THREE!!!

 Somehow this sweet baby

 turned into this sweet THREE year old yesterday!!

 We had the traditional senior citizen party (where you have to be over the age of 65 to be invited)

 where he was showered with gifts.

 We ate dinner, sang happy birthday,

 blew out a candle,

 and loved on this goofy boy,

by giving him lots of animals!! It was a great two days and I think he felt celebrated!

We love you Elliott! You are the perfect completion of our family. You are smart, funny, and independent. Your favorite person is your big brother- even when he tries to be your third parent! In general I dread the age of three, but I am naively hopeful that you will break the trend and be a non tantrum throwing delight!! Even if you throw a tantrum daily- we will still love you to the moon and back!  Happy Birthday buddy!!

Soccer Mom

Well, it had to happen sooner or later. I have become a soccer mom. Or at least, I have a kid in soccer, I drive a van, and I go to the practices/games (or whatever you want to call a bunch of 4 and 5 year olds chasing a ball around a field). That potentially is the exact definition of a soccer mom...but I haven't taken snacks yet, so I don't think it's official!! :)

We decided to go with the city league and it has been perfect for this age/stage of life. It is one hour a week for 8 weeks. The first three weeks was introducing them to the ball and the last 5 weeks consist of practice and a scrimmage. Nolan loves it and has NO idea what is going on 95% of the time. We laugh a whole lot!

Here are a few choice pictures to commemorate this period of our lives.

 Here is where he scratches his head in confusion...

 Here he is actually kicking the ball towards the goal (didn't go in btw)...

 Here is where we would name him Crazy Hair if we were Native Americans...

 Here he looks like he is focusing and paying attention (not a normal shot)...

 Here he appears to be kicking the ball IN THE WRONG DIRECTION!!!

Here he is laughing off the whole "wrong direction" thingy...

 Here he is shoving a sweet little girl out of the way. Soccer is a full contact sport, right??

 Here he is sweaty and needing to go to bed!!!!

 And this is how little brothers survive soccer practice...

 They play on the ipad. Welcome to 2012!

My playdate

Every Thursday Elliott is in school until 1:00 but Nolan gets out at 12:00. I didn't want to pay for late stay, so I pick him up and we try to go somewhere "special". Twice I have taken him to the park to eat a picnic together and then we play on the playground or I come up with something else. I would like to deceive you into thinking that this is an hour of bliss with my first born where we have deep discussions, laugh, and play, (because that's how I envisioned it when I first made this plan) but the reality is that both times we have done this his teacher has come to the car to tell me that he's had a rough day and would not do his work. Our "date" has consisted of me trying to get out of him why he won't do his work, lecturing on the importance of working hard, and him being completely distracted by the flies buzzing around his food. I mean- so distracted that he can't eat. Wow- I can feel my blood pressure rising as I type the words! So, it hasn't been ideal. This week I tried really hard to address the issue and then move on and enjoy our time. I came prepared with his soccer ball and my camera. Once I forced myself not to be frustrated with him we had a good time. He wanted to use my camera and it was fun to see him look at life through the lens.

These are the pictures Nolan took.

So the moral of this story is:

• life isn't always as blissful as you plan it to be
• my child might have focusing issues- or he might be a normal 4 year old. No idea, never done this before.
• maybe I should chuck the park idea and plan to eat inside
• parenting is the hardest thing I have ever done. Ever!!
• I love him to pieces and he'll be just fine!! :)

First Days

School started here last week...FINALLY!!! I will say, June and July were fairly delightful and August was long!!! We survived, and even thrived at times this summer. I keep meaning to do a longer post to recap the summer, you know- thoughts and musings- but it might not happen, so here are the required first day pictures.

On Tuesday Nolan started K-4. He will be going 4 mornings a week. I think that his teacher is going to be a great fit and he's starting to get glimpses that school isn't all about playing. Hopefully he will fully understand that before K-5 or he'll be in for quite the shock!!

Elliott started on Thursday in the 2 year old class, two mornings a week. He has the same teacher that Nolan had at that age and we love Ms. Pam!!

I was going to get a picture of the boys together but the battery on my camera died the second after I got this shot. This seems to be a trend in my life!!! Maybe I'll charge batteries now that I have two "free" mornings. But probably not! :)

Zoo & Lake

Jerel had another week of vacation this past week and we were able to do a few fun things with the boys. We had always heard that the Columbia Zoo was a great place, and since we hadn't taken the family truckster on a road trip yet, we decided to go on a mini-adventure.

