NC State Fair

Let me start this post by saying, I do not really care for the fair-- the crowds, the lines, the malfunctioning rides........... but, Eddie LOVES the fair.   He loves the FOOD at the fair-- he could pass on the rest of it, but my man loves some fair food!

We took Cal when I was pregnant with Andy and I did not like it at all-- I was pushing the stroller through the crowds while people were swinging their cigarettes in his little face.  It was not ideal for me!

But this year, Eddie really wanted to go and take the boys.  He got a taste of it Friday night at the monster truck show, so he was okay to not go back again, but when my dad said he wanted to go with us to the fair, we couldn't turn it down.

We woke up Sunday morning and got ready to head to the fair.  We had a little tackling incident that left Nug with a fat lip and a bloody nose (and Cal in time out), so we were about 10 minutes later than we thought, but we still got to the fair early enough. 

There were NO lines-- it was amazing! It was a gorgeous day and we all had a ton of fun.  Around 1:00, the crowds showed up, but we were on our way to the car with two exhausted boys, so it all worked out.  This trip to the fair restored my faith in the fair! I just might be persuaded to go again next year.... maybe....

Our attempt at a family picture-- not sure why Eddie is holding Cal like that...?

These mums were amazing!

 As we walked into the fair, Cal spotted the pony rides and was all about doing them.  Andy was too, until he realized he had to actually *ride* a pony. So just Cal rode-- he he loved it!

Almost immediately, Eddie went to get some corn-- love this picture of my dad and the boys

Not shocking that Nug loved the corn... however, his front teeth were a little tender for the early morning tackle....ahem.....so it was hard to eat it!

We headed to the kids row of rides and the boys both took turns on the trampoline bungee jump and they loved it! Cal was more timid and Andy was full steam ahead! They allowed Eddie to go in and help Andy, so he had a little assistance getting that high-- Cal was trying to figure it out on his own, but they both did great!

We got a video of Andy that I will attempt to post-- he was arching his back and soaring.  Too funny to watch!

The boys did a few other rides that were fun.... the bugs and the giant slide...

And we rode the carousal.... twice!

It ended up being such a fun day!

 


 

Mommy FAIL turned fun!

This past Saturday, we had a soccer game for Cal at noon.  Or so I thought.  We got a text on our way to the fields "where are you guys? we need Cal!" Uhhhh....? huh?

so much time to kill before the noon start....!

Turns out, Rainbow Soccer changed the schedule midway through the season-- I inputted all of the dates and times when the schedule was first released and never went back to check again.  Such a mommy fail.  We pulled up to the fields as the team was walking off.  Cal was crushed. 

My parents were having a little tailgate party in their yard, so we ran by there so the kids could play.  Cal was soon having a great time and totally forgot about his game. Phew!

Turns out, some people at their tailgate had a few extra tickets.... next thing we knew, we were running home to change clothes to head to the game! We skipped Andy's nap and headed to Kenan Stadium for the BC game.

The boys had a blast!

Cal is beyond obsessed with football-- it's borderline concerning how big of an obsession he has... so he was in heaven watching the whole thing and sitting on my dad's lap telling him about every.single.thing on the field.

The extra tickets were in the Blue Zone (how lucky were we?!) and we ran into some buddies up there also having an ice cream break.  Those spiderman pops STAINED those faces!

Cal and I went down and sat in some seats in the second row-- he sat on my lap and we just chatted up a storm about all of the plays.  There was even a touchdown RIGHT in front of us-- we were both screaming like crazy.  It was so fun seeing it with him.

Andy loved the game in the beginning and then the first touchdown happened and the fireworks went off-- he wasn't thrilled with those.  Then the band started playing and he didn't love the loud noise of that either.  He has some sensitive ears! He loved sitting with Grandma and watching the game-- we just had to cover his ears when there was a touchdown!

My mommy fail turned into a really fun, family day-- we were SPENT by the time we got home.  I think we bathed the kids and had them both in bed asleep by 6:51.  And they both slept until after 7 on Sunday!


 

Friday MONSTER fun

 Friday, both boys had school-- and they both had excellent days! yay! Andy was very excited it was Friday and a school day:

Cal stays for lunch bunch on Fridays so I have time to pick up Andy, feed him lunch and then head towards Cal's school.   Hank was determined to come with us this day-- hard to deny him this simple pleasure! He climbed right up on the back bench with Andy...

Then after we got Cal, Hank kept his rump on the seat, but lowered his front half down.  He is a huge boy!

Andy went down for a nap and Cal had a little bit of rest time so that he would be ready for the MONSTER TRUCK SHOW (I feel like that has to be in capital letters.....).  The State Fair is in town (more on that in another post) and Eddie took Cal Friday night to the demolition derby and the MONSTER TRUCK SHOW (again-- it needs caps!).  It was supposed to be a cooooooold evening, so I found Cal's old TCU beanie-- he wore this when TCU won the Rose Bowl (notice I didn't say "play" in the Rose Bowl.... THEY WON THE ROSE BOWL.  We need to focus on that win after this not so pretty season.)

Oddly enough, I hated missing out on the fun times-- although after hearing about it, I am glad I wasn't there...!- so I made Eddie promise to send me pictures.  He did a great job keeping me posted on my little guy and all of their fun!

They got there and immediately got some fair food!

Cal and Billy were ready for the show! 

Cal loved the demolition derby for the most part-- Eddie said a driver got injured and his family was sitting in the stands and all got up crying-- they kind of shook Cal a little bit.... then the monster trucks came out.  The big one had some crazy amount of horsepower and was insanely loud.  Eddie took ear plugs for Cal, but I guess nothing really helps to drown out that level of noise.  He did not like that one bit.  Eddie picked him up and walked to the back row...

They left at the end of the show and Cal was not long for this world once they got in the car-- out cold! It was a big day for the little guy!

When they got home,  Eddie carried in a sleeping Cal.  He woke up when I put his jammies on him.  I said "how was it??" and Cal replied, "I liked the little monster trucks, but not the big ones AT ALL." He never opened his eyes when he told me this- haha!

Andy and I went to the country club so he could attend kids club and I could have dinner with some friends.  He had a BLAST and was a happy boy leaving-- and his momma was happy too!

 It was a perfect fall Friday night!


 

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??