What's Up Wednesday!

Danggit. I just realized I'm a week early with this post. Oh well. I'll just do it twice in one month!

What we're eating this week:

Last night, we took my nephew Tanner out for dinner. We ate quesadillas as big as pizzas and then went off and left the leftovers sitting on the table when we left. Grrr! 

 I just love that my nephews and niece actually want to spend time with us! *heart eyes galore*

What I'm reminiscing about: 

I'm constantly reminiscing. I feel like I'm constantly wishing I could relive my girls' baby years. And with that new Facebook flashback feature, it makes it even worse!

That's what popped up on my feed this morning. Sweet little Ella Kate!

What I'm loving:

I bought something from Sephora a couple of weeks ago, and inside the box were the three samples they always offer. I almost always get either the perfume or the makeup samples, and this time I tried a Makeup For Ever primer. I order A LOT from Sephora, and therefore I receive A LOT of these little samples, and I have never once bought anything I've tried. At least not as a result of trying the sample. But this time was the exception. I tried this new "Smoothing" primer, and It. Is. INCREDIBLE!! I'm simply amazed and completely in love with it! I honestly never thought I would ever give two shakes about a primer, but I'm telling you what, I'm attached to this one!

In case "smoothing" isn't something your skin really needs, don't worry. They have a whole new line of primers, and I'm sure that all of them are equally fabulous. 

What we've been up to:

Same ol', same ol' around here. We've just been in the thick of school year activities, but we did enjoy a lot of downtime during Fall Break last week! 

What I'm dreading:

I actually hate myself a little for saying this, but Tennessee plays Alabama this Saturday, and I'm sorta dreading it. I love me some Tennessee football, but I don't think this one will turn out in our favor. I sure hope I'm wrong! 

What I'm working on:

Keeping this blog alive, obvs. 

What I'm excited about:

Is it weird to say Tennessee football? 

What I'm watching/reading: 

Is anyone else watching Ladies of London? I'm so ready to move to London and rub elbows with the royal and refined after watching this show. I want to be right in the middle of them, and become completely immersed in all things British. I have soooo drank the Bravo Kool-Aid.

What I'm listening to:

My Halloween Party Playlist on Spotify. Except when I'm cooking, and that's when I listen to the 1970s channel on Pandora

What I'm wearing: 

I haven't taken many pics of my outfits this week, so I grabbed one tonight as we left the house. 

I will try to update this post as the week goes on with some of my other outfits if I think they're worth reporting...

What I'm doing this weekend:

Friday night will of course be spent watching Teagan play football. It's his last home game playing football, so I fully expect to boo-hoo my way through it!

This weekend is our annual Halloween party, so Saturday will be spend prepping and partying, and Sunday will be spent recovering! 

What I'm looking forward to next month:

My sister and our friends are taking another girls trip to Asheville the first weekend in November, and I can't wait!! We went last year, and it was honestly one of the very best times of my life. I can only hope this one can top it! 

What else is new:

Uh, not much? Nothing is coming to mind, anyway. 

Halloween Soundtrack

It's almost that most terrifying time of the year, and in the spirit of loving any chance I have to celebrate any ol' thang, I created a Halloween playlist to share with my readers! 

I soooo wish I had some Photoshop skills to add some cute graphics, but I don't, so you'll have to settle for some funny memes. 

#YouAreWelcome

 #WhoAreYouLookinAt?

On to the tunes!

I'll be honest, this is my Halloween-themed playlist, not one I'd necessarily play at an actual full-on Halloween party. That being said, it's not censored, so if you add these to your Spotify, You Have Been Warned! 

I Put A Spell On You

Love Potion #9

Howlin' For You

Witchcraft

Black No. 1 (Little Miss Scare-All)

Castin' My Spell

What's a Girl To Do?

My Body's a Zombie For You

Strange and Beautiful

Black Magic Woman

She Blinded Me With Science

Love Song For a Vampire

Touch-A, Touch-A, Touch Me

I'm Your Boogie Man

Lil' Devil

Abracadabra

Strange Brew

Zombie Dance

Little Ghost

Disturbia

Howl

Bad Things

She Wolf 

Vampire

Witchy Woman

Gloomy Sunday

Skeleton Song

Witch

Monster

Banana Boat Song (Day-O)

Black Magic

I'm In Love With a Monster

Grim, Grinning Ghosts

Thriller

E.T.

Time Warp

Sweet Transvestite (holla to my fellow Rocky Horror Fans!)

Bad Romance
Ghostbusters
The Devil Went Down to Georgia
This is Halloween
I'll Put a Spell on You
I Want Candy

That's it! Hope this puts you in the Halloween spirit!

Weekend Recap

We tried to pack as much fun into our last weekend of Fall Break as we could! 

We started out in the way the Harbin family likes to have fun: at the movies! The girls had been begging to see Goosebumps, and since I really wanted to see it, too, we went first thing on Friday. 

The movie was great, and I can definitely see it being a Halloween classic, but I'll warn you, it's got its scary parts. My girls were perfectly fine by the time the movie was over, but requested an extra nightlight for the next two nights. We're back to normal now!

After the movie, we went out for pizzas and selfies....

Caroline loved the Goosebumps movie so much that she asked if we could go get her a couple of the books at Book A Million. We did, and while I browsed around, I decided to jump back down the Outlander rabbit hole. I'm tellin' ya, these books are so immersive that I feel like I live half my life in reality and half my life in the 18th century! 

