We love our daddy!

I was putting Ben to bed last night when I heard in the other room, Evan reading stories to Sulli. This is not a surprising thing as Evan always reads the bedtime stories. But last night I was just giggling inside because he was reading a new-to-us book that Sulli's Mimi gave us (were Evan's books as a wee lad). They are Sesame Street books and Evan was reading each story trying to get the character voices just right. This just cracks me up! And earlier that day, he got the boys all dressed and ready to go along with packing a picnic lunch. The boys all came and got me at church and we had a great afternoon at the zoo.

After we had dinner, Evan was wrestling with Sulli. Sulli says to him, "tonight you are going to hurt!" which cracked us both up. You would think that we have WWF on 24/7 the way that Sulli drops the moves on Evan and the words that he says. This has got to be one of those innate traits of boys...where do they get this stuff?? Shortly after that proclamation, Evan came up wounded with a bloody nose. Sulli was right...he dropped the hammer for sure!

I just had to do a post letting my hubby know that he is an amazing daddy and I am so thankful that my boys have him. Your efforts do not go unnoticed or unappreciated...sometimes just not pointed out. I thank you for being so amazing with our boys and providing them with a Godly example.

And honey...um, I am thanking you in advance for all that you are going to do with them tonight as I feel like crap and will be handing them over at the door when you get home! Love you.

Punkin' Patch!

The weather outside is amazing right now. This is why I love fall! We took advantage of the weather and went to the pumpkin patch with the Connelly's on Friday. We had a great time picking out the perfect pumpkin.
Sulli and the rest of the kids enjoyed a barrell train ride pulled by a riding lawn mower! You can see Trevar seated behind Sulli. The other 2 kiddos were at the very front!
Sulli also got to ride a pony and see the animals at the petting zoo. These were familiar animals to us as they are all from the "Star Zoo" which is right by our house. We frequent this little zoo on our evening walks.
Sulli stopped ever so briefly for this photo op while running crazily through the hay bale maze. He had an awesome time with the other kids.
We returned back to the Connelly's for some dang good chili and fun times. Thanks again for making it happen Doug and Heather. We had a wonderful time with you.

What I like about you!

Ok, so I have been tagged by Steph to share a bit about myself...6 items to be exact. You have caught me on a sleepy night where I am not feeling super creative and will probably be sharing some fairly obvious facts about myself...but here goes!

1. My baby Ben is so dang cute, funny, and busy! My favorite things about him right now are his 4 front teeth that are constantly biting everything, his version of clapping which is flapping his arms up and down, how he plays "fetch" by crawling around with toys in his mouth, and his adorable "mama" and "dada" babble. He brightens our days and makes us smile constantly. 2. Laughter! I love to laugh and these boys know how to make me do it! I love how silly my husband is and how that is carrying over into my boys. We have a good time around our house as you can see. I think that Sulli is just slightly over the weight limit on the Bjorn...actually I think he was over the weight limit at 9 months! Sulli makes me laugh constantly with his stories and general conversation. He asked me this morning about the baby in daddy's belly (we have been talking a lot about babies in bellies due to my friend Kate who is almost due). I said again that boys don't have babies in their bellies, that only girls can have babies. He looked at me like I had just said something so insulting and said, "I know that mom. I am just pretending." I should have known! And the holiday that is upcoming is called "Halloweenia" at our house. I am thinking that this came from some of my choir songs that have "Halleluiah" in them. Oh he is a funny little guy!
3. I love to eat. I love to eat good food. I love being spoiled and going to nice restaurants and not holding back. I love getting an appetizer, a wonderful meal, and of course a dessert. If I had unending funds and could spend money on whatever I wanted to, I would choose to eat out at a nice place frequently so that I could spoil my tummy. Of course, it is fun to share these meals with good friends. I was able to share one of these meals last night with the birthday girl Amy and close to popping Kate. Good food...good friends...good times! And actually I have been spoiled lately because I had another yummy meal a couple of weeks ago when Evan and I had a date night. Oh, I am drooling thinking of food.

I also am a closet junk food eater. Not much in the closet though...if you know me, you know that I love the junk. I guess the quantities that I can eat are what I keep in the closet. During grad school, I had days where I sat on the couch with my school books, a package of Oreos and a glass of milk and easily finished off a row...or two. Mmmm...gotta quit with the food talk!

4. Along the lines of food and eating, I love the fall. I love everything about the fall. The air, the colors, the coolness, and...the food. What is better than corn on the cob, fresh peaches, grilled zucchini and chicken/apple sausages. Man, you would think that I haven't eaten in days...nope. Quite full actually-just a bit obsessed...can you tell?

