Kitchen remodel

Yes, I'm finally posting pictures 4 months later. :)  Seems like every time it was all clean, I forgot to take pictures!  B and my dad worked really, really hard to get everything done before S arrived.  And some awesome friends came over and helped a lot and some moved our furniture back in the day we were at the hospital!  A little stressful, but we made it!  We are so thankful to everyone that helped. 

BEFORE: (these are pictures we took before hurricane Ike in case our house blew away)

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view 2: 

view 3:

and... drumroll please... the AFTER pics:

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view 2: 

 

view 3: 

Pretty dramatic change!  Didn't they do an awesome job?  We are loving it.  The house feels so much bigger and there's more light coming through.  It's easier for E and his friends to run around in circles.  And I am actually enjoying cooking more!  :)  Seriously though its so nice to have a lot more storage.  I love the big island and my farmhouse sink. 

halloween!

As I'm sure you all know, Halloween was several weeks ago... We went to the fall festival at our church and then took E trick-or-treating.  here are our pictures!

 

 Our football player and little football. :)

We went pretty low-key this year.  E is so picky about what I want him to wear on a daily basis that I knew dressing up was going to be interesting.  He watches football with B sometimes so I talked him into wearing his football shirt and then I just put some black face paint on him without saying anything.  Surprisingly he didn't throw a fit!  

he had fun this year playing games with daddy

he was pretty good at the fishing

and liked the petting zoo 

he's got 'saying cheese' down... now if we could just make eye contact

this time he got right up in the camera and still didn't really look at it. :)  but he's a cutie!

riding the train with Jonathan!

trick or treating with our friend Mia.  

E was excited this year and had fun going door to door.  However, I think B might have been more into it than he was... after a while when the people would try to put candy in his bucket he starting saying "no, I have enough". :) I think his pumpkin was getting too heavy.

Then we did our first family pumpkin carving!

E was all about helping 

 

but didn't like the ewwwy stuff

once there was a 'fire' inside he really liked it

 

happy halloween!

it's a whale!

We were in San Antonio for a family wedding a few weeks ago and decided to take E to Seaworld!  As you may remember, he is a BIG fan of all things that live in the sea - whales, dolphins, sharks, starfish, seahorse, etc.  So we knew he would love it.

We had a little snag in the plans when it suddenly got cold and rainy, but we decided to tough it out.  It was nothing a quick trip to Academy couldn't fix.  And on the plus side it sure wasn't crowded! :)

empty parking lot - we parked about 50 yards from the entrance.

nothing will stop us from seeing that whale!

 petting the sting rays

 checking out the alligators

 waiting for the dolphin show

 beluga whale

 rides with dada between shows

E was a little freaked out, but we tried to take a picture with Telly and Zoe!

 first sight of Shamu!

 there he is!

 he wanted to bring them all home

 

so we bought one and he wouldn't let it go.

 feeding the dolphins!

 so fun!

We all had such a great time.  The best part is I sent them a complaint email about the baby changing/nursing rooms and they sent us free passes to go again and a little gift package for E in the mail!  Awesome customer service.  A special thanks to Nana for keeping baby S for us!

FALL

well, its still pretty hot outside most of the time, and the mosquitoes are just plain crazy, but technically it is fall!  so of course we have to take pictures with some pumpkins!  we went to two pumpkin patches with our friends this year - one with animals, and one without.  as you will notice, E was not too into the picture taking at either of them.  so we did the best we could. 

pumpkin patch 1: (mostly activities and animals - not a lot of pumpkins) :)

E and his buddy Noah

playing in the corn was a neat idea, but the lady kept asking them to "keep the corn in the containers".  um... yeah, sure.  I see that happening.  it did not stay in the containers. ;)

 camel making a crazy face at us!

E and his friend Jonathan.  we love playing with letters right now.

Pumpkin Patch 2:  pumpkins only

pleeeeeease take a picture with mommy!

 saying "cheese", but not really smiling...

we have taken pictures of these two guys every year with the pumpkins - this year they just weren't into it.  E had most of the attitude I believe.

 Ellen is a genius and had some candy (which E is holding in his hand), so we finally got a decent picture.  

I love how none of the kids are looking at the camera.

(Thanks to Ellen for taking a lot of these pictures!  Once, it was too crazy for me to take pictures and the next time my battery died.  And such is life with two kids, I guess!)

3 months!

It's hard to believe how fast time has flown by!  S has such a personality already.  He loves to smile, roll over, watch his big brother, and try to grab things.  The only thing we still don't like is the process of going to sleep.  Once he gets there he's a pretty good sleeper, though.  He loves his bouncy seat, and has started to tolerate the swing a little (which will be helpful for the nursery workers at church!)  He is such a sweetie and very cute.  Here are some pics:

 so handsome! ;)

 Zoolander 

 what's happening?