Pumpkins, weddings and theme parks…that was basically the gist of our month! We spent the month of October in 3 (kind of 4) different states between a family wedding and vacation…and still managed to fit in all of our favorite fall and Halloween traditions! Like I expected, it was a very busy month…but we made lots of memories!

Here’s how our month went down…

Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

Between traveling, school, and Ryan’s schedule, we had ONE day of the entire month that we could actually take our annual visit to the Pumpkin Patch…so luckily it worked out! It was hot and crowded, but we had a great visit. We enjoyed picking out pumpkins, taking a hay ride, playing in the corn pit and climbing on the hay playground. We love this farm and will miss it next year…but Indiana knows a thing or two about farms so I have no doubt we’ll find another one to continue our fall traditions next year!

Kinsie Rocking Kindergarten

Kinsie is still doing great in school! She still loves it more than ever and I know she’s learning a lot. Lately, she received a few awards…a responsibility citizen of the month from the school counselor, perfect attendance for the quarter, and Super Falcon for her class! We are so proud of her!

             Kinsie’s Writing

I LOVE when Kinsie brings home her writing from school…it melts my heart! I love watching her using her phonics skills to sound out her words. Here are a few of my favorite fall writings this month.

               Red Ribbon Week

The week after Fall Break, Kinsie’s school celebrated Red Ribbon Week to promote living drug free. I used to be the Student Council sponsor for my school, and I loved planning the dress up days for Red Ribbon Week, so of course I also enjoyed dressing Kinsie up!

Day 1: “Tell Drugs to Take a Hike!” (top left – dress like you’re going camping)

Day 2: “Make it a GOAL to stay drug free!” (top right – dress in a team jersey)

Day 3: “Don’t let drugs be the villain in the story of your life!” (bottom left – dress like a Disney character)

Day 4: “Bubble Bubble, Witches Brew…we’re drug free…how about you?” (bottom right – dress in Halloween costume)

Wedding Weekend in Indiana

Ryan’s cousin Nicole got married in October, and we were excited that the kids were asked to be the flower girl and one of the ring bearers, along with their baby cousin Griffin. Unfortunately with Kinsie’s school and Ryan’s work, we were only able to visit Indiana for the weekend. We left on Thursday after school and returned home Sunday evening. We were really only there for 2 days, but we made the most of it!

On Friday, my sister took Kinsie to have lunch with her cousins at their school. She loved getting to see them and their school!

The wedding took place in a beautiful barn, and fall (and practically winter) weather decided to show up for the occasion…it was cold! Kinsie loved dressing up like a princess, and Brax decided to make things as difficult as possible while putting on his nice clothes. He goes through waves, where he’ll be super laid back and sweet for a few months, and then an absolutely stubborn terror for a few months (remember when I said he’s a sour patch kid?!) Unfortunately, right now he’s in a sour phase so everything is a battle. We won every battle except him wearing the bow tie and suspenders…so we called it a win. The kids looked great and did their job well, and Griffin was the absolute sweetest, smiling away in his wagon! We loved getting to see all of family at the wedding and the kids loved dancing the night away!

Vacation in Orlando

We were so excited for this vacation, not just for where we were going, but the fact that Ryan got to spend an entire week with us! With the wedding and this vacation somewhat back to back, he had to use all of his days off for those trips, so when we were home, he was working every day. We all definitely needed this week of vacation!

Day 1 and 2: Traveling and Disney Springs

Our trip there was overall non-eventful, which was nice after some of the stressful airport experiences we’ve had in the past! We had to drive the 2 hours to Memphis for our flight, which wasn’t too bad considering how much cheaper it was. My saint of a husband even offered to sit with the kids on the plane and let me sit across the aisle from them. It was lovely!

We got to Orlando around 2pm, so we wanted to use our time wisely! We spent the evening at Disney Springs. The kids love digging for dino fossils at the T-Rex Cafe and looking at giant LEGO statues. We also loved the Marvel store and shopping at the Rainforest Cafe!

On Day 2, the original plan was to go to Universal Studios with the whole family, but there was a huge tropical storm and it poured all morning! Luckily we had a built in “off” day the next day, so we just switched and went the next day. The storm was over by early evening on Saturday, so we all went back to Disney Springs again that night!

Day 3: Universal Studios part 1

The whole crew (us, my sister’s family, my parents, Ryan’s parents, and my aunt Stella and her husband Andre) went to Universal Studios together. They all hadn’t been in a really long time, but Ryan and I went a few years ago so we helped lead the way. I could have spent all day just in Harry Potter world, but I knew not everyone knew and loved the wizarding world like I do, so we just visited there for a little while and made time for other activities too. My sister recently read the HP series though, so I was excited for her to share the magic with me! We enjoyed the castle, some rides, the butter beer, and meeting some characters.

Day 4: Disney’s Hollywood Studios

We worked it out so that my family stayed in a Disney resort one night so we could all take advantage of the “Extra Magic Hours” at Hollywood Studios. I hadn’t been to this park since I was really young, and the kids had never been. They are obsessed with Toy Story right now, we we were really excited to experience the new Toy Story Land! Extra Magic Hours started at 6am, and the park didn’t open to the public until 9am…so we got a LOT in during those 3 hours! It was tough waking up at 5am and getting to the park before the sun even came up, but totally worth it!

