For as long as I can remember, October has been my favorite month of the year. This October was a little different—not necessarily bad different, just different from my usual experience of Octobers. In addition to our continued navigation of newborn life (itself somewhat disorienting), we experienced confusing summer-like weather that completely threw me off my fall groove. We also went on a family vacation to the beach, and while I highly recommend the Texas beaches in October, it felt strange to return home to fall festivals and pumpkins on porches. With Halloween now behind us, I’m hoping I can find my footing as this year starts drawing to a close. But first, an October recap!
|| READING LATELY ||
I had a successful reading month with mostly 4- and 5-star reads. (The one dud was this poetry collection, which was not at all to my taste.) This book offered useful insight into some parenting decisions we are making with Nico, and this book gave me some helpful new tools for my marriage. The kids and I all loved this epistolary novel from a beloved children’s book author as well as this Little House on the Prairie read-alike. This quirky yet insightful novel was a slow start, but I’m so glad I stuck it out. Favorite book of the month was this comedy/mystery mashup from an author I’ve loved in the past; I can’t wait to continue with the series! I’ll be sharing full reviews of all of these books in an upcoming Quick Lit post.
|| WATCHING LATELY ||
Psych (Seasons 1-8) ~ Luke and I are one-show-at-a-time people, and have been for all seventeen years that we’ve been married (it helps that we’ve never had cable). But since we only watch TV a couple of times per week, it takes us a very long time to “binge” a show. Case in point: we started our rewatch of Psych in the summer of 2023 and we just wrapped up season 8 this month.
You’re likely familiar with this cult classic, but here’s my two-sentence synopsis for the uninitiated: in this comedy detective show, Shawn Spencer—the well-trained son of a former police detective—has uncanny observational skills that allow him to pass as an amateur psychic detective for the Santa Barbara police force. Shawn and his best friend, Gus, bring their quirkiness, humor, and surprising talent to each case in this show that unites creative styling with a stellar cast and brilliant writing. Each episode is very different, with many episodes (especially later ones) incorporating elements and sometimes actors from of other popular films or shows. The final season is not the strongest of the series, but the series finale is perfection.
This was not our first time watching this show and I have enjoyed it even more with each rewatch. It offers the perfect combination of drama and humor, and I truly can’t think of any other shows like it. This rewatch was enhanced by the Psychologists Are In podcast, hosted by costars Maggie Lawson and Timothy Omundson; though it’s pretty straightforward as far as rewatch podcasts go (Maggie and Timothy mostly just summarize the episodes without offering too much of their own insights or commentary), I enjoyed getting to know the actors behind the iconic characters. Are you a fan of Psych? And if not, what are you waiting for?! My Rating: 5 Stars.
|| LISTENING LATELY ||
An assortment of podcast that inspired or informed this month.
HOT-BUTTON ISSUES:
Keeping It Real: Conversations with Jillian Michaels—Vaccine Injury 101: What You Need to Know
Refocus with Jim Daly—Monique Duson: Responding to Critical Race Theory with Grace and Truth
The Ben Shapiro Show—The Dangers of Secularism | Bishop Robert Barron
Honestly with Bari Weiss—Donald Trump or Kamala Harris? Ben Shapiro and Sam Harris Debate.
PARENTING ADJACENT:
Foundation Worldview Podcast—Making Family Worship Accessible for All Ages
Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey—Ep 1079 | When to Stop Having Kids | Guest: Dr. Catherine Pakaluk
Mama Bear Apologetics—Episode 113: How to Talk to Your Kids About Politics
The Natasha Crain Podcast—45. The State of Christian Colleges, with Dr. Everett Piper
|| MONTHLY KID-ISMS ||
CHARLIE-ISMS:
+ “Mom, I think this toy is broken. Can we return it, is it still under quarantine?”
+ “Why do I need to learn how to diagram a sentence? Nobody’s ever going to ask me to do it. On a game show maybe, but I’m never gonna go on one of those. Presidents don’t have time for that.”
+ “Nico’s crying so much I feel bad for him. And bad for me, his crying is loud and hurts my ears.”
+ Response to a question on the genre of the book of Proverbs: “Prophesy, because it tells you what’s going to happen in your life.”
