Halloween 2014!!

Halloween this year was a great success!!!  And everyone wore store-bought costumes so I didn't have to make anything!  Woohoo!  Jackson wanted to be Darth Vader from the beginning... Emmett knew he wanted to be someone from Star Wars but couldn't decide at first (then finally settled on Luke Skywalker so he could have a light saber)... Reid originally wanted to be a construction worker but then wanted to be Darth Vader like Jackson... I knew J would not like that so I "gently persuaded" Reid to be Yoda instead so he could also have a light saber (and be totally adorable in that headpiece)... Poor Davis did not get a say... I decided on Chewbacca for him without his consent.  But he made the perfect mini Chewbacca... especially with his caveman grunts that kind of sounded like the noises Chewie makes!  Perfect!  They were SO excited about their costumes!  

(**sidenote:  J and E know almost everything there is to know about the Star Wars series, but only through Legos and Lego Star Wars books that they have.  We've asked several times if they want to watch the movie with Daddy, but we always get a quick and emphatic, "No thanks!!" or "No, that's okay!!"  I guess the Lego version seems safer than watching real life-size space creatures battle it out.  They are obsessed, though.)

Backing up to last weekend for a second... We went to a trunk-or-treat at a friend's church and the boys were ecstatic to get to wear their costumes out of the house before Halloween.  They had a lot of fun.

 There was a chili cookoff with mac and cheese for the kiddos, so we ate first before treating.

 

 

Then the next day we went and got our pumpkins.  No, this is not Home Depot!  We went to an amazing farm with carnival rides and ponies and haystacks and a duck pond and tractor rides to pick out our pumpkins!  Seriously, though... I searched for a fun pumpkin patch in our area and could find nothing close by so we did just go to Home Depot.  The boys were still happy, though!  (Can't believe I forgot to take Davis's pacifier out for these pictures.  :(  He barely even needs it anymore.)

Then later that afternoon we carved...

And scooped...

Note to self... Next year if the pumpkins are going to stay outside, carve the night before Halloween. Five days later this is what we were left with... Mold and fruit flies.  So gross!  They still looked okay at night with candles in them, though.

Then it was finally Halloween night!  We were all so excited!  I have always loved Halloween (the costume and trick-or-treating part at least... not the scary chainsaw/zombie haunted houses part) and it is so fun to get to relive it all through the kiddos!

Chewbacca was ready...

Yoda was ready...

Luke Skywalker was ready...

And you know Darth Vader was ready!!

And Mommy and Daddy had some wine loaded up in the stroller so we were ready, too!  The weather was perfect! Cool and breezy.

HOORAY!!! It's Halloween!!!

Before trick-or-treating we walked down to one of our neighbor's houses where everyone met up for a little cookout.  It was fun to visit with friends and get to meet some people we didn't know.

Everyone was loving Chewie... He was strutting around and making his caveman noises and was seriously so funny and cute.

We have some good friends that we do Classical Conversations (homeschool) with that also live in our neighborhood... They have a little boy right in between J and E's age and they all have so much fun together.

One of the dads brought his big truck and some of the kiddos loaded up in that to go to some of the houses.  Our boys only rode for a minute and then they wanted to walk.  There were a ton of kids and it was actually faster and easier to walk (especially for the little ones).

I'm not sure who this boozing Pink Lady is, but I like her!  How did I not meet her? I need to track her down!  Lol!

Everyone went in kind of a big clump from house to house, which was fun for the boys, but they were also sad when they got home that no one else came to the house to give candy to.  We were all done at the same time.  :)

Chewie got a little grumpy being in the stroller once everyone starting running up to houses, but we couldn't really let him run around because it was dark and there were kids everywhere!  So I took him home and we held down the fort until everyone got back.  

Post-trick-or-treating happiness!!

And ring pops!!  It was a great night!  And a great October all-around!

Nana Juilene and Papa Chuck

Several weeks ago we went and visited our great-grandparents over in Destin again.  The boys have started calling them "Nana Juilene and Papa Chuck" and I love it.  :)  We just love visiting with them.  The boys adore them and we always have such a great time chatting and laughing with them.  They had a dock built a while back and we all had a fun time hanging out on the dock fishing, swimming, and just watching the water.  

That's a bait bag for holding bait for their crab trap.  The boys loved pulling it up, checking it out, and putting it back down in the water.

We used leftover McDonald's as bait and the little fish seemed to love it... The boys didn't catch anything big, but they were catching little ones left and right and were loving it!

Here's Davis grunting and pointing at the car he dropped in the water.  (**sidenote:  We call Davis our little neanderthal because he grunts and points at EVERYTHING nowadays just like you would imagine a caveman would do.  It is hilarious.  Like here he was pointing and yelling "AAHHH-NA-NA-NHH-AH-DAD-DA-DA-HAH" or something like that which clearly means to him, "Hey look, guys!  I dropped my car in the water and now it's floating away!")  Lol!!  Papa Chuck was able to fish it out for him.  :)

It was kind of hot that day, so after a while the boys wanted to swim.  Papa Chuck put this ladder down in the water so the boys could climb out and jump in again and again.

Checking on the crab trap... No crabs that day.