I think that I also love fall because of all of the fun holidays that come during or after it. Gearing up for Thanksgiving and Christmas are so much fun again now that we have kids.

5. I have regrets in life as I am sure that most of us do. I will share one of these regrets with you. In high school, I feel that I was a quitter. I did not stick with volleyball because I wasn't competitive enough and didn't want to put forth the effort that it was going to take in order to get better. I had opportunities to spend the summer in Hawaii training with my professional beach volleyball playing cousin in order to better my game. I chose not to and decided to quit playing instead. I also quit dancing. I love to dance and had so much fun doing it. But it was a huge time committment. And instead of sticking with it and putting in the time, I quit. I regret both of these decisions greatly because I just scratched the surface on some skills that I really could have developed. I feel like I sold myself short by not pushing myself to get better.

6. I wish that I had a green thumb and more time. With these two combined I would love to be a gardener. I am envious of my little sister in that she is an amazing gardener. There are several reasons for my wanting this talent. First, how amazing to start something as a seed and knowing that by nurturing that little seed, you can get something wonderful from it. But more importantly, I would love to not be so dependent on the store for sustaining my family. How great would it be to be able to walk outside my door and pick a few things to make for dinner rather than getting in the car to "pick up" a few things for dinner. This is something that I hope to really accomplish someday.

So there! Here is a little piece of me. My melatonin is kicking in so typing is becoming extremely difficult. Off to bed I go. I just pray that the little ones decide to stay in bed tonight! More importantly...stay QUIET in bed. Goodnight!

Lake Powell 08

I am finally getting around to posting about our wonderful trip to Lake Powell. I haven't tried to do a slide show since our last trip to the lake so I am not sure if this is going to work. We had a great time and the kids loved the water. Sulli is a fish now and had no issues about the water. He gladly jumped in, as long as you would "catch" him. But once he was in he would say, "I wanna do it all by myself". Quite the independent little chap. We took some great hikes, ate some great food and saw some wonderful scenery. Yet again our favorite week of the summer. We look forward to next year hopefully! Thanks mom and dad for an amazing week. We love you!

Preschool...here I come!

Sulli started preschool this week. What? My baby? Yes, my baby went to school. I cannot believe that I signed him up for it. What was I thinking? Dropping him off for three hours at a time on his own...to fend for himself...to be introduced to other little monsters with bad habits, yucky germs and there is a good possibility they might be mean. What have I done? Exactly what I should have done. He loves it. He has had a great time both days that he has gone. I can't really get much out of him as to what he does. I have asked him what he did at school and after a very long, "ummmmm" he usually says, "something." Oh you did something eh? A glimpse into those teenage years when you ask them what they have been doing..."nothing". Great! The only information that he has divulged is "I did not listen to my teacher." When I asked him why he says that he was not sitting still. I thought he might have an issue with this part. Well anyways, my baby is off to school. I did not cry...I think because I was too busy documenting and keeping Ben happy. Here he is with the preschool director Mrs. Bly and her son who is also Sullivan and goes by Sully but he is with a "y" instead of an "i" like our Sulli.
This is when he met his teacher Ms. Mindy in his classroom. So cute!

Sweet Benny!

My adorable baby boy is just that...adorable! He was being so cute in the bath the other day just splashing around. And big news...we have a crawler folks! Oh yes, he is crawling. Still gets a little top heavy and falls flat on his face quite often (hence the perma-bruise on his forehead) but he is cruising along. He also has 2 bottom teeth which he uses quite frequently on mom. This kiddo is shaping up to be a little devil. He has not responded to the cheek flicking that I used with Sulli. With Sulli, one flick is all it took. Ben just looks at me and laughs. Yes! He laughs! And I am flicking him hard. Oh my. And of course it is hard to keep a straight face when he does this, but I try. I came down the stairs the other day and Ben was totally focused on the TV. Nothing special on, just commercials and he was glued. I had to capture my boys veggin' out.

imagination

i had brought down some boxes to recycle and sulli got a hold of them and began his little world of imagination. as you can see, he is driving this amazing vehicle. i can't remember if it was a space ship or race car. but i am sure in his mind...it was wonderful! oh, and i have another word to add to the "sulli dictionary". when performing karate acts on your dad, like sitting on his back and chopping him up, you say "hi-rotie chop". he got this from evan who always says karate chop when performing kung-fu moves.