Sunday, October 30, 2011

October moms have the cutest pumpkins

October has long been one of my favorite months. It's my birth month. It's a beautiful time to live in Tennessee. The trees are gorgeous with their reds, yellows, and oranges. The Tennessee Vols play Alabama. The tobacco barns are firing, drifting their smoke across the hills. And three years ago, my first daughter was born.

This year we spent her birthday in the Great Smoky Mountains. I had a teacher's convention there the week prior, so we just decided to make it a little family trip. My mother and father, and brother and sister-in-law came up for the weekend, and we had a great time! We did a little hiking, a little shopping, and a lot of eating. It was great having everyone together for Sammie's special day!

The next weekend was Sammie's birthday party. She is very much so a Tangled fan right now, so she asked to have a "Pincess" party. Her grandma made her two cakes, as always; one for just her, and one for everyone else. We had the party at a park nearby, cooked out, and all the kids played on the playground. Afterwards, just my family headed to the riverbank and ended the day with some fishing. Sammie was eating up all the time with her "favorite," Aunt Lindsey.

As if our month wasn't already busy enough, the next weekend was my school's fall festival. Each teacher/class was asked to run a booth. I came up with the idea of taking Khan, our Colombian Red-tail boa, and letting kids take pictures with him. Of course, Sammie was our first customer. We ended up taking somewhere 160-175 pictures.

Of course, since the 8th of the month passed, Lily turned another month older. She's now 4 months old! Crazy how time flies. To me, my girls look like twins born 2.75 years apart. But not everyone else spent as much time scrutinizing their faces as I have. Heh... I found this picture of Sammie on my Facebook, and held it up for David to see. It took him a minute to decide if it was Sammie or Lily. Only after noticing the baby in the picture had no hair, did he decide it was Sammie. I got him to take a picture of Lily and my phone. Multiple people have asked why I took a picture of me taking a picture; assuming that's Lily on my phone. Boy, do they look alike!

Lily also decided to start sitting up this month. I swear, she's going to do everything faster than Sammie did! It doesn't last long, as she's got some strong leg muscles, and likes to stiffen them up often; but she can sit alone for 10 seconds or so. The picture isn't her first time, but I did get my wish to witness the first time. It's something I prayed for often with Sammie, to witness all her firsts, and I'm currently praying for it with Lily, too.

To end our eventful month, we took our church kids to the pumpkin farm. Of course, that meant our girls go to go, too. We have a picture of Sammie in this pumpkin patch every October, so far. We couldn't miss out on the tradition. After taking a pic of her alone, we got this one of the two of them.

While pregnant with Sammie, I came across a quote that said, "October moms have the cutest pumpkins." I must say they do. I love my pumpkins dearly. And call me biased, but they aren't just cute, they're absolutely adorable!