Happy Halloween!

I showed y'all a little sneak peak of our photo shoot at the Arboretum a few weeks ago and here are the rest of my shots.

I just love his costume this year! And he doesn't mind wearing the ears on his head. The first time I put it on him we looked in the mirror and he said, "doggy!". Now if he spots it out in the house he'll grab it and try to put it on.





I think he knows he looks cute.





He loves pumpkins! He calls them "punkies". It's sweet.



They've played with pumpkins a lot at MDO this fall so he's an expert now. He can spot a pumpkin across a room.

We're going to the "Trunk or Treat" party at church tomorrow evening, and I'm really looking forward to it. I need to practice with him saying "trick or treat!". He's good at the treat part because he likes to give Fenway treats, but I'm not so sure about the trick part.

I hope you all have fun holiday weekends planned!

Fun with Friends

We got together with some of our favorite friends on Sunday afternoon.

Years ago we wanted to start a dinner group, but the husbands didn't think we should call it a dinner group so we started Fight Club. We met pretty regularly for a few years and then we all had babies and switched jobs and moved across town and it got harder to see each other.

So it was wonderful to get all of us and the five(!) kiddos together this weekend.







It was fun to see Andrew and Alex play together. It was the first time I've seen him really interact and play with another toddler.

They ran laps through the house. Alex would say, "Come on Andrew!", and off they'd go. Alex is about to be a big sister and she's going to be so good at it.

Today was beautiful so we spent lots of time in the back yard looking for sticks.



Oh, boys will be boys.

Baby Baby!

My nephew, Reid Pressley, was born Friday afternoon!



Kelsey looked beautiful even while in labor!



She did so well. They went to the hospital at 7:30 Friday morning and he was born at 4:37 Friday afternoon. I was so happy I got to be there with them while she was laboring comfortably(ish) with her epidural.

She didn't even mind having Andrew there for a little bit. Although she didn't really want him pushing the buttons on her bed! :)

(Brian left work early and picked up Andrew so he didn't have to wait with us all afternoon, thanks sweet husband.)

And then we all got to meet the newest member of our family. We're in love!

This Week

I haven't had any time to blog this week because I've been watching the Texas Rangers play baseball every night. I'm really a football fan, but I usually watch a little baseball in October especially if the Red Sox are playing.

But this year - this year! - our Rangers are beating the Yankees and are one game away from getting to the World Series for the first time ever.

As I said on Facebook the other day: A Dallas team has advanced in the playoffs. It's a sports miracle!

I was able to step away from the baseball frenzy on Monday afternoon to meet my mom's group girls at the park with dressed-up kiddos.



They were so darling and really did a good job of looking at the camera and sitting in the same general area for about 30 seconds.

Today is my sister's due date. But no sign of baby yet. I had to take her picture today to document the occasion:



I think she's the smallest 40-week pregnant girl I've ever seen. I thought about going back and looking for my due date photo, but that would be a little scary for you all. You're welcome.

And finally, to make this post even more random, I want to tell you about one of my favorite products right now and then ask you a completely unrelated question.

I went to Bath and Body Works for the first time in ages last week and bought a few fall-scented soaps. One of them is their Creamy Pumpkin and I can't recommend it enough. It's like washing your hands with pumpkin bread, only much cleaner.

And finally, I have the hardest time coming up with lunches to send to MDO with Andrew. I started out sending turkey, cheese and crackers, but then he stopped eating the turkey.

His lunch needs to meet a few criteria: It should be something that doesn't need to be heated, it should be easy for him to eat and it shouldn't be very messy because I don't want them to have to clean him up too much.

So I started sending pasta, but surely there's something else I'm just not thinking of.

Please send me your toddler MDO lunch ideas!

Sneak Peak

Here is a sneak peak of our little puppy dog.



Brian took Friday off of work so we headed to the pumpkin patch at the Dallas Arboretum. It was a little warm in his thick, puffy costume in the sunshine, but he had the best time running around.

And he was so darling people kept stopping to comment on the cute puppy.

I got a few good shots, but he was all over the place so it was hard to adjust my settings to the changing light. I really need to get faster with my new camera.

So I have lots more photos, but I'll share them closer to Halloween. I just couldn't wait to show y'all his darling costume! :)

Feeling Good

Andrew was sick in his crib last night. I put him to bed and then later went up to tuck him in right before I went to bed (which, unfortunately, was much later). When I looked over towards the crib he was sitting up, covered in it. Poor, poor kiddo. He looked really confused, but didn't seem upset.

(Don't worry, I don't have throw up pictures to share with you.)



We tossed him in the tub and Brian snuggled with him and watched the end of Monday Night Football while I changed his sheets. He went right back to bed and slept all night.



(Because he was exhausted from spending all day running away from me.)

