Happy Halloween!

halloween is such a fun time of year with a little one to enjoy it with. we get to relive all the childhood memories we loved so much through our daughter, pretty amazing! we carved pumpkins...cinderella and attempted snow white with some of the carving kits they have now. it took us a LONG time! the cinderella one turned out pretty cool. of course, i have no pictures of it finished unfortunately. lilian loved it! she helped brian dig out the pumpkin seeds for a few scoops and then was done. :) so mommy and daddy did the rest! we went to the blue springs boo event on the saturday before halloween and also attend lilan's best friend, amelia's, second birthday party! it was a fun filled day!

we asked her what it felt like, she said, "squishy!"

getting brave!

only picture of our cinderella pumpkin

helping daddy, she would get about 2 seeds at a time! :)

downtown blue springs trunk or treat

on halloween lilian dressed up as a 50s girl and we made our usual stops to see family and friends and collect some candy in her princess bag! this year she could really get involved since she understood she was getting candy she could eat, ha! she did a good job saying "trick or treat" at all the doors and thanking them for the candy. we started in independence at nannie and ross's and worked our way back to blue springs and stopped at my parents, tracy's (lady we work with), lilian's old babysitter, laurie's, and my brother's house to see curtis dressed up as a gi joe character. we also skyped with grandma and grandpa so they could see the 50s girl in her get up! it was a wonderful halloween!

at michele's house...kaiya, piper, lilian and amelia in their cute halloween outfits

amelia the pumpkin and lilian the 50s girl

who lilian spends her days with at michele's...amelia and braxton! 

first stop, nannie and ross's house

kaiya happened to be a 50s girl this year too, how perfect! i was obsessed with kaiya's adorable glasses! how cute are these two together?!

grammy's house! we had a little breakdown on the way to grammy and pop's door because a little girl leaving their house was dressed as a princess and lilian wanted to wear her dress, ha! i think i have a feeling what someone will be next year! 

last stop was cousin curtis's house

one of her many faces! 

the whole get up! 

big girl room is complete

lilian's big girl room is officially done! it was a labor of love that we spent all summer making decisions over and finding all the right furniture and accessories for...i loved every minute of it! projects like these are right up my alley. i knew i wanted to use colorful, vintage furniture. it took some coaxing to convince brian but in the end he loves it just as much as i do! we ordered a vintage dresser and had it refinished and painted coral, as well as a vintage nightstand that was refinished and painted turquoise. they are two of my favorite pieces in our whole house now! i want to take a class and learn how to do it myself so i can add more furniture like this throughout our whole house! most of the accessories i found on etsy (a handmade website with sooo many awesome ideas), pinterest (another fun website with loads of ideas and pictures for inspiration), target, and on-line. lilian's been sleeping in her big girl room for some time (earlier post) but we were still waiting on some art prints until the room was one hundred percent done. here are the pictures of the finished product. i have to say, i was pretty impressed with the results and hope lilian loves it just as much! what i love most about it is that it can grow with her. it will easily transition from a toddler room to a little girl's room.

Mall Playdate

another perk of being a teacher...random days off when most people are working! thursday we had parent/teacher conferences which meant friday we were off, hooray! to celebrate our day off i made plans with two of my favorite mommies...emily and jill. we met at chick-fil-a by the independence center for lunch and ate. after our lunch we headed to the mall and walked around a bit before heading down to the play area. usually the play area is super crowded but since we were able to go during the week we lucked out. the carousel was not working today so we had to improvise with the baby carousel, which actually was perfect since grant and micah could ride all by themselves. grant and lilian loved chasing each other around and micah loved watching and trying to catch up! i love these three!

grant (17 months) and micah (11 months)

second biggest thing to the big carousel 

they loved it, especially grant. he didn't want to get off!

we took this one for pops and his car! 

the mohans visit!

maggie, michael, and their three girls...abigail, elizabeth, and caroline came to kc for a visit this mid october! we had talked about them coming at natalie's wedding back in september and i am so glad it worked out for them to come enjoy a weekend with us! as luck would have it the thursday before their trip lilian came down with an ear infection! brian took her to the doctor friday and got her on medicine and by friday afternoon she was acting like herself and back to normal! we were thrilled at her quick recovery so our fun weekend with friends could continue! the mohans arrived saturday afternoon. lilian LOVED having three girls here to play with for hours! they played princesses, candy land, ponies, dora house, everything you can imagine! that evening a bunch of the college crew came over with some of their little ones and we had one huge play date! we ordered pizza to make things easy and the girls brought a salad, appetizer and cookies to snack on as well. it was so fun to watch all the kids interact together! they ranged from about 3 months old (olivia) to almost five years old (maggie's oldest, abby). it was quite the sight! maggie's girls brought their halloween costumes (which happened to be tiana and jasmine) so they did a costume change half way through the party. lilian quickly realized that her 50s girl halloween costume was not going to cut it so she insisted on wearing her cinderella dress and then quickly coaxed ellie into sharing her jasmine dress with lilian! i loved having a house full of friends and their minis!

abigail and lilian in their princess attire

dg girls...jill, emily, me, dee, missy, and maggie (sara was here but had to leave early since olivia wasn't feeling good!)

all the kiddos piled on the couch...maggies girls abigail and ellie, lilian, missy wilt's son, grant, emily's son, grant, maggie's youngest, caroline, and jill's micah. they were in order by birth :) we would have fit jill on the end but she couldn't fit! her baby #2 will be the next in line!

thanks caroline for sharing your jasmine costume! 

the next day, sunday, we woke up early and took all the girls to carolyn's pumpkin patch up north in liberty. it's an adorable pumpkin patch with tons of activites for the kids to do. they have a tractor ride to pick out pumpkins, mazes, playgrounds, a train, pig races, a tractor carousel, tons of cute cut outs for the kids to poke their heads through, the list goes on and on. we loved spending the day with the mohans there! emily, wes, grant and emily's parents also came out to enjoy the day so we got to spend some time with them as well. it was a perfect day!

three cuties in orange!

they have these cut outs everywhere, they crack me up!

feeding the animals at the petting zoo

surprisingly, lilian let the goat eat right from her hand (a first)

lots of fun slides and playground equipment

family shot

it's as if they knew the harstacks were coming! you can image her face when she saw this! 

lilian, the fairy godmother 

on the hayride enjoying trail mix

tractor carousel time

our group (minus michael who was chasing caroline!)

lilian taking grant on their first date! 

thanks for a fun weekend mohans and friends! we wish you guys lived closer so we could get together like that more often! we miss you already!

Annual Chiefs Game

each year my dad gets a bunch of tickets to one of the chiefs games and we get all of our family and lots of close family friends together to enjoy a big tailgate and the game. he usually tries to get tickets for a game early in the season so we will most likely have nice weather. originally when he told us the first week of october we had thought, perfect, it would be nice and warm. well, of course, a cold front came through this weekend so we had to bundle up for the tailgating part! however, by the middle of the game i was sweating from all the layers i had piled on! it ended up being a sunny, beautiful day. we almost got a win, but no luck! brian's parents came in town saturday night and we went to dinner at 54th street together. they watched her sunday while we were at the game. lilian always loves when grandma and grandpa visit! thanks for the tickets, dad! it was such a fun time, as always!

jeff let me borrow his fun kc wolf hat! 

the ackersons came with us to the game! 

coco and me

my wonderful family

bryan and alison...our chiefs buddies