+ Passing out candy on Halloween: “It really is better to give than receive. Except on Christmas.”
KALI-ISMS:
+ “When I get bigger I wanna be a mommy because I want to drive all the time. But I will drive a truck not a van.”
+ Seeing the space shuttle as we pulled up to the NASA museum: “I KNEW space ships were real!”
+ “At dance there was an adult who didn’t wave back when I waved at them. . . . It was you.”
SULLY-ISMS:
+ Seeing a raccoon video: “Are raccoons the ones that toot?” (He was thinking of a skunk.)
+ “Why does Chuck E. Cheese not talk when he’s in his costume? Is it ’cause he’s shy or something?”
+ “The oldest person I know is God. And the next oldest person I know is Opa.” (Opa is my dad.)
|| HAPPENINGS AND HIGHLIGHTS ||
At the beginning of the month we joined Luke’s family for our annual family beach vacation. We change up our location every year, and this time we were at a beach house in Galveston. The beach was gorgeous—we practically had it to ourselves, and our weather was perfect. Our house was comfortable, with enough space for each family unit to have our own room, with upstairs and downstairs balconies overlooking the beach that was just steps away. That made it easy to come and go from the beach throughout the day for meals and bathroom trips and nap times.
I was nervous about doing this trip with Nico, who was in a particularly fussy patch leading up to the trip, but he did better than I expected. He still wanted to be in my arms most of the time and cried quite a bit, but we had great evenings (thank goodness we brought the swing!) and minimal nighttime wakeups. We dipped his feet in the sand and the ocean, and he wasn’t thrilled with the experience but didn’t hate it either.
The kids had a blast this trip. They all had fun swimming and Kali especially LOVED playing in the waves, while the boys were more into digging in the sand and Sully had fun searching for shells. The kids flew a kite, played ball, built sand castles and dug ditches while we were on the beach, and spent evenings at the house playing games and coloring. Kali and her cousin Brooke, who is two-and-a-half, particularly bonded, wanting to do everything together and dress alike each day. (Kali never lets me do her hair, but asked Grandma or her tía to do it each morning of the trip so she could match Brooke.)
We always do one big excursion day on our beach trips, and this year we went to the NASA Museum in Houston. I didn’t know what to expect and was thoroughly impressed. We toured retired rockets and models of rockets, saw a few videos about space, and explored many exhibits about the space program, space travel, and other space-related things. We were there the full day, 10:00-5:00, and only saw a portion of what the museum has to offer. It was a little tough to appreciate the abundance of information due to a fussy baby and preschoolers with very short attention spans, plus an overactive air conditioning that froze my brain a bit, but overall the kids did great and we all had a good time.
This last week was all about Halloween celebrations, beginning with a Harvest Festival at Charleston’s school last Friday. It was held in the gym of a local church and the kids had fun playing carnival games, collecting candy, and munching on cotton candy. Our family also got to debut this year’s costumes: Noah and his pairs of animals! The following day we went to another festival, this one hosted by several local churches. We enjoyed visiting the vendor booths, petting some rescue animals (the tortoises and ferrets were our favorites) and of course gathering candy.
On Wednesday we turned our pumpkins into a good-looking batch of Jack-o-lanterns. The kids had fun designing their pumpkin faces and Charleston even did a lot of his own carving. Afterwards we headed to the library for a Halloween party and costume competition. We didn’t win, though the librarian let us know that if there had been a category for best Family Costume we would have taken home the prize.
Last night was so much fun. We did some trick-or-treating in our neighborhood and enjoyed seeing the neighbors’ decorations as the kids collected candy. Then we came back to our house to pass out treats. (The kids had actually wanted to do this the whole evening and I had to convince them to do a little trick-or-treating ourselves first.) Luke set up our fire pit in the front yard and we enjoyed chatting with the trick-or-treaters who walked by. Charleston had made some activity sheets (crosswords, coloring pages, word searches) that he passed out in addition to candy. I loved watching our kids engage with all the visitors and it was a fun and relaxing way to end the Halloween season.
|| ICYMI: OCTOBER ON THE BLOG ||
Nickelson Ryan || Two Months Old
I hope your October was a lovely one and that you have something (or many somethings!) lovely to look forward to in November.