He has a bit of a cough and I think he probably just coughed too hard and threw up, but I decided to keep him home from MDO today anyway, just in case. Because isn't that what I'd want the other moms to do - just in case?



Brian is going to be in our good friends' wedding this weekend so I need two dresses ASAP - one for the rehearsal dinner and one for the wedding.

My sister is 39 weeks pregnant tomorrow. She so wonderfully offered to go to the mall with me today and occupy Andrew while I shopped for dresses.



It was a win, win situation. I came home with three dresses and Kelsey got to try to walk herself in to labor. And Andrew loved spending time with his favorite aunt!

I'm pretty sure I made a serious parenting mistake though. I let Andrew out of his stroller while we were in the dressing room at Nordstrom. He proceeded to run around like the crazy almost-19-month-old boy that he is. And them he threw himself down on the floor and army crawled under the dividers in to all the other dressing rooms.



I'm just so thankful they were empty. But I'm afraid he's going to think he can get out of his stroller and run away from now on. It's way too early for this.

Play Time

We get home from an outing, pull in to the garage, unbuckle the carseat and then - bam. I struggle with Andrew to get him in the door. Our garage is detached from our house so we have to walk across the patio to get inside.



And the patio is filled with toys - wagon! watering can! bubble mower! empty water table! flower pots filled with dirt!



Before I unbuckle him I tell him all about how we're going to go straight inside and do _________ (play with Elmo, watch Gabba, find the dog, say "hi" to Daddy.)



But it's still hard for him.



Last Sunday after church I was starving and ready to go inside and eat but he went straight to his wagon and I just couldn't resist grabbing my camera.



He looked so darling! And the weather was perfect.





Yeah, the whole parenting with consistency thing is pretty hard.



But he was so happy playing out there for a little bit, and I would have been sad if I'd missed out on these cute pictures.



He had so much fun, and lunch was still hot when we were finally ready to sit down and eat.

31 Days to a Better Photo

For all my friends out there with great, entry-level dSLRs I'd like to point you to a blog series from the awesome blogger/photographer Darcy at Life with My 3 Boybarians.

She's doing a 31-day series during the month of October on capturing a better photo.



I really wish I'd had something like this to learn from when I was just starting out. She's done a good job of breaking down the photography basics so far. And I'm looking forward to some of her tutorials and links later on in the month, too. I certainly still have LOTS to learn!

If you've bought a camera to take pretty pictures of your cute kiddo, but feel like they're still lacking, I cannot recommend this enough. A little bit of time and effort goes a long way.

Check it out!

Weekend Update

We had such a fun weekend.

We went to Gymboree on Friday morning like always. It's Andrew's happy place. When I tell him we're heading to Gymboree he starts saying "Gymbo", Gymbo". Gymbo is the Gymboree (clown) mascot and Andrew thinks he's the greatest. Gymbo was one of Andrew's first two-syllable words. He could be their spokeskid!

Then we ran by our friend Suzie's house to a small trunk show for kid's stuff. Will wasn't there, but Andrew loved playing with all of his toys and with his mama.

Saturday morning I dropped Andrew off at my sister's and headed to the Dallas Arboretum to take engagement pictures for a friend of a friend.

No, I'm not going to start a photography business. I'm really not good enough yet, but it was so fun to take pictures of adults! They smiled, and posed and never ran away from me! :)

I'll post some more of their photo shoot later this week, but here are two of my favorites:





They're using cupcakes for their Save the Date theme so we incorporated Sprinkles cupcakes into a lot of the shots, too - so cute!

The weather has been perfect so Andrew and I took lots of walks with the dog. Sunday on our way to church in the car we passed two dogs on walks with their owners and Andrew pointed and said "dog - walk!" We're teaching proper dog care early!

Oh, did I mention Brian was out of town all weekend? He left Thursday afternoon for a "mancation". Nine guys went to New Mexico to spend the night in a big log cabin and fly fish all day.

So Andrew and I were on our own for the whole weekend. Brian hadn't been out of town since Andrew was little tiny. It is so hard to solo parent! We did okay most of the time, but he was exhausted after an exciting day at MDO on Thursday and by bedtime that night I thought we were both going to run away from home.

I figured surely the weekend could only get better from there, and it certainly did. Andrew was a great napper all weekend which always leads to a happy camper. :)

Brian got home just in time for bath on Sunday night and we were so happy to see him!

One more Andrew story, and a few pictures:



I was practicing with my new camera on Friday afternoon and Andrew kept asking to see the "pict-sh" on the screen. So I told him to go stand by the door and I'd take his picture and then show it to him.

And then he did this:



And came running to see:



It was the first time he'd followed picture directions. Do you think this means he's going to be a good subject for me in the future?