Can you hear me now?

As pure bribery, I told the boys if they were good on our Target run, they could pick out a small car at the end of our trip.  These are $.99 and I hold them over their heads the entire trip.

They were good, thankfully, so we headed to the toy aisle.  Andy immediately picked up a huge toy that was $54 and said, "but Mommy, I neeeeeeed it!" I tried to redirect the boys to the next aisle, which worked, but when I turned around, Andy was dragging the $54 contraption behind him to the next aisle.

And then....Cal spotted these toy phones.  And he let out a little 'whhhhhhooooopppp' noise that caught Andy's attention.  He dropped the massive toy and ran to see what Cal found.  These little flip phones were $3.00 and worth.every.penny! The phones are super hero and super cute-- they make all the dialing noises of a phone and it makes the "click" sound your phone makes when you take pictures.

Anyway-- to say these things have provided entertainment is an understatement....

On our way to the registers (phones still in plastic boxes):

Waiting in line:

While I paid....

And, on the cart on the way to the car....

And the entire way home.....

And the rest of the day.....

You get my point! 

$3.00 well spent!


 

Why people dislike Mondays.

 Because things like this happen.

He was doing his business and when he looked down to "survey" all he had accomplished, he dropped his car into the potty.  The potty full of poop.  FULL. And he's still taking miralax so it is real runny and extremely soft.  Ironically enough, the face in this picture is similar to the one I was making while fishing said car out of potty-- with two little boys standing about 6 inches from me asking "what you doing? Why? Why, mommy? But, really- WHY??"

And THAT is why people dislike Mondays. 



 

A SUPER Weekend!

When Sally asked us last week if we would be interested in going to the mountains with them this past weekend, we didn't discuss it long before we replied a big ol' YES! Cal and Brad didn't have school on Friday (and turns out school was canceled on Thursday due to weather), AND, Andy's school had a delayed opening on Friday, so we all headed west Friday morning!

We had THE BEST weekend.  I adore Sally and her sweet family (and if Baby Jane ever goes missing, she could probably be found at my house-- I am obsessed with her).  As per usual, I took a million pictures.  It's what I do. 


This little guy was super excited to be heading out of town! He only asked 853 times if we were there yet...

We pulled in the same time as the Conner's and the kids were all super excited to be together.  We just left snow in Chapel Hill so they were still excited to see some snow in the mountains too-- although it all melted immediately! ha!

The boys rode on a real sled down a small hill in the back yard-- they were so cute laughing so hard!

Andy was perfectly content to flirt with Jane-- isn't she AH-dorable??? I seriously am obsessed.  Andy was too.  They were too cute together.

The big boys were content to play and run around!

We got the kids out of the house to a small little landing to let them run around.  The temps were dropping and it was pretty cold, so we didn't last long, but I did grab this cute pic of the love birds before we left...

These two had their first dinner date and we all enjoyed a delicious meal Sally made! The kids went to bed without much fuss and then I went on to have entirely too much fun.  Waaayyyy too much.  I was hurting the next morning. 

Speaking of the next morning- our other good friends, the Porterfields have a family house up in the same area as the Conners and they brought down other other good friends, the Terrys! So, we had a whole slew of us up there! We all met the following morning at a tubing park.  It was a gorgeous day-- not cold at all-- and everyone had a great time!

 

The Terry's left Emmy at home with Robin (the mom) and Jebby (the baby) since Emmy wasn't feeling 100%.  Jeb brought Harper and she had a blast with the Porterfield girls, Maggie and Miller!

 
Andy was too young to tube, and honestly, I am not sure he would have liked it that much.  We all sat up on the porch overlooking the park and had a great time just relaxing/chasing the littles.  (Sally- were you aware there was a grill up there?)

We came home for lunch and Andy took a nap...yay! Bryan took the older boys to play some tennis and get some energy out. 

That night, the Porterfields and the Terrys were all coming over to the Conners house for dinner!

We had 8 adults and 10 children and it was so.much.fun!!! The kids all got along SO well and we decided to push bed time as late as we could- haha!

We looked over to find Andy spoon feeding Jane at one point...

We tried to take a picture of the girls... attempt one, we didn't love the lighting...

 So Eddie got baby Jebby duty...

And we headed out to the fire place to take another picture-- much better!! I love sweet friends!

 Again, we decided to push bedtimes so we could enjoy each other's company.  Of course there was nothing on TV-- we were praying for a movie or something.... so a few iPads did the trick...

Until Tripp, who is seriously FULL steam ahead constantly, just couldn't take it any more.  Katie walked into the study to find this:

 Feet off of the ground, out like a light- hahah!

The adults all gathered around to play Cards Against Humanity.  Oh. My. WORD! It is THE funniest game ever-- if you can't tell by Eddie and Chapman's faces below...

