Rooney Turns 2, Soccer Ends, Joel Comes Home!

Just to quickly recap early November, one of the things that the boys and I did was eat out a bunch. Nothing like fine dining, but to be honest, Joel being out of town did make things a little easier for me on the food front. We missed him, but I did not miss cooking one single bit! It's just hard when you don't get home until after 5 a lot of days and then have to cook a whole meal (mostly gluten free at that!) while doing homework, reading, bathing, etc. Below is a picture of one of our eating out excursions...

 

Moving on, Rooney turned TWO the first weekend in November! Can't believe this little love is already two. Hudson had his last flag football game and then the boys and I drove up to Nashville for her party.

 Of course Carrie went all out and had a truly awesome balloon man! He was a bit hit!

The party was so fun. They had a great turn out considering they have only been in Nashville for a few months. Leave it to Carrie to pick friends up at the park who introduce them to their friends, etc.

 I have no words for this one!!!

We had to get up early the next morning and rush back to Birmingham for Harrison's last soccer game! He had such a fun season and was a goal scoring king. We loved watching him and the rest of his teammates. They were all really good!! 

 

 

Of course, the highlight was the trophy!!!

After the game, I had to head straight to the airport for a flight to Charlotte for the night. A day of training was good for my sanity! :) Who would have thought!?!? Haha! The Reed's came and stayed at our house for the night, and then I got back the next night. That Tuesday was the big presidential election!!! I thought it would be good to take the boys to this one. May be one we'll never forget! They did help me fill in some circles and did not make a scene about who to vote for, so it was a win. Let's just say they were more vocal about who they wanted to win than me and I was a little worried they, meaning Hudson, might yell something at my polling location! Of course he probably would have been met with an applause, I did not want to create a scene! Ha!

Wednesday nights until January are being spent at the batting cage. Hudson is in this little hitting league for 3 months and is having a lot of fun. Although it is most likely the most unorganized place in the universe and I about lose my mind every time I go in there (never on time, kids going crazy, baseballs AND bats flying everywhere...it's just an accident waiting to happen and most definitely a daddy thing!!!). He's getting in a lot of good practice with his buddies though, which is what matters most.

Finally, the day came that Joel came home! Well, he didn't actually make it home, but we met him at the cabin on Veteran's Day and stayed the weekend. He was driving back from Virginia and this was a good stopping point, so that's why we did it. However, in hindsight, it probably would have just been better for him to come straight home. He was ready to be home for sure. The boys were so excited to see him! I did not even get a single picture of the reunion, but it was really sweet. I didn't even get a picture of him all weekend. Oh well...

We put Hudson to work blowing the leaves off the court. It was maybe his favorite thing!

 Sweet Chloe girl never gets any blog time. 10 years old and still kicking!!!

 We watched a horrible Auburn/Georgia game while we were up there...

 But we had this view so it wasn't all that bad.

We headed home that Sunday and got back to the real world. Having Joel back home after 5 weeks was quite an adjustment (we knew it would be!), but now we're back in the groove! It took a while for the boys to get over their "only mom can do it" attitude and let Joel help out, but they've gotten over it thankfully. It's good to have the whole team back together for sure!

Halloween Festivities

Well Thanksgiving has come and gone and I'm just now updating about Halloween. I'm really going to try and get this updated this week!

 

Carrie came into town the weekend before Halloween and we headed to Boo at the Zoo. Shondra and Morgan came too, and we all had so much fun!

 

 We got some good cousin time in!

 Hudson ate a cricket! It was disgusting, but he kept wanting more! He is so crazy.

We did a Trunk or Treat with our Sunday school class. I am definitely not crafty and really don't like doing this sort of thing, but I was pretty proud of myself this time. I spent no money on this, and I thought it turned out cute. This was the trial run in our garage.

 All the cute kids!

 We had a really good time and I was glad we went!

Harrison had his last Halloween parade at preschool. Cue the tears!!! All these "lasts" are really getting to me.

 Then it was on to Halloween night where it was literally 90 degrees outside. It definitely did not feel like Halloween this year! But, it was a beautiful night and was not raining, so we'll take it!

We did the hayride in our neighborhood and stayed out way too late trick or treating (for a Monday night!). The kids got entirely too much candy, but we all had so much fun!

 Harrison actually pooped out pretty early. His little legs got tired of walking, so he did a lot of riding on the hay ride.

Check out that sweaty hair! Harrison was long asleep by this time!

Poor Hudson had a homework assignment that required him to sort his candy by type, then count it. And it was due the next day. Like I've said before, 2nd grade is killing us all!!!

It was such a great Halloween this year, but when it was over, I was really glad! It was time to move on!!!

October Happenings!

The day after we got back from Disney, Joel headed right back out of town for work. He has a big project going on in Virginia and it has required them to be there ever since. We are going on week 5 of him being gone, even on the weekends, but the good news is that he comes back on Friday! The boys and I have been holding down the fort though in what seems like one of the busiest times of the year. It has certainly not been pretty at times, but we are surviving!

 

Hudson decided he wanted to make tie-dye shirts for his market day at school. This is where they all have to bring in home made items that THEY have made and sell them. They also get the chance to spend the "money" they have earned from their jobs at school. It was such a fun day for Hudson. He loved it and can't wait until the next one in January. In fact, he's already working on it!

 

Tie-dye was hard to let him do all of it by himself, mainly due to the potential mess. He tied all the shirts up though by himself, and he was the one who actually did the tie-dying, so I would say he pretty much did it all himself! I mixed the colors because I thought that might turn into a disaster! I was very proud of what he did though. And he was solely responsible for making his poster. The shirts turned out way better than I thought they would!!!

 

The good news is that he sold out of all the shirts! I told him he needed to consider selling them for more than $5, but he said his friends told him they wouldn't pay more. Therefore, he did not make as much as he could have, and he came home saying he should have charged more! :) Good lessons learned. It sure was fun!

Hudson wrapped up flag football and baseball and it was a great season for both!

We went to Old Baker Farm one Saturday to get our pumpkins. It was SO dry that everything was just dusty. These pictures don't even do it justice. We need rain!

 We were determined to find out way out of the corn maize, but were struggling a little bit!

 We made it!!! And didn't even cheat!

 The pumpkins were pretty pitiful out there this year. We did not come home with any good ones, but it didn't matter. It was fun anyway!

We had our fall festival at church and these crazies wanted to be Frankenstein!

We bought our Halloween pajamas! On a side note, I pretty much buy pajamas once a year when they have to wear them for school. We do not have good pajamas that can be worn outside our house anymore!

 Harrison had Wacky Wednesday at school one day!

We filled the rest of our weekends up with Auburn games with friends and football, soccer, and baseball! Oh and preparing for Halloween! That deserves a post on it's own!