just a little reveal.

While Christmas photos and videos are being edited, I thought I would just share with everyone what Jeremy and I found out this past Monday. And then shared with the boys on Christmas Eve. Aw yeah, things are about to get crazy. Ha!

santa 2013

I thought there was only supposed to be one year that your child completely freaks out at Santa. And looking back at last year's photo, we definitely earned that one last year with Sawyer. But apparently Sawyer had another idea and has totally bucked the trend and given us two years of screaming with Santa. Oh, poor Santa. And poor Sawyer. The photographer asked us if we were ok with a crying photo. All I could think was, "Do other parents say no? And make their child sit there until they stop crying?" Of course we're ok with a crying photo. We'll treasure it just like all the other ones – crying or not.

2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009

it's that time of year again.

We took a random drive by our favorite Christmas light house from last year on Saturday evening and were not disappointed. Both of the boys were very into the fun this year, so I can't wait to actually take them looking at all the Christmas lights soon. I'm sure starting with this house was a mistake though. I can already hear them asking about why all the other houses don't dance to the music. Guess we'll just have to wrap up that night with another stop by this house!

littlest helper.

The boys bathroom makeover finally got underway a week or so ago (ok, maybe two weeks ago). Jeremy is slowly getting everything done, and he's rockin' it for sure. I haven't been feeling all that well, so I'm not much help. Usually I love getting my hands dirty on home projects, but this time around? I'm a lazy bum who manages things from the sideline.

Either way, it's coming along and looking really, really good. The floors we picked out are perfect; I'll be sure to share lots of photos when things wrap up this next week. The boys have both been really interested in helping out, so we've let them help paint in places that won't be too obvious once all the doors are put back. They have loved it... The day we tore out the existing floor though? Cayden walked in, gasped and said, "What did you do to my floor?" He was genuinely upset. Now? Not so much. He's loving the progress and asks Jeremy every single day if he's done yet. Hoping to wrap things up this weekend/early next week and get some final photos put together. Yay!

a little thing.

The boys just wanted to share these photos with you. Yep, I'll let that soak in for just a minute...

Got it now? It's true! The boys are going to have a baby brother/sister sometime in May. Cayden really wants a baby sister – perhaps he knows too much about a baby brother now? Ha. We keep telling him that we don't have any control over that, so I'm hoping there's no disappointment with him if it is another boy.

Which at this point, I'm pretty sure it is. I mean, it just seems like we have boys, so having a girl seems like such a foreign concept to me at this point. After what we went through earlier this year, Jeremy and I are both praying for a healthy baby. I would love a little girl, but a trio of boys sounds lovely too.

Anyway, this pregnancy so far is like neither of the boys. Nausea, heartburn and headaches like whoa. I had a little nausea with both of the boys, but this one has been completely different. And I never knew heartburn could be so miserable. My apologies to anyone who deals with this on the regular.

I'm a little over 14 weeks along with a due date of May 10. We've heard the sweet heartbeat twice now; the first time on an ultrasound where we could also see that sweet little heartbeat beating. We are thrilled to be parents of three and are anxiously looking forward to next spring!

fall hiking.

We're so very lucky to live extremely close to one of our state parks. And with the gorgeous weather that we've been having, we knew we wanted to take the boys hiking this past Saturday. There was a slight chill in the air – nothing a little hiking wouldn't warm up. The leaves, oh my goodness y'all, the leaves were beautiful. It rained the other night with a pretty extreme temperature drop which knocked a lot of the leaves off the trees... but last Saturday, they were still hanging around and looking absolutely beautiful.

There's a small waterfall that one can hike down to. Since there hadn't been a lot of rain, we knew the falls would be just a trickle. But the real adventure was our hike anyway. We hadn't been to the park since last fall, and noticed that there was a new trail that would lead straight to the bottom of the falls. Sold!

You guys. Taking a two and four year old hiking is already a challenge. The path we chose to take? Pretty much straight down the side of a rock wall. (That photo of me holding their hands, and the one beside it? Behind us, that's what we came down.) Seriously. It was fun, but man, it was tough to make sure that the boys were steady where they were before we moved on. Jeremy and I kept passing them to each other. But the boys did so great! They listened and stayed still when we needed them to and followed directions when we needed...

"Stand right there. Don't move."
"Sit down on your hiney and slide down this rock."
"Cayden, I know this is weird, but we really need you to hug this tree and not let go!"

It took us 45 minutes to climb down our rocks, but we were very proud of ourselves for making it without anyone getting injured. We looked at the trickle of the waterfall, crossed over the creek and started hiking back up the other side. Going up was a little easier, and it was fun to encourage the boys to find the right path for themselves.

Jeremy noticed that Cayden was walking a little, um, strained and asked if he needed to go potty. No big deal, boys can pee in the woods easy-peasy right? But, he needed to poop. Jeremy luckily had some tissue in his pocket and found the perfect spot for Cayden to squat over a tree branch.

Y'all, if you ask Cayden, pooping in the woods was his favorite part of the day. Boys...

bojangles.

If you guys live near a Bojangles, trust me, you're gonna want to read on! I was emailed and asked if I'd like to receive a gift card to head on over to Bojangles to try out some yummy chicken. Um, hello? Of course! So we went and ate some chicken...

Bojangles is currently promoting their Tailgate Everything website. It's this cool site that tells you how to Tailgate basically any and every thing. Also? Did you know that Bojangles has a recipe website? Yep, I'm for serious. A whole site dedicated to things you can do with the chicken you pick up from Bojangles. Me? I like to keep things simple and classic. Jeremy likes to change things up though. His "recipe"? Pull the chicken off the bones and put it on a good buttery biscuit. Good stuff, y'all.

And hey! Good news? If you live close to a Bojangles and would like to try out some chicken for free, then it's your lucky day! I have a $15 Bojangles gift card with your name on it. Just enter the easy giveaway below!

I was chosen to receive these gift cards free of charge. The opinions are my own. And my opinion? I think I'll be going to Bojangles for lunch again to day. It's just that good! a Rafflecopter giveaway

halloween parade.

For the first almost four years of Cayden's life, he went to the same preschool. Last Septemeber, my parents moved back to Alabama, and this past March, my mom offered to watch the boys for a much discounted daycare price. We gladly accepted. And both boys have excelled with all the one-on-one attention they're receiving. I mean Sawyer, just barely over two, can now count to 20. Maybe that's not impressive, but I'm pretty sure Cayden wasn't quite that advanced at 28 months.

But that's so not the point of this post... When fall registration for schools was coming up, we decided to put Cayden back in a program for three days a week. It'll get him semi-prepared for what's coming next year. (As a side note? My oldest starts kinder next fall. Yikes!) We decided to put him in our church's school and have not regretted that decision for a moment. Y'all, they walk to the cafeteria and have lunch at real school tables. How cute is that?

Anyway, the original daycare he went to didn't allow dressing up for Halloween. And that always made me just a little bit sad. So this year when we discovered that Cayden would not only get to dress up, but that there was also a Halloween Parade? We were thrilled. And Cayden's been pumped about it all week. This morning was the parade and it was so fun to see all of the 3-6 year olds dressed up in their Halloween garb. Also? Cayden was Spiderman for Halloween last year too. So we just recycled his costume and he was totally down with it. That right there? That's what I call a win-win.

sometimes i do still sew.

Especially when a co-worker asks me to whip her up some adorable make-up bags for her bridesmaids. I actually finished these a month or so ago, but needed to wait until the bridesmaids received their gifts before posting. The wedding was this past weekend and was absolutely beautiful. It was all outdoors and the weather behaved perfectly – a little cloudy, but no rain; not too hot, but not enough chill in the air to be uncomfortably cold. And the reception overlooked a huge lake. I mean, seriously, the location was just out of control with its beauty.

But back to the bags! I was sent a link to something that she really liked and was totally convinced that I could recreate something similar. The sewing part? A no brainer. But when I got into the embroidery part, I was in semi-new territory. I embroidered something once, and while I thought I did a good job, looking back, I KNOW I could have done better. So I did a little googling on how to get the desired look here and went for it. The first letter I did took me a ridiculously long time. After that first one though, I progressively got faster, and much more confident, with my stitching. I'm still contemplating making one of these cuties for myself!

pumpkin patch 2013.

The third weekend of October seems to be OUR weekend for hitting up the pumpkin patch. And this year was no different. While the outlook for the weather was looking a little less than stellar, the afternoon ended up being absolutely beautiful. And, as opposed to wearing shorts and a tank top like last year, we were actually able to dress a little more fall appropriate.

The boys picked out two rather large pumpkins. And I suppose since they couldn't carry them, that would explain the lack of photos from the actual picking of pumpkins moment. Mama and daddy were too busy huffing and puffing to get the pumpkins back to the tractor.

And what would a patch-outting be without bouncy houses? Cayden specifically asked if he could jump before we even got there. I'm pleased to announce that BOTH boys jumped this year. Sawyer has finally gotten over his fear of bounce houses. It still takes a little persuasion for him to get in one, but once he does? He's good for days. Cayden also braved the tall slides; I think we have his older cousin to thank for that bravery.

When we got back to the house, we had a big 'ol pumpkin carving party. Then grilled hotdogs, watched some really great SEC football and then roasted smores. It was a full day. And I think we all went to bed Saturday night with full hearts.

(Always fun: 2012, 2011, 2010 and 2009. More photos over on Facebook.)

a little pumpkin carving.

Going to the pumpkin patch and picking out the perfect pumpkin has become a yearly thing for us. Last year, Cayden picked out a pumpkin that wasn't quite large enough to carve, but this year, the boy's picked two beasts out.

And then the pumpkin carving party began. We had tons of options to choose from thanks to our Pumpkin Masters Kits. Cayden had to flip through all of the books before he decided on a spooky ghost. And while we don't necessarily condone the use of knives for four year olds, Cayden really, really wanted to help cut his shape out. We let him try it for a few seconds, but mostly he just supervised me cutting out his pumpkin. Which was fine by me because again, four year olds and sharp pointy objects...

Sawyer was mostly interested in helping to scoop out the guts. And y'all, to me that is the absolute worst part, so by all means child, jump in and scoop those guts out. I think he thought the insides were funny?

Either way, picking out our template was easy enough. And after tracing it onto the pumpkin, it really was as easy as playing connect the dots. The ghost cut out pretty easily (except for one small part where I ripped his tail off; Cayden assured me it was ok) and the effect with the light on is pretty cool. Cayden confidently let us know that the light was his favorite part. Pumpkin Masters sent strobe lights for inside. I have to admit that I'd never thought about using a strobe in there, but it was downright awesome.

Well, here, you guys see for yourself the fun we had!

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

because it's been raining here.

Get out and enjoy some puddles yourself. Swear, if it's raining, this is Sawyer's absolute favorite thing to do. He actually cries when we make him go inside. Saddest and cutest thing ever all at the same time. Also? Check out that height he's getting. Jumping is also his favorite. All. The. Time.

Oh, and also? Filmed with the new iPhone's fancy slow mo filter. So um, unless you want his voice to scare you at the end, it's best to listen to this one on mute. Just... believe me.

cayden's first soccer game.

It was technically the third week of games, but their first game was cancelled due to scheduling conflicts, their second cancelled due to stormy weather. But their third game? Their third game was glorious. The day was beautiful and the game was early before it got too hot (which still didn't stop this silly fair-skinned girl from getting sun burned on one half of her body).

If I told you that Cayden was a natural at soccer, I wouldn't entirely be lying. Truth is, he's awesome when it's just him and his ball. Tell him to kick, dribble, kick, shoot–and he does. But y'all, get this boy in a game and it's just pure entertainment! I don't know if he's afraid to get in the middle of it, but he'll literally swing WIDE around everyone else. He's still running. And he's still kind of generally following the direction of the ball. But get close to kicking it? He does not.

We actually had one of their makeup games last night. And after witnessing the "orbiting" (as Pop calls it), Jeremy walked over, bribed Cayden with a cookie if he'd just please kick the ball and amazingly enough, he got in there, kicked the ball once and proclaimed "Cookie!" And then pretty much back to orbiting. Like I said, so not short on entertainment... but as a parent who might get a little competitive, I really just want him to get in there and really kick the poop outta that ball. Maybe by the final game? Here's hoping.

(Oh, and P.S., near the end of the game, Sawyer got in my face and seriously said, "Take piture mommy." And well, I couldn't resist. Crooked smile and all.)

taco melts.

Sometimes getting dinner ready on time is an adventure in our house. Especially now that Cayden has soccer practice twice a week at 6. That doesn't really give us enough time to eat before (and I mean, do I really want my four year old running around at soccer with a full belly?). So we need something quick for after.

These taco melts (while not the prettiest thing I've ever made), certainly help when in a time crunch. Add in the fact that you use Pillsbury Grands Biscuits, and it's even faster! I'm talking 30 minutes from start to finish. Another bonus? The boys like them. With sometimes picky eaters, trying a new recipe can be a huge fail. But thankfully, they both love biscuits, so that made this a huge success!

