Fa La La La Flu

I have to be honest, I stole that from a friends FB post.  Flu is out of control around our parts.  Thank the Lord that the 8 year old was the only one to get it.  Here are the boys decorating our tree.  Little did I know that Cal would go to bed right after decorating and wake up at 4:30 blazing hot with fever!

Normally I do our big tree and the boys do a smaller tree with their ornaments.  I was not wanting to go over the top this year and the boys wanted their ornaments on the real tree.  I seriously did not do a thing to our tree this year other than move a few around to the sides and take a few off the branches that were bogged down with 5 ornaments in a row. 

They were both so cute and LOVED decorating.  I just sat at the table and stuffed Christmas cards. 

I still love these "little" and now stinky feet

 

Thankfully Cal's flu seemed to be a mild case and he only missed Thursday and Friday from school.  I did not give Cal the Tamaflu because he would not ever eat enough to take it.  Brady started Christmas play practice the Monday after Cal came down with flu and started a stomach ache (I checked him out and started the Tamaflu) only to figure out that he had a good ole fashion case of stage fright.  Needless to say I gave him the Tamaflu for 5 days because the sweet Kindergartners were dropping like flies as well as most of school.

My sweet little Shepard

The Shepard's finishing up their Shepard Song.  The Shepard Song is always a hit.  Cal was a Shepard and all Brady wanted to be was a Shepard.  They do not "reveal" the children's parts until the day they go home for Thanksgiving.  He was so happy until he realized they sit at the front of the stage until their song then sing and walk up by the stable. 

This is him on the first day(they do the play 3 times).  Basically as far off the stage as possible.  He is pretty much behind a Christmas Tree and almost back behind the pianist. 

This is only the center section, but they take a Christmas Card picture each year to send out the following year.  Always precious and will bring a tear to your eye.  The sweet dove (in between sheep and camel) was one that went down with flu and only got to preform once.  Now we had a soloist who came with fever the last day.  To each their own.

Here are the boys (minus 1) in Brady's class after the last performance.

He just told me to name them. Shepard, narrator, Shepard, Joseph and narrator. The one missing was a wise man.

 

The boys had their class parties today. They get out tomorrow at 11:30.

I can't believe Christmas is in 5 days!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some Christmas Fun

Happy December.  Our elf is back (a few days earlier than I had intended because our neighbors elf had come back and they plus my boys were starting to freak out that our elf was not coming this year).

Jolly is back and Brady is just staring at him

 

Wynlakes does a Christmas Open House and they give each child who builds a Gingerbread House a prize.  Cal has been asking since last year to build one, of course when it came time to build it he just wanted to tell mommy how he wanted it to look.

 

Here are the boys with the Wynlakes Gingerbread House

Boys with Santa

Matt and I

 

HAPPY DECEMBER!

Fall Sports Review

Who doesn't love fall sports?  We not only love it for college football in our house, but for soccer and baseball too.

Cal wanted to play fallball/baseball again this year, which is more than fine with Matt and I.  Honestly, we want him to play agian next fall(it will be practice for kid pitch) and that would then put him in forth grade before he starts football........we will see.....a lot of his friends started football this year.  His friend Harrison got bumped up to kid pitch this fall due to his birthday, so that left the catching position open and Cal volunteered.  We were not sure we wanted him catching, but he absolutely loved it! 

Catching

Getting ready to hit

Headed to 2nd from 1st

a last minute/last game pic....several boys had left

Cal and Wesley

 

And this is what my car looked like on soccer and baseball days

(school socks, sport socks, school shoes, sport shoes.....)

 

Brady really enjoyed soccer this fall.  We let him play mini soccer one more year.  Most of his friends were playing in the 6-8 year old league, but he ended up loving his team.  He was by far the biggest kid and loved playing goalie.  He always vounteered to be goalie first and play in the field 2nd. 

 

 

Brady was on a team where the little girls stole the show in scoring

This face is so "him"

Just another so "him".  After he got his trophey, we needed to go to Cal's last game.  He refused to wear his soccer jersey to Cal's game so I had to take him home to change into something more suitable for the ballfield.  Really...5 year old boy crazy! 

Stopping a goal! 

He may try on session of indoor soccer before baseball starts in the spring.

Pumpkin Patch

I feel a little sad and excited all at the same time when I say that this might be the last year that I will have to go on a Pumpkin Patch field trip. 

During Homecoming Week, the Kindergarten went to the Dream Field Farms Pumpkin Patch.  The weather was perfect and we had a great time.

Brady, Bo, Persson and McClain

His new buddies:

He brought home what he is Thankful for on Friday and it was these 3 boys

How cute are they?  This is Persson and he is like a little blond version of Brady.  I think they are precious together.