Saturday morning involved a trip to the gym and running a bunch of errands. #NoFun 

Caroline had been asking to go fishing for quite a while now, so Steve got up the gumption to take the girls to a friend's pond and see what they could catch. 

Ella Kate caught Moby Dick! 

Apparently, the big guy did NOT want to come off the hook, and Steve is in no hurry to take them fishing again after fighting with that thing. 

While Steve took the girls fishing, I got ready to go to the movies with my sister and our friends. We went to see Big Stone Gap, which was exclusively filmed in a small town just over the Virginia border. It's only about 45 minutes from here. It was so cool to see lots of local people and places in the movie! I even have a good friend of mine who was an extra in the movie, and was in the movie quite a bit. So neat! 

#MikeRingleyFanClub

Sunday, I woke up to this in our local paper...

That's my nephew Teagan right next to the trophy (#8). So proud of him!! #Superstar

We always try to make Sunday an at-home family day, and it mostly was. The girls had asked to have a little Halloween party of their own, though, so we invited over a couple of friends for some Halloween festivities. I made a big crockpot of chili, and the kids tie-dyed t-shirts, painted pumpkins, and made masks. There was supposed to be a costume parade, but we ran out of time. 

It was so much fun and I'm so glad we did it! We were having so much fun, in fact, that I didn't get any pics, except for this exceptionally cute one of our friends' fresh-out-of-the-oven baby girl! 

Isn't she so sweet?!? I bet you can almost smell that new baby smell, can't you?

Happy Monday, y'all!

Fall Break Fun

My girls are on Fall Break this week, and in the absence of any big trips to Disney World or the beach, we decided to have fun here at home! 

We took Monday to rest and relax, and Tuesday was a trip to lunch and the movies (no pics, sorry!) and an eye doctor appointment for Caroline. She complains about her vision from time to time, but luckily he told us that her eyesight isn't bad enough yet to need correction. He did say, though, that she's likely headed down the same path to terrible vision that I followed.

#ThankYouLASIK

So Wednesday, we headed off to Dollywood to take in their National Southern Gospel and Harvest Festival. 

I was in Pumpkin heaven! 

#DollywoodNeedsAStarbucksThough

Ella Kate's very favorite ride in the park is the FireChaser Express, so we headed over there first thing.

And passed the short wait time with a selfie session.

Apparently Caroline couldn't hear my screams for her attention, but my ever-photogenic husband sure did! 

Got a good smile from Caroline before we took off on Barnstormer. I'm telling you, this ride gets me every time. I really feel like I'm going to flip right out of that thing! Caroline just loves it though, and we rode it three times this visit. 

While we were riding Barnstormer, Steve and Ella Kate watched the bird show and we met up after. Just so happened to meet up at the gem mining booth, which Caroline was quick to point out that I always say that we'll do next time, and then we never do. She wasn't wrong. So Steve bought her a bag of dirt, and she gem mined herself enough rocks to pay for college!

#AMomCanDream

Caroline is typically a daredevil at theme parks, but this time she wasn't really feeling like it. Instead of the major thrill rides, we walked over to the Country Fair area that is more for the younger kiddos. 

Still fun to be had on those swings, though! 

I sat out on the Demolition Derby and tried to take some pics. Those little cars moved too fast for my slow camera skills, though! 

Caroline cracked me up, though. She was laid back, one arm on the wheel like she was a teenager cruising the strip. All she needed was some gangsta rap instead of the classic oldies the ride was playing! 

We decided to get lunch after riding all the rides in Country Fair. I have talked on here before about Dollywood having terrible food options if you're looking to eat healthy, but I had done some pre-planning and found some things that I thought could work. 

#BestLaidPlans

By the time we had ridden rides and walked all around the park, I was STARVING! I threw finding healthy eating out the window and settled for finding the shortest line. We ended up getting the same Italian peppers and onions sandwich and homemade chips that we pretty much get on every visit. Maybe next time I can be healthier.

After yet another ride on FireChaser and a bathroom break, Ella Kate found a picture spot. 

My little Hoot in between Dollywood's hoots.

Since Caroline missed the first Wings of America bird show, we went back over there to catch another one. My girls love pretty much anything related to nature, and they both could pretty much stay here all day. At the end of the show, they ask for donations to help keep the bald eagle rescue program, Eagle Mountain Sanctuary, up and running. You bring a bill up to the stage, and their African crow, Friar Tuck, will take the folded bill from you and put in the donation box. It's a super cute little trick!

Theme parks are always exhausting, and after a couple of ice cream cones, we decided to call it a day. This time of year, the park closes fairly early anyway. On our way out, I stopped to take some pictures of the great fall decor they had on display. I don't know if I just don't remember it before or what, but the decorations really seemed to be much better this year than in years past. 

Aren't these little pumpkin people just precious?

My girls love cinnamon rolls, so on the way out of the park, I stopped in the bakery to get some to take home from breakfast. I'm sad to report, though, that they weren't all I expected them to be. If you ever visit Dollywood, get the cinnamon bread from the grist mill rather than the cinnamon rolls from the bakery. 

We tend to avoid the shops at Dollywood and focus on the rides, but because of the Harvest celebration, they were making homemade apple butter and sampling it inside of Taste Traders. They were also sampling their coffee, and after trying it, I had to buy a bag! It was delicious!! All of their flavors sounded amazing, so now I know what my souvenir will be whenever we visit the park! 

After our fun filled day, we had a bath and sleep filled night! 

Hope everyone is enjoying/enjoyed/will enjoy their Fall Break!