Famiy Pictures

We had our family pictures taken on Tuesday this past week by the lovely Amber Byrd.  It feels a little indulgent to hire someone to take family pictures every year, but honestly, I treasure these pictures-- she captures our family perfectly and the boys really cooperate for her.  If I just did the pictures myself, I wouldn't ever be in them and they boys would be rolling their eyes in every picture- ha! PLUS, Amber is sooooo affordable, so we can justify it!

Anyway, after stressing about outfits for the boys, outfits for momma, hair probs and a new location, I think things came together... I didn't think she would get one last year and she got some of my most favorite ones.  Hopefully she will surprise us this year too!

 these were just in the driveway as we were getting ready to go...

And then I snapped this one of Eddie and the boys while Amber was taking it-- love!

I also got this one with my phone-- these were the first ones we took...shirts still tucked in and vests on.  This did not last long.  Vests were shed and shirt tails came out.  

And then Cal became a child model....who poses like this???

And then Amber posted this one to facebook-- I love it!!!!! Might be my new phone case....

If you are local, we can't say enough great things about Amber Byrd!!!

 

A quick outlet run on a Monday

This right here is a random post.

We had our family pictures this past week and I ordered a shirt to wear from J.Crew factory.  I did not take into account the holiday last Monday (Columbus Day) and, the day before picture day, the box had still not arrived.  SO, after taking CalBoy to school on Monday, Andy and I ran over to the outlets to run into J.Crew.  I was planning on running in, buying the shirt I was planning on wearing and then running out-- then returning the shirt I ordered when it came in.  And that is what happened...for the most part.  I bought the shirt and then as I was running out of the store, another shirt caught my eye.  I held it up and it looked like it would fit and then I ran back to the cash register to pay for that one too.  It's nice to have options, right?? ha! (and I ended up wearing the last minute find for the pictures-- of course!)

Andy was SO good for my maniac running around the store so I let him visit the ride on toys in the middle of the outlet mall-- I seriously love this  mall.  We had the whole place to ourselves and Andy had a blast trying to sit on Spiderman's lap.....

 poor spidey.

 let's hug it out

And Monday night ended with a quick round of football-- this is not exclusive to our Mondays though.... this is pretty much every.single.night around here.

Speaking of pictures, CalBoy got his school pictures back... I think they are pretty cute!

 

Life Lately!

Sheesh! Has it really been this long since my last update?!?! I feel like this post should be a million paragraphs long with everything we've been doing lately... but really, we haven't been doing too much! Life is just flying by and Eddie and I actually just had a talk about trying to take it all in-- the days are flying by and the kids are growing like crazy.  I just want to soak it all in...

Here are some pictures of what's been going on over the past week (or so)...

Andy is still LOVING school.  He asks everyday if he gets to "see mah teachers" today.  He loves his teachers and has a great time there.  

Andy has been a bit like a roller coaster lately with his terrible twos.  One day, he is just a little terror, and then two days later, he is following directions and is just as sweet as can be.   Thankfully, he has yet to show his teachers his terror side... instead he is all smiles while he is there! They took his class on an adventure stroll through UNC's campus-- they found leaves and squirrels and other exciting things-- Andy hopped up in the seat to show me when I arrived.  How funny are these strollers?!

It's funny because early on in mom-hood, someone told me that your kids would never BOTH be good at the same time-- when one was good, the other would be hard and then right when that one would get easy, the other one would be hard.  That could not be truer! Many people warned about the fours (many have called them the F'in Fours.....), but I never thought Cal would be like that.  His twos were pretty much a breeze. His fours have been okay so far, but he does get an attitude every now and then.  We are super quick to call him on it and nip it in the bud-- Eddie and I are strict :) I think a big problem is dropping the nap all together.  He should have quiet time, but spends most of that time saying he has to tell me something, and then the thing he has to tell me is about a play in the football game he saw.... not a whole lot of quiet! He is also waking up way too early.  I am about to pull the trigger on those alarm clocks that turn color when it's okay to wake up...

He is figuring out his new teacher at school and making some great new friends.  He had picture day last week-- we bathed the kids in the morning to try to tame his hair...

