Happy Halloween!

The day before Halloween we finally made some time to carve our pumpkins pumpkin.  I decided that since I would be doing the carving part and I don't have unlimited time to just carve one of our pumpkin family.  As seen below, Chandler was less than thrilled to dig out the pumpkin guts.

Brighton, on the other hand, dove right in!  I'm not sure that we even got a final picture of the carved and lit pumpkin, but it was an outline of a cat against a moon.  Very cute!

The boys (especially Brighton) were really excited on Halloween morning.  Brighton wanted to know if we could go trick-or-treating even before breakfast.  One of my grandmother's best friends, Henrietta Jackson came by for a visit and brought gifts.  The boys loved seeing her and showing her anything and everything they could think of.  Henrietta loved seeing Maverick since it has been about 6 months since she last saw him!

Halloween evening was finally upon us and too bad it was RAINING!  We really weren't sure what the game plan would be.  We got everybody dressed and ready to head out.  We let the boys sit in the back of the van on the carpeted floor and Maverick was in my lap while we drove from house to house of the neighbors we know.  Luckily at the 2nd stop we were able to borrow an umbrella since our golf-style one has broken and yet to be replaced---oops!

The boys had a great time and were super surprised by one neighbor's "gift" of a rotten egg (filled with candy)  He had warned the boys that if they scared him on Halloween he'd give them a rotten egg and he lived up to his promise!  It's people like him that make us love our neighbors.  

My Dinosaur, Duck, and Bee!

Preschool Fall Festival

The boys had a great time today at their preschool's fall festival.  Chandler's class listened to a story outside before heading into the fellowship hall to enjoy some games.  The even had a mini pumpkin-patch where the kids got to select a pumpkin and decorate it.  Here's a cute picture of Chandler and his buddy, Ethan.

Thanks for the pic, Mandy!

Believe it or not, Chandler's best remembered costume was the UPS man.  All the teachers just raved over that one.  Here's Chandler in the two year old class, putting pumpkin seeds into tiny pumpkins.  He's about 2 1/2 in this picture.

 Compared to Brighton, who is 3 doing the same activity.  Chandler just looks so much more "babyish" to me.  I think it's the fat cheeks!

Here's Brighton's two-year-old class Halloween picture.  Brighton is the most decked out of them all with four of the kids not wearing a costume at all.  Derek and I have attempted to not have a "Christmas" baby since all the festivities that go on that time of year.  Actually, I think a "Halloween" baby has more activities (just less presents)  We have definitely been busy!

Happy BIRTHDAY Brighton!

Today's the big day.....my baby Brighton is THREE!  Wow!  Where does the time go??

We woke Brighton up this morning by having his Birthday bear (gift from Nanny yesterday) come into his bedroom singing and riding his new motorcycle (gift from us).  That was a hit.  He's been asking for a motorcycle for a while now, and even though this one is a little on the small side, HE LOVED IT!

Mom with her 3 boys!

The biggest surprise of the day came about 7:15 a.m. when there was a tap, tap, tap on my front window.  I looked out into the darkness, and there was Grandma....doughnuts in hand!  Wow!  What a special treat for my Birthday boy.  Much better than the cold cereal I would have offered.  The doughnuts were a hit.  Brighton selected the red one.

Thanks Grandma!

Next it was time to get dressed for Preschool and the Fall Festival.  Here are my big boys ready to go.  Chandler had to be a Police man since all costumes had to be "potty friendly"  I went to school while Derek stayed home with napping Maverick.  Brighton had a blast at school and insisted on riding his new motorcycle to the playground to show all his friends.

What a great Birthday!  I'm going to have many more posts over the next few days I'm sure with all the festivities surrounding Halloween.  I love you, Brighton.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

McDonald's Birthday!

Today we had Brighton's birthday party at McDonalds.  Brighton begun the day by requesting to "hold" Maverick.  He doesn't do this very often anymore, so of course we obliged!

Here's the Birthday boy and crew enjoying their Happy Meals.  Brighton wanted a cheeseburger and actually ate most of it (usually he only has a bite or two) and would most likely eat all the chicken nuggets, but had to have a cheeseburger today for some reason.

This Birthday party was pretty low key, and we all had a good time.  Since the number of guests was manageable and we had the whole place to ourselves, I let Brighton open up his gifts there.  He got matchbox cars, blocks, books, and a cool fort!

Here's my birthday boy enjoying the slide with the Namey girls!  He's normally not a fan of these slides, but somehow overcame that fear today.  Go figure!  We specifically choose this McDonalds because the slide is "optional" and there are other ways to get down from the play structure.

It's all relative....

Guess who turns THREE on Friday??

