Halloween 2013

This year the Halloween festivities were in abundance!  Not only did we have our own family fall traditions that we continued, but it seemed like there were more and more opportunities to celebrate the holiday, which meant more and more reasons for Lila to wear her costume!!!

We let Lila pick what she wanted to be for Halloween this year.  The options ranged from Alice in Wonderland to a Princess to a cute kitty.  The kitty won and I maintain it is because it had the best tulle skirt...she can't help herself, she loves all things tulle!

Getting her whiskers!

Pretty Kitty!

Our first Halloween party was the annual TrueNorth party!  The office puts so much time and thought into creating a fun event for the kids.  It includes Halloween themed snacks, a craft of some sort, and pictures to document all the fun and great costumes!

Lila & Ruby

Smiling with Grandpa!

Darling girls, darling costumes!

Lila's {happy} bat from TrueNorth!

We also made time this year for carving pumpkins!  Lila is enough of a girlie girl that the guts of the pumpkin were definitely not her favorite part, but she was still excited about picking out her personal pumpkin and what the carving should look like!

Diving in!

Spooky Cat!

The Eddins Family pumpkins!

Proud of the pumpkins!

The Sunday before Halloween Lila developed a bad cough.  We loaded her up and took her to the doctor to discover that she had double ear infections.  We were so happy that we took her in so they could get her on medication and hopefully get her better before trick-or-treating on Thursday!

A fun headband/glasses piece that Lila created at school!  BOO!!!

Thankfully by Wednesday Lila was feeling good enough to go back to school, and most importantly, go to dance with Henley!  Dance is always one of her favorite things to do, but it was also the dance class where they could wear their costumes!  For dance Henley also dressed up as a kitty, so they were twins! 

Cute Cats!

Best Buddies!

Finally!  It was Halloween and time to go trick-or-treating!  The Pfeiler's invited us to come down to their house for soup and trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.  Lila could hardly contain her excitement to trick-or-treat with Sloan.  We spent Halloween with her last year and she loved showing Sloan the ropes!

All ready to go door to door!

The kiddos in their costumes!

A cat and her mouse!  They absolutely love one another!

Here we go!  How many pieces of candy can we get?!

The kids had quite the entourage!

The buckets are starting to fill up!

This year the weather had been rainy all day, but we were fortunate that it stopped by the time we headed out for trick-or-treating.  However, it was pretty breezy outside, so the kids decided that they would hit a few houses, but that it was just as fun to go back to the house and play and hand out candy to the other kids!

Lila & Mommy!

A successful Halloween night!

The thing I love the most about holidays are the traditions that we continue and the new ones that we create!  We have so many great memories with our family and friends and this year was no exception! 

Pirates & Princesses

It is no secret that Lila has a huge affinity for princesses...and she may or may not think she is a princess, too!  Several months ago I got a pre-sale email for the Disney Pirates & Princess show at the US Cellular Center which featured Sofia the First and Jake and the Neverland Pirates, two of Lila's favorites!  I hopped online quick and secured 3 tickets for 5th row center and stuck them in a secret space until the big day arrived!  We knew that we needed to keep this one quiet until the day of or we would have been bombarded (and annoyed) when asked every day when she got to go to the show!

The day arrived and we told her we had a big surprise for her, to which she responded that she wanted to guess what it was!  With a few questions involved in her guessing, it wasn't long before she figured it out and she giggled and screamed with excitement!  We got her all dressed and ready to go, but there was one final surprise...a Princess Sofia Amulet!  This special amulet was a special gift Sofia received that allows her to talk to animals!  You would have thought we had given her the world!  We were ready to go!



Wearing her {glowing} amulet!

Every time we get ready to do something like this I find myself wondering what we have gotten ourselves into?!  Yet at the same time, I am so happy to be doing it for Lila because it is really all about her when we do this stuff, it has nothing to do with Mike or I, she deserves that from time to time!  It is always fun to walk into a performance like this and see all the other parents doing the exact same thing for their princess and/or pirate lover! 

Lila's new friend, Izzy!

The show began with a short performance of Doc McStuffins, another one of Lila's favorites!  After Doc performed it was time for Sofia!  Lila was in awe of how beautiful princess Sofia looked!  Each segment of the show was them acting out an episode, so each performance lasted close to 30 minutes which was nice because it allowed them to keep a storyline and keep the kids engaged!




Doc McStuffins



Sofia the First


After Sofia there was a short intermission and it was time for Jake and the Neverland Pirates!  Lila really likes Jake, but at this point she leaned over to me and said, "I really like it better when the characters are kids like on the TV show!"  BUSTED!!!  Either way, she was having a great time and as quick as that comment came, it went and she was totally engaged in the magic of it all!

Jake and the Neverland Pirates!

Daddy & Lila enjoying the show!

 



 

The finale which included Mickey & Minnie!

There will be a time in the near future where performances such as this won't be as magical as they are right now, so we will make sure we squeeze as many of these make-believe opportunities in as long as we can!  It was a fun day for Lila, but Mom and Dad would be lying if they said they didn't have fun too!

