phil has always been very, very good about planning both dates and family outings for us.  rare have been the times we’ve gone out without his having something up his sleeve for us.  so much so that it usually doesn’t even occur to me to ask what we’re doing or where we’re going because i know it’ll be something really fun (for family) or really good to eat (for date nights).  so i’m pretty content to just wait and see where we end up and so far, i have yet to be disappointed. it’s something that is easy to take for granted, because it’s something he’s always done for us. …

in the name of accurately portraying what our picture sessions really look like… just keepin’ it real…  😉

so this year… mikey wanted to be a ucla football player!  (he’s been VERY in to football this season.  mostly because his daddy has had more time this year to do things like watch football with his son.  it’s been really, really fun to see them bond this way). and allie was our ucla cheerleader girl! and lauren?  well, she was our sassy ucla cheerleader girl. she really does just play by her own rules. and this is about when she said, “mommy, i’m too wittle and fweezing out here.” but, but, i had to get a pic of the special mommy-made hairbows first! our three baby bruins. and as…

for our latest fun friday, we carved our pumpkins! but because i still had to count it as a school day, we did a bit o’ learning first.  i threw together a little “pumpkin fun” sheet the kids had to fill out first.  it included estimating the weight of the pumpkin… he initially guessed 400 pounds.  then amended it to 40 pounds.  it was actually 8 pounds. my awesome last-minute pumpkin sheet done a few minutes beforehand. 😉  the kids estimated the weight, circumference, used our five senses to describe the pumpkin, and then drew a sketch of the face they wanted to carve. even the little one got a…

we visited the pumpkin patch at tanaka family farms a couple of weeks ago.  i had grand plans to get nice, fallish pictures of each of the kids there. turns out, kids don’t give a hoot about posing for nice, fallish pictures when there’s a corn maze involved. what is it about corn mazes that prompt every little kid to take off running, leaving me in the dust? well, every little kid except for this one.  she consented to be my corn maze buddy and was happy to stay put.  as long as she got to hold on to her baby pumpkin. daddy handed it to her soon after we…