Yes, Brighton turns three on Friday.  I can hardly believe it.  There is so much to do this week for me, including:

• coordinate 8 meals for a new mom
• tutor 2 children in evening
• go to MOPS
• make purchase b-day treat for fall festival (preschool)
• coordinate and help run entire fall festival (church)
• go to Scentsy party
• Prepare for meeting with architect
• C & B T-ball
• track down all several very late RSVPs for party
• make Brighton's owl cake
• make goody bags
• get flowers for church altar for Sunday

Hopefully that's most of it!  I go to bed every night thinking....there is something I'm going to forget, I just know it.  Well today during Maverick's nap time, I was able to get Brighton's owl cake made.  It turned out super cute.  What do you think?

And here are the darling owl babies......I'm not sure which one is my favorite.  Maybe the blue with red eyes.

But, Back to my Point.....IT'S ALL RELATIVE!  The last birthday party that I planned, I had a BABY the day before.  This, my friends, is a walk in the park.

Oh No!

Oh No! How is it that my favorite baby age (6 months) is already over?  Maverick is SEVEN months old today.  He is changing so much and is starting to become more "boy" than baby.  He still doesn't have any teeth and we keep thinking they are coming since he likes to bite and gnaw on anything he can get.  

He's starting to get so much hair, even though it doesn't show up in most pictures because he is so blonde.  I think he's got the lightest hair out of my three so far.  

Maverick is not crawling yet, and hasn't even started getting his knees up under himself, but when he's sitting he more often falls forward reaching out to get something, than backwards (loses balance) so that's a step in the right direction.  

My Cutie Pie!

Maverick sleeps about 11.5 hours at night, but we occasionally have to go and re-binky him to settle him down.  It's been a little more than normal with this cough/cold that he has, but not too bad.  He's still exclusively nursing and is having one meal a day (dinner) of about 2-3 oz of food.  We'll probably increase that amount a little this month and finally get around to giving him a cup to try with some juice soon.  

He's at the age where he wants to grab anything you are holding when you are holding him.  Especially if it's paper.  Everything goes in the mouth!  He loves watching his big brothers and is starting to anticipate what they will do.  He gets very excited and will squeal with delight and wave his arms and kick his legs.  

Here's  a picture of him I got when I went to wake him up from a nap, so sweet.  He still naps 2 x a day for about 1 1/2 hours in the morning and about 2 hours in the afternoon.  He still likes to be swaddled with his arms out.  He loves the music box/light show in his crib and I've seen him turn it on and off and even sometimes use his feet to do this.

I know soon enough he'll be getting teeth and crawling.  I'm not sure I'm ready for that!

Love A Fair

Yesterday we took our annual trip to the NC State Fair.  We did miss the year that Chandler was a baby, since he was sick and then we took an out-of-state trip to Florida

Anyways, we all had a good time despite being a touch sick and packing all this fun and excitement into less than 3 hours!  First of all let me just say that I love the food at the fair.  Frankly, who doesn't?  Well, I can't wait until I get to actually enjoy all of my food without sharing any!  I shared everything I had except my corn dog (and I was even asked to share that by my two hungry boys).  Here's a list of all we had at the fair:

1. 32 oz Hi-C (split 3 ways, Me, C, B)
2. 1 ear roasted corn (split, Me, C, and B had the last few bites)
3. Small Bag M&Ms (C, B, and I ate a few for good measure)
4. Frozen Banana, no peanuts (Me, C, B)
5. Lemonade (Me, C)
6. Corn Dog (Me, C, B, D --- each had our own!)
7. Bucket of Fries (Me, C, B, D)
8. Pepsi (D)
9. Deep Fried Snickers (Me, ground......unfortunately I was holding Maverick while trying to eat this and holding a bag of cotton candy and Mr. Grabby was determined he was going to have a bite.  Trying to eat it quickly and keep it away from Maverick caused the last two bites to fall on the ground :(
10. Cotton Candy (Me, C, B, took most home)
11. Elephant Ear (Me, C, B, D)
12. Candy Apple (C, B, shared at home)
13. Caramel Apple (OH WAIT.....I did have this all to myself, because I ate it at home while everybody was napping the next day!)

We spent our majority of time in kiddy land riding rides.  Chandler saw these trampolines and wanted to try one out.  I think he really enjoyed himself!  Brighton rode the Jalopy car ride while Chandler waited and then we hoped on the carousel.  Chandler had just finished the trampoline and joined us on the carousel before it started.  

Even Maverick got to ride on the carousel!  Maverick was a pretty happy guy and the fair and tolerated being in the stroller well since there was so much to look at.  The only time he was really angry was when I was holding him and trying not to let him eat my Snickers.  He really wanted a bite!

Chandler and Brighton rode practically every ride in kiddy land.  They even rode the giant slide twice.  Luckily we picked a great day to go.  The weather was great and there was hardly a line at anything the boys wanted to do.  Can't wait to see what next year brings!

