Happy Birthday, Little Pumpkin!

It’s hard for me to believe that my not-so-little girl turned 3 this October.  This year we celebrated Tacy’s birthday at the local pumpkin patch.

We are so lucky to have this pumpkin patch nearby.  It is such a fun place to visit each autumn.  Since the older monkeys’ birthdays fall in the the spring and summer, we have never had the chance to host a party here, but Tacy’s October birthday is just right for a party in the patch.

I especially love that I didn’t have the task of cleaning house before the party!  Instead I was able to focus on preparing a few snacks and some pink pumpkin decorations.  I served apple slices with a creamy, caramel dip and some “Harvest Hash” made of various cereals, pretzels, candy corn, and Reese’s Pieces.

As a special keepsake for Tacy, I had the party guests leave thumbprint pumpkins on a canvas that I painted to look like a pumpkin patch.

This pumpkin patch was loaded with activities for the kids to enjoy.  There were hayrides and corn mazes and everything in between!

Tacy’s favorite thing to play on was the horse swings.  She rode this little horse quite a while.

Tacy also had fun climbing and swinging in the hay barn.

The kids were having so much fun playing that it was difficult to round everyone up for cake and presents.

I know you were probably expecting great things from me as far as cake decorating goes, but we had been in Canton, Texas the 2 days prior to Tacy’s party, so I didn’t have time to decorate a fancy cake.  Tacy didn’t seem to mind, though.  Her only request was that the cake was pink on the inside.

Tacy received several cute books this year.  She also got a Barbie, art supplies, Kinetic Sand, a guitar, a toy puppy, a doll, a toy keyboard, Legos, and some clothes.

She even got a how-to book on babysitting grandpas.

While we were in Canton, I picked up matching T-shirts for me and Tacy.

Lucy made a couple of popsicle stick dolls and wrote the sweetest birthday note for Tacy.  It almost made me cry.

Tacy really enjoyed getting to spend her birthday playing with cousins and friends.

Happy birthday, sweet Tacy Mae.  We love you so much!

Lindsey

Autumn Touches

As promised, today I have pictures of my fall decorating for y’all.

My goal this year was to keep things simple.  I’m starting to realize that I really appreciate clean, simple, uncluttered décor (although you’d probably never guess it by looking around my house), so a bunch of Halloween doodads are not for me.  Just give me a few dried leaves, some acorns, and a white pumpkin or two and I’m happy.

I’ve been inspired lately by a blog I recently discovered called Farmhouse 5540.  I love everything about this lady’s style.  Everything!  I wish I could bring her home with me and let her work her magic in my house.  There’s something about her simple, farmhouse style that makes me happy.  So as I was adding autumn touches to my house this year, I was trying to keep her rustic style mind.

It is going to take some practice before I’m able to replicate this style, and I find myself changing and rearranging things every day.  So what you see in these photos today may not be the way things look in my home tomorrow.

First I’ll show you our breakfast room.  I guess a more accurate name for this area would be school room, since we always do school here and never eat breakfast here.  But that’s another story.

I’m a big fan of the nontraditional pumpkins, particularly the white ones.  Like I mentioned the other day, orange is not my favorite color, and orange pumpkins just scream Halloween to me (which is not the look I was going for).

I love to decorate with pieces that can easily be used year round – like this lantern. I can pop it open and fill it with whatever seasonal item I want.  Right now it’s filled with green raffia and a ceramic pumpkin that I bought at the dollar store.  I also added a brown, silk ribbon to warm it up a bit.  In a few, short weeks I’m sure I will be stuffing this lantern with some shiny glass ornaments.

I’ve had this metal watering can for more than a decade.  It’s lived in various places over the years, mostly on my back porch, but I decided to move it to the breakfast room for now and fill it with dried cornhusks and artificial wheat stems.

Ah, mantel!  I always have such a hard time deciding what to do with you.  Since the mantel is the focal point of the living room, and quite possibly of the whole house, I always feel a lot of pressure to get it right.  Honestly, I was not entirely satisfied with the way the mantel looked in this picture.  This area always feels too dark to me.  To help brighten up the space, I recently commissioned Lucy to find a few sticks in our yard and paint them white.  Then I laid the sticks, somewhat haphazardly, across the top of the mantel, and they do help brighten up the dark wood.

This wooden sign was a clearance item from Hobby Lobby.  Originally it was reddish, pink and said something about “lake living.” Not my style, per se, but at less than $5, I couldn’t pass it up.  I painted the sign white as soon as I got it home, but I never could decide what to write on it.  It’s been stuck in a drawer for about 5 years (no exaggeration) until last week, when I finally pulled it out and added the word, “Gather.”

These white pumpkins and Indian corn are certainly my favorite part of the mantel scape.