I was so proud of Kinsie because she rode her first roller coasters on this trip! She started with the Slinky Dog Dash and absolutely loved it! She even rode it a second time with Uncle Ry Ry since the lines were so short so early in the morning! She also had fun riding with Aunt Tita on the Alien Saucer Spin.

The kids loved meeting Woody, Bo Peep and Jessie!

Toy Story Land was amazing! And it looked a little different from 6am to later in the day…like I said, I’m so glad we were able to take advantage of those extra hours!

We spent a good part of our day in Toy Story Land, but also made time for the new Star Wars land, and meeting lots of other characters! We ended up leaving the park around 8pm…we were all tired after a 14 hour day!

Day 5: Universal Studios part 2

The next day, we came back to Universal Studios, while the rest of my family went to Epcot. Ryan and I love Universal and we knew there was more we would want to do than what we’d be able to do in one day, so we chose to spend another day there. Ryan’s mom came along while his dad had to travel to Tampa for work. We had another great day exploring Hogsmeade, riding the Hogwarts Express, and doing magic with our wand. We didn’t really have time last time to explore the Marvel Superhero Land, so we made sure to spend time there this time. The kids got to meet Captain America and Spiderman and loved it!

Day 6: Disney’s Magic Kingdom

When you make a trip to Orlando, it’s a requirement to spend at least one day at Magic Kingdom…at least for our family! We met back up with my family and everyone for a day at the most magical place on earth. The kids all had so much fun together. They loved the “It’s a small world” ride, the Dumbo ride, the parade, and the fireworks.

Best attempt at a full group selfie on Small World!

Lots of castle pics are a must!

It took way too long to find a spot to watch the fireworks, (I won’t get into too many details, but Ryan just about fought with the Disney employees for not letting us stand anywhere to watch!) but by the time we actually found a spot, Brax was asleep in the stroller! He stayed asleep until we left the park! Kinsie however, enjoyed the fireworks, then finally also passed out while we were waiting (for over an hour) for the ferry boat home.

Our Disney days almost always end in two passed out kids…that’s how you know it was a fun and successful day!

Day 7: Last day at Universal Studios – part 3

Our original plan was to spend 2 days at Disney and 2 days at Universal, but when we bought our tickets, our 2-day ticket to Universal came with a third day free…so we were happy to take advantage!

We had the kids write down the things they definitely wanted to do on their last day there, so we made sure we hit up those things, then added a few fun extras. The kids could have spent the entire day at Dr. Seuss Land. They loved all the rides and characters! We also met Branch and Poppy from Trolls, and King Julien from Madagascar.

There was a fun Curious George splash pad area that the kids loved. I stayed there with them while Ryan caught a few of the rides he wanted to do by hopping in the quick single rider line. We also rode a few rides that they loved the days before again, like Storm Force (similar to the tea cup ride at Disney), the “If I Ran the Zoo” interactive playground, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, and the Dr. Suess sky train. We had a great last day, and even finished in time to go meet our family for dinner since it was our last night together.

It was exhausting, but such a great trip! We were so glad Ryan was able to join us, and that we were able to spend some time with our Indiana family as well.

Fitting in all the Halloween Activities

We got back from our trip with less than a week until Halloween. We have lots of fun Halloween traditions that we do every year, so we had to do work once we were back!

The kids and I baked and decorated Halloween cookies the weekend we returned.

We also painted our smaller pumpkins (Unicorn, dinosaur, Forky)

Ryan worked a few evenings in a row once we got back, so we had to split up our pumpkin carving into 2 separate days. The first round, the kids helped clean out their pumpkins and collect the pumpkin seeds so I could bake them. Then the kids did as much as they could to help carve, but like usual, they get bored easily so Ryan and I finished them up.

The kids pumpkins are on the left… Ariel and King Kong. Ryan and I had to do ours a few days later when the kids were in school, and we did Groot and Dobby.

Halloween Night

Ryan made sure he got Halloween night off so he could come trick-or-treating with us. I made the kids jack-o-lantern pizzas for dinner.

Kinsie wore her costume all day since her Red Ribbon Week day was for her to wear her costume anyway, but Brax is a weirdo and didn’t want to wear his to school. He is extremely particular about what he wears lately, so I worked hard to make sure his costume was as basic as possible. And with Brax being in a “sour” phase of his sour patch kid lifestyle, when it was time to put on his costume, he threw an absolute fit. He was still excited to be Forky, but he just really enjoys being stubborn and didn’t want to do what we asked of him. After a short intense battle, we won, and he was Forky. Once his fit was over, he was as happy as can be and had a great time trick-or-treating!

The whole family… Woody, the alien, Jessie and Forky

Once Brax’s fit was over, we all really had a great night. It was colder than usual, but the kids did great trick-or-treating and had a great time!

October went by in a flash, and now we’re ready to take on November. My birthday is this month, and my family is coming to visit for Thanksgiving, so we have more to look forward to!

Enjoy our 1 Second Everyday for the month of October!