One Good Halloween...

Cupcakes.

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A Costume Parade:

The Conductor.

His class.

No two-year-old, because I forgot.

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The only photo I took at the Corn Maze:

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A Halloween Carnival at church:

Two monkeys names Hayes. No kidding!

Games.

Buddies. "CHEESE!"

Food Trucks. And chips. 

(Hayes says chips backwards and it sounds like B****. We cannot help but laugh. He loves chips.)

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October 31st:

Pizza at Grammy and Bee's pre-trick-or-treat.

One conductor. 

One cotton candy.

One grumpy Curious George.

She is "THE SWEETEST."

Lots of kids. Lots of candy. Fun with Aunt Abby. 

(The two-year-old had screamed his way back to The Sienna (mini-van) by this time.)

One cool kid who was very proud of his costume and the general awesome-ness of the evening.

So tired but having fun!

The recovering two-year-old with the pro trick-or-treater. I saw them sitting together and ran Lillie over for a photo....the only one with all three of my kiddos.

Three is a lot. Halloween is fun. Good night!  

Costume Building And Why You Shouldn't Listen To Your Mother

Last week Bryan built Parker his POLAR EXPRESS costume. He did an awesome job and I am so thankful that I have a husband who is excited to do stuff like this for our children.

I tried sooooooo hard to get Parker to be something else other than The Polar Express. (Ya know, since he was a train last year and since The Polar Express is for CHRISTMAS and not Halloween.)

Here are our conversations:

Me: Parker, what do you want to be for Halloween?

Parker: How about......A MONSTER TRUCK?

Me: Okay! That sounds cool!

Parker: OR......I could be....THE POLAR EXPRESS!

Me: Well, but The Polar Express is for Christmas. How about you be something else?

Parker: Okay! How about....A FIRETRUCK?

Me: Yes! That's an awesome idea.

Parker: OR.....I could be....THE POLAR EXPRESS!

(Repeat with various methods of transportation about 23 more times.)

We gave in.

Also, THIS IS WHAT I DEAL WITH ON A DAILY BASIS.

100% Bryan's idea. This is the G-Rated version.

Hayes did nothing else but toot and laugh today. I mean it. I don't remember a single other thing that he did.

Good thing I have this little lady.

But back to THE POLAR EXPRESS (I always think of it in a yell because that's how Parker says it. He says it a lot, too.)

Parker wore his costume all weekend and got so many compliments. I will try and do another post on trick-or-treating for my two other children who were incredibly adorable BUT I must write this first: Parker was videoed while we were trick-or-treating and after we got home we were de-lighted to see him in the Halloween segment on the news. I laughed so hard. (Link right here.)We were so shocked and even more shocked to wake up today with the news station searching for the "mystery train conductor" on Facebook! Well, they found him thanks to a few of my friends and now they will be doing a story on Parker and his love for the Polar Express! I am totally not kidding, either. 

The local Polar Express that runs at Christmastime is letting him be a honorary conductor one night on the train, but SHHHHH! It's a surprise to Parker!

I still can't believe it. This is why you should never listen to your mother when she tells you, "Just be something else for Halloween."

(And I'm out of time....see how good I'm doing!?)

It's Going Fast. And Halloween (Yep!)

Hello! I am trying to come to terms with the fact that it is already the end of January. Wait. What.

Time flies after you have kids. If you want to stay young and have lots of time and energy, don't have kids. BUT if you want to have so much fun and be so exhausted and have no time but have SO much fun, then have kids. They are fun.

Alrighty….let's go right back to Halloween. If you make it through this post you are obviously a member of my family.

Parker is doing new things and being quite hilarious each and every day, but unfortunately I forget most of it. I do know though, that he is funny. He is SO TWO. Like, he is 100% two, and he tests us multiple times a day, in many ways. Sometimes he is adamant on being completely independent…actually most of the time he is adamant about that, but sometimes we still get to see the sweet little babe that he was. I love it all but am SO tired. But happy.

And this little mister…well he doesn't look like this anymore. Not in the slightest! Good grief, it makes me sad how fast they change.

Those wrinkles just kill me. Hayes has completely filled out and is quite the chunky monkey now. Still has a sweet temperament though. He is a terrible napper, but a good snuggler, and has just started laughing.

I'm trying to remember the details of Halloween but it seems like a century ago and I was extremely sleep deprived at the time so I'm not surprised that I've forgotten a lot. I do know that Parker was completely uninterested in carving pumpkins, with the exception of the minion pumpkin that I managed to freehand (He has a thing for minions--talks like them all the time…"dee doh dee doh", and all of that. I know that I am truly a mom since I think it's pretty hilarious.) We managed to venture out to school to watch his costume parade and to see that he was, quite literally, the ONLY kid (baby or big), to parade around with his paci and blankie in tow. I am quite proud to say that we nipped that thing in the bud this week though! We spent months hyping it up too much, I'm now sure. I was tired of that dang paci last week, so we just took it. No warnings, no "paci parties", or "paci fairies", or saying "we lost it"…we just stopped giving it to him. And it worked!

