Well, it's no secret that Everly is the princess of the family so it was about time she had a dress to match the part. My Mom made this beautiful princess dress for her inclusive of 8lbs of glitter! The glitter that just keeps on giving :). It's a good thing she looks so darn cute in it and that it's the perfect twirling dress!!
We needed to get away, and we drug the Kirchhoffs with us. We planned a little trip to Branson for some fun and relaxation. It happened to also be Halloween weekend, so we also fit in some trick-or-treating and pumpkin carving because we are crazy like that! The first day we were there it was rainy and gross so we got to check out a place called "Frtiz's" which is basically a safer version of the City Museum and by safer I just mean that there aren't random holes in the middle of the floor and most edges are rounded when you are crawling in the tunnels. Still PLENTY of ways to hurt yourself I am sure, but we left with no injuries to report! It's a super fun place for the kids if you're ever in the Branson area. The next day the weather was much better so we headed over to Silver Dollar City for some amusement park fun. It was pretty amazing because there were much smaller crowds because of this little thing known as COVID-19 and also the Pumpkin decorations were super fun. The kids got pretty adventurous with the rides this year, even Everly liked her fair share of thrill! The next day we spent at Big Cedar, where we explored the grounds in a golf cart, visited the Top of the Rock and also went to Fun Mountain for lunch and arcades. A little bit of fun for everyone! And then finally on the last day we made our way to Arkansas for a nice little hike. We did the Lost Valley trail, however we were a little disappointed that we couldn't go all the way to the end because of COVID...which I still don't really understand, but it was a fun little trail for the family nonetheless and then we capped it off with a dinner at Branson Landing. Branson, you never disappoint and this time was no exception (even if we did have a hard time finding the "right" beer).
Halloween was just like everything else this year, we had no idea how it would look...or if it would even happen. BUT, I love any opportunity to dress the kids up in costume so you better bet we were going to have costumes NO MATTER WHAT. Everly is still at the age where I can "guide" her into decisions so "together" we came up with the Flamingo idea (other top contenders: bunny and cinderella). The cutest part of the whole thing though is the fact that she can't say Flamingo correctly and definitely says it like "Fla-bingo"...we have all asked her no short of 100 times what her costume is just so we can hear it! Anyway, here is our little Fla-bingo in all her glory. I definitely dressed her up on a random Friday by herself so that I was sure to capture the cuteness of this little costume. I will also have you know that I did in fact make the cape she is wearing, with a little help from my seamstress friend Julia of course. But NO my Mom did not make this costume (to all the haters out there) although I'm sure she could have made it better and probably quicker than I did!
I'll be honest, the birthdays kind of got away from me this year. Septembers are insane in this house (not that Octobers are much better) but Everly and Nolan's birthday celebrations got delayed a bit. That's okay though, gave me an excuse to do a little Halloween theme! And who doesn't love a good Halloween theme? When you are trying to do a combined party with kids that are very far apart in age you've gotta stretch it a little bit. And while you might be looking at this party and thinking, gosh it seems very Everly centric...well you are probably right. BUT...Nolan had another party too. So don't be feeling too sorry for him! He's "too big" these days for me to do a good theme or to even let me take a picture but I assure you there were pre-teen boys in his presence singing him Happy Birthday, making jokes about balls (we were at Top Golf) and eating a crap ton of food. If that doesn't exude 12 year old birthday party bliss I don't know what does, so yes this Halloween themed animal stuffing party might be geared at the freshly promoted 3 year old. And it is what it is. Everyone got presents, everyone got cake, everyone had some giggles so I'd say everyone thought their birthdays were just perfect!
