Welcome Fall

One of our future Georgia Bulldogs.

Today is the first day of Fall...my favorite season. In honor of my friend Carrie, I have made a list of why I love fall in bullet form. Your welcome Carrie!

*cooler weather
*leaves
*pumpkins
*cinnamon apple candles
*fried apple pies
*chili
*jeans and sweaters
*Halloween candy
*my birthday:)
*apple cider
*college football

Living in Charleston we get a very abbreviated version of autumn, if one at all.
Even though it was 80 something degrees today, we celebrated with a big pot of vegetable soup and corn muffins. So, welcome fall. We are glad you are here!

Our other future Georgia Bulldog.
Ready to cheer on the Dawgs tomorrow!

Always into something

Luke on the table...a daily occurrence.

If I could sum up life with two little boys it would be this: Always into something. Wow! I can't even turn my back for a little while without something going wrong. The crazy thing is, I was not quite prepared for this. You see, I used to have only one child who was into something and would make a small mess. It was easy with just one. I could shoo him away to play with something else while I got everything cleaned up. But as of a few weeks ago, I started to notice that we have made the transition into having two that are constantly into things. Yep, sweet little Lukie is growing up and has decided it is fun to make trouble with his brother! Oh boy!

Just to fill you in on a typical day around here, here are some fun things that happened in the past 24 hours:
1. my phone was used as a toy in the bathtub (water was in the tub!)
2. Will walked into my room this morning covered in ink pen and asked if he was pretty. As I started to tell him that we don't write on ourselves with pen Luke walks in and is covered in ink pen also. Evidently Will made them both pretty.
3. Both boys were quiet after lunch. I had let them go out onto the back porch while I cleaned up the kitchen only to find them 5 minutes later covered in potting soil that they had dug out of the planter on the back porch. This has happened at least once for the past 5 days.
4. At least two drinks were pulled down from the kitchen table onto the floor.
5. Will decided to pull a kitchen chair over to the counter beside the refrigerator so that he could climb up and reach the m&m's that I had put on top of the refrigerator.
6. Balls went whizzing past my head at least 14 times or I fussed at someone for swinging a plastic golf club inside the house.
7. I picked up decorative pumpkins and gourds that I have around the house for fall I don't know how many times. The pumpkins were used as soccer balls and and the gourds instruments for Will's marching band.
8. When I went to vacuum up one of the messes I had to fight two little boys just to be able to clean up. They love the vacuum! They just want to sit in front of it and let the wind blow in their faces. They will do everything in their power to prevent me from vacuuming so they can sit and enjoy. (see the pictures below)
9. I'm pulled a 14 month off the table, because he climbed up without me looking. I do my best to get the chairs pushed in as soon as we get up from eating, but that kid is fast! He always seems to beat me!

No wonder I go to bed tired every night! I love those two, but they keep me hopping all day. I guess this is what my life will be like for the next 20ish years. Well, at least I know it will never be boring around here!

Luke playing with the vacuum cleaner.
Will playing with the vacuum cleaner.
Will at 1 year playing with the vacuum. Evidently he hasn't outgrown this stage!

Random Pictures

Family Picture from a wedding at Magnolia Plantation in August

We have taken a ton of pictures over the past couple of months that have yet to make it in a blog post. Most of these are from Mike's phone, which is now our camera since Luke decided to break mine! Hopefully this will give you a little insight into what we have been doing over the past couple of months.

Luke looking cute!
Luke and Mommy at Waterfront Park in July
Both of our boys love these quarter rides at the mall!
Brushing Luke's teeth. He loves to do it, but he would rather you let him suck on the toothbrush instead of actually brushing his little teeth!
At the Children's Museum for Will's birthday. Its kind of our new favorite place!
Playing at Publix at the Museum
Shopping at Publix at the Museum. This guy is dangerous with a cart!
Will's birthday ice cream from Ye Old Fashioned...Superman flavor, of course!
Luke and Mommy's ice cream...chocolate, of course!

