Halloweenie!

Seriously...Halloween with kids is almost TOO much fun. Friends, costumes, a fun neighborhood, booze...check, check, check, ANNNND check!

Our neighborhood gets into the spirit of Halloween. One house was SO decked this year! They had THE creepiest window decorations, bones spread out across the lawn, and this crazy looking black picket fence along their sidewalk. In fact, their decorations were so intriguing that earlier in the month, Griffin was riding his trike down the sidewalk, and he was so caught off guard by all the cool stuff to look at, he ran his trike right into that black picket fence. No permanent damage was done...I don't think.

It helps that we have a TON of kids, all ages, in our neighborhood. So on any given Halloween night, there are hundreds of families strolling up and down the sidewalks.

We are a friendly neighborhood...and allow outsiders in ;-) Like our best Georgia friends!! It wouldn't be Halloween without Griff's BFF, Wyatt and Brady's BFF, Callen :-)

Here are some pics from our Halloween 2013!

I managed to score this race car driver costume at a consignment sale a few months ago. I think I paid $6 for it. When I bought it, I thought, no way, no how is he going to keep a helmet on the night of Halloween, so Bri came up with the idea to get him one of those "redneck NASCAR baseball hats." Well, it just so happens that Bri was heading to a NASCAR race a few weeks after that idea came about. Yea...turns out the hat ended up costing almost 3 times the amount of the costume. Oh well!

Griff & Wyatt!

Check out the hair under that hat. He needed a haircut REAL BAD...but we decided to let it grow before Halloween, hoping it would give off the redneck mullet look.

Getting the little tiger ready for his first Halloween!

Rawr.

Baby Callen! His Mama was "walking him out" last Halloween...and here he is! Almost "1"!!

Brady chewing on a glow stick. Mom of the year.

These 2 are in perpetual motion when they are together. I'm shocked we captured a picture of them where there wasn't a blur.

Callen the little mouse...cutest get-up EVER!

Just a Mama, a baby tiger, and some booze...

It's like a rite of passage...getting his first (and only!) piece of candy. Our pediatrician lives down the street from us and I told her a little boy handed him a bag of gummy worms. She was like, No, No, Brady...I don't want to see you in my office tomorrow :-)

Pretty much owning this trick-or-treating thing :-)

Taking it all in!

It was unusually HOT for Halloween this year. Here I was, thinking I was a genius for buying, what appeared to be a "race car costume/ snow suit" and poor Griffin was sweating 15 minutes into trick-or treating. But clearly, collecting the loot was MUCH more important. 

Brady was a gem, as usual.

Can't wait to watch my two boys have a blast next year on Halloween!

Walsh/Thaler Annual Pumpkin Patch Trip

Three years ago, when we first moved to Georgia, we were thrilled when we realized that we would only be moving about 45 minutes away from my best friend. Turns out, with kids, jobs, and busy lives, it's A LOT harder to get together than one would think! We always manage to make it to our kids' birthday parties, baby showers, etc. etc...probably because we call each other, in advance, to see if we are available for the tentative date we are planning...because what's a celebration without your best friend and her family there? (Especially when we are in constant planning mode for Griffin and Ella's future wedding.)

But 3 years ago, the Thaler's invited us up to Cagle's Family Farm for a fun day at the pumpkin patch.

Remember that??

Well, THAT...is now this...

And so we said that every year, for as long as we were living close, we would get the kids together for the annual pumpkin patch trip. I literally get misty-eyed at how much these two have grown.

Cagle's Family Farm is F-U-N! It is everything a pumpkin patch should be!

They have a haystack jump (TWO actually! One for the littles...which make this Mama and her overly protective husband VERY happy!)

The socks were hindering the climbing and jumping. I had to swoop in and give him a boost.

We can't forget the hundreds of pumpkins to choose from...

Or just to use as the perfect photo backdrop!

Jeez Griff...bored?

Longingly looking at the ponies...

Which, of course, we let them take rides! Michalina trying to walk Baby Noah out!

He's like a professional now.

Brady, obviously could care less about anything going on around him. Just happy with his cheerios and cheese.

The B.E.S.T. part about Cagle's is the hayride out to the bonfires! You take a 5 minute hayride out to this big open field and they have huge bonfires set up all over the place. You get s'mores kits and hot dogs with the longest roasting sticks I've ever seen. They also have hot drinks! The perfect recipe to curl up and enjoy an extremely cool evening with our friends and the kiddos!

Umm...I die over these 3!

Walking back to the hayride!

Making sure the little bro is safe <3

All in all, it was another successful trip to the pumpkin patch! I can't believe there will be FOUR babies next year :-) I'd like to say the anticipation is killing me...but since I am SO behind on blogging, Baby Noah arrived yesterday afternoon! I get to snuggle that sweet baby boy in less than 24 hours! Hopefully it'll ward off the itty-bitty amounts of baby fever I'm ALREADY having!! (Seriously...what is wrong with me??)

Token BFF picture. Love, love, love.

Take Me Out To The Ball Game!

A couple of months ago, Brian walks in the door from work and the first thing Griffin says to him is, "Daddy, will you play baseball with me?"

I'm 150% sure of it that those are the exact words he has been waiting to hear since he heard the Ultrasound Tech tell us we were having a boy back in 2010.

I grew up a total band nerd and while I tried my hand at softball and soccer, the closest I ever came to doing anything athletic was cheerleading...and my toe touch was more of a "I barely made it off the ground and came NOWHERE near touching my toes." My handsome hubby, on the other hand, was ALSO a total band nerd, but also rocked at soccer, baseball, and now, golf!

Needless to say, when I heard we were having a boy, I threw up a prayer to the man upstairs and begged that he would get Brian's athletic skills...and NOT my "non-existent" athletic abilities.

Then we had Griffin, and so far, my prayer has been answered. Golf, soccer, baseball, basketball. You name it, he's into it and he's actually pretty good at them! He can run and kick a soccer ball at the same time, he has a killer left handed golf swing, and he can hit a baseball, on average, about 4 out of 10 times...with out a tee!

Naturally, I couldn't wait to get him into some sort of "sports related" activity and it's looking like this Spring is going to be our chance! We are going to enroll him in Spring tee-ball and we have absolutely ZERO expectations of how this is going to go :-)

We took him to the baseball field the other day and had a ton of fun playing with both of our boys.