Kings, Pumpkins and 5 pairs of Socks

I absolutely love this time of year! And the weather here has been absolutely perfect the last 2 weeks and next weeks forecast looks to be more of the same. The mornings are cold enough that you have to wear a jacket outside but you can shed it by the afternoon because it warms up very nicely with out any humidity and the evenings are just as great as the mornings. Nice and cool to be able to enjoy some hot chocolate out on the porch swing. My favorite!!

Friday was a wonderful day and not only because of the weather. My daddy made it home safe and sound from East Africa!! James won the King fund raiser at school (yay!) and we painted pumpkins and played socks for our Fun Family Friday. Socks? Hold that thought!

To say that I am excited that James won, meaning he raised the most money out of the 12 boys that were competing, would be an understatement. Selling those tshirts was a huge undertaking and even though all the money we raised goes to our school’s PTO seriously makes it worth the effort, if he hadn’t won I possibly might could of been slightly disappointed that all my hard work was uh, just that; hard work. But to be able to put that smile on his face and the excitement in his eyes when they announced his name as the winner, was 100% worth it and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat!! He didn’t think he was gonna win and Jon and I were very skeptical just because we know how much of a competition it can be but as the Principal had each child sit down after telling each bracket of money raised and James was 1 of 2 boys still standing I punched Jon in the arm and whispered “I think we may of done it!! I think we might have just won this thing!!” We raised $1385.75 and while that is a very large number I knew that the child who won last year raised a little over $2000!! So you see, the bar is set pretty high!

I had some lovely pumpkins sitting on our porch and the kids have been BEGGING to paint them ever since I put them out there! I really enjoyed having the plain, normal pumpkins sitting there with my gigantic mums, they were a nice touch to the fall decor and they really  helped to take your attention off the cluttered porch (if you follow me on instagram you should be laughing right now!). But being the good, kind, generous mother that I am, I finally caved to their continuous begging and we all painted pumpkins in the front yard for Fun Family Friday!! While I enjoy the fact that the wildly colored pumpkins are just another reminder that kids live here, I think I may have to go back and get me some more plain pumpkins :)

I have yet to go out and snap a picture of the porch as it looks now but I will!! It’s wild!

A new tradition that has been added to our FFF, is the game of socks. Jon heard someone talking about it on the radio one day and decided it sounded like fun and once he introduced it to the kids, thats all they want to do! I’ll admit it took a little to get me on board but now I highly recommend it. It’s tons of fun!! Basically what you do is everyone puts on socks and pulls them up as high as you can get them, you put your feet all touching at your toes and scream “SOCKS” and you start scrambling to get every ones sock off their feet while trying to keep yours on. Who ever has at least one sock still on by the time everyone else has had theirs ripped off, is the winner, winner chicken dinner. It’s a blast!! One day I will have to set up the camera on the tripod and give you all some laughs!!