Scenes of Fall

Gracious, he's cute!

Celebrated the end of our first flag football experience with a trot around the Raider field!

We can't ever get enough s'mores around this place!

Cheering our ducks on at Jaemor

Survived the corn maze yet again!

Pumpkin cookie decorating

He looks so innocent...

This guy is wild!

Such a corny kid!

Trunk or Treat fun with friends!

Jack carving his jack'o lantern!

Sand & Surf

Until next year...

Superman and A Giraffe Walk into a Bar...

You'll remember we did a trial run of our Halloween wardrobe several days ago, and the boys gave their costumes another workout this past weekend during our trip to Amelia Island. So, I knew that Sam would not only tolerate his costume, but actually kind of enjoy it. What I didn't really expect was for him to enjoy carrying his treat basket so much. He pretty much refused any help with his basket. The little guy loves to be on the move, so I should have known he'd love going from house to house to collect treats.

We even had a visit from Mema and Pop on Monday night. They decided that instead of handing out candy to other people's kids, they'd rather drive up and watch their own grandboys collect sweets. I'm not sure who is having more fun?

We made it around to about 10 or so of the houses on our street, and then Jack was ready to head home and play! Not to mention the fact that they couldn't wait to sample some of their loot.

A Perfect Break

While there was a true "fall break" from school a couple of weeks ago around here, our family of four had a break planned that coincided with the annual Georgia vs. Florida football game. Josh and I have been going to the game since college, and even though these days we have little ones in tow, we still enjoy making the trip. We've always joked that since the Dawgs haven't had the best luck with winning in Jacksonville in the last couple of decades, that we had to make a mini-vacation out of the trip to make the 6-7 hour drive worth it.

So, dashing out of Athens after Friday classes has turned into Wednesday morning departures from our home in Habersham. Reservations at the Omni hotel adjacent to the Jacksonville Landing (a.k.a. party central) have given way to condo rentals on the Plantation resort at Amelia Island. To visit Fernandina Beach, is to love Fernandina Beach.

With beautiful skies and warm breezes, this year's trip was a perfect break for our family of four...not to mention Saturday brought a Bulldog victory. Another great treat is that we get the opportunity to reconnect with old friends that we rarely get to see. Now that we all have children, it's always interesting when the crew gets together. (More photos of our trip here.)

Returning from a trip is always exhausting. The boys did pretty well both days we spent in the car. Unpacking and laundry filled our morning. So, although today was a sort of back to reality, that reality included escorting Superman and an adorable Giraffe to the post office, pharmacy, grocery and up and down our street. In other words..not entirely boring.

Carving Up Fun

The boys and I met up with some friends to carve pumpkins. The kids were pretty excited about it, but pumpkin carving can be kind of slow going. So, the younger ones can get easily bored and ready to move on. Jack hung on for a while. He's not really the kind that likes to get messy.

He selected a bat design for his pumpkin, but when I saw all the cuts that I would be doing we reconsidered. I managed to talk him into the batman bat, which just happened to be on his shirt. I sketched it on the pumpkin and got to carving. Jack was pretty pleased with the finished product, so all is well.

photo friday

Did a little dress rehearsal today. I think we're ready...

If you're happy and you know it...

Clap your hands, right? In the last two weeks Jack has really taken to clapping. I think I mentioned he learned it, but he does it all the time now. It really is cute. Here's a picture of him and his friend Naomi at the beach this weekend. He's too busy to hold her hand because he's clapping his hands!

Jack is such a busy boy these days. Although I know he enjoyed himself during our trip, he was so happy to be home. Last night, he played and played crawling all around the floor and pulling up on the couch and ottoman as if he had missed them while we were gone. He hasn't really figured out this whole time change thing, but we're working on it. He's been up at 5 the last two mornings, which is not my preferred waking hour. I'm hoping an early nap today will help encourage a longer slumber tonight.

I've uploaded several photos from our trip. You can view them on our Picasa site. They are in the October & November albums. Don't forget to vote, if you haven't already.

Bloggin from the beach

So, I'm bloggin from the beach...okay, I'm not literally on the beach right this moment (sand and a laptop probably don't mix...especially when it's not your laptop!), but I can see the ocean from where I'm sitting. We're here at Amelia Island in North Florida for the big Georgia/Florida showdown. Some old friends of ours have joined us and we've got a big condo on the Plantation. Jack's napping and everyone is getting ready to head downtown for some shopping.

Last night we enjoyed some great food at Barbara Jean's. If you've never heard of it...they have them in a couple of places down here. They have fabulous crabcakes! We ate at the one at St. Simons earlier this summer. It was delicious. We're all looking forward to halloween festivities here tomorrow. The kids have costumes and we hear there is a hayride. I hope to have some great photos to share once we return on Sunday.

In the meantime, Go Dawgs!

Martha Stewart Moment

So, today Jack and I went to a Halloween party, which was a lot of fun. It was a trial run of his cute little monkey costume. I think it went pretty well. He kept it on for at least an hour. All the kids had really cute costumes, and we even got a group picture (well, sort of). My friend, Carolyn, was our gracious host and even had crafts and halloween-themed projects for the kids to do. Thanks, Carolyn. We had a blast!

Since they are far and few between I have to share my Martha Stewart moment with you. Here's a photo of the dessert I took to today's Halloween party. I'm guessing the recipe has way too much trans fat and is not organic enough for Martha Stewart (probably a little more up Paula Deen's alley...it has a stick of butter in it!), but I think the artistic touches were something to write home about or at least blog, but it wasn't without drama...

After covering some of my nutter butters with melted white chocolate, I realized I couldn't locate the tube of black icing I bought to pipe on ghostly features and to decorate my tombstones. I panicked! Enter Prince Charming from stage left. Seeing my obvious distress that the picture perfect dessert I had designed in my head would now seem pitiful, Josh stepped in. He quickly headed to the pantry and found some chocolate chips to melt. A few moments later, I turned around to find these festive ghost faces! Awesome, right? A little while later he returned to the kitchen to find me having had assembled what I deemed to be my perfectly festive dessert.

Josh: You're going to take a picture of that aren't you?
Me: Heck yes I am!
Josh: You're probably going to put it on the blog aren't you?
Me: Uh, yes...aren't you proud of it?
Josh: Well, I guess I'm proud of my part.

So, thanks Josh for saving the day!