Could it be?

Carter asked twice over the weekend to sit on the potty. The first time he actually pottied! I know it is just a coincidence but it is an exciting step non the less. I guess havig an older sibling helps relieve any anxiety about the potty. While I don't think he is ready for potty training, it is definitely not to early to enjoy sitting on the potty. :)

Halloween 2010

I love Halloween!!!! I’m not sure if I loved it this much as a child. What I do know is I fell in love with the holiday again working at St. Jude. Seeing how excited all the kids got when the hospital was decorated from head to toe just made my day. Now that I have kids it has grown even more. I can’t believe that this is Ella Catherine’s 4th time dressing up. I take full responsibility for her first 3 costumes. She didn’t really understand what was going on those first two years and last year by the time she realized she was already knocking on doors getting candy. By that time she could have been wearing a paper bag and she wouldn’t have cared a bit as long as the candy kept rolling in. This year was different. This year she picked out her own costume…kind of. Matt and I had a princess dress made for her for her birthday. She LOVES the dress and wears it anytime she can. So when we asked her what she wanted to be for Halloween it was not too surprising that she wanted to be a princess and wear her “big sparkle dress” as she calls it. Carter is a different story. I was happily still able to pick out his costume. I didn’t think I would be able to find anything as cute as his costume last year, but I was wrong!!! When I saw the fly fisherman costume that was all she wrote. It was perfect! I wasn’t too concerned about him wearing it because he is usually so easy going. Well he wasn’t so easy going with the costume on Friday evening as we were getting dressed to meet the Sams for at the ghouls at Grassmere (Nashville Zoo). He was NOT happy about the boots. I had to get him dressed in stages. I finally realized that he was just really hungry and as I have stated before he becomes a different kid when he is hungry. By the time Matt got home from work he was ok with the costume and was well fed and ready to go!

We didn’t get to the ZOO as early as we would have liked and so we didn’t get to visit with the Sams for too long before the Sams boys were ready to head to the house. They had already done the trick or treat trail so we played some in the play area before they left. Our little princess however, was not about to leave without trick or treating. So, we had fun taking her around the path and seeing all the costumes. The little fly fisherman was a trouper and watched without so much as a peep from his stroller.

Sunday was the official trick or treat night. We got the kids dressed up again, no complaints this time. The plan was to go visit a few neighbors and then head back to the house to hand out candy. We set out on foot down the hill and went to about 8 houses when Matt realized that this was going to be a longer trick or treating trip and decided to go get the truck. For those of you who have seen our neighborhood you completely understand the truck, for those of you who have yet to visit we would love to have you! Just know that our neighborhood is EXTREMELY hilly. No guilt in eating trick or treat candy as you definitely burn it off walking from house to house. Even driving, the driveways and the front steps are a workout. Anyway, our little cul de sac wasn’t very busy and I was somewhat disappointed as I knew we had moved to a neighborhood filled with kids. Well, when we drove around the corner to the main drive and there were people everywhere. Several people had hayrides taking the kids trick or treating, houses were decorated inside and out and even the parents were dressed up. I forsee a hayride next year. :) Carter stayed in the truck with Matt and Ella Catherine and I took off running from house to house. It was soooo much fun. It is hard to say who had more fun.

When Matt went back to get the truck he set our candy out on the front porch for the kids to grab themselves. I was fully expecting the candy to be all gone when we got home, but was surprised to find a little still left. Someone did move the container from the top of the steps to the bottom though. I’m telling you the stairs are a killer. I honestly think Ella Catherine had as much fun if not more handing out candy as she did trick or treating. She sat in the rocker on the front porch and waited patiently for someone to come. While they waited, she and Carter played trick or treating. She would give him a piece of candy and he would run inside and go put it in his pumpkin. It was precious!
I thought I’d take a trip down memory lane and post pictures of past costumes as well. Enjoy!

2007: Ella Catherine 7 months old- a pink octopus

2008: Ella Catherine 1 year old- Candy corn

2009: Ella Catherine 2years old- a Denver Broncos Cheerleader

2010- Ella Catherine 3 years old- a beautiful Princess2009: Carter 5 months old- sock monkey
2010: Carter 1 year old-fly fisherman

PJ Party

To celebrate Halloween the kids had Pajama day at school. I personally can not think of a better way to start off the weekend. Luckily I was able to leave work a little early and attend their afternoon PJ Halloween party.Excited about PJ Party day

Decked out in his Halloween Pjs ready for school

His classmates at the table for snacks

One of the parents brought cheetos. This was his first taste of cheetos and lets just say he is a fan. I had to stop him from stealing his friends cheetos.

Carter and I left his party early to attend some of Ella Catherine's party. This is her table finishing up their snacks.

After they finished snacks and cleaned up their places they all went to their designated color on the color rug. They had been learning a pumpkin song for 2 weeks that included hand gestures and props.Here they are singing the song. It was so cute and they were all so excited that they sang it twice.

I made these cute owl cookies for both of the kids to take for their parties. Ella Catherine's class loved them. Carter's friends weren't sure what to do with them. I don't think they realized they were cookies. They all kept picking them up off their plates and saying owl and whoooing. It was precious.

Carving Pumpkins

It was a beautiful, warm October day. With Halloween fast approaching Matt decided it was time to carve the pumpkins. So as not to make a mess inside and create an adventure for the kids he took them in the woods behind our house to get all the ooey, gooey stuff out. The kids thought it was great. Neither was too sure of the goo at first but finally dove in and had fun.
As I am typing this I realized that we never got a picture of the final product, so I will remedy that and post an additional picture soon....keep an eye out! :)

Matt and Ella Catherine in the woodsLet the good times start! Carving the BIG Pumpkin first
Carter getting his hands a little gooey

Both kids cleaning out the pumpkins.

