It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

I got three of our four trees up this past weekend.  Once we get our live tree for the living room, we will decorate it and be officially ready for the Christmas Season.

Will's Tree in his room.

Auburn tree in the office.

I also have a small tree up in the kitchen but I forgot to take a picture of it. It has classic red and green ornaments.

Will has done well so far about not touching or breaking any ornaments. I hope this continues.

Christmas trees and presents are fun, but I hope to keep the real Reason for the Season at the top of our priority list!

One, Two, Three, Four, Five

This little boy can count to FIVE!!

Clay and I thought we were dreaming it at first, but he did it a couple of different times this weekend! So proud of my smart little boy!

Thanksgiving 2010

Tonight we finally wrapped up our family thanksgiving dinners.  I didn't take many pictures, but I wanted to do a quick update.

Last Saturday, we had Thanksgiving with my mom's extended family. As always, Will was the life of the party and had a great time.  We had dinner at my mom's house and it was packed with people and food!

Thursday was our longest day.  We started out at Clay's Aunt Shawn's house and visited with Grandma for a bit.  I am always happy to get down to Roanoke for a visit because I love that side of Clay's family so much and they are so good to us!  Clay's grandmother had a stroke the week before but seemed to be recovering well and we hope that continues.  I got to hold Braydin for a really long time. He is such a sweet baby and Krista and Brett are great parents. Will even played with Braydin for a while without getting jealous. I really wish I would have gotten a picture of Braydin's hair. It is so thick and so dark...I love it!

We left Aunt Shawn's house and headed to Mawmaw Yates' house. I cannot tell you how much I love this woman, she is amazing. She cooked a great meal and Celia and Aunt Kim added some wonderful side dishes. Kody even made the famous chocolate pie...YUM! Clay won't like me sharing this, but during the yearly basketball tournament, Clay did not win one game!  Ha! Oh well, I told him there is always Christmas.  Will had a great time playing with his cousin Taylor and he even got to ride the four-wheeler!  We also got some great news that Clay's cousin Tonya and her husband, Tony, are expecting in May 2011! 

Will playing basketball.

Taylor playing in the leaves.

Will and Daddy on the 4-wheeler.

We finished our day at my parent's house.  We were all exhausted and full, but we pushed through the pain and ate again!  Mom cooks all our favorites and Dad made the best turkey. So good!

We did some shopping Friday and Saturday and got a couple of people crossed off our Christmas list so that made me feel a little less stressed!

This afternoon, we finished off the festivities at Celia's parent's house.  We had a great meal and a fun time catching up with that side of the family. Will was a little fussy and a little bossy today, so I wasn't able to enjoy myself as much as I would have like too. Life with a toddler is always interesting.

 
I am sad to see Thanksgiving end, but we are looking forward to Christmas and getting to spend even more time with our families!!!  WE ARE TRULY BLESSED AND I AM SO THANKFUL!!!!

Iron Bowl 2010

Today is the Iron Bowl. This is a huge game for Auburn. We are currently 11-0 and we hope to continue our trend!

I can't wait for the game. I am definitely nervous and excited!

WAR EAGLE!!!!

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving is here again and we will be spending the day with 3 different sides of our family.  First, we will be in Wedowee with Clay's father's family at Mawmaw Yates' house.  Then, we will head down to Roanoke to spend time with Clay's grandmother and aunt. We will end the day at my parent's house.

Will is always a good little traveler and I know he will enjoy seeing all of his family.  Clay and I enjoy this time of year so much.  We can't wait to see our families and eat! 

As we travel, I will be mindful of all the things I am thankful for. God has blessed our family so much and I am grateful!  Life always has its ups and downs, but I am so content with where God has us right now.

Of course, Clay and I feel that this little guy is what we are most thankful for.  He is a true gift from God and we are so blessed that we get to be his parents.

I hope everyone has a wonderful day filled with family, love, and food! 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

The Day Will Met Aubie Claus

Will loves Aubie and talks about him all the time at home. So when we heard that Aubie Claus was going to be in Birmingham, we decided to take Will to see him.

When we got there Will was so excited he was going to get to see Aubie and was all smiles.

The whole time we were standing in line, all we heard from Will was "Aubie, Aubie, Aubie".  I even took Will around the corner so he could see Aubie Claus while he visited with the other families.  Will was all about it.

We only had to wait a short time until it was our turn and Will was going to get to sit in Aubie's lap. Then this happened....

In my head, this situation went a whole lot better. This little meeting between Will and Aubie Claus was even going to be our Christmas card picture this year. I guess you win some, and you lose some.

Clay and I got in a few pictures with Will and Aubie, and Will still wasn't all that thrilled with the situation.

Then, of course, Will's whole mood changed as we were leaving. Clay told him to tell Aubie "bye", so Will waved, said "bye", and then gave Aubie high-five. Some of the people watching thought this was cute so they started clapping.  This made Will start clapping for himself and laughing. It was amazing how we went from crying to screaming to sad to happy in about the time span of 5 minutes.  At least there were other children that had meltdowns and failed Christmas card attempts.  

We will try again next year.  It was definitely another memorable Will moment and we loved every minute of it, even if we do have to try and get another picture for our Christmas card.  

This next picture was from the same day, and it has nothing to do with Aubie, but it is my favorite picture from that day. Seriously, they are TWINS!!! Clay cannot deny this child!

Operation Christmas Child

Every year, we put together a box for Operation Christmas Child.  You get to pick if you want your box to go to a girl or a boy and then you get to pick the age group. Normally, I pick a girl age 10-14 because it is easy to buy for.  This year since Will could participate a little better than last year, we decided to fill a box for a boy age 2-4 and let Will help pick the gifts.

