Georgia Trip-Animals

So, I really don't have any good way of organizing my Georgia posts. So, I'm just going through the pictures I took and want to post and finding grouping my posts that way. So, today's theme is animals. There's a few nice dogs in my parents area that aren't on leashes. The boys love dogs (especially Evan) so when they would come in my parents yard, we'd let them pet the dogs. My parents are very familiar with these dogs, we didn't just let them go up to random, wild dogs and start petting them. There's also a few places very close by that had horses, ducks, goats, etc. One day, we took the boys up the road to pet the goats. These were the craziest, most aggressive goats I've ever seen. They are not like the sweet, mild natured goats at Yoders' that we're used to. So, we didn't stay long, But, the boys enjoyed it anyways. 

Evan loves animals and has no fear. He gets so excited.



Carter loves animals too, but isn't as fearless as Evan. It takes him a minutes to warm up and get the courage to pet them.

The goats.

Santa Pictures

Last weekend we took the boys to the mall to see Santa. We figured we'd take them early to beat the crowds and so we'd have the picture to put in with our Christmas cards and newsletter. I'm glad we did because there were only 3 people in front of us and it was still a pretty good wait. The photographers are really nice and try and get the best pictures and they offer a ton of different packages, so some parents were getting several different poses. We always just get the cd, so we can print as many pictures we want, in any size we want. And we can also email the image and upload it to Facebook or the blog.

We weren't sure how it was going to go this year since the boys are old enough to be scared of him. We thought Evan would be ok and Carter might cry and we were right. Evan was obviously a little confused because normally he'll smile for people, but he just sat there with the most serious look, but he didn't cry. Carter cried as soon as we put him on his lap. He calmed down a little and we were able to get a couple of pictures, but he still looks so pitiful in them. Both boys were fine when we left, and Evan even waved and smiled at Santa then.

Here's our pictures.

 

And here's the boys last year with Santa. It's crazy how much they've changed. I love having these kinds of pictures to compare them from year to year. 

Trip to Georgia-Old Friends

During our trip to Georgia, we had the chance to get together with some old friends of ours. Carter and I had a playdate with my friend, Megan and her daughter, Elizabeth who is two weeks older than our boys. I left Evan at home with my mom, so it'd be easier to watch Carter and also so I would have a chance to talk and not be worried about chasing two boys around. I actually went to middle school with Megan in Arizona. Thanks to Facebook, a lot of us that went to middle school together have been able to stay in touch. I love catching up with old friends, it's interesting to see people you haven't seen since 8th grade all grown up with kids.

We went to a brand new park that was just built. It was really nice. Here's Elizabeth and Carter.

Here's the slides for the older kids. Isn't that crazy?! It was huge. It's definitely a great place to bring older kids.

Carter loved this bee riding thing. He played on it most of the time we were there.

 After the kids played a little, we headed to Chick-Fil-A for lunch. This is always a hit with the boys, they love the chicken fingers and fruit cup. This is me and Greg's number one pick for lunch when we're out with the boys, I'm sure we'll be going there even more when they get old enough to play in the play area. I thought the kids looked so cute. They did really good. I'm so glad we were able to meet up.

Another day while we were there, I took Evan to go see my friend Melissa and her daughter, Madison. I went to high school with Melissa and we've stayed in touch ever since. I'm awful about calling people (who has time to talk on the phone?) but every time we go in, we try and stop by and see her. Her daughter is 3 1/2 and was really sweet with Evan. She had this play house in her yard and we let them play while we talked.

We also went to see my friend Jennie. She lives right down the road from my parents, and I took both Evan and Carter to see her. Jennie and I actually went to elementary school together in Massachusettes and then had English together in high school. I went to her high school for one semester and during that time, we became good friends. After I transferred schools, we still stayed close and hung out all the time. She actually stopped by my house one day in 10th grade and said "get dressed, you're going on a double date with me and this guy". So, I went with her and the guy she was dating and met his roommate to go to a movie. His roommate happened to be Greg, and we've been together ever since. Crazy, huh? She always happens to live close to my parents, when my parents were at their old house, she lived 2 minutes up the road. Now both her and my parents have moved and live less than 10 miles from each other. It makes seeing her when I'm in town so easy.

The boys at her house. I knew I wanted to see her kids and how much they've changed since I saw them last, and she'd want to meet both my boys, so I brought both of them with me. I quickly remembered why I had chose to leave one boy at home while going out. The boys were wound up and all over the place.

Her cat just had kittens and the boys loved them. They were chasing her cats around the kitchen. Poor cats.