It really was a great zoo and a highlight of the day was feeding the giraffes. The zoo must make a fortune on this gig alone! :)

Isn't she cute???

I tried to get a picture of the boys together. This is the best I could do...

The other 300 looked more like this...

or this...

I'm already dreading getting a Christmas picture. And I have no idea what's going on with Nolan's hair!

Another highlight was riding the merry-go-round. Nolan picked the tiger and Elliott picked the rhinoceros, of course.

On another day we took the boys out to a friends' lake house. They had been asking to go fishing. It wasn't exactly a hot spot for fish, but they had a good time.

We took Bailey also. She wasn't 100% sure about the situation but became quite the swimmer that day.

We took the boys on kayaks to "pirate island" to look for buried treasures. Jerel went back to get Bailey and brought her over to the island and she was in puppy heaven. I don't have any pictures. Two small boys, kayaks, a dog, a island, and a camera don't mix well!! :) I didn't risk it!!

In other news, school starts tomorrow. WOO-HOOO!!! Not that I'm excited!! :)

Bob & Bailey

This is Bob.

He showed up at my back door last summer as a starving kitten. I told him he could stay if he was willing to live outside. Apparently, he was willing.

This is Bailey.

We scoured the earth for our perfect dog...and this is what we came up with.

"Wook mom- da kitty!!! I  gotta go see da kitty!"

Aaahhh- look. Bob is so happy to see Bailey. He wants to give her a hug!

Oh wait. Maybe that's not a hug.

Yep. It's officially NOT a hug.

Hugh. Live and learn!!

July- here and gone!

I hate when I get behind on blogging. I hate that the more behind I get, the more I just don't want to try to catch up because it's going to take me a million hours to upload pictures. And if I had a million hours in the first place- I wouldn't be behind! I guess this is the viscous cycle so many of my friends have found themselves in and stop blogging. Yes...YOU know who you are!!! ;) So, I will just dump a ton of pictures on here, leave a caption or two and consider myself caught up!

A couple weeks ago Jerel had the week off and we checked off more of our Greenville bucket list. I am amazed that there are still things that we want to do here and just haven't been able to get to them yet. I am telling you- this place is great!

First, we went to ride George the train. I wish that I had taken a better picture but for $3 a ticket you get to ride on this cute little train two times around the track. The boys loved it. We took Nolan's friend Will. We just love him and would let him become a Warren if his Mama would let him. She just had twins (# 4 & 5) so she might not notice for a day or two if he moved in!! :)

Another day we ate at the Runway Cafe.  We have a really small downtown airport that the private jets fly in and out of. Recently they opened a fairly good restaurant where you can sit almost out on the runway and watch the planes. I will say- it was a great idea...not such great execution. A nasty storm rolled in while we were there and Nolan FREAKED OUT!!! It's hard when you want your 4 year old to act like a 24 year old! ;) We will go back when the skies are bluer!

However after the nasty storm we headed to TCBY for Waffle Cone Wednesday. Apparently .99 cent ice cream is healing for a frazzled soul! 

Then we (ok, Jerel) spent a ton of time hunting down the perfect family truckster. I will admit- I never wanted a van, but it is really nice and oh so easy with the boys! Only 13 more years and I will never drive another one!!

Our other adventure was out to Holly Wild, which is kind of a red neck zoo/safari where there are animals that have been in movies, commercials, and tv shows. The boys, especially Elliott, loved it. As a side note- Elliott LOVES LOVES LOVES animals. Especially farm or safari type animals. As you look through my blog you can always play "what animal does Elliott have in his hand?". There is always one there. Always!

 Yep- my child has his hand in that animals mouth!

This rhinoceros is named Tank. Elliott's rhinoceros that is in his hand in these pictures is now named Tank as well. Cute kid!!

We then went out on this old ghetto bus for a "safari" and got to feed all these beautiful animals bread. It was actually really cool.

My sweet Nolan didn't actually have a great day. He was a little scared to feed the animals and a yellow jacket flew up his shirt and stung him. But if you ask him he will tell you 1) he had the best time, and 2) he is allergic to bees. He isn't!

That day I left for Atlanta for 3 glorious days with my best friend Kelly. We are able to get together every summer for a weekend and it is such a special time. I think this is the first summer that one of us wasn't either pregnant or just had a baby. I don't have any pictures from the weekend but this is us at my wedding.

And this is all the stuff we bought...

My sweet husband who is the best- kept the boys while I was playing. Thankfully, it was cow appreciation day! He was so brave to dress them up and they had a blast!

All right people- peace out!!!