Will picked two cars, a ball, and little stuffed animal.  We also got a coloring book and crayons, a shirt, a toothbrush, toothpaste, and comb for our box. 

We had to put our box together and Will helped me.

I always get to go to drop the boxes from our church off because my mom is the Operation Christmas Child coordinator for our church.  This year Will went with us.  Our church collected 105 boxes! 

Also, this year Operation Christmas Child gave the option for you to pay for your boxes shipping online and you got a label with a bar code.  They will scan the bar code when the box is delivered and you receive an email letting you know where your box was delivered to.  I thought that was such a fun thing to do and can't wait to see where our box ends up.  I will update everyone on where our box is when it is delivered!

This is such a great organization to be involved in and it is such an easy way to help out a child that is less fortunate.  This will definitely continue to be a yearly tradition in our home and I hope as Will gets older he will understand how important it is to help others who are in need.

Boy Next Door

 

 Seriously, don't you wish this boy lived next door to you?!?!

Will is growing up so fast, but I am loving every minute of it.

His little personlaity is so fun and he has a smile on his face all the time.

He is so precious.

Love - Love- Love Him!

Photos and a Video

Here are some cute picture from the last couple of weeks.

Laughing!

This kid always wants his shoes on!

And I couldn't resist posting this video of Will singing.  I don't know what he is trying to sing, but every time we ask him to sing, this is what we get. It cracks me up!  I am sure he will be really proud of this bath-time moment when he is a teenager.  Enjoy!

Also, I finally updated our Picasa site. There are new pictures in the October album, the November album, and the Halloween album.  Go HERE to check them out.

Auburn vs. UT-Chattanooga - Homecoming 2010

Saturday, we headed to Auburn for Homecoming.  We didn't expect it, but it was FREEZING!!!  Will had layers and layers of clothes on.

Brantley, Tracee, and Clancee met us in Auburn and sat in front of us at the game, and Mom and Melinda went with us and entertained Will.

Haha!

We decided since we had never taken Will to Tiger Walk, that this would be the perfect game to do so.  I am embarrassed to say, that I have had Auburn season tickets since 2000 and this is the first time I have ever been to Tiger Walk at a home game.  Clay and I have been to several Tiger Walks at away games but never a home game.  Crazy! So this Tiger Walk was a first for me and Will!

Will had such a fun time. The entire team was so nice, and I few guys even paused to make sure that Will got a high-five! 

I love his little chubbie hand!

Coach Chizik

After, Tiger Walk we headed over to the Student Center to get will some lunch for Will and then it was time for the game.

Once we got in our seats, we warmed up a bit because we were in the sun.  Will did really well this time and I only had to take him down once to change his diaper. He was pretty content and lasted all the way to the third quarter. 

Since it was homecoming and the team was doing pretty well, we decided to head home with about 10  minutes left in the 3rd quarter. We got home in time to see the last little bit of the Alabama-LSU game. After that was over, we headed to dinner with Kristen, Jordan, Chris, Ashley, and John. 

It was a good Saturday!

Christmas Cards

So it's November and Christmas is right around the corner.  This means it is time to start thinking about CHRISTMAS CARDS!!  Of course, you will find this little guy featured on our family Christmas card:

 

I have been using Shutterfly for all of our photo needs since Will was born. We have used them for prints of our professional photos, prints of our candid pictures, photo books, and stationary. They make quality products and have so many options for sharing and printing your photos.  I absolutely love their selection of Christmas cards this year.  It is hard to pick just one, but here are a few of my favorites:

Pretty Poinsettia

Swirling Ornaments

Let It Snow

This is actually my favorite right now because I like the three little snowmen.  It's like our little family of 3.

Also I love these address labels:



Family Snowfall Powder Address Label

After I make the final Christmas card selection, I need to think about GIFTS!!  The grandparents always love photos of Will so I am thinking about making them desk calenders so they can use them at work.



 I can't wait to make the final Christmas card selection and get them sent out to all our friends and family!

Halloween 2010

For Halloween, we spent the afternoon at our church at the Fall Festival and Trunk-or-Treat.  Will wasn't really interested in wearing his costume.  I did get a couple of pictures of our little doggy!

We were only at the fall festival for about 10 minutes and Will had already taken the costume off and got "Bobby" to take him on a hay ride. The first hay ride of the night for Will.

It is safe to say that the hay ride was his FAVORITE! He kept saying "GO GO GO".  He had the best time.  After the first hay ride, we took him around to play a few games and I took him down the inflatable slide. I thought I was done with slides.  This one wasn't as high as the Super Slide so it was okay.  I took Will down 3 or 4 times and he laughed the whole time.  Then he wanted to do this:

After some games, Will rode the hay ride again and it was time for trunk-or-treat.  Will sat in the back of the 4Runner while we handed out candy and ate about 4 suckers.  We didn't let him trunk-or-treat because he doesn't need the candy.

Family photo.

Will with Bethie!

Rob and Bobby! (Robbin and Robby)

Eating some candy.

Once we finished at the church, we took Will to trick-or-treat at Grandmother and Pop's house.  He was so excited to show Pop his doggy costume and he was thrilled to see Winnie!

We finished off the Halloween treats tonight with an extra special treat. Ms. Dianne and Ms. Pam (two sweet ladies at our church) got Will this special treat and gave it to him at trunk-or-treat.  It is an Auburn Tiger cake.  They are so sweet to think of Will and to get him something special.  I love that Will has people in his life like Ms. Dianne and Ms. Pam.  After dinner we let him have some of his "cate".  Of course, HE LOVED IT!

It has been a fun couple of days.  We are going to take it easy the rest of the week!