We don't eat a lot of red meat in our house, so I was easily able to adapt this recipe to use a veggie crumble in place of the beef. I was also out of salsa, and while I think I would have loved it in the melts, those little picky eaters of mine might have objected to chunks of tomato in theirs. And maybe I'm not the most talented in the kitchen, but you can see from the photos above that there is no way I could keep my biscuits mashed together. I also had a ton of meat leftover...

So while they're not the prettiest, I did decide that next time the boys could help me make these. I'm sure they'd love squishing out the biscuits into big circles. And getting to choose how much cheese went into each melt? They'd be in heaven for sure.

Do you need some fast recipes for those crazy nights? Check out this Pillsbury recipe booklet with tons of new ideas for you to try. Let me know what your favorite is!

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective. The content and opinions expressed here are all my own and are not indicative of the opinions or positions of General Mills. Compensation was provided by General Mills via Clever Girls Collective.

cayden beatboxes.

Y'all, I completely forgot about this video that we took of Cayden on our way to Tenneessee back in mid-August. Jeremy will break out beatboxing on occasion, and now Cayden does it too. So, we captured it on video while in a moving vehicle. It could possibly make you sick, so just close your eyes and take a listen. It's good stuff. Promise.

roll tide: 2013

It's that time of the year again. I even managed to already have a pumpkin spice latte! But anyway, football time! And the boys are representing their team today – both with a lovely "Roll Tide!" randomly escaping their lips. Happy college football, y'all!

(For years past: 2012, 2011, 2010 & 2009)

picturesque.

We were blessed to be able to travel east (way east) this past weekend to Wadley, Alabama. When were told it was in the middle of nowhere, that was more correct than it could be. The drive over was absolutely beautiful. Rolling hills, small towns, vast areas of nothing more than trees... And when we arrived at our destination? So worth the two hour drive.

Why would we drive two hours east randomly on a Saturday in August? To visit our friends Tom and Jennifer of course! We were invited to Jennifer's parents house for the afternoon, and we're so glad we took the time to go. The house was completely breathtaking. A cabin with a full 360º porch with swings, hammocks and rocking chairs everywhere you looked. A fabulous chicken coop in the back yard; the boys even got to gather fresh eggs! (And now they want their own chickens. We might have to see what can be done about that.)

After exploring the house area for a bit, Jennifer took us on a jeep ride through some of the other property. Y'all, we were so far out that all you could hear were bugs and one of the two creeks that run through their property. The boys were thrilled to walk through the creek barefoot. And all of the rocks! Sawyer was in rock heaven.

When we came out the other side of the creek, there was a huge pecan tree with two tree swings. Sawyer wasn't having any of the swing action, but Cayden? Oh, Cayden was in swing heaven! Once he mastered how to hold on and sit on the seat properly, he was laughing and squealing with delight.

After a bit more exploring, we set out for dinner and Jon Boy's Smoke House in Roanoke. I'd say this was probably the most authentic southern roadhouse I've ever been to. Small town atmosphere where our waitress knew our hosts (down to what they ate and drank). It was covered in old garage signs and posters, with small antiques tucked away here and there.

Overall, we were so glad to make the trek there and back. The scenery was perfect, and the day away from the social media world was very welcome. It didn't hurt that we got to hang out with two of the coolest people we know on top of it all.

first day of 4k.

Y'all, I felt like supermom this morning! I got up, cooked pancakes for the boys, packed Cayden's lunch, took first day photos AND got out the door on time! Amazing! Until I got to work and realized that I forgot to pack myself lunch. Or any snacks. Cue sad violin.

But, BUT!, first day of 4K for Cayden! We were talking up school this morning at breakfast and he gave us the sad, "But I want to stay with Sawyer all day." Sigh. It's tough being four and your parents are making you do something out of your comfort zone. Heck, even I started getting a little misty-eyed. Since we left daycare in March to have Nana watch the boys, this is literally the first time we've left Cayden anywhere for an extended period of time in six months. And my mama heart almost got overwhelmed with that this morning.

Instead of letting that feeling encompass my thoughts, I said a little prayer and put on a bright face for my oldest. And at drop-off? You'd never know he was unhappy about going to school. He jumped down out of the car and walked into school like a big boy. I'd loved to have lingered a bit and watch him walk all the way in, but I was the first car in line at that point, so I said another little prayer for Cayden to have a good day, and drove off.

Don't you love the bag the school provides is as big as Cayden? They have three year olds that have to carry these bags too. It's adorable. Oh, and for some fun comparisons, first day of school last year.