Meanwhile, not even 4 feet away, Miller and Bear, the dog, were both curled up on the couch fast asleep!

Cal didn't seem to slow down much! He loves Ms. Emmy and they had a lot of fun playing together.

We got Brad in the picture too-- how sweet are these three kids??

We had the boys each give Emmy a kiss-- she doesn't look too thrilled! ha!

After SUCH a fun weekend, we came home Sunday afternoon and unloaded the car and then headed to a SUPER BOWL party!

Cal told me when the Seahawks won the playoffs that they were going to win the super bowl.  He Said it as plain as day.  But, he has changed his mind in the past, so I waited for him to change his mind to pull for the Broncos and Peyton Manning (the kid is obsessed!).  Two days before the Super Bowl, Broncos t-shirts arrived from Shosh and Ah-ho (he is from Colorado).  When Cal saw them he said, "The Seahawks are going to win, but I will cheer for the Broncos for Uncle Ah-Ho...and Peyton Manning."
 

The game did not hold Cal's interest AT ALL-- he was playing with all of the kids at the party (there were a TON of kids) and then randomly sat down with his back to the TV to put together a puzzle-- so weird and so unlike him! I guess he was pretty positive in his predictions!

This was going all around facebook land and it cracked me up. True story.  Broncos did not come out to play and or win.

We had a WONDERFUL weekend with AMAZING friends.  Eddie and I were talking about it on the way home and we just feel so lucky and blessed.  We don't take any of it for granted!!!


 

*S*N*O*W*

The forecasters have been predicting snow coming our way, and of course, everyone got excited.  I didn't really believe them-- it just looked like it would miss us. 


But they had a 100% chance of snow by noon on Tuesday, so who am I to not believe them?

People in the north make so much fun of southern people for essentially shutting down the state when it snows.  But we don't have the supplies in our state that northern states have-- I think we have like 15 plows for the ENTIRE state, or something crazy like that.  We don't have the ice trucks we need, etc...

So, when bad weather hits, we don't know how long it will be until we can get to stores so the stores are CRAZY the day before snow is supposed to hit!  We were out of several things and needed gloves for the boys so we braved Target.  Andy was none too thrilled about it. 

After Target (and no gloves-- everyone else got there first!), we came home to color by the window, waiting on the snow....

The snow FINALLY came around 6:45-- when Chris and I took a car to the airport for my parents who were trying to get home.  The boys got to see it-- Andy wasn't too sure of it!

Wednesday morning, we woke up to snow! Schools were canceled, Eddie didn't go in to work,  it was time to PLAY! We got all our gear on and headed out to see it!

Hank loves the snow.  He acts like a puppy when he is in it-- he rolls, runs, jumps, you name it-- he is so happy in snow! He had so much fun that he is having a hard time walking today-- getting old is hard!

Andy enjoyed it for a while...and then got super cold...

We headed over to my parents house (who were still out of town!) and went sledding on the golf course over there.  I got some great videos of Cal and Eddie sledding together-- Andy wanted nothing to do with sledding! He stuck by me while the others sled.

Everyone had a fun morning in the snow and everyone was happy as can be to rest for the remainder of the day-- except Andy went without a nap....... more on that....

 

Weekend fun

We had a lazy weekend this past weekend, but we all enjoyed it!  Eddie was gone from Tuesday morning at 4am until Friday at 5-- we greeted him at the door ready to go eat! We headed to the country club for stir Friday...yum!

Saturday morning, we got up and did a work out at 9 and then we came home to get cozy.  It was a NASTY day! It was freezing cold and raining.  We were content to stay in the house for the day.  Eddie literally did not get off the couch for close to 6 hours.  That is not an exaggeration.

The boys had fun playing together too, which I love watching.  They must have tried on every costume in our house.  We decided to go to dinner and this is what the boys decided to wear:

Andy took his costume off, but Cal kept his on-- and kept our table safe at dinner!

Andy doesn't need a costume.  His costume is WILD MAN:

Sunday morning we headed to church.  It was still cold out, but at least the sun was shining! Cal had so much fun in his classroom.  He was laughing so hard when I picked him up.

After church, it was lunch and quick naps before Jackson's birthday party! He had it at the bowling alley and everyone had a great time.

Obviously, Andy picked the heaviest ball to bowl with.  Obviously. 

Catherine was on our lane and we had so much fun together!

Cal and Catherine are only 6 months apart and they really have fun together. They were chasing the dots from the overhead lights-- and laughing hysterically.  Hey, whatever does it for ya!

I was able to get a quick picture of the birthday boy with Cal and Andy!

Andy rocked one of the favors the next day...

We had some snow this week and had SO much fun playing in it...until we got too cold.  That post will be later!