Family fun!

Officially Fall!

Not only has the weather finally started to feel like fall, we marked our family fall tradition of going to Bart's Farm on the 5th of October!  This tradition was something Mike and I did even before Lila was born and one we plan on carrying out as long as the Gingrich family owns the farm and opens their home up to visitors who are in search of their fall treasures! 

 



Where the tradition began...our first house!



For those of you that don't know about Bart's Farm, it is a cute little farm off of Alburnett Rd.  The Gingrich family started the pumpkin patch to raise money for their kids and their college tuitions!  It has a lot of the fun amenities of the bigger pumpkin patch options, but it has a family feel that isn't commercialized.  We highly recommend going!

 

 

Welcome to the farm!

We started the adventure with a trip into the barn to see all of the animals!  The barn is the home to cows, horses, kitties, and other livestock!  After the trip to the barn we moved on to start our pumpkin gathering!

Daddy & his girl in the barn!

 

 

Lila amongst the pumpkins!

After gathering up all of our pumpkins we headed home to put our very tired girl down for a nap with promises of decorating when she woke up!  We didn't waste much time diving right in when she woke up.  Even the puppies enjoyed helping us put the display together this year.

Lila picks out a "baby" pumpkin each year!

Tag posing for a picture! 

 

The finished product!

 

 

Wait!!! Something was missing!  Oh, Lila & puppy, it's now perfect!

While putting the porch together the temperature had dropped a bit and it had started to drizzle.  We decided to go inside and warm up and bake a batch of my Grandma Harvey's delicious chocolate chip cookies.  I had shared in a recent post how much Lila is enjoying helping out in the kitchen...she is really quite the helper (she is a certified taste tester)!

I love carrying on the tradition of family recipes!

Why is it that the dough tastes so darn good?!  YUM!

Another fall tradition I love is the Saturday that I spend with my girlfriends doing our annual fall shopping & lunch trip!  We take a Saturday and start in Mount Vernon making sure to hit our favorite spots and have lunch at the Lincoln Café.  After we wrap up in Mount Vernon we pick different destinations to visit to round out our shopping and fall leaves tour!  This year we picked Independence and Vinton stopping at many of their stores and picking up items here and there!  Whether we walk away with a car full or not, it is the time spent together each fall that really kicks off the season!

A very large metal "E" that had to come home with me!

Every year I pray that we have a longer fall than the next!  The weather stayed rather warm longer this year, so I keep hoping that our fall weather will extend well into November...here is to wishful thinking! 

Whatcha Been Up To?!

These last two months have seemed to fly by with the greatest of ease.  I was just at a meeting today and we were talking about the first of October and it was a harsh realization that we are approaching that much quicker than I care to admit! 

We have certainly been busy and once the school year got into full swing, it seems like you pick up on a rhythm and before you know it the weeks have sailed by. 

Here is a quick detail of what has been keeping the Eddins family busy recently...

Cheering on the Hawks!

This year we went to Kids Day at Kinnick!  We actually had dual purpose of doing this.  We went because we have never done it before, but more importantly we went to support our good family friends, the Holub's, and their son Dylan.  Dylan was picked as a University of Iowa Hospitals "Kid Captain!"  What a cool deal this has been for all of them.  Dylan and the other captains got to spend the whole day in Iowa City on Kids Day and did a ton of behind the scenes stuff with the coaches, the team, and were guests of honor that day!  Each child also has a game of their own during the season where they are honorary Kid Captain of the game.  Super cool!

Kids Day @ Kinnick!

 

Mom & Lila

The family!

Even puppy has his black & gold on!

To learn more about Dylan's story and his role as a Kid Captain click here!

For the Iowa vs. Iowa State game we ended up at my Dad and Laura's house for a family tailgate/birthday celebration for Cade/celebrating the their new pool & backyard!  The weather was very nice, so we were able to watch the game outside and the kiddos were even able to break in the new pool!  And to sweeten the deal, the Hawks pulled off a victory against our instate rival!

Breaking in the pool!

Enjoying the outdoor viewing!

Even though we went to Kinnick early this year to attend Kids Day, we were delayed in actually getting down to Iowa City for a game.  The weather was unseasonably warm for the first few games and sadly we weren't all that interested in sitting in 100+ degree temps in the stadium.

We finally made it to a game this weekend!  The weather has really turned around and we felt that the clock was ticking a little to get Lila to a game this season, so we took advantage of it while we had the chance! 

Hawkeye fans all ready to go!

We thought we might be flying solo to the game, but we were thrilled to learn later in the week that the Holub family would be attending the game, too!  So we made plans to meet up with them to do a kid-friendly tailgate!

Munching away!

You might notice that Lila isn't in black and gold?!  Yup, she wasn't interested, so for this game she was decked out in pink and white...no fear, she had a tiger hawk on her shirt, so she was still rocking her Hawkeye pride!

Dylan - a proud Hawkeye!

