Life on Hold & A Funny Story!

I wish I had some exciting news to blog about from the weekend but I really don't. Life in the Eckley household has been on hold for the past month or so. Matt is getting ready for his big BCOP test that is this Saturday. He has also been putting in lots of extra hours at work so he was gone all weekend. He has been studying so hard! Every night since April he has spent at least an hour studying. He is going to do awesome on Saturday! We are excited that we are going to get to take a long weekend trip to Atlanta. And then when we get back we will hit the ground running getting everything done that needs to get done. Believe me we have a list a mile long of things that we have been putting off! So all the neighbors will be happy that our yard will start to look better and I will be able to update on the pink paint saga (but as a small update the painters painted and it looks good just lots more work to do in there!) Hard to believe that in about 2 months we will be a family of 4!! AHHHH!!

Now for the funny story! We did get to have a little fun this weekend - we went over to our friends the Newby's house on Saturday to watch the Auburn game. We had a blast hanging out with them and catching up on life. After the game was over we changed Ben into his PJs for the ride home and he decided that he was going to wear his shoes so he put them on himself. We forgot they were on him and when we got home he walked in and went straight to bed. By the time I got to his room he was already under the covers so I didn't notice he was still wearing his shoes. So Sunday morning he came walking out wearing his shoes that he had slept in all night. Matt and I thought that was hilarious so we laughed and made a big deal about it. So this morning Ben comes walking into our room at 6:30 wearing his shoes. I guess he wanted to make us laugh again this morning so he acted like he wore his shoes all night. It is was too cute. He is so into trying to be funny these days and he does succeed!

Puggles

Do you know what a Puggle is? We didn't until a few weeks ago but now it is all we talk about around our house. It is a baby duck billed Platypus. It is also the name of the 2 year old AWANA program at our church. It is awesome! It is for 2-3 year olds. They teach them very simple Bible truths, do crafts, sing songs, etc. It is every Sunday night. Ben adores it!!! He talks about it all week long and then all day Sunday he asks a million times if it is time to go to Puggles. They have the cutest little shirts they all wear and Ben can't wait to put his on. You can see the pictures of him showing off his shirt. It is so cool to see what all he learns in there. They are studying how "God made Everything" and he can tell you all the different things that God made. It is so awesome. This little guy loves going to church!!

She Has a Name!!!!

So after much debate (ok not really that much debate we just had to sit down and figure it out) we finally have a name for Baby Girl:
Kate
Her full name will be Katherine LeeAnn Eckley but we plan on calling her Kate. We are excited about the name. Lots of people have asked us if it is a family name and the answer is no. We just like the name. Although her middle name is sort of a family name. My dad's middle name is Lee and my mom's name is Ann so that is sort of cool. It is also my best friend's name. So it is just a special name. Ben really likes the name and goes around talking about Kate and Kate's room. He can say it well so that is a good thing. So there you go all you blog readers who were just dying to know her name!

Date with My Little Man

Ben and I went on a "date" yesterday afternoon. Matt needed to study so the house needed to be quiet so I thought I would take Ben out to the movies. I told him we were going on a date. He got real serious and said "Date with Mama." He was so excited. He ran and told Matt that he was going on a date. Matt had a sit down with him and told him that I was his girl so Ben better behave! It was so cute. Ben was all serious. We went and saw "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs." Ben loves the movies so of course he enjoyed it. He was of course the perfect gentleman. On the way home I asked him how are date was and he said "So Cool!" It was lots of fun for us both!

The Pink Paint Saga

I have always known that if I had a little girl I would paint her room pink. I love pink and I figure my little girl may not like pink one day so I would paint her nursery pink to ensure that I get to have a pink room. Little did I know that pink paint is hard to pick out!

I picked out a bedding a couple of weeks ago for the room from Pottery Barn. It is really cute and has pink and green which I love. We decided we are going to do the room really graphic and do pink stripes on 3 walls and then a green wall with polka dots. It is going to be cute. But we have run into some problems. I had found a pink paint that I thought would do great. I had debated and debated but thought it was not going to be too dark and would really look good. We had the painter scheduled to come this week (Matt is super busy and doesn't have time to paint until after his test and we have a cheap painter). Matt put a little of the paint up on the wall and it glowed!! It was so bright and so dark! I almost cried. Paint is not cheap so I didn't want to go buy more. So I took it back and they tried to lighten it up but it was just too dark. So we mixed in a bunch of white paint last night and repainted some. It looks better but I still can't decide. The painter is coming tomorrow so I have to decide before then!! Thoughts??? Not that the pictures are good and you can tell.

The bedding!

Original glow in the dark pink paint! Newly mixed pink paint. It does look better!

