1500 & A Giveaway!!!

 This is my 1,500 post on the blog!!  Who knew way back in July of 2008 when I posted this first picture of baby Ben that I would write 1,499 more posts!!

 This blog is nothing more than a way for me to chronicle what is going on in our family.  It is for Ben and Kate so they can look back on it one day.  I want them to see how much they were loved and how much we wanted them to know Jesus (while having lots of fun).  I don't know how many people read the blog (it is not all that interesting) but it not for anyone but them.  I hope they appreciate it (one day hopefully)!

In honor of post 1,500 I wanted to share a little giveaway with my readers (if there are any) to say thanks for reading along on our story.  Since Chic-fil-a is a favorite of ours and probably a large majority of our posts have to do with going there, I decided a gift card would be a fun thing to give away!  To enter just leave a comment (or you can send me an email - theeckleys@aol.com).  I will keep the giveaway open until Tuesday evening at 8:00 pm.  Good luck!!!

Sweetness

Belly Laughs

The dinner table was filled with lots of loud laughs at the Eckley house tonight.  Somehow Matt and I got to talking about The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.  That led us to youtube to watch the opening song which then led to watching other tv theme songs.  Matt and I were singing along (I mean who doesn't sing along to Full House, The Love Boat, The Brady Bunch and so many others).  The kids thought it was absolutely hysterical!!  They were laughing so hard which made Matt and I laugh.  It was so much fun!  I am so glad we can laugh and cut up together as a family!!!   

Totally Random Tuesday

No theme to today's post.  Just a bunch of randomness because that is about all my brain can handle late on a Tuesday.  I started boot camp a couple of weeks ago.  Paige and I decided to kick up our workouts so we are doing a boot camp class 2 days a week.  It is at 5 am and it is hard!!  But we are having fun and getting stronger by the day.  I did have a little injury last week (have I ever mentioned I am not very coordinated).  Thankfully, it wasn't too bad and a little ice was all it took.  

 We found a History channel documentary on the presidents on Netflix.  Ben spent 8 hours totally engrossed in watching it over the weekend.  The boy LOVES history!!

 Just wanted to share my favorite guilty pleasure.  Matt gets me a box of Moose Munch every year for Christmas.  I eat it sparingly to spread it out.  This would be why I am having to do those hard work outs!

 I went into Kate's room today and found she had a little fun with her princess stickers.  I was about to get on to her (she has gotten in trouble before for putting stickers on things other than paper) but then I realized she had carefully put the stickers on the pictures that went with each princess.  I was sort of proud of her.  Through gritted teeth of not trying to laugh I told her stickers belong on paper.  She keeps us on our toes!

 Finally tonight I looked over and realized all 4 of us were on different handheld electronic devices.  I think we have a problem!  Not really it was a random thing but still funny.

Ok, I'm going to bed.  I've been up since 4:30 and am tired and my ramblings aren't making much sense!

Quick Kate Funny

I meant to include this in the post about Kate on Thursday...  Kate is totally obsessed with the PBS show Ruff Ruffman.  It is on Netflix and she watches it whenever she can.  It is a kid reality show where they are sent on challenges by a cartoon dog (it is actually really fun).  They learn all sorts of cool things.  Kate has learned so many useless things.  It is great!  Not a day goes by that we aren't talking about something and Kate pipes up with "well, on Ruff Ruffman..."  We hear about it all the time.  It is really funny!

She is also very funny in the way she eats her donut!  Love this little girl!!

Here Comes the Sun!

I had a long, tough week at work so just now getting around to this post from Monday.  Monday was absolutely gorgeous and was also MLK day which meant no school.  Thankfully I didn't have to go to work until the afternoon so we set off on an adventure.  The sun was out and it warmed up to about 60 degrees!  It was beautiful.  We took a walk down to the lake.  

 We had so much fun feeding the geese, fishing and climbing trees.

 It was wonderful to sit on the bench and just enjoy the beautiful weather.

 The boys caught some little minnows so they put them in an old bottle they found.

 We came back for lunch on the new table.  First time it was used!!

It was so nice to get outside and enjoy the gorgeous weather in January.  Now it is back to cold and dreary!!

Kate's 5 Year Check Up

Kate went for her 5 year check up today.  I wasn't able to go due to work but Matt took her and said Dr. Patz declared her a perfectly healthy 5 year old!!  Always thankful for that.  She weighed in at 42 pounds and was 43.25 inches tall.  Both of those are at the 60th%ile which is perfectly perfect!  She had to get a finger stick to check her blood and that didn't go well but other than that uneventful.  Kate is a big snorer so we are a little worried about her big adenoids.  Dr. Patz just wants to watch it and if she keeps snoring then she will have them out at around 7 years.  Here was our cutie at the doctor's office today!

