Life Lately {Fall}

First things first- I forgot to mention this way back in August but I gave all four girls haircuts! I promised myself I would never do it again after I cut Evie & Audrey's several years ago and couldn't get either's hair even. And I'm renewing that promise to myself yet again. 

It wasn't all bad (this time I watched a couple YouTube videos first! and they really needed cuts), but Cora's hair looks truly abysmal. In my defense there was hardly any sitting still on her part; I do think that I need to leave it to the professionals forevermore, though!

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At the end of September we celebrated Heidi's 6th birthday!

I didn't get any pictures, but we celebrated her birthday with my family with a brunch after Sunday mass. 

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We also went apple picking one Saturday and enjoyed the orchard's apple cider donuts.

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One Friday we met up with friends at a local pumpkin patch. The weather was perfect- so warm and sunny!

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Over the summer I decided to delete my Bloglovin account. Every week I was getting spam followers with creepy and wildly inappropriate links in the profiles. I had messaged Bloglovin three different times over several months about it (there's no way to block unwanted followers) and never heard back, so that was it for me. The downside is that I really did like their format and would regularly keep up with blogs I follow; now I use Feedly but don't like it as much and have really fallen behind reading blog posts.:(

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At a trunk-or-treat- St. Gianna and Mary

Nurse, Corduroy, Cleopatra, Butterfly princess

This year we trick-or-treated in my parents' new neighborhood. My brother-in-law had the idea to put hay bales and lights in our trailer so the kids could all ride inside it. It's a big neighborhood and a lot of people in our church and school community live there, so it was great to be able to drive around! 

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If you're on Instagram you might've seen this on different accounts- painting any kind of old vases to give them a terracotta look. It was fun and easy- definitely my kind of project! Here are the instructions I followed (except I used a lot more baking powder than what the directions listed).

A few of the vases I painted

and this white round one

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A few songs I've been listening to a lot:

Zach Williams & Dolly Parton's "There Was Jesus"

Zach Williams' "Chainbreaker" (Love the live video from Harding Prison.)

Hope Darst's "Peace Be Still"

And such a cute holiday music video- White Christmas With You by Kait Madison

That's all for now!

So They Say {9}

After a nebulizer treatment-

Evie: Maybe what I need is some sea air.

As I'm getting on a pair of shoes-

Heidi (our very pragmatic, chain of events thinker): When you die, those will be ready for the next mom who lives here.
Me:.........yep...I guess so.

Evie: Can you put on the CD that had the Bee-atles song "Seize the Day", or whoever sings it?

Me: You mean from "Newsies"?

Rinsing strawberries for lunch-

Heidi: Now I know how to make strawberries.

Evie: These are cool- not the temperature cool...you know what I mean.

Cora: Mom, I wish I could have pink lipstick and yellow hair. 

After I didn't answer my phone because I didn't recognize the number-

Evie: My teacher says she does the same thing. Like sometimes she answers her phone and it's a peddler or something. 

Kneading bread dough-

Evie: I have been waiting all my life to do this. 

After one of our fish died and was buried in a (very shallow) grave, and then was not there when the girls decided to exhume its remains some days later (😑)-

Cora: The fishy died but God rosed him up to heaven. 

This one needs a bit of background: three of our girls and lots of their cousins have been baptized by the same priest. All of those baptisms have been in the chapel of the parish where he is the pastor, except for Audrey's which was in the church sanctuary. And Cora was baptized by him at a parish in another state while we were on vacation. 

This past Lent we went to a Fish Fry at that priest's parish and on the way were reminding the girls that some of them were baptized there.
Audrey out loud to a friend at the Fish Fry: Guess what?? I'm the only one in my family who was BAPTIZED IN THE CHURCH! AND CORA WAS BAPTIZED AT THE BEACH!

I was dying overhearing that because to a random passerby it probably sounded like we're bohemian Catholics or something.😂

The Little Family Vacation That Could

 My family was in the process of nailing down a week for the beach just before the shutdown happened in March. Once summer arrived we started the search again for a house to rent but each time it looked like we'd found a place during a week that worked, that house didn't pan out. 

I began praying a novena and other prayers over and over for a beach week to work out; we had no plans all summer long, which was fine, but we were so hoping to take in some sun and sand! Finally towards the end of July my sister found a great place to rent- at Holden Beach in NC, not our usual Topsail Island, but nevertheless- the beach!

The Wednesday before the Saturday we were going to leave (early August) we got word that the island was closed to renters due to damage from Hurricane Isaias, which had come ashore not far from there, so it looked like we *might* not be going after all. Tbh I was over it at that point; I am not a fan when possibilities yo-yo back and forth (maybe! no. actually yes! but maybe not...) and felt prayed out over the matter! Thankfully on Friday we got word that our rental was habitable and the island was open to all!

Homegrown plumeria from Florida

Pelicans are my favorite!

Our girls slept in a bunk bed room all by themselves which worked okay. It took Cora a couple of nights to adjust to the different surroundings (and to not play with the blinds!), though.

The kids all enjoyed playing and spending time with cousins, and the oldest cousin had a great time fishing every day.

We were there for Evie's 9th birthday, so it was great to celebrate with everyone! My mom made her delicious ice cream cake and Evie chose hamburgers and hotdogs for her birthday dinner.  

This was the first time most of us met baby Lu!

I was a bit disappointed that I found hardly any shark teeth or pieces of sea glass.:( 

We really enjoyed this beach and were grateful to spend time with family. It was smaller and less "built up" than Topsail (which isn't super commercial anyway) but still felt familiar in so many ways. 

It was so nice to get time away before the start of school.:)