Turning 3

Wow! Three years have come and gone quickly. Will is growing into such a sweet, compassionate and full of energy little boy. Here are some things I hope I always remember about him at this age:
*He loves to play outside and is quite the little athlete. Golf, baseball and football are his favorite sports right now.
*He loves firetrucks, police cars and ambulances. He gets so excited when we see them driving down the road.
*He is an on the go kind of kid and likes nothing better than to go for an outing. Right now he likes to go to the Children's Museum and the Aquarium, but he doesn't mind going to Publix or Target either.
*He is at an age where you can have conversations with him. He is really funny when you sit and listen to the things he has to say.
*He loves his little brother, even though he doesn't always act like it, and wants him around to play with all the time.
*Some of his new phrases are "You got it mommy!" and "Yep, I are"
*His favorite food is chicken and anything you can dip in ranch. He also loves graham crackers, granola bars and cheese-its.
*He loves to learn and is so excited to go to the library for new books or to sit at the kitchen table to do some "mommy-school" work. So far, he can count to 10, he knows all his colors and shapes, he can sing the ABC song and can recognize A,B, and C on their own. We are working on coloring and cutting.
*He has a huge imagination and is always thinking up new games for us to play.

He makes me smile everyday. Oh, how I love this sweet little boy! I love you more Will!

Sharing a room

The past couple of months, both of the boys have been having some sleep issues. It has resulted in lack of sleep for everyone in our house. Frankly, I was ready to pull my hair out! Several times the idea of having the boys share a room came up. But, I never embraced the idea because I didn't think it was necessary. I thought the boys needed their space. Evidently, I was wrong.

About two weeks ago we decided to let them sleep in the same room. There was already a queen size bed in Luke's room so it made the transition easy. We let Will try it out for a couple of nights and we were amazed at how much better they both slept. It was like they knew each other was there. It worked so well, that we decided to make the switch for good. So Luke's room is now the boy's room and Will's room is now the playroom. Its working for now. We are all sleeping and that this making me happy!

The boys camp out

The boys got Lightning McQueen sleeping bags for their birthdays. The funny thing is, I think Mike was more excited than they were! He has been saying for awhile that he wants to start doing camp out nights with the boys as they started getting older. It would be a good way to hang out with them and do something to make them feel special. Think male bonding.

So, the other night, Mike mentioned it to Will, who was thrilled. After the boys bath we got all the sleeping bags set up and turned on a good movie(Cars). The idea was to sleep in the sleeping bags all night and to wake up together, a true camp out.(Luke slept in his crib, he is not quite ready for camp outs) I was ok with this arrangement, because it meant I would get to sleep by myself. All was good, until about 5:30 am when I felt a little body climb in the bed with me. Yeah, Will bailed on the camp out or maybe he was the smart one! While daddy slept on the hard floor, Will decided to sleep in a bed!

Birthday Road Trip Part 2

The second part of our birthday trip revolved around the birthday party. We had it at my parents house because it was centrally located for everyone. We had it on Saturday the 23rd, which was actually Luke's birthday. We had fun, ate lots of burgers and spent a lot of time at the pool. Here's a look at what we did:
Luke and Poppy at the pool. Evidently he was fine until I came to take some pictures. Needless to say, he saw me and started crying.
All better, I got my mama!


The birthday party went well. Funny enough, Luke fell asleep in the middle of the party. It actually worked out well, though, because both Will and Luke got to open their presents separately and do their birthday cakes separately.
Will and Jake checking out a new Thomas the Train toy. These boys love their trains!
Will's new glove, it was a gift from Mike and I. Will loves baseball, so we went with a baseball theme for the party.
playing baseball in the front yard with Jake. One of the best parts of the trip was watching Will play with his cousins. He had so much fun playing with Caleb, Tate and Jake. In fact he is still talking about them!
Luke opening presents right after he woke up. He had no idea what was going on!
ready for cake!
Luke loved his cake!

So there we go! Our trip was fun and as always too short. We are so thankful for our friends and family who came to share this special day with our little boys. We love you all!