A few days in NC

Since the kids are off school all week for Thanksgiving I decided to take them to NC for a few days to visit family!  

On Sunday we spent the day with my dad.  We went to lunch over at the beach and had a great view of the water and some pretty amazing boats.  

Then we decided to go bowling!  It was really cold and we wanted something fun indoors.  It was Hudson's first time bowling and he loved it. We all had fun!

After bowling we let them play a few of the arcade games, which they loved!

Sunday afternoon we walked on the dock and enjoyed just relaxing with my mom.

She even pulled out some of our old clothes and Hudson took over this hat that used to belong to my brother!

Sunday night we went to dinner at a new place owned by some of my family. It was SO good.  The girls loved trying Cheerwine (a NC soft drink) served in a glass bottle.

They also had fun playing tic-tac-toe and being silly with Uncle Cameron.

My mom took the kids over to the beach on Monday to find shells and take a walk.  I stayed at the house and took a nap!

We came back to Atlanta so that we had time to get ready for hosting Thanksgiving, but it was a great visit and I'm happy that we got a few days there.  Now we can't wait for Christmas!  It will be here before we know it and we'll be heading back to Wilmington for a few days then! 

Fall Soccer Finale

As we geared up for Thanksgiving we wrapped up sports and things for the week.  Handley had her last cheer practice.  She loves it so much and loves the girls and coaches she cheers with. It has been so much fun to watch her find the thing she really loves.  

Soccer wrapped up for Harper on Saturday. They had a fall finale mini-tournament and capped it off with a giant cookie cake!  She has improved and learned so much this season and while we are going to enjoy a few laid back evenings a week with no practice, she is going to be counting down the days until Spring season begins.

Her coaches are awesome and we are so thankful that she is on this Jr. Academy team.  Her teammates are also all super sweet and she has made some great friends!

Thanksgiving Play

For the past few weeks, Harper's class has been practicing for their Thanksgiving play and today was the big day!  She got a part that had a lot of lines to memorize and we had been working hard to help her remember them all.  The story was of a family that lost their pet turkey and they were on the hunt to find him.  Harper was one of the children searching for Turkey Lurkey and she did SO well in her performance.  She kind of gets shy at times when talking in front of people so I wasn't sure how today would go, but she remembered her lines and did great!

All of the parents were invited to the play and they went all out!  There were costumes, backdrops, props and more.  After there was a reception for the kid and parents to enjoy and overall it was such a sweet morning.  I'm so happy I got to see her perform and couldn't have been more proud of her!  

End of Season Cheer Party

Handley's football cheer season came to an end this week. She was with a great group of girls and they all loved their coaches.  She has cheered with some of the girls for a few years now and I can just see them all continuing as a squad and cheering into high school!

They had a little end of season party to celebrate and had so much fun.  There was music, dancing, crafts and pizza.

At the end of the night the coaches gave out superlative awards.  Everything from best spirit, to best motions to best dance moves.  Handley was given the "best leader" award and I couldn't have been more proud of her.  She was always trying to keep everyone on track during the games, call cheers to keep the crowd engaged and make sure everyone was doing what they were supposed to be doing.  She takes cheer very seriously so I was happy to see that her coaches recognized all of her hard work!

Now that football cheer is over, we will kick it into high gear with competition cheer, which she is SO excited about this year!

Birthday Weekend

Last weekend I celebrated my birthday and we had a fun/busy weekend!  I laughed because Harper's best friend and I share a birthday and Harper had a big girls night out planned with her to celebrate.  That is when you know you are getting old.  She had better plans than me on my birthday!

Then went to a Japanese steak house and then to the movies.

Meanwhile back home, I was enjoying the nice weather and relaxing on the porch with my favorite guy!

Saturday was full of sports.  Handley's football team made the playoff so they were cheering hard for the team.

Harper had a soccer game and two amazing sisters showed up to her game!  Emma Sonnett (UGA soccer) and Emily Sonnett (US Women's National Soccer Team) were in attendance and took pictures with the girls!

My mom was in town for the weekend to visit and we loved having her here.  We all got together to watch the UGA game on Saturday night and the kids had so much fun playing together. 

We even had a cousin sleepover so everyone could spend more time together.  We were all sad to say goodbye to Mimi the next morning, but can't wait until we are all together again at Christmas!  

Happy Halloween!!!

We had a super fun Halloween yesterday!  The kids were excited about no homework for the evening and couldn't wait to trick or treat.

This year Hudson decided early on that he wanted to be a camo ninja. I couldn't believe I was able to find a costume, but I was and he loved it!

Handley wanted to be the heart eyes emoji and we though we could order her costume online, but they were all sold out so I promised her I would make one.  Harper decided being an emoji would be fun, too and then I agreed to join in their fun.  I took these pictures last week so I could share my DIY on The Magnolia Mamas.

For trick-or-treating this year we went over to a friend's house for a little pre trick or treating dinner and then the kids couldn't be held off any longer.

The girls walked together as a group and then there were some boys running around together. It was SO hot though.  At one house the nice lady got the boys a glass of water because she could see them hot and sweaty from their costumes.

Despite the heat, they still had fun and loaded up on candy.  We came home and let them stay up a little while to sort, taste, and make a few trades before we all finally hit the sack.  Another Halloween in the books!

 

UGA vs. FL

For several years now we have been invited to go to the UGA vs. FL football game in Jacksonville, but it always falls over the same weekend as Halloween and I didn't want to miss being home with the kids. However, since Halloween was on a Monday this year we were able to go to the game and be home in time for Halloween.

We were with a fun group of friends and had a blast.  It was a whirlwind weekend and unfortunately our team didn't pull off a win, but we still had tons of fun!

Handley's cheer team had a showcase Sunday evening and trunk or treating so we got back just in time to get the kids changed and ready to go!  Hudson LOVED running from car to car to get candy with his buddy and couldn't wait for Halloween the next day!

Getting Ready for Halloween

The month of October just flew by. I mean, it still feels like summer here, so that could be why I'm having a hard time believing that it is actually November now, but the truth is we were just so busy with school and sports and everything in between that it went by in a flash.

Hudson brought home tons of cute crafts and Halloween projects from school, but his favorite by-far was this haunted house (gingerbread house style).  He couldn't wait to eat all the candy off of it!

I just couldn't bring myself to buy pumpkins at the grocery store, but we had a hard time finding time to go to the pumpkin patch.  Between soccer, baseball and cheer our weekends stay pretty busy.

Hudson's team did awesome this season and he had THE BEST time playing baseball. He learned a lot and will be excited for the spring season to start back up.

The football team Handley cheers for is going to playoffs and they have had a fun season, too!

In between a tournament baseball game and the football game and a birthday party we managed to finally squeeze in our trip to the pumpkin patch.  We've come along way from our coordinating outfits and perfectly posed pumpkin pictures, but at least we finally got pumpkins for the porch!

And the reason that this little outing happened was because we were celebrating Mackenzie's birthday party at the pumpkin patch!  Killing two birds with one stone on this day! 

The kids were excited to bring the pumpkins home and Walker seemed to like them as much as we did!  :-)