Our week in five

// ONE //

Well it actually felt like fall this week. Texas-style Fall, at least. By my definition, that means that the temperature stayed under 90 for most of the days, and it got down to the 70s (and lower) at night. It’s my favorite time of the year. We took advantage of the nice weather and spent as much time outside as possible.

Lamborghini had a blast carving pumpkins. He’s a bit timid about putting his hand in the “pumpkin goo,” as we call it. But he did a great job getting most of the seeds out.

I finished up the job and carved the pumpkin with my set of pumpkin-carving tools:

These are a game-changer for anyone who is serious about pumpkin carving or who, like me, is afraid they will cut themselves with the go-to butcher knife. I used the large scraper to get the remaining seeds out of the pumpkin and whipped out a cat design in about 15 minutes. Lamborghini requested a traditional face on his smaller pumpkin.

The Dot was not a fan of the pumpkins at all. I kept asking her if she want to help, and she would yell “Mo!!!” and run away. She did come around for the finished product, although the candle aspect of the jack-o’-lantern confused her because she kept singing happy birthday.

// TWO //

Lamborghini had picture day at school on Wednesday. I must admit that I spent about two weeks curating his outfit. A few weeks ago, I earmarked a page in the Vineyard Vines catalog that featured its Boys Grovedale Gingham Whale Shirt. The outfit looked like this:

Very classic. My plan was to pair the gingham shirt with khaki shorts and cute Sperry topsiders that I bought used and have been holding onto forever. However, the practical person in me could not fathom spending $52 on a shirt for my three-year-old. That’s half of his entire annual clothing budget. So I went on a hunt.

I found this cute gingham shirt at The Gap on sale for $15. But I decided to check out our local children’s resale shop before committing to the full-price item. And I was in luck! I found an adorable Janie & Jack gingham shirt, which goes for the equally-astronomical price of $36 new, on sale for a whole $6!

Anyway, long story short, this is what he ended up wearing:

I realize these are just pictures of clothes. Unfortunately, Lamborghini was not in a photo-taking mood that morning and we had to take off the nice clothes before hitting the park after school. But the outfit was documented by a professional on Wednesday. I’m really excited about seeing how it turned out. It will be a miracle if the photographer got him to keep his shirt tucked in for the picture because I certainly couldn’t. To be continued :).

// THREE //

What I did not mention in the above discussion of Lamborghini’s school photo outfit was that two of Lamborghini’s closest friends walked into school on Wednesday wearing almost the exact same outfit as Lamborghini. Surprisingly, all three kids were in different colors of gingham. In my mind, I thought, “Ok, good. We are on point.” But now I’m not so sure.

Mr. L and I have been watching old Twilight Zone episodes on Netflix at night. Last night, we watched an episode titled “Number 12 Looks Just Like You,” which is about a future society that forces their young-adults to undergo a “Transformation” in which they must select a body to change into so they can be physically attractive. The end result was a society made up of people who looked exactly the same. Mr. L and I kept talking about what a great episode it was and how poignant the message is in today’s world. But then I realized that I had a Twilight Zone moment on Wednesday when I took Lamborghini to school wearing the exact outfit that everyone else ended up wearing. Doo-doo-DOO-doo, doo-doo-DOO-doo. Let’s just say marketing works.

// FOUR //

We decided to go out Thursday night with the kids to listen to live music in town. The live music was in a busy area of town, so we had to park on the roof of the parking garage. This ended up being a fortuitous event. First, Lamborghini and The Dot were thrilled because we were able to listen to both the 7:00pm and 8:00pm church bells, which happened to be playing right next to where we parked. (The church bells are a weekly event for us because Lamborghini is obsessed with the Westminster Chimes tune. I usually drive the kids to the church on Thursday so we can listen to the 10:00am ring. I never realized that the parking garage is actually the perfect listening spot). Our parking spot was also quite nice because we saw the most beautiful sunset from the roof.

Of course the photos never do it justice, but we snapped a million.

// FIVE //

On Saturday we drove about thirty minutes north to a small, but highly-recommended, plant nursery. I have been searching for a variegated ginger plant for our front garden bed but haven’t been able to find one at our local garden stores. I was incredibly thrilled when I found it on Saturday at Growers Outlet.

The kids had a lot of fun at the nursery too. I never thought about a plant nursery as a kid-friendly attraction, but it is.

The nursery set up several pumpkin patches and arranged a darling table in their store for painting pumpkins. The flowers were covered with butterflies and bees. Plus this nursery had tons of old broken tile on the ground, which entertained the kids for a long long time. We actually had to carry them away protesting. Lamborghini stated that he was “making a broken pot,” and The Dot naturally worked on her “pat” as well.

My favorite thing about the nursery is that they have a lot of the plants they sell growing in the center of their garden area. You can get an idea of the ideal growing conditions for the plants you end up buying.

I may have added one of those pink salvia plants to our cart.

And that’s what our week looked like! I’m hoping the weather is nice next week too so that we can continue our outdoor trend. But that’s the thing about Texas-style Fall. You never know how long the “cool” weather is going to last.