christmas #1...

The first Christmas of the season was at our house with the Fitts/Barriger families. The boys were thrilled to have so many people at their house to play with and to show off their tricks to. We were especially excited to have Mur and King able to come down to help us celebrate! Here are some pictures from Luke's world:

Silliness on the stairs...

Ogres!

Playing with Henry in Luke's new Toy Story sleeping bag..

Slinky, slinky, oh what a magical toy...

Race track fun

Playing Luke's favorite game with Mur and Gigi--restuarant!

Another fun thing Luke got to do was show off his classroom to Gigi, Mur and King on the last day of school--I think Auntie Leigh liked it too!

gingerbread house...

Santa....

This is the closest to a smile that I could get from Henry. He was just not sure about this guy. Luke was awesome--walked right and introduced himself and Henry, then told Santa what he and Henry wanted for Christmas. As we were leaving, Henry finally waved to Santa but that was the friendliest he got.

gamers!!....

Luke loves to play games on the internet--mostly pbskids.org. But while daddy was watching the Auburn game, we set Luke up with some headphones and he played away. Then Henry woke up and wanted to see too. So out came another pair of headphones and Henry watched Luke play games. Luke very sweetly found the Mickey Mouse website and did some stories and games there, since as he put it, "that is Henry's favorite."

modeling session...

I swear that this was spontaneous...but how cute are they!

pirates....arrrrrrrrgh!

On Saturday, we went to a community theater production of "How I Became A Pirate" in Marietta. It was in a small theater, only about 5 rows of seats, so we were very close to the action. It was a great musical and since he wants to be a pirate for Halloween, Luke loved it! We had to go in costume, of course, even Henry. I did draw the line at taking the sword, though.

go tigers go tigers go tigers go!!....

We went see the Tigers play this weekend and the boys had a great time. They loved seeing the eagle fly around the stadium and seeing the band march in (and Luke loved hearing how Aunt Bethie used to do that!) And Luke really liked seeing Auburn tackle "the bad guys"--I tried to explain that the real bad guys are later in the season and wear red and gray, but....;) He declared that when he grew up he was going to play defense and be a "tackler" and wear number 90 because he got a lot of tackles for Auburn. Which Number 90, Nick Fairley, does, that is true.

Watching the band from up high....

Up high in the shade--this is Evie, my college roommates' little girl who is 6. They live in Auburn and it was her turn to go to the game with her dad. She is too cute in that dress, but boy, did she get hot!

She though Henry was "so cute" but Henry was playing hard to get....

The boys, watching football...

War Eagle, Hey!

the joys of being a mama to little boys....

Little girls' mamas get tea parties and cute clothes and things like that--here is the exciting life and times of little boys! This is really not that funny, but it struck me on this particular day. So we have this bucket of Lincoln Logs and the bucket has always been a source of great entertainment in and of itself. A drum, a treasure chest, a bucket for blocks, cars, food,snacks--you name it, it has been in this bucket. Well Luke decided it would be a great hat (he told me later he was trying to be a silly clown in the circus) except when he tried to take it off. It was on at such an angle that it was caught across his forehead and the rounded part on the back of his head and I could not get it off. Literally, if I tried to pull it off, his feet came off the ground and he came with it. I twisted and turned and pushed and pulled and it would not come off!


Luke was quite upset that I took this picture--I think he was embarrassed. I gave up on salvaging the bucket and tried to just get it off of him since he was starting to get anxious about it ("Am I going to have to wear this to school tomorrow?") It was such thick cardboard that scissors would not cut it. So I ended up having to get tin snips and literally cut it enough in little strips to weaken it so I could tear it. I couldn't just cut it up and down because his head was so wedged.

Poor Lincoln Log bucket. We'll miss you.

my first day of pre-K....

This is him, pretending to walk to school with his backpack...

"I will help Henry at school, Mommy. I promise."

"See?" Hugs!!

Surprise from Daddy...

We have been reading Curious George and some other books about amusement parks, so when Luke learned this morning that we were going to Six Flags, he was so excited!! Daddy planned this as a last day of summer hoorah. He really wanted to ride the bumper cars (a la Oscar the Grouch), try a roller coaster and to fly in a boat like Peter Pan!!

Driving a big rig together...

You ok back there?

This, we had to ride twice since it was Peter Pan-ish...

On the way on his first real roller coaster...

Finally the bumper cars...

The horses on the 100-yr old carousel were a little high, so Luke needed a hand...

All smiles today...

This is not really amusement park relevant but was just humorous.
This is Luke making his monster face...

and this is a silly monster face...

and this is a sad monster face...

And an ice cream treat on the way home...
"What a perfect day, Mommy" he told me.

visiting the "biggest ship in the whole world"

Instead of going to the beach, we did some local fun stuff, like go to the USS Alabama, a WWII battleship in Mobile Bay. Luke loved all the levels, "like a maze" he called it. And he liked seeing how this ship was home to thousands of men for months. We saw the laundry, the "police station" and jail, the store, the kitchen and bakery, the mailroom, the hospital and best of all, the soda and ice cream shop!!

Sitting on the giant chain holding one or two huge anchors...

Peeking out of one of the...well, I don't know what it is called, but it where they shot huge guns from...

I am in the Navy now....

Luke and Big Pop checking things out on deck...

One of the dining areas or "mess halls"--named with boys in mind, obviously...

Triple-decker bunk beds!! Nothing like sleeping in a room with 40-50 of your closet friends...

Finding Auntie Beth...

Hugs!!!

In the brig with ya both....Can I get a home model?

Tight fit....yikes.

my first real purchase....

Luke has been wanting this Diego lift truck ever since he saw it and he has been saving up his birthday money and his "found" money for a while. Well, in scouting toys for Henry's birthday he came across the truck in the store and really wanted it. So we sat down and figured out how much he needed to buy it himself and how he could earn the money by doing jobs around the house. So for the last week or so, he has been helping fold laundry, dusting, breaking down cardboard boxes, bringing up the recycling bin and trash cans from the road, etc, in order to earn his $2.74 he needed. And finally he earned enough!!

Picking it out....

Taking it to the "storekeeper" as he calls them...

Handing over the money (we did exchange a lot of the change for a few dollar bills, just so they would not hate us for paying with $8 in dimes, nickels and pennies!)

Alright! Finally got it!

Can't wait to play with the guy and the monkey and crocodile!

I am not going to say he did not have a pang of regret when he realized he had only like $0.24 left, but then he said that he could do more jobs, right? Good old capitalism!