choices.

Does anyone else have THE. HARDEST. TIME making decisions on things that should not be that difficult? Please say I'm not the only one. I must have looked at about every single costume website at least 100 times each before I bought this costume from Gymboree.

Cute, right? Absolutely adorable.......but then I got to thinking. and thinking is never a good thing for me to do. I just know with how girly Nora is that she's going to want to be something frilly and cute for the rest of her life. I wanted to shove her into a big puffy costume. So I went to Pottery Barn Kids to check out the costumes they had on sale. I must have been in that store for at least an hour. ay yi yi. I seriously drive myself nuts. I was trying to decide between the pony one that fit, and a cute monster costume that was too big. After trying each one on about 12 times, I put the pony costume on her for the last time and asked her what a horse says. "NEIGH!" And it sealed the deal for me.

Excited for the fun things we have planned for this weekend.

Hope everyone has a spooky and FUN Halloween!

Now I've got to plan her birthday party. Oy, I think I've already spent hours looking at things online.

how.

how does your baby magically grow up in the blink of an eye?

she's grown up so much since we went to the pumpkin patch last year. she's such a little girl now.

i love fall. warm drinks, yummy treats, cooler days. it's definitely my favorite time of year. i love experiencing it all with nora.

she loves spooky ghosts and monsters (as long as they aren't too scary) and she already has trick-or-treat down.

love getting pictures of the 3 of us together since we rarely do.

excited for halloween and the rest of the holidays coming up!

popcorns.

On Conference Sunday we decided to take a drive up Butterfield Canyon during the last couple talks. When they were over, we found a place to pull over and took a little hike.

 We just walked along the dirt path looking for some Fall branches we could take home. I noticed an acorn on the ground and picked it up to give to Nora.

She was so excited about her "popcorns". No matter how many times I would tell her it was an acorn, she just kept saying "more popcorns!".

It was nice to get out into the Fall air and search for flowers, sticks and leaves.

I was talking with a close friend about how I'm a little bit nervous for winter to come. It's hard to be inside all the time and find enough activities to keep them occupied. The alternative is turning on the TV. We all know how easy it is to pop in a movie or turn on Sprout. I'm sure Nora is an average TV watcher but I still feel guilty on a daily basis. This is where my close friend brought me some perspective.

Nora is extremely smart, she loves to be outside and she can play independantly most days. As much as she loves watching a princess movie, she also adores playing with dollies and reading books and coloring.

Why stress about something so small? Why do we, as mothers, constantly burden ourselves with guilt over how we are raising our children?

As long as we're doing our best, teaching our children daily, and being loving and kind, I really don't think an hour or two (or five, somedays) of TV is going to suddenly stunt their brain growth.

It sounds silly, but I feel grateful to have found Pinterest. I have come across so many wonderful (and cheap) ideas for Nora that she has absolutely loved. I'll have to do a post exclusively on Pinterest things I've found to give others plenty of ideas for the winter.

 I wasn't planning on going off on such a tangent, but hey, that's how I roll here on the old blog. At least I finally posted, right?