Speaking of football, the kid is obsessed.  Like, OBSESSED.  It's ALL he wants to talk about, watch, play, read about, etc.... as you can see from the below picture, he can't pull himself away from the TV-- note: I did not let him stay like this.  He can't just watch it though-- he has to commentate the entire game.  Every play he will ask me if I saw it and then he will ask me what happened-- he really wants to understand the game.  I think we've created a monster :)

We've had a little bit more fall weather coming in- especially in the mornings, so the boys got to wear some long-sleeved shirts for school last week.  I loved the stripes (and I looked down after taking this and I was wearing stripes too...! what?!?!)

Being a mom of boys means a lot of things... this is one of them....

Andy hasn't had an accident in weeks... he is not consistently going number 2 on the potty, but he has in fact gone on the potty-- he isn't consistently going in a diaper either-- that's a whole different issue though.  He likes to hold it, I guess! He gets some softener each morning to help the progress with that.  Like I said before, I do not mind him going in a diaper at nap time-- just so long as he GOES!

He walked into my closet last week and put on my heels and reached for a purse and said he was going to work.  After a kiss from me, he walked down the hallway with that purse on his shoulder-- he loves that thing! ha!

 To manly it up a bit, he stashes his cars and football figures in there.  He is so funny.  I took the boys out to visit my grandmother this week in her nursing home.  As fast as the time is going with my boys, I realize my time with her isn't long either.  I don't want to look back after she passes and say "I wish I had gone out there more...." so instead, I decided to do something about it!

We went after the gym on Thursday, and Andy brought along his purse filled with boy stuff... and you just gotta love this pose:

My little guy has been tired this week! On Friday, I had to wake him up in the morning at 8:25 for school:

And then I had to wake him up from his nap to go pick up Cal from a play date!

Playdates are a new big thing in our house.  CalBoy is in high demand for a play date! It is awesome! He loves getting to go over to a friend's house and playing with them.   We have hosted a few play dates too and I just love listening to them talk and play together!

Our Friday night plans got alllll kinds of screwed up.  I woke Andy up and he was snuggly so we took the below picture-- I could just die at his sweet smile.  We were supposed to go pick up Cal then head over to the club so the boys could play on the swing set, momma could have a little adult grape juice and then when daddy finished playing golf, we could eat dinner out there..... WELL, the club lost power for whatever reason so all of that was bagged. 

We had a little party in the driveway instead and I took the boys on a wagon ride-- the insisted on holding hands and I melted a bit...

Saturday morning, we did our usual game day pic-- and this time, Hank got in on the action.  Hank has been attached to my side lately-- like following me around and then staring at me.  It freaks me out because I fully believe dogs have a 6th sense about things.  (The night I had my miscarriage, I woke up--not knowing what was going on-- and Hank was sitting next to the bed just staring at me with super sad eyes....I think dogs KNOW!  Clearly I am not pregnant or anything like that, but now I over think any time Hank follows me around! I probably just smell like bacon....)

We had a soccer game Saturday morning and I swear to you, I could be in commercials for oxiclean.   Cal refuses to kick the ball without falling on the ground.  He was COVERED in mud after this game-- I mean, head to toe MUD and no other kid was dirty.  Everyone on both teams was commenting on how dirty he was... and this picture does him no justice.  This was early on in the game! But, I just pulled the jersey from the dryer, perfectly clean! Go figure! All three coaches have two girls and they think it is just awesome that Cal will hustle and get dirty-- great! But, Cal scored two goals in all of his dirty and glory and he had a blast.  What more can you want??

And, last night we had a dinner party at a friend's house-- it was so much fun and the girls all ended up in masks on the deck-- fun times with fun friends! love!

I will be better about posting. I will be better about posting. I will be better about posting. I will be better about posting. I will be better about posting. I will be better about posting. I will be better about posting. I will be better about posting. I will be better about posting. I will be better about posting.

maybe??

 

Pumpkin Patch

Sunday morning we set off bright and early to head to Hill Ridge Farms for some pumpkin patch fun! Cal had a birthday party to go to at 12:30 (tis the season!) so we were thinking we would get there right at 9 when they opened and then leave in time to make it to the party. Well, it took us longer than we thought to make it there so we ended up just missing the party.  We were sad to miss, but really, you can't do it all! I am learning the fine art of over booking myself....!