Toto I don't think we are in Nashville anymore

Matt's cousin, Stephanie, got married this weekend in Kansas City. It was an event we wouldn't miss. However, I must admit I was a little anxiety ridden about taking both kids on an airplane. I am not afraid of flying but I was afraid of the potential melt downs that could occur mid air with no where to exit. My fears were completely unfounded. Our kids were ANGELS!!! I had some friends offer suggestions for making air travel go smoothly and they worked like a charm! We definitely got the "please don't sit by me" stares as we boarded the plane, but at the end of both our flights we received compliments on how well behaved our children were from those sitting around us. Matt and I are so proud of them!!!

The weekend went by very fast but it was fabulous! Friday we got into town just in time to meet up with Aunt Katie, Uncle Shannon and Mimi at Aunt Syd and Uncle D's house for lunch. Erica and Jonathon were there as well. We all had some time to visit before having to get ready for the rehearsal dinner. Dinner was downtown in a restaurant on the third floor of a building overlooking the city. It was beautiful. We didn't get to stay too long before it was time to take two sleeping kiddos home to bed. The rehearsal started at their bedtime but they were GREAT! We brought their Pjs to the party and changed them before getting into the car. Poor Carter fell asleep in the middle of the party he was so pooped and Ella Catherine wasn't far behind. Saturday we were able to sleep in (ha, ha). We were able to lounge about and let the kids run around. We met up at Aunt Syd and Uncle D's house again for another amazing lunch and then we took the kids to the Deana Rose petting zoo. We were able to let them run around and play a bit before having to head to the hotel to get ready for the wedding. They loved the petting zoo but neither of them was much into the actual petting. They liked to feed from a distance or let Matt and I feed them :)

The wedding was absolutely beautiful! She was a stunning bride. The priest gave a wonderful homily, one of the best I have ever heard at a wedding. Stephanie, Aunt Carolee and Uncle Doc thought of everything for this wedding. They rented out an extra hotel room and hired a babysitter. The kids had their very own PJ party with dinner and movies while the adults were at the reception. Carter passed out cold on the bed about 30 minutes after we dropped him off, poor guy again it was past his bedtime. He slept through the entire party. The rest of the kids built forts and watched movies. Ella Catherine was still wide awake when we picked her up. She had a blast! The adults also had a blast at the reception. All in all a wonderful weekend celebrating with family.

Pumpkin Patch

As we were riding around doing errands the other day Matt and I noticed a sign for a pumpkin patch. This weekend Matt went on a guys golfing weekend and so Sunday afternoon I thought I'd take the kids to the pumpkin patch and let them pick out some pumpkins. I had NO idea how big this patch was nor how much it had to offer. I was very thankful that I had put the stroller in the car for carrying the pumpkins because we had to park so far from the actual festivities that I used it to carry Carter as well. Needless to say, the kids had a blast and so did I. They had all kinds of fun activities for the kids. They had troughs full of animal feed for the children to play with, arts in crafts areas where they could make sand art, a playground, a maze, hayrides, a pumkin train for the kids, a section where they could pretend to be a farmer for the day, a petting zoo, face painting and of course a field with pumpkins. I only wish that Matt had been there too. Maybe we will make a second trip. :)

Playing in the feed troughs

Making sand art
Riding on his John Deere

Playing on the playground

Milking a cowWaiting patiently to have her face painted drum roll please...she asked for a pumpkin flower
Picking out his pumpkin
Until he saw these and realized that his was too small

Then he decided on the bigger one! :)

Ella Catherine with her pumpkin choice

5 years

Matt and I celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary on 10/1/10. In 5 years we have moved 4 times, had two wonderful children and both have changed jobs. A busy but wonderful 5 years! God has blessed us so much.

Grandpa and Grams took the kids for the weekend. We met Grandpa Friday morning and he took the kids to Pickwick lake where they spent the weekend with Grams, Grandpa, Uncle Christopher and Uncle Michael. They went to a high school football game on Friday night. Carter was so enthralled with the football game that he didn't move a muscle the whole time. Perhaps he is a future football player. Ella Catherine was enthralled with the cheerleaders and promptly showed us her moves when she got home. The rest of the weekend they enjoyed the laking life with boat rides and good friends.

As for Matt and I, we dropped them off and headed back to Nashville. We wanted to visit some of the Nashville tourist attractions we had yet to see. First, we had lunch at The Whiskey Kitchen and it was delicious! Next we went to the Country Music Hall of Fame. It is a fascinating place. I honestly thought that MTV's pimp my ride was the first to embellish an automobile, but that is so not the case. Webb Peirce and Elvis were way a head of them! Webb Pierce had guns mounted on his car. He had a rifle on the hood and the car handles were pistols. The gear shift was a holster and he had silver dollars sewn into the very decorative leather interior of his car. If that wasn't impressie enough, Elvis' Gold Cadillac was painted using over 20 coats of a paint with ground pearls in it. The interior was Gold with a Gold TV and other accessories. We slept in and lounged about watching some college football on Saturday and had a very nice adult dinner at J Alexanders. Sunday after church we geared up in some cooler weather attire and headed to LP Field to watch the Denver Broncos play the Titans. We had great seats and were sitting right above the endzone where the Broncos scored the winning touchdown. It was a great way to end our anniversary weekend. We look forward to many many more years together!

Headed to the Broncos game