Just Ducky

 And we have a winner!  For Maverick's Halloween costume that is.  Yes, our little man will be a duck.  Other contenders included Elmo, and a bug.  When we were proofing Maverick's 6 month pictures on Wednesday of this week our photographer asked what Maverick was being for Halloween.  When I said I wasn't quite sure, she said, "Well, I have the costume that will be perfect"  When she pulled this adorable outfit out, how could I refuse?

As for our other boys, Chandler is going to be a dinosaur and Brighton would hopefully be one of the many other costumes that we already have on hand for dress up.  When our neighbor asked what he was going to be, Brighton proudly declared, "I'm going to be a bumblebee!"  Not sure where that came from, but he has stuck with this now for more than a week, so I decided to just go with it.

Today, I kept Brighton home from preschool since he had a croupy-sounding cough on Wednesday.  He's been fine since then and no fever, so hopefully he'll stay that way but I wanted to play it safe.  After M's morning nap we headed to Target in search of some Bee-apparal.  Well, most all of the bee costumes are geared towards little girls, and I wanted Brighton to be a "manly" bee, so we are going to have to improvise a little.  I ended up having to buy a few different sets to get the right antennae, bow tie, and wings that didn't have ruffles or lace on them.  As for the rest of it, I bought a yellow shirt and some black duct tape and we'll see how it turns out.

Brighton's favorite part, the stinger!

I even lucked out and found a "stinger" that is the best part to Brighton, for what bee doesn't like to run around stinging his mommy and brother?

As you can see, Brighton makes a very "fierce" bee and was so thrilled with his costume.  He ran around the yard rubbing his but on bushes all while screaming, "pollen, pollen, pollen".....makes a momma smile!

Baby loves crackers...

Today, Maverick got to try a Mum Mum rice cracker courtesy of our photographer, Geri.  Technically he had about 1/3 of one yesterday, but Daddy wouldn't let him hold it completely which just made him mad.  I tend to not worry so much about stuff like that, so I handed it to him, and let it be.  He throughly enjoyed it, and it bought me five minutes of some much needed quiet!

My little Cherubs

Today was the boys' singing debut for Cherub Choir this year.  They were both very excited!  The song was "This little light of mine".  Both boys know this song very well, so they weren't nervous at all.  

The boys did very well with all the hand motions too.  Brighton's "light" also entered his nose a few times during the song, but he's two....what can you expect?  Also, it probably didn't help that the little boy behind him was poking and tickling the top of his head the entire song.  Oh well, they both did great!

Traveling with a Baby....

Note:  You probably want to turn the volume down :)

This video is from about 2 months ago when we were on our way back home from the mountains.  In case you didn't know our little Maverick has a set of lungs on him.  Luckily he seems to have outgrown his screamy phase.

Date Knight

These pictures are from Monday night this week when my two knights took me out to Chick-fil-A for a date.  Although I paid and when I thanked my two men for a wonderful date they replied, "but mommy, you told us we were going to Chick-fil-A" (instead of them asking me to go as I implied) we all had a good time.  The theme of the evening was Knights in Shining Armor.

Chick-fil-A staff were all appropriately dressed and even seated us to our table and took our "order".  All three of us got to choose any dessert we wanted for free, so that was especially nice!  The boys were treated to a magic show at our table and got balloon swords made.  They also got dragons painted on their faces!  Chick-fil-A always goes out of it's way to make us feel special.  They are a Christian company and it shows.  We are always glad to give them our business.

Me with my Knights

My silly Goose, Brighton

I haven't had much time for the blog this week, but I wanted to get this video up before the boys start T-ball.  Here's a short video of Brighton practicing his T-ball.  Righty or Lefty?  We can't decide, and it appears neither can he!  He is such a natural, I can't wait to see how he will excel when he's older.  

Here's another picture of my "silly Goose".  This was when we went to the corn maze last month.  Brighton is such a sweetheart.  He loves to cuddle with me and has a super silly side to him.  I can't believe he's turning three at the end of this month.  He is usually always happy when I wake him up in the morning and always asks, "what are we doing today?"  that is usually followed by, "what are we having for breakfast?"

Brighton is doing super at preschool and just loves it.  He will often tell me that we had chapel today (Wednesdays) but we didn't have art.  (They had art during summer camp, and he has yet to distinguish between what he did at summer camp is not an everyday thing at preschool)  He also loves going to Puggles (AWANA) and MOPS.  He is not hesitant to leave me in the slightest.  I sometimes have to remind him to say bye as he's off and running towards the next thing.

I'll post more of my thoughts on Brighton after he turns 3.  Just wanted to get a few words in while I had the time.