A rare photo moment in the tire swing

His most prized pumpkin that he gave to his daddy to put on his desk

In line for this awesome hay tunnel slide-his favorite part

 

WHAT A FUN DAY!!!!!

 

Happy Birthday Cal

Cal turned 8 back in Oct.  We originally gave him the option of having a party or taking a trip to Atlanta or the beach.  He picked taking a friend to Atlanta to go to Six Flags.  So a week or so before his birthday we went over on a Saturday morning (after Brady's soccer game) and headed to Six Flags.  We went as long and hard as the boys could then headed to the hotel.  Cal, his friend and Brady had a connecting room to Matt and I.  They went right to bed.  We ate breakfast and let them swim before getting ready to go to lunch and pick up Cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory.  I did not take a single picture :(

Here is the part where I have to explain that I ended up having him a party also.  I love my husband soooooo much :) See his birthday ended up being on the Friday of Homecoming. They get out of school at noon after the parade.  The boys are always wanting people to come over and play (especially when they get out of school early), so I started thinking it would be good to just have the boys in his class over to play after school for a couple of hours.  I picked up cupcakes and the boys played Dodge ball, Kickball and a little Football.  Really for everyone but my sweet husband it was fun and easy.  Again, honey, I really love you! 

Kickball

Dodge ball

Here they are after a little football(missing a few from pic)

Wal Mart cupcakes- For Real- Cute huh?

He could not decide between pumpkins or footballs

 

Happy Birthday to the sweetest and cutest 8 year old I know(that is why his mama caved and had to have a little party) :)

Mom and Dad love you and Brady adores you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thankful for November

I feel like I can not be any more excited that our busy fall/Oct. has slowed down now that November is here.  Since I last posted, Brady has lost 2 teeth, we went to Six Flags, Cal turned 8, Matt had his 20 year class reunion, boys had Homecoming at school and Halloween.  Brady played soccer and Cal played fall ball again.  I am going to try and play fall catch-up with blogging, but decided to try starting with Halloween and go backwards. 

Cal was an alien this year.  This is his pumpkin-it has a toxic cloud mouth?

 

Brady as Mario.  This is his "flame" pumpkin

 

Not to worry, Mario had his brother Luigi (also known as Garrison).

 

Mario, Zombie, Alien and Micheal Phelps

 

The crew loaded down with candy!

 

This was a hit around our house this year.  We were "booed"!  One night our doorbell rang and their was no one there except 2 Halloween treats for the boys and a sign(to let others know we had already been hit) and a letter telling us we then had to "Boo"  2 other houses within 48 hours.  Well I got some treats together and 2 nights later we went out to boo some friends.  The boys could not have thought ringing some one's door and running was any more fun!  We actually got "booed" one more night, but just with candy, no instructions.  So fun!

 

 

 

 

 

What Happens in Vegas....

Matt and I took a trip to Las Vegas a few weeks ago to celebrate our 10 year anniversary.  We went a few weeks before our actual anniversary so we could be back before the boys started school. 

We staid at the Palazzo, which is connected to the Venetian.

We ate dinner one night next to the canal, where they were giving gondola rides.  We we pretended we were in Venice, Italy.

We ate lunch at Trevi, in front of the "Trevi Fountain".  Pretending we were in Rome, Italy this day.  Enjoyed walking around The Forum.

You can also pretend you are in Paris!

In front of a waterfall in the Venetian.

An awesome Wine Cellar at a restaurant at Mandalay Bay.  This was on one of the Bachelor/Bachelorete shows.

We had to go to the Pawn Stars Pawn Shop for the boys.  Got Cal a t-shirt.

We went to Fremont Street to see "old Las Vegas"

LOVE these 2 signs!

 

We took our own picture before we went to the show "O" at the Bellagio.  After the show we had our anniversary dinner at Olives.  It was absolutely delicious!  The restaurant over looks the Bellagio Fountains.

Our last night we ate at a cool beer pub that basically has their beer menu in a Nook type book where Matt scrolled through by type, price, etc. 

 

We ate at In and Out Burger, saw all the big hotels, went to the pool and spa, rode the big roller coaster at New York, New York, and did a lot of walking.  We joked that we wanted to go somewhere as hot as Key West was 10 years ago.  Las Vegas in August was hot, but really not that bad.  It was a really fun trip.

 

Our real anniversary was Friday the 17th.  We had a nice quiet night at home.  Cal played with the neighbors until 7:30 and Brady did not get home from playing with a friend until 7:30, so we just cooked our favorite pizza and enjoyed a night on the patio.

Caramelized Onions and Goat Cheese

And here we are on our wedding day!