Virtual Coffee Date...October 3rd!

Hey friends! Grab your favorite cup of coffee and let's have a virtual coffee date!!! Have a seat and let's chat!

If we were having coffee today, I would tell you that this is my favorite time of year! I already have my fall and Halloween decorations out. I love it! I love all the scarecrows, pumpkins, friendly ghosts and spiders, and dressing up my boys in costumes! I love the cooler weather (especially for running) and the fun family activities like the corn maze!

If we were having coffee today, I would tell you that I have a new niece! Yes, my oldest sister Christy had a baby girl last Monday! Her name is Ella Kate and she was 7 lbs. 14 oz. when she was born. She is absolutely gorgeous! Unfortunately they live in San Francisco (all the way across the country from me) so I'm not sure when I will get to officially meet her. But I've been enjoying seeing pictures of her!

If we were having coffee today, I would tell you that I am so excited about all my favorite TV shows coming back on! I love Once Upon a Time, Revenge, Scandal, Parenthood, and The Vampire Diaries. I also started watching Hostages last week and it was pretty good!

If we were having coffee today, I would tell you that I am so excited about my next half marathon! I'm most excited about spending that weekend with my friend Paige! I seriously need some girl time!

If we were having coffee today, I would tell you that I am really nervous about meeting my fundraising goal for the St. Jude Memphis Half Marathon. I committed to raise $500. So far I have raised $340. So I have $160 more to go. I'm nervous because I have to have the money raised by November 15th or the remainder goes on my credit card! So...if you'd like to help me and donate you can do that HERE! ;-) It would be soooo appreciated!!!

If we were having coffee today, I would tell you about a new book series that I started reading. It is called the Delirium Series and is by Lauren Oliver. If you like Divergent you will love this one too! I'm already on the second book!

I hope you enjoyed your coffee! Mine was delicious! Thanks for chatting with me!

QOTD: If we were having coffee today, what would you tell me?

Pumpkin Carving Time!

Most of you know it but Halloween is my favorite time of year! I don't know if it has to do with the fact that it's the day before my birthday AND my hubby Andy's actual birthday but I love it! I don't like the scary stuff but I love the cute pumpkins, jack 'o' lanterns, ghosts, spiders, and black cats! I decorate my house for Halloween as much as I decorate at Christmas time!

It's a tradition in our house to carve pumpkins with my husband's parents and sister and her hubby. We live in the south and the weather is unpredictable in temperature this time of year (usually it's still pretty warm outside) so we are limited to carving our pumpkins no more than a few days before Halloween or they will rot. And if you've ever dealt with a rotten pumpkin then you know it is NOT fun...yuck! We also don't buy fancy carving kits or tools. We use a black sharpie, an ice cream scoop, and a sharp knife.

So here are the Road Runner Girl Steps to Carving a Pumpkin!

• Draw a rough draft of your design. This year the boys got to draw their own design. In the year's past my hubby would do it. But the boys are getting old enough and were so excited to design their own pumpkin carving design!

Hayden's Design

Sawyer's Design (drawn by Hayden...he just told him what he wanted)

• Draw the design on your pumpkin. Andy drew Hayden's design on his pumpkin and Aunt Katie (Andy's sister) drew Sawyer's design. 

• Cut off the top...dig out the mush and seeds. Yes this is the grossest part to me. But my boys love it! 

• Scoop out as much of the rind as you can for pumpkin pies! A lot of people don't do this part. They just get the guts out of the pumpkin and leave all the pumpkin goodness! We love pumpkin pie around here so none of our pumpkin insides get wasted! ;-)

• Carve...finally!!! As our boys are too young to handle sharp knives we do this part ourselves. ;-)

• Take pictures of the final product! This is probably the most important step! ;-)

So our pumpkins are definitely unique this year! The boys are super proud to see their designs on them! And that's what it's all about...getting the boys involved and having a good time! Mission accomplished!

QOTD: Do you carve pumpkins? Any steps you include that I left out?

Fall Family Fun Day!

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I spent it with my hubby and boys...and we had a blast!!! Be prepared for lots of pictures! :-)

Friday night we went to my friend Stephanie's house for her daughter Sydney's 8th birthday. She had a Halloween themed party and the boys had so much fun!!! They ate pizza, cake, and got to decorate pumpkins!

Check out this awesome cake! And yes it tasted as good as it looked!

And here are my sweet boys painting their pumpkins...which are now proudly displayed on our fireplace mantel! ;-)

Since I wasn't running a long run this weekend due to my week of rest, Saturday I got to sleep in and it was marvelous!!! I woke up refreshed and even cooked breakfast for my boys. Then we decided to go to the Magnolia Corn Maze for some fun! I love this time of year...there are so many fun activities!!!

This year they added a children's maze cut out of wild flowers...the flowers were gorgeous and we had to take a picture in front of them!

Now I don't know about you but I am NOT good with directions! So these mazes are super hard for me! Luckily my wonderful hubby is great with them...usually! ;-) This year's maze was cut into the shape of the state of Alabama and the paths represent the state's major interstates, highways, and roads. We had 8 different cities that we had to check off on our map...Mobile, Birmingham, Montgomery, Florence, Huntsville, Tuscaloosca, Auburn, and Dothan. Once you found the city you punched your map and kept going through the maze.

I had to get a picture of Sawyer wearing his Auburn jersey in Auburn! :-)

And here we are in the city of Auburn! ;-)

I may be biased but I think they are THE cutest boys ever!!!

And the city closest to us...Mobile!

We actually went into the maze 2 times! The first time we only found 7 of the cities. We exited the maze to use the restroom and get some water...and to determine which city we were missing. It was Birmingham! How did we miss Birmingham? So back in we went to get our 8th punch on our map! I was determined to get all 8 because you turned your completed map in for a chance to win a Visa gift card!

After our fun in the maze we went on a hayride!

We then enjoyed some of the other activities...the Hop-a-long Rodeo (which Sawyer attempted and then started crying at the start line), the petting zoo, the corn cannon, and the pig races!

They also had a pumpkin patch! Ok it's not a real pumpkin patch but it's all we get here in the south...just a bunch of pumpkins sitting on the ground that you can choose from. The boys wanted to pick one but it costs extra and that's part of the plan for next weekend. So we just took a few pictures with the pumpkins!

This is one of my favorite pictures of Sawyer! He wanted to hold that huge pumpkin so bad!!! :-)

After we were finished having fun at the corn maze we decided to eat some dinner and then head to the movies. Hayden has been wanting to see the movie "Hotel Transylvania" so we thought it was the perfect night for it.

This movie was sooo cute!!!! Adam Sandler is one of my favorites and he didn't disappoint in this movie. We will definitely be adding this to our movie library when it comes out on Blu-Ray!

Watch the trailer below! It is soooo funny!



Thanks for reading this long post! I just had such a fun weekend that I wanted to share it all with you!!! I'm so blessed to have such great times with my family!

QOTD: Have you ever gone to a corn maze? Did you like it?