ANYWAY-- it was a beautiful day and we had a lot of fun! There was a HUGE group of us out there.  I would say about 20 families we are friends with all went together, so that made it a ton of fun. 

When we arrived, I went to take a picture with my good camera only to find out it was dead... so pictures were taken with the phone instead! Oh well...

Right away, the boys ran into this maze.  Cal was like a crazed mouse running around (see him back by the yellow?) and Andy walked in, didn't know where to go, and started kicking the walls until I picked him up out of the thing- ha! Such a difference in personalities!

We made our way to the animals and Cal thought the turkeys were just fabulous! He kept pointing them all out to Andy.  

We upgraded our pass to be able to jump on the giant pillow.  We did this first thing when we got there before it got too crowded.  The boys LOVED this! They had so much fun running and jumping.  Later, they got on it again and Andy got popped (when someone else jumps on your down bounce to pop you up high) by a big kid and he went soaring-- scared me to death so we pulled them off. 

We headed over to the train ride after riding the giant slide.  The boys were excited for the train! And even more excited to have so many of their friends on the train too!

 

 I sat in a seat with both boys-- they wanted to sit together, but honestly, I don't trust Andy to not hurl himself from the train, so I sat with them-- it was kind of awesome though.  Andy had a hand on my leg the whole ride and Cal kept looking up at me and smiling.  I love these two....even when they are naughty (which has been a lot lately...).

After riding the train, we gathered to watch the "races." This was insanely cute-- they raced little potbelly baby pigs and then goats and then ducks! It was SO cute and a huge hit with the kids.  Lee, Andy's friend got his face painted and after the races, Andy was staring at Lee's face in shock of the paint:

 After playing more and seeing more fun stuff, we hopped on the wagon for the ride out to the pumpkin patch.  Right as we rolled in, the clouds were too and then, randomly, we got a huge shower as we were picking out our pumpkins!

Andy tried to pick up one and declared it too heavy and went back to eating his snow cone in the rain.  

Sally made this collage of our three boys (me, Sally and Susan) from 2011 to this year-- how neat is that that we've done this together and that these three were next to each other on the wagon both times? I just love this picture and their sweet faces.  This momma loves these three boys so so much! (also, I love how innocent they look in the first pic and how up to no good they look in the second...and they are all holding hands in the top one....omg, sweetness.)

 

Good friends, Good times!

We spent a ton of time this weekend with friends and it was just awesome.  I love when you have friends who have kids the same age as yours and you are able to really have fun all together.  Saturday night, we went over to our friend's house for a little cookout and play time.  It was SO much fun. 

The weather has been insanely fabulous so we ate dinner in the driveway:

And after dinner the kids enjoyed popsicles! Four other kids had already gone home at this point- that's a LOT of kids playing together!

Andy did great going on the potty there.... I could tell he was needing to poop, but he was only peeing... and putting out fires. 

Our family was having so much fun and were NOT ready to leave yet! So we stayed for bath time!

That's how you know you have really great friends-- when they take your kids in their tub and start scrubbing their heads like there's nothing odd....and then put your kids in their kids jammies! ha! 

We ended up getting home around 9:00 with some worn out kiddos (and parents!).  It was SUCH a fun night and I am forever grateful to have friends like this.  I love making memories!

 

Soccer!

Cal's soccer season is well under way and he is really loving it again this season. We switched teams this year because his coaches from last year had kids who aged out of the program.  He loves his new team and is really enjoying practice and games!

This video is from the game this past weekend.  Please ignore my voice :) I was excited! He is really starting to GET the game and the purpose of the game.  He does still feel the need to fall down after every kick, but that's the football in him, I guess.

 Picture day was last week and I think there were some good ones!

The Ducks! (a ton of the kids missed this practice, unfortunately)

 Silly faces for the Ducks:

My sweet boy:

And this last picture is from the game on Saturday.  Cal is a firm believer in starting off each time in the 3 pt stance.  He was showing the others how to do it...

Someone was teasing me on instagram about the above video for being a #crazysoccermom- hahaha! I really do feel like one! I mean, minus the crazy part... I do love getting to go and watch him play-- just because he loves it so much and loves being out there running around.  Plus it was the most beautiful day to be outside!