Now to potty train. We have tried. And tried. But he is not interested yet. One day! (Hopefully before he is 18 3.)

Let's see…we had a mishap with Hayes' costume, meaning that I had it shipped to our old address and didn't figure this out until the night before Halloween. So that was fun. Thankfully my good, good husband made two trips to our old neighborhood, thoroughly freaking out the new owner during the first trip, and then eventually talking to our old next door neighbor who was able to assure the little old lady that now lives there that Bryan was not a burglar, just a guy with a dingy wife who needed a Halloween costume.

Anyways, we got it, and Hayes was able to be the cutest little football there ever was :). Also, my hair looks really good there. I am sorry to say that postpartum hair loss has officially begun this week. I was hoping it wouldn't get me this time, but is definitely has. Bummer man! I like all that hair.

Hayes was also the only one who would pose with the pumpkins. (Two has not been the most photo-ready year for Parker…they have class pictures at school next week…Lord help them.)

Oh gosh, Parker also completely crashed right before we left for Trunk or Treat. We couldn't resist laying Mr. Hayes right next to him to get a few brother photos.

After that I believe we woke the poor child up, took him to the church where he refused to do any trunk-or-treating whatsoever, gave a few adults blank stares when they told him how cute he was, and cried while riding the Halloween train. He perked up though when we went out for pizza and gave him some diet coke. ;) I'll go ahead and consider it a success since it ended in smiles and since it was Hayes' first Halloween which made it a very sweet day in many ways. Did I mention my parents and Laura were there? So it was great. We had fun! Now on to Thanksgiving.

Snapshots.

Hello and Happy Thanksgiving!! I am currently sitting in my PJ's, not watching football. My three boys are seated around me, sleeping and/or screaming. We are at my parents house, and Parker has certainly gotten a kick out of Thanksgiving festivities already with the help of the Macy's parade and an unlimited supply of marshmallows and chocolate pie filling (courtesy of his Nonnie). Here is a hint: He (for obvious reasons) is the one doing most of the screaming. ;)

I'm not going to attempt to catch up on too much of our lives, mostly just show pictures for the sake of my family's need of them. You are welcome, Nanny! These have been sitting in a draft post for the last month….

My mom's side of the family came to meet Hayes when he was a week and a half old. We had so much fun sitting in the backyard, eating at Rosa's, and monitoring Papaw's volume level on the tv. ;) 

Nanny got in some good snuggles with a very tiny and wrinkly Hayes. So squishy and little! I cannot think about how much he has already changed. 

Hayes was also given his first Rangers baseball cap courtesy of Aunt Cindy. I have yet to get a photo of him in it, mostly because it still swallows his head, but we are excited about it! I always remember thinking that my Aunt Cindy was SO cool when I was kid because she always wanted to play with us and it was evident that Parker feels the same way--he became a bit obsessive about her and Aunt Kathy (who I've also referred to as Mom #2). My boys were also blessed with some beautiful quilts from Nanny, one with trains on it which Parker seriously freaked out about. (Trains are our thing.) I love my family and am so happy to see them love my kids. 

That weekend we headed to the Corn Maize which Parker thoroughly enjoyed, although the rest of us could have done without the flies. It was such a cute place though! We looked at the animals, ran in the mini hay maize, went on a hay ride to pick a pumpkin (which P was thoroughly uninterested in), and ate WAY too much kettle corn. But it was good. Too good. And Hayes slept the whole time.

We also got in our fill of Halloween activites. We made our second trip to the LCU trick or treat in the girls dorms, which Parker, for the second time, was overwhelmed by. Maybe next year. And Hayes slept the whole time. ;)

Here is a not great picture of one of the halls. In my day (because I'm so old) we just decorated our doors but now they do whole themes and you can't see more than 10 feet in front of you. It's fun! Parker (and Bryan) also didn't care when I told them this as we walked past my old room.

And there's the face he gives when asked to smile. 

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Alright. It is now Sunday. This is why I never blog--I run out of time! We have had a great time in CO this weekend and are about to head back to LBK. Bryan is looking at me like I need to get off the computer so I will. I do have a ton of pictures from Halloween, the month of November, and now Thanksgiving break (including a picture of Hayes and Santa!), but that will have to wait. Parker wanted nothing to do with Santa, just FYI. He walked up, looked at him, said, "Nope.", and walked away. ;) So fun.

Wish us luck on our looooong trip back. Adios!