip without stopping and with very little fussing (just a few times before we turned north when the sun was in her eyes)!! I am just so proud of her, the way she was in the car both ways and when we were at my parents she was so good. I know all road trips won't be that perfect, but I am so happy the first one we took alone went well. It might entice me to travel with her again. :-) Mom and dad, we had a great weekend, and thanks for having us! We look forward to seeing you next month!!
When you look at your life, the greatest happinesses are family happinesses.
~Joyce Brothers