Jennie's daughter, Kayla,  letting Carter pet a kitten.  Kayla was SO sweet with the boys. After Carter dumped the cat food on the kitchen floor (my boys are little terrors) she was like "it's ok, I'll pick it up" she gently led one out of the kitchen after he was opening the cabinets, she held the kittens for them to pet, she was just the sweetest thing!!

And just for fun, here's a picture of me with Kayla on Christmas eve 2005. I can't believe how much she's grown.

Jennie's husband, Joey, let the boys sit in his truck. They loved it.

Evan loved their fireplace. He did take a faceplant off of it, but that didn't stop him from wanting to play on it.

I didn't get any pictures of her son, Daniel, because he got home right before I left, but he was a little sweetheart, too. She has such great kids. I still remember the night that Jennie went into labor with him. It was my first night as a server at Don Pablos and she came in and it was the same night that the singer James Brown came in. We always joked that the spicy salsa caused her to go into labor with Daniel.

I had such a great time seeing some old friends when we went in. It's so fun to see them all as parents now. I still have several pictures from Georgia that'll probably take up another 3-4 posts.

Trip to Georgia-Parks

While we were in Georgia, we tried to take the boys to the park pretty often. It's a great way to let them get some of their energy out, it's free, and they sleep so much better after they've been outside playing. There were a few parks to choose from. There was the best toddler park that was about 10 mintues from my parents house. It had a Little Tykes playhouse, and slide set that was all plastic and the perfect size for them. There was NEVER anybody at this park, we passed it every day on the way to town and we never saw anybody else playing there. It was kinda creepy, I'm not sure why more people didn't take advantage of it.

There were also two parks in town that were a pretty far drive, so we only went twice. Once me and my mom took both boys and once I met a friend at one for a playdate.

The boys on the slide set at the toddler park.

There was this old shopping cart at the toddler park that the boys loved. It was worn out and the wheels were broken and they weren't able to push it, but they still liked to try and they also liked to climb inside it.

Mamaw and Carter at one of the parks in town.

Evan at the park in town. The park in town was much nicer, but was also for older kids. I kinda liked taking them to the toddler park, it wasn't as new, but it's much easier when they're able to get on everything.

It was really pretty at the park in town. There were tables set up for picnics, lots of trees, water that the boys loved looking at, etc.

The toddler park.

This was a bench in the toddler park, it was next to an adult size bench. It was the perfect place for the boys to rest and get a quick drink before going back to playing.

I think this was by far, Evan's favorite part of the park. He would spend most of his time in this house. They both loved going in and out of it and looking out the windows. I wish a park near us in Virginia had one of these.

I'm glad we were able to find some parks to bring the boys to while we were in Georgia. Especially the toddler park that was close by, perfect size for them, and was always empty. We were really lucky to have that  nearby.

Boys First Trip to Georgia

I'm a little behind on blogging about our trip to Georgia, and we were there for over 2 weeks. So the next several posts are probably going to be pretty long and all about our trip. I really do treat this blog as the boys baby book/my journal, so I want to make sure I put all the details that I may want to look back on someday.

Greg had a two week, intense Microsoft bootcamp in Atlanta, so we coordinated our trip around that. We left on Thursday November 3rd for Augusta, where my parents live. Greg spent that first night there, and then the next day he drove up to Atlanta for his class which started that Saturday. He came back to Augusta on 18th. We came back home on Monday, November 28th. Greg missed the boys like crazy, so I tried to take pictures every day to email him so he could see what they were up to. So, I got a lot of pictures on my iphone, but not as many as I wanted on my normal camera, so most of the pictures I post will be camera pics. So, anyways, on to blogging about our trip.

We decided to leave at 3:00am for Georgia, hoping that the boys would fall back to sleep in the car and sleep for a couple of hours before waking up for the day. Our plan worked great and the boys slept really good and woke up about 6:00. It's an 8 hour drive to Augusta, so we already had 3 easy hours out of the way. The boys like to eat as soon as they wake up, so we pulled over at an exit with a McDonald's, but it was still under construction. The only other restaurant was a Shoney's, so we decided to go in and eat there. We changed the boys out of their pjs and into their clothes. We decided to get the boys the kid's buffet, and the sweet server felt bad charging us for two kids buffets because it's free when adult's eat, but Greg and I weren't eating. So, she only charged us for one, which was nice. The boys ate breakfast and we let them walk around a little. Then we loaded them back into the car and gave them some new toys we had bought just for the trip. They played a little and then went back to sleep for their first nap. When they woke up after their first nap around 9-10, we stopped at McDonald's and changed their diapers, let them stretch their legs and fed them a snack. They played really well in the car until we were about an hour away from my parents house, that's when Evan started to get a little bored and antsy. He wasn't too bad, though, we just had to pretty much stay turned around and kept handing him toys, his sippy cup, etc. We felt like the drive down there went great. It's normally about a 7-8 hour drive, that's a long drive for two, very active 14 month old boys. We thought leaving at 3:00am worked out great.