The pink and green paint together.

Praying for the Ezells & Edwards

I just wanted to ask all of you blog readers to be in prayer for 2 of our friends, the Ezells and Edwards. They are both in our Life Group and are going through some crazy hard times right now. Ryan Ezell was just diagnosed with Lymphoma and his sister-in-law Britt Edwards is carrying a baby with a very dangerous condition. You can keep up with them on their blog http://ezell.wordpress.com/

Crazy, Busy Week

I had great intentions of writing more last week but it was a crazy, busy week! I don't think I sat down at all until Saturday night. Between a busy week of work, school, doctor's appointments in Birmingham (Ben's eyes are doing great), family time (it was great to see Kelly & Andrew!) & garage sales it was insane. Once I started having some contractions, I decided that it was time to slow down a little! Not that this week looks any less busy.

This got me thinking about things and how even though I am a "stay at home" mom I work like crazy. I was talking to a friend recently about whether or not she would stay busy enough if she quit work. I remember worrying about the same thing when I was contemplating working or not. I am such a type A personality I didn't know if I would like being at home. I also loved my job and what I did so I did. Now that I have been "at home" for the past almost 3 years I wouldn't trade it for anything. I feel very blessed that I do get to work a few hours each week but I love being at home. I am amazed by how busy I stay. The weeks can be pretty predictable but so much fun! Here is our normal weekly schedule:

Monday - laundry, grocery store & cleaning (yep I have a whole day of fun stuff!)

Tuesday - Bible Study in the morning & work in the afternoon

Wednesday - Ben goes to school & I work

Thursday - Free day - We usually try to do something fun like a playdate

Friday - School & errands

It is amazing how busy we stay even though I am a "stay at home" mom. I guess I have learned that I can be content wherever I am and whatever I am doing!

I can't do a post without a picture so here is a picture from this morning. On a busy Monday morning I discovered Ben got a pen and wrote all over his cheeks with a pen. You can't see very well but if you look close you can see it. Oh the joys of motherhood. Just in case you are wondering make up toner takes pen off faces great!

It's Football Time!

I love fall! Not just because of the great weather but because of football!! We had a big football weekend at our house. Friday night we met up with our friends the Newbys and went to the local high school football game. It was the big rivalry game between Grissom and Huntsville. Both Matt and I graduated from Grissom but we now live in the Huntsville district and Ben will go to Huntsville so we are slowly switching our allegence. We did sit on the Grissom side and ended up cheering for Grissom. It was probably the best high school football game I have ever been to. Very exciting!! Grissom ended up winning in the end. Ben LOVED the game. He sat next to Matt and asked him a million questions about everything. He watched every minute of it. The whole way home he talked about "kicking it through the yellow" which is what he called a field goal. It was so much fun to see him enjoy it so much!

Then Saturday was the Auburn game! We were all a little under the weather this weekend so we just hung out at home all weekend and watched football! There is nothing better than a day of college football!! It was nice not to be so busy and to just enjoy a day at home. We are glad our Auburn Tigers pulled out a good win!

Ben and Matt at the Friday night game!Ben showing off his Auburn pride! He looked so cute in his little Auburn polo (Thanks Brad & LeeAnn!)

What A Difference A Year Makes!

As we were packing up the car to head down to the beach a couple of weeks ago I couldn't help but notice what a difference there was in our packing between last years beach trip and this years. Last year our van was loaded down. I mean there was stuff everywhere! Most of it was Ben's stuff. This year everything fit in the back of the van without even having to put down the seats. It is so nice not to have to take a pack and play, tons of toys, stroller and other various "baby things." It made packing so easy! These days I don't have to remember to pack a bag for Ben to go anywhere so we can just go. I am going to enjoy it for a few more months and then I guess it will be back to crazy amounts of stuff needed just to make a trip to the grocery store!

Here is the loaded down van last year - 2008

Ben chilling on the ride last year. Note paci!

Ben chilling on the ride this year. You can see the seats are up in the back. Very little stuff and no paci!

Just One of Those Days

Have you ever had one of those days where nothing went right? Poor Ben had one of those days on Monday. Nothing he did turned out right. I had to take my wedding rings off because my hands were swelling so they were sitting on my dresser. He found them and hid them. He was just playing and didn't know but it caused me to almost have a heart attack. Then he fell down the stairs. He had never done that before. Then about 5 minutes later I found him drinking Windex. Yep spraying the bottle into his mouth saying "yummy." I don't know what he was thinking. Luckily I caught it after only a couple of sprays so I didn't have to call poison control. Then he was drinking a glass of milk and he spilled it all over the floor in the kitchen and then went sliding through it. At that point we just gave up and put him to bed. He was just having one of those days!