This Tradition's a Keeper

I'm a big sucker.

A sucker for memories.
And traditions.

I could seriously relive memories over and over again for the rest of my life.
A memory sucker.
And as such, I've been the resident historian for my family for as long as I can remember.

I'm pretty sure I've kept a journal of some sort since the day I started using a pencil.
You know.
The days of little gripper writing helpers.
{Mine was purple with sparkles.}
All in the hopes of capturing every detail of each day.

And I've taken pictures since I was a wee thing.
I have boxes and boxes of negatives and photographs.
Going all the way back to fifth grade.
When I used to take my little disposable Kodaks with me everywhere.
For the sake of documenting life.
And memories.

So when we moved a couple thousand miles away, starting a blog was the clear and obvious thing to do.
To help keep our families in the loop.
And to document all the fun we were about to embark on.

That was in 2008.

Things have changed *a little* since then.
So, I thought the ol' blog should reflect life's recent changes.
It needed a bit of an updated facelift.

So welcome to my new and improved blog design!
You witness the fabulous handiwork of my sweet good-at-everything-she-does blog bestie, Aliya.
Aliya is seriously the coolest person I've never met.
We both started our blogs around the same time back in the day.
And have kept in touch ever since.

Love this girl.
And love my new blog design.
It's so perfect.
So me.

So in honor of my new memory-capturing blog.
And in light of the fall season and it's magnetic pull toward creating family traditions, I'd like to share a new one.

This past weekend, we hosted a Garage-Gate Pumpkin Painting Party.

Gabe e-mailed me a couple weeks ago mentioning something about really wanting to hook up our big screen tv in the garage so we could eat some burgers and watch the KSU game. I mean isn't that what you do when the weather is so nice outside?

The idea started as just something unique and fun for Gabe, Ly, and I to do as a family. Until we started brainstorming. Suddenly, it turned into an all-out tailgate with pumpkin-painting in the driveway for friends and their kiddos.

This was right up a memory-lover's alley.

And boy-oh-boy.
Gabe's idea lived up to its full potential.
Complete with grilling in the driveway, friends and their tots, tailgate snacks, camping chairs, the K-State game, and $50.00 worth of art supplies to paint pumpkins.
It was even the first outing for a couple of our friends since they had their sweet little baby-man only two short weeks ago.
And an added bonus was the kick-booty weather.
It was seriously uh-mazing.

And the pumpkin painting?
I've never seen adults...err...kids have so much fun.
Polka dots, glitter, and metallics, oh my!
Ly loved painting her pumpkin with Grams.
So much that she threw a yep-we're-entering-toddlerdom fit when we took her pumpkin away.
She had paint and glitter from head to toe.
In fact.
I'm still finding glitter in her cloth diapers.
But so worth it.

We were so sad when the night had to come to an end.
{Which just-so-happened to be 1:00 a.m., pizza delivery, headlamp, and outdoor scary movie included}.

Good times had by all.

Can't wait to do it again next year.