Honestly Hawley {October 2018}

On Monday I quickly recapped September, and today I'm going to recap October.  After these recaps, I will be all set to dive into some new content, and some new *freebies* coming your way ;-)  With the anticipation of Halloween, when both kids understood the concept of Trick-or-treating, and a visit from Aunt Nana, the pumpkin patch, & the ranch, we had a really fun and celebratory month.

Here are the honest, unedited, unscripted
scenes of our October life :-)
2016: June ~ July ~ August ~ September ~ October ~ November ~ December
2017: January ~ February ~ March ~ April ~ June ~ July ~ August ~ September~ October ~ November ~ December

2018: January ~ February ~ March ~ April ~ May ~ June ~ July ~ August ~ September

Halloween 2018

We're not too far into November where it is weird to talk about Halloween, are we?  Ok, good!  Last January when I was packing up Christmas decorations, Dutch noticed my collection of Nutcrackers.  I have not displayed them for several years because we've had little babies so it was his first time seeing them.  He had A LOT of questions about the nutcrackers, so we ended up reading the story and watching the actual ballet. For the past 10 months we have read the book, Dutch has read the book, watched the ballet and listened to all of the songs.  Dutch can now hear a song and tell you what scene of the ballet it comes from.  He LOVES all things Tchaikovsky, and plays "mouse king" all the time.  It really was a given when picking their Halloween costumes.  Ellis went as Clara, Dutch went as the Nutcracker, the Mr. went as the Mouse King, & I was the Sugar Plum Fairy.  It was a really fun family costume.
As per our tradition, the Mr. made homemade pizza, and then we got dressed up.  It was raining again this year so we went to maybe 5 houses and came back.  I am going to try and take Dutch to the ballet at some point this Christmas to keep the Nutcracker theme going. 

check out previous Hawley Halloweens

2014 ~ 2015 ~ 2016 ~ 2017

Honestly Hawley {September 2018}

Um, well, that was an unexpected break from this here blog.  Oopsies!  I AM still here; I feel the need to reintroduce myself lol Hello again!  Life has been about as crazy & busy as ever.  In 9 years, I have never taken a break from the blog, even when my kids were born I was still here.  But this fall has been something else, and I have not had a post in three weeks!  Ahhhhh!  I cannot even pinpoint a specific thing keeping us busy other than the demands of life.  So I'm back & ready to share about the things we've been living.  When I was going through the pictures from September for this post, it was clear to me how much learning we did during the month; Dutch also started reading this month.  Come to think of it, that is probably where I was instead of writing blog posts lol  In addition to Ellis' First Tea Party, we learned all about fall, apples, mushrooms, acorns, pumpkins, & leaves.  It was a busy but very fun (and exhausting) month.

Here are the honest, unedited, unscripted
scenes of our September life :-)
2016: June ~ July ~ August ~ September ~ October ~ November ~ December
2017: January ~ February ~ March ~ April ~ June ~ July ~ August ~ September~ October ~ November ~ December

2018: January ~ February ~ March ~ April ~ May ~ June ~ July ~ August

First Tea Party

I wanted to make Ellis' first tea party something that was very special and memorable.  I also wanted to make it something that we attempt to do in an annual fashion, like an "end of the summer tea".  Ellis and I have tea time every afternoon while we read books, but I wanted to take it up a notched and I thought she could handle it at her age (2.5 years old).  I shared the idea with her and she was excited!  Ellis invited her very special Aunt Grace, who is basically mama #2 for her.  I want Ellis to always be surrounded by wise godly women while she is growing up, so that if there is ever a moment when she can't share something with me, she has a safe alternative.  We can't have these special moments, like first tea parties, without all of the most important players.  Of course I wanted to make this a special day for Ellis, but also for the godly influences in her life, as they develop those special bonds. 
So the date was set. The invitations were sent.  She picked out her dress (and mine) and selected a new pair of shoes.  She brought one of my dress-up purses from when I was a little girl, and wore a new floral bow.  I bought her a new tea cup to commemorate the day, and gave her her first wrist corsage. 
We had 3 different kinds of tea, 3 different tea sandwiches, and 3 different sweet treats.  She is still talking about our tea party date, and we are both already excited about our next tea party.