Home Sweet Aggieland!

Earlier this month, I met two of my college roommates back in College Station for a LONG overdue girls weekend to enjoy the last home football game of the season.  We hadn't been back to Aggieland together since we graduated... why did we wait so long to do this?!?

Friday Night:  Midnight Yell
I was yawning by 10:30 PM.  Seriously.  Once we got there, everyone kept talking about how "old" the Class of 2014 was (they had just finished their Elephant Walk), which made me feel like a senior citizen as a member of the Class of 2004!

Last yell in Kyle Field as we know it!  It was packed!

Panoramic before the lights went out.

Thanks, random Mississippi State fan, for taking our picture by the field!

Saturday:  Shopping and Tailgating
There are advantages to being a senior citizen... we were all up early!  We headed to Fuego's for breakfast tacos (highly recommended, by the way) and then hit up Aggieland Outfitters for some new A&M gear.

Ran into some football boys in Aggieland Outfitters.

We headed to campus for some tailgating and to check out the new MSC.  We even caught the actual football team walking into the stadium for Spirit Walk.  Even though it was raining, it was fun to walk around campus again!

We met one of the senior players' moms at Spirit Walk -- she was awesome!

Spirit Walk

Tailgating with the Blantons!

Jill posing with the horses as we chatted with the guys from Parson's Mounted Calvary.

Jill doing a little karaoke on "The Back Porch" of someone's tailgate.  She was sober, but we weren't too sure about him!

The Game - A&M vs. Mississippi State
Finally it was time to head inside for the game.  Thankfully, the rain cleared out just in time for kickoff.  It ended up being a perfect November football afternoon!

Another panoramic -- one last look before they tear down the student side of the field.

Love the Corps of Cadets and the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band!

We had AWESOME seats -- thanks Ms. Joni!! :)

Loved getting to see this guy in person -- he really makes the game fun to watch!

We could hear them starting to tear down the stands as we were leaving.   They didn't waste any time!

Look who we ran into after the game -- Mr. Aggie Prez himself! 

It was so fun to be able to catch up with these girls, and we've already started planning for next year.  It will be our official 10 year reunion!  So glad I got to see them again and that we got to be #superfans for a weekend! :)

Trick-or-Treat!

This year, we went for a mommy-daughter duo costume.  Lindsay went as Perdita (from 101 Dalmatians) and I went as Cruella de Ville.  My mom actually made this costume for me in college, and then wore it herself when my little sister went as a dalmatian, so we've gotten some great use out of it!

Perdita and Cruella de Ville

Our sassy little Dalmatian puppy

When it came time for trick-or-treating, we went to maybe 10 houses before Lindsay was ready to go home.  Our neighborhood is CRAZY on Halloween because we have so many kids, and once it started to get dark, she wanted to go inside and pass out candy instead.  She loved answering the door and giving out candy, and when the bigger kids started to come around, they all thought she was precious!

Trying to sneak some candy... even though she's never really had any!

Happy Halloween, little Dalmatian puppy! :)

Pre-School Halloween Party

What would preschool be without a Halloween party?  The partial day classes did a costume parade around the school, then we headed back to the room for some Halloween fun!

Posing with her teachers Ms. D'Lynn and Ms. Lindsey

Excuse me, the 80's are calling on my totally awesome phone.  I need to take this. 

Pin the smile on the Jack-o-Lantern -- she's pointing to her smile.

Making sticker pumpkins.  This girl loves a good sticker craft project!

Focused on those stickers... 

Loved that she let me help. :)

After the Halloween festivities, the kids didn't quite understand why us parents were still there... they just wanted to run around and play!  I love that she has so much fun at "school", and that we have such awesome room moms to make parties like this happen!

Carving Pumpkins

Lindsay was very excited about carving pumpkins -- it was all she could talk about once we brought them home from the pumpkin patch!

Step 1:  Remove pumpkin guts.  I tried to get her to help me get the seeds out of our pumpkin, but she took one look and decided she wanted no part of the slimy insides!

Action shot... refusing to put her hand in the pumpkin!

Step 2:  Draw the face.  She was pretty easy to please this year when it came to the face because she wanted it to look like her pumpkin bucket.  Two triangle eyes, triangle nose, mouth with teeth.  My specialty!  I'm pretty sure every pumpkin I've carved the last 10 years has looked just like this.  Todd does the crazy faces, and I stick with the classics!

Step 3:  Cut out the face.  Lindsay really wanted to help with this step, which made me nervous since it was the only step that involved sharp objects.  Thankfully, she was satisfied to let me cut while she had her hand on my arm.

Step 4:  Light the candle.  We loved how our pumpkins turned out this year!

My "classic" on the left, Todd's "cool" one on the right. 

Spooky October Activities

Once October started, it was all about the Halloween activities at our house!  L loves to do "crafts", and it's a great way to keep her busy for an hour or so.  Give that kid a glue stick, some glitter, and a paint set and she is in heaven!  Guess she gets that from my side! :)

The best thing since sliced bread... pre-sliced and portioned cookie dough!

Making pumpkin cookies with Daddy

Decorating cookies at Grandma's house.  She decorates one, then eats it, then decorates another, then eats it....

Fun Halloween crafts she made with Lollie when she was visiting their house!  Her favorite is the ghost because, in her words, "it's scaaaaaaryyyyy  oooooooooh".

Pumpkin painting!

Turquoise was her paint color of choice. 

Our completed masterpieces!

The "Punkin" Patch

Every year, a church near our house hosts a Pumpkin Patch run by a local boy scout troop.  They always have a lot of pumpkins, and Lindsay loves to run and check out all of the different stacks.  This year, we had the entire patch to ourselves, and Lindsay was in "punkin" heaven!

Found one for Mommy!

The "Lindsay-sized" pumpkin stack

After a few minutes of searching, she found "the one".

"I got it, Mommy!  Now can you carry it?"

We could barely get her to stand still long enough for a picture!

Helping Daddy take our purchases to the car.

Pre-School Projects

This year, L started going to a mother's day out preschool program.  It's a part-time class that meets a few times a week, and she absolutely loves it!  She has already learned so much, and I think it has been really good for her to be able to play with other kids her age (and learn to listen to other adults!).

First day of Pre-School!

Our first homework assignment ever - decorate an apple.

October homework - decorate a pumpkin!

She's also been bringing home lots and lots of "art projects" that they do in class, so our fridge is covered in masterpieces. :)  Hope we can keep encouraging this love of school for the next 20 years!

Fall Fun

So, it's been awhile.  I thought that staying home with L this year would mean I would have all this extra time to blog and do fancy Pinterest crafts and finally keep my house really clean... man, was I wrong!  I feel like I'm just as busy now as I was when I was working, only now it's a different kind of busy.  A good, fun busy! 

Here are some random pictures of the fall fun we've been having:

Swinging at the park with Daddy

She loves to go up and down the stairs by the slide!

My husband let L use his Google Chromebook -- it's a touch-sceen laptop that can she can use to play games on the Disney Junior website.  It amazes me that she can do so much on the computer without any help!  Definitely got Daddy's techie genes!

Still loves to play dress-up...

Playing in the backyard on the new playset that Grandpa and Daddy built.  Toby was a very unwilling passenger on L's pirate ship!

We can't go anywhere without Reveille.  But at least it makes sense now that Aggie football is back on TV. 

Shopping at the Michael Kors store with Aunt Abi, acting like she owns the place!

Not sure why she got in the basket, but she sure was proud of herself for it!