Behind the living room couch, I replaced a vase of flowers with these preserved leaves.  Oh, how I wish I had some lovely, natural fall foliage in my backyard that I could cut and bring inside, but alas!  What few leaves in my yard aren’t brown and crunchy with drought are still bright green.   (By the way, maybe the 8” of rain we got yesterday will solve the drought problem!)

The bright fall colors are lovely, but I do find them a little too intense for my taste.

The last stop for the day is our console table.  Here lies a beautiful, two-toned pumpkin, and even though it’s not white, I absolutely love it!

At the other end of the console I stuffed a metal crown with a few pinecones, and I also added another natural element with the tree slice.

And here’s my only official Halloween decoration.  It’s a jack-o-lantern I made probably 10 years ago from an old paperback book.  I know I said I wasn’t into using Halloween decorations this year, but this one is so subtle I’m ok with it.  (If you’re observant, you may have noticed that I actually have one more of these book pumpkins on my mantel.)

That’s all the photos I have today.  I’m going to try get a picture of our backdoor all dressed for fall and maybe a few of our dining room table.  Hope y’all enjoyed the little tour!

Fall Blessings,

Lindsey

Terrific to be Two

Two weeks ago our little pumpkin, Tacy Mae, turned two years old.  My, how the time flies!

Due to conflicting schedules, I came pretty close to not throwing a birthday party this time around.  After all, Tacy did get an all-expense-paid trip to Canton’s First Monday Trade Days and Great Wolf Lodge on her birthday.  What more could a girl ask for, right?  But due to the whining and nagging from Tacy’s grandmothers, I threw together a very impromptu dinner to appease my mother and mother-in-law celebrate Tacy’s second birthday.

The great thing about October birthdays, is that pumpkins and other autumnal decor can easily double as party decorations.  Just paint a glittery “2’' on a pumpkin and you’re good to go.

I also added touches of tulle and a little gold ribbon here and there for some extra special, celebratory sparkle.

I was pleased with the outcome of this tulle-wrapped pumpkin because the sheer covering helped tone down the intensity of the orange.  I realize orange is a fall staple, but I’m not fan of the color.  I would love to fill this bowl with tiny white pumpkins, but I haven’t been able to locate any yet.

Since my children don’t really care for traditional cake I decided to bake Tacy a cookie cake instead.

Tacy was a little unsure of what to do with her birthday candles.  It was only her second birthday, you know.  Mostly Tacy just wanted to touch the flames.  Luckily, the Tool Man was standing close by to grab her hand before she got too close to the fire.

While Dad was trying to coach Tacy on blowing out candles, Lucy “accidentally” puffed them out for her.  When all of the party guests instinctively gasped, Lucy ran out of the room red-faced and crying.  It was no biggie, really.  We just relit the candles and Tacy gave it another go.  But Lucy was totally embarrassed by the whole ordeal, and it took some coaxing to get her to rejoin the festivities.

So much for making a birthday cake my kids would actually eat.  As you can see Tacy was content to feed her piece to the Tool Man, who was more than willing to gobble it up.

A few gifts Tacy received were two, snazzy, fall outfits, her very first Barbie, some princess shoes and accessories, a tiny tricycle, a small slide with a jumbo bag of balls for diving into, some shape matching manipulatives (y’all know I have to give at least one educational toy), and this puppy pal.

I guess that does it for birthday parties around here for the next eight months.  Now it’s time to get serious about holiday decorating.  I’ve just about got my autumn touches in place, but I’m still on the look out for those mini, white pumpkins.  It’s hard to believe than in six weeks I will be putting up a Christmas tree.

I.  Can’t.  Wait.

I’ve already decided we are going back to a real tree this year.  You just can’t beat the look, feel, and smell of fresh cut tree.  But enough about Christmas.  I think now I will go take a few pictures of my autumn décor to share with y’all. 

Lindsey

Fun with Chickens

Hello, y’all.  After a four-day weekend at a flea market and a water park (it’s a weird combination, I know) we are home again and getting back to our routine.  School continues to run smoothly for us this year, and we are right on schedule in our 9th week.  Wow! Has it really been nine weeks already?  I feel like the year is flying by.

But no boring talk about schoolwork today.  Nope, today I have nothing but the cutest pictures of Tacy Mae to share with y’all.  Last week, Tacy turned the big “2,” so I decided to get out my camera and take a few pictures of the birthday girl. 

With the cool, fall temperatures we’ve been having lately (if you can call 85 degrees “cool”) the monkeys have been spending lots of time outdoors, riding scooters, wandering in the woods, and playing with the dogs.  Tacy’s favorite thing to do outside is to follow our chickens around and feed them their favorite treat of dried worms.

This is the first year we’ve had any white chickens – Leghorns, to be exact.  Honestly, they are not my favorite.  They look a little too “commercial” for my taste.  Not to mention they are pretty flighty and they lay boring, white eggs.  But at least they lay, right?