Daddy's splash.  Lol.

They swam for a little bit with the life jackets, but then took them off later for more freedom.  :)  Check out the form on that cannonball!  :)

So pretty and peaceful!  We love you, Juilene and Chuck!!

Marching Chiefs and 13th Anniversary

I'm sure most people know that Phil and I met while we were both in the marching band at FSU.  Phil played the tuba and I played the flute.  Just like the two dogs from one of my favorite books when I was little...

Hahaha!

Those were seriously some of the best days of my life.  And Phil's too, I think.  Anyway... last Sunday night my sister showed me a video she saw on facebook of our band performing at halftime during the Notre Dame game.  I seriously got chill bumps watching the video.  I thought it was so awesome!  They performed songs by Beyonce and even did part of her famous dance to "Single Ladies"... one of my very favorite songs.  Oh, how I wished we had done this when I was there!  Although, was Beyonce even born when I was in college?  Lol.  I doubt it!  Here is a clip of the dancing part... I was amazed at how well they performed that dance.  I mean, getting 400 people to do those moves in sync like that?  How awesome!  And the drum majors were amazing!  At the end you get a close-up of the out-of-sync majorettes and the sound isn't great because whoever was videoing was right on the sidelines, but the dance part was awesome!  I was so proud!

When I was googling to find this video I saw that it was featured on mtv.com, buzzfeed.com, and Huffington Post... and all with great reviews!  The band even spelled out Beyonce's name at the end!  Here's a link if you want to watch the whole halftime show... You can always skip to the end to see the dance and the name from high up in the stands.  So cool!

http://vimeo.com/109468578

I found some old pictures while organizing cabinets the other day and they brought back such great memories!  Some of the most fun times in Chiefs were on the bus on the way to away games.  My first year I rode the flute bus because I didn't really know anyone, but my junior year I rode the saxophone bus and oh my gosh it was just the most fun.  Those guys and gals were so funny... we would laugh almost the entire trip.

We would watch movies and quote our favorite lines, tell jokes, and do stupid stuff like this... seeing who could leave their arm in the icy cooler water for the longest time.  HA!

This is my friend, Chad, who I dated for a while and then stayed friends with.  He was an amazing sax player and became drum major the year after I graduated.

This is my good friend, Annelis... one of the funniest people I know.  Love her!

Oh, and then there was Phil... who I had admired from afar for two years before he ever talked to me.  I had finally worked my way up the Marching Chiefs social ladder by my senior year and ventured into Phil's social bubble... and the rest is history! Here we were marching over to the game from our practice stadium and I had asked my sister to try to get a picture of Phil on the down-low.

This part was always so fun... the drums were playing and everyone was so excited for the game.

This is Heather Ambrose (and Heather Ambrose)... she was a freshman when I was a senior and we thought it was very cool that we had the same name and both played the flute!

These are my two friends Lorna and Kristin... they were both very popular in Chiefs because they were in the music sorority and knew a bunch of people from their high schools.  We became friends my junior year because we all had the same major (speech pathology) and I got to know a lot more people through them... including Phil!

My senior year after Phil finally talked to me and we hung out a little, he invited me to ride the Flush bus (the tubas were called the Royal Flush) on away trips.  Everyone was supposed to ride the bus according to the section they were in (flutes, clarinets, flags, etc.) unless there was room on another bus and you got invited by someone in that section.  You can imagine my complete excitement when Phil asked me to ride the Flush bus... They were viewed as one of the "coolest" sections and their bus was so funny and so much fun.  And besides, look how cute Phil was! Here they were performing some skit while we drove to the game.

 The first few months of our relationship I was half in disbelief that he liked me and half totally ecstatic.  I mean, seriously... I had noticed him for two years (he was one of the fittest guys in the whole band and would march around with his shirt off during practice... hubba hubba... how could I not notice him??) and just thought he was so cool and cute and never in a million years thought that we would end up together!

His tuba friends were so, so funny.  Witty, dry, sarcastic humor that is exactly what we love.  Phil and I were just talking the other day about how we have never laughed as much in our lives as we did during Chiefs. 

I didn't know Phil was in Air Force ROTC until after we started dating... A few weeks after we first talked he climbed up some big wall for ROTC and I went out to watch him... It was parents' weekend so my mom and dad came, too, which was probably kind of weird but what was I supposed to do with my parents?  Lol!

And this is one of my very favorite pictures (that I've probably shared on here before).  Here we are at the Fiesta Bowl National Championship in Tempe, AZ our senior year.  We played Tennessee and lost the game, but it was such a fun trip.  The whole band flew out there on a 747 jet! We were very lucky that we went to FSU during some good years... we went to the National Championship twice while we were there (and lost both times, but still)!

I could never have imagined what an amazing husband and father Phil would be.  I know it is such an true blessing to be married to my soul mate and best friend who understands me, loves me unconditionally, and always makes me laugh.  I am so very, very thankful for him... and so very thankful for the amazing organization that brought us together and the wonderful memories we share from that.  Here we are out for our 13th anniversary a few weeks (two months) ago...

And just to end on a humorous note... these cards were on a blog that I read and I thought they were so funny and true!  :) I love you, Phil!