Santa dinner!

One of my most favorite traditions every holiday season is dinner at the club with Santa.  It is SO fun. The kids love getting dressed up (because they know all their buddies will be there and dressed up too) and of course, seeing the big guy is a huge draw.

This year, the boys begged to take Manning (our elf) with us. We left a mason jar open on the counter and then Manning flew in there before we were to leave for the dinner. Imagine that!

 Andy picked out his outfit. All of it.

When we got there, the boys were a little self conscious about bringing Manning so I asked the manager to mention to Santa that there was an elf in the house that night. When Santa walked in, he started singing and then said hi to Manning- I thought Cal Williamson was going to fall on the floor. He might be getting close to questioning things, but this bought us at least another year. Andy sat with his mouth open. So so special. 

 We ate a quick dinner and the boys were ready to sit on Santa's lap!

They did great and definitely were not shy or nervous. 

 Love!

 Andy pretty much smiled the whole night. He loves Christmas and all it entails. LOVES.

 Then we attempted a family picture:

 Holly and Jolly up in here.

 And then my favorite elf around!

One more super fun event marked off the list. We had a great, great night!


 

Spelling Bee

Ahhhh, it's that time of year again. Not Christmas/Hanukkah. But that too. It is also spelling bee time.

A couple weeks ago, individual classes held spelling bees within their classes to select the top three spellers to send to the grade level bee. By the skin of his teeth, Cal made it from his class.

On Thursday morning, the 2nd grade held their bee. We studied hard, and I am glad we did because some of those words were no joke. Eddie leaned over during round two and said there was no way he could spell them- haha.

Round after round, Cal managed to prevail (not a spelling word, but perhaps should be). I am not sure who it was harder on, me or him. I was beyond nervous. There were 27 children, and probably  50 adults all in the room- he had to walk to the front of the room and spell these crazy words. And we worked so hard on them, and I just knew a crazy easy word would trip him up because he would fly thought it. But it didn't.

Here they are when they first walked in. He looks real nervous right? He got wayyyyyy more nervous as it went. His legs were shaking-hahaha

 At the start- all 27 children ready to spell!

Here he goes..... I was holding my breath. And also- that hair is so so great. It just looks really nice and well brushed. 

 At the end of each round, children cleared out- here are the last seven standing.

 After rounds and rounds and rounds, they were on to 7th grade words, they finally agreed to take all seven to the school wide bee. Sheesh.

 This kid was PUMPED. He's pretty sure he will make it to the National bee and be on ESPN. Nothing wrong with goals, right???

(however, he might been a new study buddy. We got the new list and I cannot pronounce the majority of the words on there... he might be on his own!)

So proud of this kiddo and his ability to stay calm under pressure. I walked out of there sweaty and shaking. I can't handle that stuff! ha!


 

Life lately...wrapping up November

BRACE YOURSELF. This isn't going to be short.  I have got to be better about blogging. I will regret if if I don't keep up with it!

Here is a quick look at some of November... it was a busy month; aren't they all??

Bruce got a new outfit- he is clearly ready for the holiday season to begin. This is an XL and it is too small on him. But it is funny and he clearly loved it.

He (Bru) got in trouble the other night for getting up on the boys' beds and then not getting down when I called him- like he picked his head up and look at me and then totally ignored me. Oh, no sir. But this is pretty sweet:

 Suuuuuper excited Eddie's sister is pregs with their first baby!! This was their "social media announcement" which I thought was adorable.

 My brother and his wife are expecting baby number FOUR, so there will be lots of baby fun coming up in a few short months!

This is random, but we finally painted our powder bath downstairs. I went back and forth over wall paper or  paint and I couldn't pull the trigger on paper #shocker, so we painted. I hate the before color:

 and the after: ahhhhhhhh

 It's actually grey, but with the lighting, appears to be a greenish color. It doesn't look this green in person.

We celebrated my dad's birthday with all the grandkids-- it was loud and fun and chaotic (and loud!), and my dad was happy happy.

The boys were over due for dentist appointments and after spotting a few dark spots on Andy's teeth, we were very worried cavities were in our future. SHOCKINGLY, he was cavity free! Eddie didn't believe me when I told him! hahaha

Cal had a great check up too, and is also cavity free- how in the world that happened, this close after Halloween is beyond me. 

 Random, do your kids smart rinse? We use it and the dentist said it is probably what kept us cavity-less. I might start using it for me. I get cavities like it is my job. We use this kind primarily, but will use this too.

We left the dentist and hit up the mall for some new shoes. Dear lord, these boys go through some shoes. It is unreal. We could seriously buy a new pair once a month and still wear through them.

But the mall was decked out for Christmas, so that was really fun for the boys. 

 SIX stores later, we found some shoes at Dicks. Hard not to find Andy's shoes. They weren't subtle.

 His outfit for school the next day was very, very....quiet.

pardon the half asleep face.... but Bru got to ride carpool the other morning and he was SO happy. He loves riding in the car, I should take him more often....

It reminded me of Hank who loved nothing more than a car ride. Miss him so much every day. 

I got to go on a field trip with some super cute 2nd graders a few weeks back. Cal was pumped to have me there and was super lovey, which won't happen much longer, I'm afraid. I am glad I went so I could soak up the time with him. 

 He has some darling girls in his class! (side note- There was a group picture and Cal was several inches taller than all of the other kids.... I have no clue when this happened! He looks crazy tall to me lately)

he churned butter...and was grateful that we can go to the store to pick some up instead of all that mess. 

 With his buddy Jackson!

I also popped by school for lunch with the kiddos one day. They both were happy boys, which made me happy. 

Andy BEGS to buy lunch every Friday. I assumed it was because it is pizza day. Nope. He likes the peas. Seriously. Passes up the pizza for the peas. hahaha

Sometimes, they play so hard and I look at them and can't believe that they could get so dirty, so fast. Andy's knees the other night were impressive, to say the least. 

Some early morning snuggles. 

A picture from Andy's fabulous teacher makes my whole day. I think he was having tummy issues on this day, so I got the picture as proof that he was okay. 

this time hop about made my ovaries cry. 

 The kid loves a hat.... the picture he drew below was on the back of his homework. It has some dirty qualities to it, but it is actually a santa hat.

 See? He loves a hat.

Also, this month, we were THRILLED beyond words to find out our dear friends were named the HEAD coach at Ole Miss! Matt was named the interim head coach for this season after the head was fired just before the season...they took away the interim part and we couldn't be happier for them. Can't wait to cheer for some Hotty Toddy!

Cal has a really smart class this year...like, there are several kids who are crazy smart. The class competed in a spelling bee and the top three in each class will go on to the grade level spelling bee. Several of the kids in Cal's class won their class bee, won their grade bee (the top 5 went to the school bee) and then went really far in the school bee- as first graders. So I prepped Cal that he more than likely wouldn't make it out of his class level (I am a dream crusher, y'all...). So imagine my surprise when I got a text from Andy's teacher letting me know Cal made the grade level bee! (I told him if he were to make it, he needed to find her and have her text me-hahaha thank goodness she is so wonderful!)

So now we have the grade level spelling bee coming up. No telling how that will go. But I was proud of him!

And one final picture-- Andy was waiting for the bus and spotted his teacher with her shoes off.... he slipped them on and went into sass mode. She doesn't get to see this very often so she was dying laughing. He's a character, that one.....

PHEW! that was a lot lot lot......!