A Minnesotan Fall

I believe that I have only posted 7 times this year outside of the weekly photos of my kiddos.

Seven.

That's a shame.

So, to make myself feel better, here is a smorgasbord of fall photos for all of you.

We headed out with some friends to swap family pictures but mainly just ate in the delicious weather and pretty sights.

While everyone had a great time, I think Tate won in that department.

That boy was so curious about everything and just wanted to go go go.

And all these colors...

They almost make the coming winter bearable ;)

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Kemry: She used to be scared of the leaves that fell on our lawn, but now she can't get enough of them! We are outside once or twice a day just to jump in the piles we have scooped up. We have two HUGE piles gathered, which is lovely, but they are all from our neighbor's trees. None of ours have fallen yet, and it makes me want to weep a little knowing how much work is ahead.

Tate: T-man now says "please" and "thank you," but he has no idea what they mean. He also learned from his sister that Santa says "ho ho ho" and loves to say it to all the other shoppers we encounter in the store.

In other news, Tyrel is 3/4 of the way done with this huge residencey, and we are so so so ready for him to be check it off his list. 

Also, I have the start of corneal ulcers again {although these aren't as bad as the one three years ago which was a full-blown ulcer...and these are on the outside of my iris where the other was almost on my pupil}, so my eyes have been giving me heeeeeaaaaaadaches. I've got the thick, goopy drops to put in my eyes and am thankfully on the mend. 

The leaves are falling, and we get a peak of warm weather this week, so life is good!

We are 90% done with our Halloween costumes and can't wait to share them with you!

Enjoy those pumpkin spiced everythings and those nice crunchy leaves!

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Sickness has once again plagued the Murri family.

But, alas, we have conquered it and are back to our normal shenanigans.

It is rare that we all get sick with the same thing, but when it happens, life stops.

It was the nastiest bug I have had in a long time, so don't get it yourself!

Say no to germs!

Unrelated- Happy first day of Fall! 

It's my favorite season!

I think I am going to eat a billion pumpkin chocolate chip cookies to celebrate :)

Tate: You can currently find him walking around saying "owie!" and "uh-oh!" nonstop as well as flashing the touchdown arm sign. It makes his daddy mighty proud :)

Kemry: This one has developed a serious attitude since being sick. It's like the teenage years have come far too early. Any advice on how to get my sweet little girl back would be appreciated! On a good note, she has started to master the somersault {which is a huge deal for a girl who is terrified of being upside-down}. She is also trying to squeeze in as many dirt birthday cakes as possible before the weather gets too cold.

raking leaves and motherly instincts

There is a new study that proves you have a set of muscles in your body reserved for raking leaves.

I was the sole creator/instructor/participant of said study, and after 12 30-gallon bags full of leaves {from just our front yard alone}, I can state with confidence that it is true {false, but who really cares, right?}.

I unfortunately had to tackle the task 99% alone since Ty works all day and it starts to get dark around 5.

Every time little T-man crashed for a nap, Kem and I put on all of our cold-weather gear and got our fall on.

Thankfully, we survived, minus one incident where, from out of nowhere, a random man with crazy hair quickly parked in front of my house, hopped out of his car, and made a b-line toward Kemry. 

I made it to her first, ready to break his shins in.

{It turns out he lived up the hill from us and wanted to cut down one of our trees? I only listened to about 10% of the conversation because I was ready to all South Dakota on him {Is that a thing?}. All I know for sure is {1} I was ready to poke his eyes out if he touched one of us and {2} one of our trees has now been cut down. Maybe I was a little dramatic? 

NO. The answer is NO.}

Here is to surviving both fall and crazy supposed neighbors we have never met!

greetings from a lazy october

Is it really October?

Really?

Here is a picture of our front yard exactly one year ago:

  

And here is the quick shot I just took from our door with my phone:

 So, no. 

In my opinion, it is not October.

We haven't raked any leaves, carved any pumpkins, gone to Trader Joe's to buy cider, or made caramel apples.

And Halloween is next week?!?!

Yikes!

{Guess what I will be working on all weekend long? Costumes, for sure!!}

It is literally the most uneventful time ever around here.

Seriously.

But I will give you a rundown of our lives, anyway.

The Tate-man

This guy is the sweetest.

He is such a tricky, stubborn baby, but when he is happy, oh boy!

He is SO happy!

His biggest piece of news:

We found out from his cardiologist that his heart defects have practically fixed themselves!

There are still a few quirks {a hole, a murmur, etc}, but his chances of being inhibited by his issues are approaching zero.

We are just tickled!

Cons:

-Hates tummy time and would rather eat the blanket than lift up his head.

-Won't sleep in his crib for longer than an hour or two at a time.

-Won't sleep longer than 3 hours at night {with a rare 4 every once in a while}.

-Growing out of clothing faster than we can buy it for him.

-Shots. Boo.

Pros:

-He is the smiley-est baby EVER!

-He has practically stopped spitting up, which is great for my hygiene.

-He is eating and growing perfectly.

-It is starting to feel like we had never been without him.

 The Kemster

 

This kid is so busy.

You have no idea.

From dawn to dusk, she is at a full sprint.

She is super sassy but super sweet {which was exactly how I was at her age...}

Cons:

-She has mastered talking-back to her parents. Already. Great.

-She only takes naps about one day of the week.

-She jumps, crawls, and runs on everything, thus leading to more "owies" than usual.

Pros:

-She is absolutely hilarious, regardless of whether she means to be or not.

-She is almost completely potty-trained.

-She loves helping take care of the baby, playing with other kids, and thinks that Daddy is the coolest.

The Hubs and Wife

 The Hubs-

Cons:

-Work work work. And as the holidays approach, it will only get worse.