Sporting his Kid Captain jersey!

 

It was just the three of us in our seats, so we had three extra spots to spread out!  Having Lila with us, it was really nice to have the extra room for her to dance along with the music and have stretch her legs a little! 

 



Her Herkey fan/mask was a hit!

During the game Dylan was featured up on the Jumbo-Tron as one of the kid captains!  It was so cool to see him up there being honored.  He is so deserving of the honor and the Hawkeyes are lucky to have such a cool little kid to represent them!

After the game (I should mention that the Hawkeyes beat Western Michigan 59-3 -- WOAH!!!), we met the Holub's back at the car for a little more tailgate time!  The kids enjoyed playing "house" in the front seat of my car.  I would have paid to watch them a bit closer to hear what they were saying?!

Happy campers!

As we made our way home we looked back to see a very tired little girl fast asleep in her car seat!  I made Mike prop her back up, it looked so darn uncomfortable!

Wiped out!

We can't be too sure how good the Hawks are going to be once they start their Big 10 season, but they came out and really did a nice job yesterday, so here is to hoping they continue winning!!!


Riding Lessons!

Lila continues to love her riding lessons!  Awhile back she was introduced to a new horse named Jake since Bud had been sold.  While we were super sad to learn that Bud went to a new home, we were excited to meet Jake!  Jake and Lila have become fast friends!

Meet Jake!

Riding with great form!

As Lila continues to enjoy her lessons and her skill continues to further, we decided it was time to get her a pair of boots that she can use for her riding boots.  She had been doing some galloping and complained that it hurt her feet...that is what galloping in Toms will do for you!  So, we got online and ordered her an official pair of cowboy boots!  We were hoping that she could wear them riding, but also utilize them this fall with some of her dresses!  She was beyond thrilled to do a bit of a fashion show for us when they arrived!

Showing off her boots!

It is amazing to think we started these lessons less than 6 months ago!  She absolutely loves her time with the horses and her instructor, Carrie!  We look forward to seeing if this is a hobby that will last a lifetime?!

Jake & Lila!

Dance Class!

We also started up our first full year of dance class at The Dancer's Edge!  Lila wasn't so sure about dance last summer, but this summer proved to be successful, and I believe we owe that to her dear friend Henley!  Henley joined Lila this summer in their Tinies 1 class and they had a ball!  So, we are happy to watch the girls as they continue in Tinies this fall and will anxiously await to see them on the big stage during recital!!!



I think her favorite part is the twirly skirts!

Look how much these peanuts have grown up since our "Mommy & Me" days!

Supporting a Good Cause!

I continue to be involved as a board member for the Cedar Valley Humane Society.  The organization continues to make great strides in cleaning up its checkered past and I am proud to be a part of that!  We most recently have been involved in a fundraiser for the month of September called the $30k in 30 Days Challenge!  We knew it was aggressive to try and raise $30,000.00 in 30 days, but we were excited to be able to ask the community to participate and also be able to tell our story to the public!  We are at the 22nd of the month as I write this and we are just over $2,000 away from our goal!  I am humbled with the community involvement and can only hope that we continue to help the CVHS be successful in fulfilling our mission! 

Click here to learn how to donate!

You can see some of the great media coverage that CVHS has received while running our challenge!  Click here to see the story that one of our local news stations did. 


Baking & Cooking...Thanks Pinterest!

One of the things that Mike and I have always loved to do together is cook!  It has been so much fun to include Lila into the cooking and baking as she has gotten older, too.  I have to admit, I am a bit addicted to Pinterest when it comes to finding recipes to try!  We have had a ton of luck when it comes to preparing new meals and having them actually taste as good as they sound!

Helping to make breakfast!

Butterfly cupcakes!

She loves to whisk!

Some of our favorite recipes can be found by looking me up on Pinterest and checking out my board titled, "Delish!"  I have to say if it is on the board it is a hit at our house or it is still awaiting us to give it a try, but we have a great success record, so take a peek!  I should also note...did you notice that Lila either has a princess dress on while baking or a tiara?!  She just can't help herself!

To add to Lila's baking and cooking, she went to Strawberry Point with Jen, Celia, and Ruby to spend time with my Grandma Harvey, one of the best cooks that I know!  It was a special day as they made cookies, pie, homemade pizza, and so on!



Gram & her girls!

Enjoying the last days of summer and welcoming fall!

And lastly, we have been enjoying the weather we have had!  Granted there were several days in there where it was too hot to even be outside, but amidst those days there have been some really beautiful days that were meant to take advantage of!




Pool fun with friends!



Kite flying with Dad!

Carving out some time for sidewalk chalk!

 

Swinging with Sloan!

Even the pups enjoy the nice weather!

Pretty weather, pretty girl!

I could go on and on about what we have been up to lately, but that would just make this blog post even longer!  I promise to get better at posting this fall!  I am sure as the weather gets a bit colder, I will be more inclined to turning on the computer and dedicate myself to doing more frequent updates!