Pre Halloween Fun!

We have had fun over the past week getting into the Halloween spirit! I know some of you don't "do" Halloween and Matt and I have talked about that but we have decided that as of right now it is right for our family. We don't celebrate the craziness that some people do but we do enjoy the fun fall side of it and just the fun of it. I have loved over the past 3 years picking out costumes for Ben and getting excited about the fun! So this year I decided that I was going to "make" his costume! He told us he wanted to be a pirate so we started putting together a pirate costume a couple of weeks ago. It turned out so cute!!!!! I can't wait to show it to you all on Saturday!! But we have been doing some things to get into the Halloween mood...

Last Friday night our life group had our annual pumpkin carving contest. It is always a lot of fun. This year the kids painted pumpkins which Ben loved. Here he is painting away. I love how when he is concentrating his little tongue sticks out!

Here is our pumpkin we carved. Not as elaborate as the last few years (the awesome train and frog) but we liked how the pirate turned out!
Ben is proud of his pumpkin!

Our neighborhood also has been doing the "we've been boo-ed" over the past couple of years. It is where you drop a treat on a neighbors doorstep and run. Then you put a sign in your window to tell people you have been booed and then you do it to someone else. It is a lot of fun to see it spread through the neighborhood. Ben was so excited when our doorbell rang last week and there was a treat. This is him getting ready to go boo one of his friends!

It is such a fun time!! Check back this weekend to pictures of the world's cutest pirate!!!

The Big Reveal!!

I know I have been promising pictures for a long time now so here they are!!!! We finally finished up the last few things in Kate's room over the weekend. It looks awesome!! It is like a princess room. I can't believe how great it all turned out. Better than I ever imagined. I still have to get a few nick nacks for the shelves and of course pictures for the frames but it is pretty much done!! As far as the pink paint saga goes. It turned out great. We were able to add some white to the paint and once we got it all over the walls it was great looking! My pictures are not very good but hopefully you can get a feel for it!

Her bed! You can see the awesome pink stripes as well. Matt did a great job with the stripes. They turned out perfect. He has always said if he had a little girl he wanted to do pink stripes in her room so he did!

Fun dollhouse bookshelf. I stole the idea from Pottery Barn.
Rocking chair. I found a bedding that had some yellow in it so I could reuse the rocking chair.


Dresser/changing area. I love the lamp and curtains!! Oh and the polka dots!!

My favorite part of the room!!

Cool artwork I got on ebay!

View as you come into the room

Now we are just waiting on her arrival. I went to the doctor today and all is well. Just rocking along. About 5 more weeks (I am hoping sooner!)

Sweet Words from Ben

Today we were driving home from our weekly Panera trip and Ben was singing to himself in the backseat. He started singing "Wheels on the Bus." Matt and I started singing along with him. We got to the line involving the mamas on the bus and Ben goes "The Mamas on the bus go I Love You!" How sweet is that!!!

Hair

This is one of those blog posts I have been thinking about writing for a long time now. And today is as good a day as any. So my little guy has been blessed with some great hair! It is so beautiful. But it is also a big mess. This morning I was trying to get it to just not look horrible. I didn't really succeed so he just went to school with some bad hair. Most days it is cooperative but there are just some days it won't do anything.

What I really wanted to write about is the comments that I get from random people in stores and such about his hair. I would say at least 3-4 times a week I get stopped while we are out by someone about his hair (and I am an exaggerator but I am not exaggerating on this one - ask anyone who goes out with us). It is usually an older woman that has to stop and tell me how beautiful his hair is and how she had a son that had hair just like that. Then she usually says "don't ever cut it." I have even had several people tell me I should be turned into DHR if I ever get his haircut. Then they proceed to tell me about when they got their son's hair cut and they cried for a week because all the curls were gone. I usually just say thank you and move on. I don't tell them he has had about 10 haircuts and I have to get it cut every 6-8 weeks or else it looks crazy (like this morning). If you got curly hair you got curly hair and a haircut won't change that. And Ben just has curly hair. But it always gets me thinking about these people and why they think they need to tell me these stories. I know they are just being nice but really why do they think they need to tell me all about it! I hope one day I am not like that stopping random people and discussing what they need to do with their children. Someone please stop me if I ever get like that.

The big discussion around our house lately has been what Miss Kate's hair is going to look like. I am betting she will be bald or have stick straight very fine hair. Here are a couple of cute pictures of Ben that I thought showed off his hair very well!

Auburn Game!!

We took off this past weekend for a fun trip down to Auburn!! We knew we wanted to take Ben to a game this year so we picked out the Kentucky game. We waited until about mid week to tell him we were going because we knew we would get asked a million times if it was "football time?" He was so excited!! He has been so into football this fall. He wants to play it everyday and also loves to watch it on TV. So we knew it would be a great experience for him.

We left on Friday morning to head down. We got to Auburn mid afternoon and walked around campus a little bit. Ben loved it! It was so special to see him running down the concourse looking for the football stadium. It is weird to think that just a few years ago we were there as students and now we are bringing our kids back. It was a strange feeling. He loved seeing everything on campus. We then went over to my grandmother's house for the night and got to play and visit with her. Ben loves his GG!! In the middle of the night Friday night Ben woke up and said "football." Matt told him it wasn't time yet and he rolled over and went back to sleep. It cracked us up that he was dreaming about football!

Saturday was the big day. We drove back over to Auburn and walked around downtown some. We got some Toomer's Lemonade and went to the bookstore (to buy Ben a hat). We then went and visited with my other grandmother for lunch. Then it was time for some football!!!! We tailgated with Brad and LeeAnn before the game. It was a blast. Then the game!! Ben did awesome!!!! We stayed the entire time in the freezing cold. He never complained once. It was a wonderful experience. Matt and I both said that it was one of our favorite games ever (even though we lost and it was so cold) because Ben was so happy. We can't wait to go back!

Ben and Matt in front of Samford Hall In front of the stadium on Friday
4th generation Auburn grad in the making! We asked him where he wanted to go to school and he said Auburn!

Drinking his Toomer's lemonade

Playing some football at our tailgate.

Brad and LeeAnn chilling and eating!

Ben eating!

Family picture

LeeAnn and I and our babies!! 2 girls and 1 boy!

Our seats were great. We were in section 1 row 1. It was literally where the stadium started. They were not so good for watching the game but awesome for seeing all the stuff that goes on. Ben was literally standing on the wall next to the field.

He really got into cheering. He learned War Eagle, Defense, Touchdown Auburn & Orange and Blue!

This is the touchdown at the beginning where the blocked the field goal. We did get to see it very well!

We got to see the eagle up close and personal. They stopped to let Ben look.

Aubie also came by for a visit.

The other eagle!

It was really cold!!!

PT Boot Camp!!

This has been the week I have been dreading for the past 3 months. The potty training week!! This week is fall break so that means no school or other activities so I knew it would be the perfect week to do this. It just isn't much fun!! I mentioned that we tried this summer to potty train in a day and that was a disaster so I figured I would devote the entire week to this. And I mean the whole week. I haven't left the house all week. All we have done is potty training (and I have done lots of cleaning - my house is as clean as ever!)

It started off slow with more accidents than success but as the week has gone on we have had success. I have learned it really is a training process. You have to train the little body to only "go" on the potty. I wish I knew a great secret to tell all you moms about how to do it (I have had lots of people ask for the secret) but there isn't one. I think it just takes time and patience. I have learned A LOT about patience this week. It is not fun cleaning up pee pee all the time. One of my friends came over for a visit yesterday and commented on how there was a bottle of carpet cleaner in every room of my house. I said yep that has been my week. That and laundry.

But I am so proud of my little guy!! He has done great!! He gets stickers for every time he goes pee pee in the potty and everyday he is getting more and more (yesterday we got 7!!) We had told him when he got 10 he could go to Walmart and pick out a DVD. He loves movies so this was a big motivator for him. He got his 10 stickers on Wednesday so he went and debated for 30 minutes over the DVDs and finally picked out Cars. Here he is with his DVD and stickers!

I know we aren't there yet but we are making lots of progress. I have decided that someone needs to start a potty training camp. There are camps for everything else. At this point I would pay TONS of money to send him away for a week to be potty trained. If anyone out there needs a job there is an idea.

We're Back Up and Running!

We survived!!! Matt made it through the test and our life is somewhat back to normal (whatever that is these days!) We had a wonderful weekend in Atlanta. Matt said the test went well. He won't know anything about passing it for a couple of months but I know he passed with flying colors (he is so smart!) We are now back to real life and trying to play catch up on everything that has been put off for the last few months. Hopefully there will be lots of updates coming with great info from us as we weed through our to do list! Here is the run down on our trip to Atlanta. The pictures are sort of out of order but I thought I would just go with it!

We watched the awesome AU TN game in our room Saturday night. It was a great game!!

No trip to Atlanta is complete without a stop at the Varsity for lunch and Ben loved it. He ate 2 hot dogs!

Friday night before the test Matt wanted to eat at Cheesecake Factory and it is soooo good! Here are Ben and Matt enjoying a piece of cheesecake!
We also had to eat at Hard Rock Cafe (it was across the street from our hotel). It was Ben's first Hard Rock experience and he thought it was "loud." We bought Kate a onesie because we bought Ben one before he was born. Ben's was from Athens Greece so it was a little cooler but Kate will know we were thinking of her on the trip.

We stayed at the fabulous Westin Peachtree Plaza on the 61st floor. Yes way up high in the sky. Ben loved hanging over the window looking out on the city. It about gave me a heart attack.

Sunday morning we went to the Atlanta Zoo which was tons of fun. Ben is so into animals these days and loves zoos! Here is the fun carousel ride!

Ben as a panda!

The Atlanta Zoo really has some awesome animals and it wasn't too big which was nice. They have Pandas which was awesome!!!!! I love Pandas! They were so much fun to watch.

My favorite animal is the flamingo so we had to get a picture!

We are trying to get Ben's picture on the steps of all the states capital's so here is the Georgia picture.

On Saturday while Matt was taking his test Ben and I braved the walk down to the Children's Museum. Ben had a blast playing and enjoying the fun!

Sunday after the zoo we went to the World of Coke! It was a blast!!!!! I wasn't sure how Ben would do but he loved the movies and trying all the different cokes! I would highly recommend it!
My cutie with the Coke bear! Blame it on hormones but I bought the $30 pictures they sold. That is so unlike me!
Well, that was our trip. It was fun. It was a great last getaway for the 3 of us.