-My brother and his wife got the CUTEST puppy ever, so he gets to listen to me talk about how adorable it is, hoping that sometime in the next 20 years he gets the hint  {but no sooner than 5 years...I only want kids right now. No animals, thankyouverymuch.}

Pros:

-He gets out once a week to play basketball until late at night, is starting to really love his grad program, and gets to cuddle with me {sometimes}.

The Wife-

Cons:

-The kids constantly test my patience, my head always hurts, and being a mother of two has served me a huge slice of humility.

Pros:

-I get at least 4 showers a week!

-The baby weight is finally coming off. Everyone says that nursing makes it melt away. My weight has been thawing. In the refrigerator. But at least it is progress!

We are tired to the bone and don't get any time alone, but we are so very happy.

Keep on keepin' on, October!

We are ready for candy, turkey, and ham, in that order, so lets get to it!

Stat!

hanging out with our first tornado and such

That title drew you in, right?

I knew it would!

It is all truth, too.

{Check it out here if you don't believe me}

And while they were pretty much baby tornadoes, I think if it did this much damage to a house that is a block away from us, I think we can {marginally} accept the title of tornado-surviors.

 

 

 

 

source

No damage was done to our property, although we just recently had two {huuuuge} dead trees taken down in our backyard that would have possibly fallen on our neighbor's homes if they were still there.

It was ridiculously warm on Saturday, and the thought even passed through my mind, "It kind of feels like tornado weather."

Hardy har har.

It is November. 

You don't get tornados this late in the year.

The wind was so loud it woke me up.
Tyrel came into the room and told me to come look outside.

We opened the door but couldn't see much except this white blanket of death-rain.

The transformers on the power lines around our home started to explode, so it was time to close the door.

Except the wind was so strong we BOTH had to use all of our strength the get the door shut.

Our power went out, and the storm continued for another 5 minutes or so.

And then that was that.

Just like nothing happened.

We heard chainsaws all night long, so we figured a few trees fell down here or there.

But in all reality, they fell down everywhere, closing a few roads all-together.

The sirens didn't sound, and our weather radio didn't go off, so we had no idea what really happened until Sunday night, when we started peeing our pants a little as we watched the news.

Living in the Midwest, I have been in a bazillion tornado warnings.

They usually go something like this:

1. Wow. It is really warm out. And muggy. And I feel gross.

2. We are under a tornado watch? Pssshh. Let's keep playing by the river.

3. Hmm. The sky is green. Let's head home. We can play outside there.

4. Tornado warning? Time to get out the lawn chairs and watch the clouds twist above your house.

5. Well, now there is hail the size of a grapefruit. Maybe we will go inside and watch from our picture window.

You usually don't make it to the basement unless it is really nasty outside.

{And yes, we are all stupid South Dakotans, but I promise this is the pattern for most people in my town.}

But this was Tyrel's first time.

Tornado virgin no more!

We live not far from the airport, so we often hear planes flying over our house,

A few times, Tyrel would wake up concerned because there was a really heavy wind plus the noise of the plane.

"Is that a tornado?" he would ask me.

After this big microburst, a plane flew over and of course spooked Ty.

I comforted him, and we fell asleep to lullabies of trees being sawed in chunks.

But, to his credit, the next day we found out the truth.

One point for Tyrel.

{Even though it was still only a plane after the storm passed. Half-a-point for Vandy.}

happy fall, y'all

We live in the sweetest little neighborhood.

It is really quiet, really old, and really swell.

We adore it.

Since the area isn't full of developments, it means that we got huge, beautiful trees when we bought our 1950s home.

We were loving them in the summer, since the two in the front yard keep us in the shade, saving a little on cooling costs.

And they were mighty dazzling when they started to change colors.

But.

Alas, the inevitable happened.

Le sigh.

Yes, we had so many leaves that they spread half-way across the street.

To make us feel better, look at the mess our  our neighbor across the street has to deal with:

{except he hires people to take care of his lawn...someday...}

Count your blessings, right?

It is crazy leaf-fest around here.

Our neighborhood {and those surrounding} doesn't have sidewalks, so I run in the gutters when I am getting my jog on.

But it has been a little tricky lately.

We decided to clean our lawn up.

It took FOREVER.

And we only did the front, folks.

We have 4 giants that tickle the clouds in our backyard {which is at least 5 times bigger than the front}.

Someday we will get to that.

Phhhh.

 Kemry joined us after a little while.

Nap-time was a no-go today.

{She thinks everything is "saaaarrrry"(which is translated into "scary" for those not fluent in Kemtalk yet), so sleep has been a little sketchy around here}.

 And I promise we are not evil parents.

We are terribly loving.

I swear!

 

After sneaking over to good old Norm and Paula's lawn next door and scooping up their leaves too, we ended up with about 20 bags.

Our front trees still have to drop most {yes, MOST} of their leaves still, so we are in for a hoot these next few weeks.

Looking out the window now, you couldn't even tell we did a darn thing out there.
Someday we will take them to the compost site.

Once again, someday.

We still love you, Minnesota.

a little photoshoot

Yesterday, we got our furnace replaced.

Hooray for having heat, not-so-hooray for paying it off for a year.

Kids, this stuff is expensive.

And apparently time-consuming.

The poor guy came at 8 am.

We left the house just before 5, and he was still working away, still needing to do a ton of work.

We are guessing he left around 7:30.

I sure hope he gets paid well.

{And that he used our bathroom when we left.

That is a long time to hold it in.}

The reason we left our poor furnace installer all alone was to swap family pictures with our friends.

You know, we take theirs and they take ours?

It was so stinking fun.

Look at how pretty the leaves are.

Granted, most had fallen where we shot, but this whole area is beautiful.

Like, we-may-never-want-to-leave-Minnestoa beatuiful.

Here are some of our favorites:

My favorite. Hands down.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend!