Beach and Bulldawgs

Beach time came around quicker this year because I declared that we would be following the dogs to Florida.  We went a few years before Cam and Maeve were here, but haven't been back since they were born.  I really just needed an excuse to getaway to my favorite Amelia. 

Just steps away from the beach

My Beach Boy

They could not resist the waves...eventhough they were very chilly!

Family Foot Pose

My Beach-Loving Baby Girl

Kindergarten Kid (Part II)

Cam is having a great time in kindergarten.  He is learning so much already.  I am so glad that he likes school.  I never realized how much I would enjoy having him with me at school.  I love running in to him in random places throughout the school.  He still runs up and gives me a hug when I walk in to the cafeteria.  We have gotten used to our morning ride-in routine and the afternoons when he has to hang around while I finish up working. 

He recently participated in the Eagle Run/Walk where he tried to run as many laps in the gym as he could in 12 minutes.  He was able to complete 28.  I got to pop in and out during the running time.  He was really running hard. I think he has his daddy's competitive nature.   He also rode the bus for the first time on their trip to the pumpkin patch.  He talked about the bus ride more than the cool things he did at the patch.  While brushing his teeth on 11/8, one of his wiggly teeth feel out.  He came running in to report the news!  Then, the very next day, I pulled his other one in the cafeteria at school.  He isn't really a snaggle tooth because his permanant ones were already peeking through. 

He is growing up so fast.  I think the scariest thing to me is that when I started teaching, I remember having a few teaching friends who had kindergartners or first graders, and now those same little ones are big ones in high school.  Before I know it, my kindergarten kid will be an all-grown-up-one.  Trying to soak up every little part of him. 

One of my favorite rituals with him is lying with him every night and saying prayers with him.  He likes for me to lay with him until he's asleep.  We are trying to get him to feel comfortable just being tucked in and not having to have someone lay with him.  I haven't really pushed this goal because I know, all too soon, this nighttime moment will be lost just like those two front teeth.  Love you, Cam....my favorite little boy! 

Heaven's Best Girl

Never have I seen someone more excited or on a mission than I have when my daddy came up with his biggest advertising idea.  He is constantly researching new ways to cost-effectively advertise for his carpet cleaning business.  Well, what do you get when you have a professional photographer as an employee and a Shirley Temple-look-alike granddaughter?  The perfect combination for his best adverstisement investment yet! 

Now if you call Heaven's Best and need some cleaning services, you will see this coming your way.  You got it - in larger-than-life form - Maeve is the carpet model that is proudly billboarded on the carpet truck.  On its debut day, his customer asked him who that pretty little girl was on his truck.  He was thrilled to tell her it was his granddaughter and the picture was taken just a couple of weeks earlier.  And at that bragging moment, the cost of his ad was priceless! 

Doo has always had a soft spot for his girls.  Maeve, we are pretty certain (with this as proof), has the softest spot! 

My Punkins

Nothing like the traditional pictures of my punkins' amongst the pumpkins and picking out their pumpkins. We had a weekend full of both. After the fall festival on Saturday, we enjoyed a spur of the moment trip to the pumpkin patch on Sunday. Daddy and Granny even got to join in on the fun this year. Just like the various sizes of pumpkins, the patch weather is unpredictable. This year it was hot and sunny. It felt more like a sultry summer day after all that searching for our Great Pumpkin. I know I am partial, but I am pretty certain my punkins' are the cutest ones in the patch!

Wasn't that long ago that I was propping him up between two
pumpkins to take his picture - Now he's picked out his own!

Maeve was not partial to any particular pumpkin. 
She wanted to put all of them in our wheelbarrow.

Cam: Good grief!
Maeve:  How's this pose? 

Just the right touches for this fall scene!

We found it, Charlie Brown - It's the Great Pumpkin! 

Holding a chick at the festival

My Punkins

The Colors of Fall

Ahhh.  There is a crispness in the air that invites in those events that were lost in summer:  pumpkin spice lattes, crackling fires, rustling leaves, pajama pants, soups in the crock pot, and jackets.

Another only-in-fall sighting is that white stuff in the fields.  It still amazes me that something like cotton grows on a plant.  "It looks and feels like wool from a sheep!" Cam exclaimed as we trudged through the cotton patch.  We went to take pictures and see it close-up.  Maeve made it her mission to pick it and get as much as she could.

White, in this case, if definitely a color of fall!

At the Hop

Cam and Maeve dressed in their 50s attire and went to the sock hop at school.  It is very different now that I have a child at school now.  I have to remember that he is really excited about after school events when I consider them yet another thing to do on my never-ending list of responsibilities.  We made it a family event and made the most of the opportunity to flash back 60 years.

Complete with a leather jacket and poodle skirt, we were ready to hit the dance floor.  Well, dancing is not exactly what I would call it, but there was a lot of excitement all over the gym floor. When it was time to leave, Cam was not ready to go.  This was our first of many MBES family functions.

First Trip to the Dentist

Maeve the Brave went to get her teeth cleaned for the first time.  She was supposed to just come along to see the whole process while Cam and I went for our check-ups.  Well, after waiting on us it must have seemed like a lot of fun because she was determined to jump up in that chair to get her teeth tickled.  Yes.  Another circumstance that shows just how very different our two children are.  Did they really come from the same gene pool? I flashback to Cam's visit where both Tony and I were hovering over every move, where he cried and had to sit in Tony's lap while his teeth were polished.  Maeve certainly didn't shy away or ask for a lap.  She was ready!

Now, if we can get her to be as ready to wear big girl panties and to stop sucking those fingers!