I know this next picture is not the greatest, but I love the way Tacy’s hair is flying about.  It sort of looks like a chicken comb in this picture.  Tacy has the softest, most wispy hair.  I’m trying my hardest to let her bangs grow out, but it’s killing me!  I can’t stand to see her hair down in her eyes, and she refuses to leave a barrette in for any length of time.  I keep threatening to pull out my scissors and start whacking.

When she’s not chasing chickens, Tacy loves to swing.  And for goodness sakes, don’t put her in a baby swing!  Big girl swings only, please!

Recently, Tacy has begun posing for the camera.  Check out her cheesy grin.

Sometimes the best pictures are the ones they aren’t aware you’re taking.

To keep Tacy from dumping out an entire bag of chicken treats (those things are expensive, by the way) I gave Tacy a bucket with just a few worms.

Tacy is getting to be quite the little boss.  You can see below how she’s got that finger pointed, trying to tell the chickens what to do.  I’ve heard that Tacy rules the roost in the church nursery too (pun intended).

Happy birthday, you little mischievous monkey!  Mama loves you.

Lindsey

No Tricks, Just Treats!

Hey, y’all!  When I sat down to blog this week I didn’t quite realize how long it had been since I last posted something.  I know you poor dears must be brimming with anticipation, waiting for the latest news from down here on the creek!  (At least that’s what I’d like to think.  Wink. Wink.)

So what’s been going on with the Allen’s these last couple of weeks?  Lots!  Of course you know school occupies the majority of our time, but we manage to squeeze in other things too.  We’ve travelled clear across the state to business meetings, visiting family while on the road.  The kids and I toured a historical cotton plantation.   Inspired by the cooler temps, the Tool Man and I have completed various home improvement projects.  I’ve begun a furniture makeover of my grandmother’s old bookcase.  (Which, working at a rate of one hour per week, could take 2 years to complete!)  My dear, sweet mother graciously came over and spent 7 hours helping clean out and organize the monkeys’ closets.  Whew!  And last but not least we’ve dipped our toes in the lake that is politics, spending election night at the headquarters of a local candidate.

Oh, yeah.  I almost forgot about Halloween.  The monkeys would die if I didn’t share their Halloween pictures with y’all.  Both Ty and Lucy knew months ago how they were going to dress up.  Ty chose to be sorcerer Mickey from Fantasia, and Lucy wanted to be Rainbow Horse from the Baby First TV channel.

I’m a little confused about something.  Somewhere between my childhood and present day, Halloween morphed from Tootsie Rolls and lollipops to entire gift-wrapped packages of toys, candy, and cookies galore!  Is it that way in your neck of the woods, or have my kids’ grandparents just gone nuts?  It’s almost like a mini Christmas!

I’m pretty sure Ty received the most annoying gift from his Pappaw.  It’s called, “iFart.”  No further explanation needed.

Rainbow Horse got a slightly more sophisticated present in her bag – DIY stained glass ornaments.

Don’t worry.  I haven’t forgotten about Tacy Mae.  She dressed up in purple and gold as an LSU cheerleader.  Go Tigers!  Here she is with her mermaid bath toy.

Over at Papa’s and Sandy’s, Lucy hit the jackpot with an entire bag of Oreo’s.  Double Stuft!

Ty’s wishes came true with this Magic 8 Ball, which quickly became the second most annoying toy ever.

Tacy Mae got an old school See ‘n Say.  I love these!  However, I was perplexed to find a rabbit pictured on this thing.  Apparently the See ‘n Say people think rabbits say, “Boing, boing.”  I think that’s a stretch.

Cousin Caroline came over dressed as a bumble bee.  She was so good to leave her antennae on all night, but Tacy Mae found them terribly distracting.

Lucy was kind enough to give us a side view of her costume.  I know Rainbow Horse is not a well-known cartoon character, but Lucy couldn’t pass up the opportunity to wear both pink and rainbow!

Here’s a quick flashback to last Halloween.  My, how the babies have changed!

And here’s the whole gang this year.  What a treat!

Now that Halloween is behind us I’ve officially begun decorating my house for Christmas.  No, you did not read that wrong.  I said Christmas, my favorite time of year!  I figure it will probably take me weeks to get my decorating done since I can’t work on it for more than 20-30 minutes at a time.  I don’t want to be decorating last minute – it makes me crazy!

So far, Lucy and I have set out a few mini trees, added some sparkle to the dining room, and replaced pumpkins and acorns with glass ornaments and glittery pinecones.  It’s baby steps, I know, but our home is gradually transforming into a winter wonderland.

I suppose the big Christmas tree will be the last thing I tackle.  I’m more than a little nervous about how Tacy is going to react to the tree (meaning I think she’s going to climb it and pull down every last ornament.)  I sure do wish there was some way I could install an electric fence around the tree!

Lindsey