A funny Kate story...  We watched the movie Annie a couple of weeks ago and since then Kate has been a little obsessed.  She wants to "play Annie" all the time.  That means she wants me to be Ms. Hannigan and give her chores to do so she can sing "It's a Hard Knock Life."  She is so funny!!!

Sweet Faces

I am so bad about pulling out the big camera these days.  It has been a month since I even got it out of the closet.  I love the pictures I can get with it so I am going to try to pull it out more often.  I captured these sweet faces tonight.  I love them so much!!

The Awesome Weekend (title by Ben)

We of course had a wonderful weekend.  It was relaxing but we also accomplished a bunch and had some fun.  We started out by celebrating Ben's awesome report card with a trip to Ichiban for dinner.  That is Ben's favorite for celebrating.  We are so proud of how awesome he did during the last 9 weeks!

 We then caught the Penguins of Madagascar at the dollar movie theater.  It was a funny movie and it was so much fun to watch Kate laugh throughout.

 Saturday it was foretasted to warm into the 50's so we decided to clean out the garage.  It was a massive mess and needed some serious work.  We spent about 5 hours cleaning out and throwing away.  I should have taken some before and after pictures but just imagine a clean garage.  We were able to get rid of the last of the baby items.  No more car seats or strollers for us!

 The kids had lots of fun playing outside while we cleaned.  Ben even did some jeep driving in an Auburn helmet.

 Saturday night we went over to Kelly and Andrew's for pizza and nerdy games.  Perry's train table was a big hit with all the kiddos.

 I enjoyed snuggling with my favorite red head!

Sunday was church and life group which rounded out a great weekend.  Or in Ben's words "an awesome' weekend.

A Snowy Day

I'm a little behind on my blogging.  No good excuse other than I am trying to have fun with the kids.  Need to catch up from the end of last week...  On Thursday we got a little surprise snow.  I picked Kate up from school and it was snowing big huge flakes!  It was really exciting!!

 By the time it was pick up time for Ben it had stopped.  Sad!!  Ben did get to go out and play in it during the day at school.  We stopped for some hot chocolate after school (ice cream for Kate which was crazy).

 The roads ended up being really icy on Friday morning which led to several wrecks and massive traffic issues.  Ugh!!  It took me an hour and a half to get to work.  It was a big mess!

Thankfully it warmed up over the weekend and we have been enjoying some beautiful weather the last few days.  We are hoping for some more snow soon!!

Bags of Blessing

Last night our life group got to together with some other groups to pack bags of blessing for the CARE Center.  Ben and I had done this before but it is the first time Kate and Matt got to participate.  We love supporting the CARE Center and the work that they do in our community.  

 We had a great time working with our friends to pack the bags of food for children to take home from school on the weekends.  Kate really got into the packing.  She threw those crackers in the bag and pushed them on done the line.  She would get mad at me when I would slow down and it would get backed up.  She sang and chatted the whole time.  It was hilarious.

 Ben was all work!  He did a great job!

 Kate also really got into breaking down the leftover food boxes.

 It was such a great night!  So are thankful to get to serve along with our friends!

My Days

I am seeing my life change right before my eyes.  We are moving out of the little kid stage of life and into bigger kid stuff.  It is a good thing don't get me wrong, just different.  Gone are the simple days of staying home, playing and trying to find things to fill the time until dinner.  Boy did I think those days were long at times.  Ha!  They've got nothing on my days now.  My days are now filled with time in the car and time spent sitting.  I counted up today I spent 5 hours driving kids somewhere or sitting and waiting on kids.  Yes, 5 hours in the car or sitting in a hard chair.  It is a very different kind of long.  But I wouldn't trade it for anything!!  I love seeing my kids thrive at school and in activities.  To do that I have to get them there and wait on them so that is what I will do.  I am thankful that I can do it!  I am excited to see what this new stage of life looks like.  A stage not marked with diapers and playdates but with growing, independent children.  It is going to be great!!

Weekend

Our week ended a little different last week because I had to have a little minor surgery on my tongue.  Thankfully it went really well and the path report came back good so that was all good.  The surgery left me eating soup and resting for the end of the week and first part of the weekend.  It was nice to have a low key weekend.  Friday night we watched a movie and just hung out as a family.  Saturday morning we did venture out to Cracker Barrel to get some breakfast.  I was dying for some real food and pancakes sounded good!  

 We ran some errands and did some things around the house on Saturday.  Ben went to a birthday party for some of his friends from school.  He stayed until 10:30.  Matt and I had a glimpse of our future sitting around waiting to pick up teenagers.  Ugh!!  We kept having to hit each other to stay awake!

 Sunday was another low key day with church and then naps and laundry.  We enjoyed some fun time playing games together.  I love hanging out with these 3 people.  They are so much fun!!

Matching Cousins

Both Ben and Perry wore the same train sweater vest at their second birthday.  All 2 year old boys must love trains!