It was so exciting to get to my parents house since they had built a new house since we'd been to Georgia last. I've been dying to see their new house. The boys settled right in and were running around like crazy. Greg went and took a nap as soon as we got there and me and my mom just watched the boys run around like maniacs. They were so wound up. I had bought them a few toys and had them shipped to my parents house, including two riding toys, so they were also hyped up from getting to play with new toys. They ended up taking an afternoon nap, and went down really easy. I was very surprised. After my dad got home from work and Greg woke up from his nap, we all ate dinner, bathed the boys and put them down to bed. My parents live in a 2 story house with the master bedroom downstairs and 4 bedrooms upstairs. Greg and I got a room, my sister has her room, and each boy got their own room, which was great. The boys adjusted to sleeping in their pack-n-plays right away.

We were completely exhausted from our trip and slept so good that night. That was our first day in Georgia. I won't be doing the recap day by day, but I thought the first day deserved it's own post.

Here's some pictures I took on my iphone of the drive down.

At Shoney's. this is how Evan eats. He loves to cram as much as he can into his mouth.

Evan sleeping in the car.

I don't know why this picture uploaded like this. The waitress gave the boys crayons and Carter held on to his the entire time he ate. It was cute.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving. We had a very, very low key Thanksgiving this year. We're still recovering from our trip to Georgia, catching up on sleep, housework, laundry, etc. So, we decided to do Thanksgiving as easy as possible this year, especially since the boys are too young to know whether or not we had all the traditional sides or if what we had was homemade. We ordered a precooked turkey, stuffing, and gravy from Kroger, which I picked up this morning. We had instant mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, deviled eggs (I bought the eggs already hard boiled--I wasn't joking about doing it easy) rolls, and some cranberry sauce. For dessert, we had a Sara Lee pumpkin cheesecake. Even though I didn't have to make much, it was still a lot of cooking things in the oven (the turkey, stuffing had to be put in the oven to reheat and the gravy had to be cooked on the stovetop). After preparing everything, feeding the boys and cleaning up, I was exhausted. It definitely wasn't as good a traditional, homemade Thanksgiving but I'm so glad we did it the way we did, we couldn't not have handled anymore. And doing it this way, gave us time to get some things done around the house and spend lots of time playing with the boys and taking them to the park. I didn't get a ton of pictures today, but here's the few I did get.

I love the boys Thanksgiving shirts, I'm pretty much obsessed with personalized iron ons.

 Evan, with his black,scratched eye. It actually doesn't look that bad in the picture, it looks worse in person. He fell in his room, but he was such a trooper about it and hardly cried. I think it bothered me more than him.

Starting off with the turkey, Carter loved it, Evan didn't, which is unusual. Evan is usually the one who pretty much likes anything we give him.

Carter doesn't really like mashed potatoes and these were no exception. He also didn't seem all that crazy about the stuffing. Both boys gobbled up some green bean casserole when they got a sample at Sam's Club last weekend, but today they picked out the french onions and ate those.

The boys were so cute with their forks. I thought they did pretty good with them.

Carter loved the turkey, rolls, and some of the green bean bake. He also liked anything dipped in gravy. Evan seemed to like pretty much everything but the turkey. It was fun eating Thanksgiving dinner with the boys because it was their first one. Last year, they weren't eating solids yet. Here's a picture from last year's Thanksgiving, I can't believe how much they've changed.

Tomorrow I'm going to try and get my Christmas decorations up and we're also going to try and get our Christmas shopping started this weekend. I have a lot of blogging to get caught up on. I can't wait to post pictures and talk about our trip to Georgia. You'll notice that we didn't have sweet potatoes or pecan pie on the menu this year, that's because right before we left for Georgia, we discovered Carter had a peanut allergy, so I'd like to do a post about that day, and a few other things that I want to post about, mostly for my memory's sake. I've missed blogging these past couple of weeks, I'm excited to get caught up on those posts. I hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving and if you're going Black Friday shopping I hope you get some great deals!!