What Happened?!

It seems like overnight, someone came in and took my sweet baby boy and replaced him with a holy terror toddler. I'm only half-way kidding. He's still my sweet, cuddly boy about half the time, but the other half? He's usually wreaking havoc. Our Christmas tree is only decorated on the top half. Anything that is placed on the bottom of the tree will be pulled off in about 3 nanoseconds by Austin. And forget placing any wrapped presents under the tree. That would just be a joke- I'm sure the paper would be ripped, and perhaps eaten, within an hour.

He's a busy little boy for sure! I know that Bella was a busy toddler, but Austin is different. Whereas Bella was more just exploring her surroundings, Austin seems to be out to destroy them. I don't know if it's just the difference in a little boy vs. a little girl, or child #1 vs. child #2, or just simply the difference in their little personalities. Whatever it is, it's exhausting!

I've recently gone back to work full-time. Our after school/work routine is always the same. As soon as we walk in the door, it's time to wash our hands and get a small snack while Scott and I get dinner ready. We had just gotten home, and I had slipped out of the room to go to the bathroom. While I was the bathroom, I heard Bella open the pantry door, and then I heard something being spilled on the floor. I hurried as fast as I could, but was clearly not fast enough. While Bella was helping herself to a snack, so was Austin. Only he's not as neat as his sister...

Good thing he's so stinkin' cute- I might have gotten a little frustrated with his mess!

He was eating them off the floor as quickly as I was trying to pick them up off the floor!


And here's his latest stunt. He loves to turn a light switch on and off. And this toy provides the perfect step-stool for reaching the switch in his room.

He wears me out, no doubt about that. But, I honestly don't think I would change a single thing about him. Most of the time, whenever I pick him up, he's always willing to snuggle. He loves climbing in my lap to read a book and loves cuddling in the rocking chair until he drifts off to sleep each night. If I sit down in the floor for any reason, and he happens to be nearby and notices, I can guarantee that he'll be sitting in my lap within a few seconds. He spontaneously gives his big sister hugs and loves giving us all open-mouth, sloppy kisses. He's a sweet little boy, that's for sure. I wouldn't trade any of it for anything in the world (even when I feel like pulling out my hair)!

Thankful...

I may be over a week late on this blog, but I just wanted to post about our Thanksgiving. To say that I have a lot to be thankful for is an understatement, for sure! We went to my Grandmama's house to celebrate with tons of family and food. We had a great time visiting with everybody! Of course, I have a few picture to share...

Here's Austin and Scott outside after the feast...

After lunch, Bella and her cousin, Layla, headed to the pond to find sticks and pinecones to toss into the water.

Those girls always have energy to burn!

What farm is complete without a John Deere for the kids?!

Austin had just spied the tractor and was about to make his move...

And for now, he's happy riding in the trailer...

The Saturday after Thanksgiving is the annual Wrightsville Beach Flotilla. We went for the first time a couple of years ago after first moving to Wilmington. We hadn't been back for a couple of years because we had small, mobile children who weren't interested in staying put in a stroller to watch a boat parade. This year, a friend invited us to watch at a condo they had for the weekend. I have to say- that's the way to watch the flotilla! The kids had entertainment and I didn't have to worry about losing them in the crowd. We had the inside and heat to retreat to if we got too chilled outside. We also had food, drinks and bathrooms! This was definitely the way to go- and we could just stay put until the traffic cleared out. It was so much fun!

Austin and Scott out on the deck watching the boats.

"Where are these boats I keep hearing about?"

Bella had just heard that Santa's boat was on the way...

My personal favorite boat in the parade- the Griswold family Christmas boat. It even had "Clark" to plug the lights back in when they went out while singing "Joy to the World"!

Fireworks after the parade.

This is what happens when you keep a 15 month old up a couple of hours past his bedtime. Meanwhile, his sister was still wide awake and chatting the whole way home about her fun night...

We had a great weekend. We are so thankful for so many things, but especially for an awesome family and great friends to share the holidays with.

Getaway...

Last weekend, Scott and I got away without the kiddos. I can't remember the last time we were away by ourselves. We certainly miss Bella and Austin on those rare vacations alone, but we do cherish the time where we can rest and have fun without the kids. We went to the Outer Banks with my brother, Will, and sister-in-law, Melissa. Will, Scott and I were registered to run the Outer Banks 1/2 marathon, but we had a little bit of time to explore some of the Outer Banks while we were there, too. We had a blast and are looking forward to taking the kids there to explore some more!

We got there Saturday afternoon and headed to the race expo to pick up our race numbers and to check out the vendors. This was by far the biggest race I've ever participated in, so the expo was quite impressive. Then we headed to dinner. We opted out of the pre-race pasta dinner for some local seafood. Our innkeeper suggested Basnight's Lone Cedar Cafe (although, my sister-in-law heard her suggestion as Bass Mike's Lone Feeder Cafe, which had us really confused for a while, but then provided for many laughs later in the night) and it certainly did not disappoint. All locally caught seafood- so if you're ever in the Nags Head area, I really recommend good ole Bass Mike's.

We headed to the starting line in Nags Head around 6am Sunday morning. They had a wave start, based on your estimated finish time, so Scott, Will and I started in the 3rd group. There were over 3700 people participating in the 1/2 marathon, so it was an insane mass of humanity at the starting line. We got started and even though Will, Scott and I started together, we quickly got separated. For the first 8 miles I had no idea if I was in front of them or behind. Around mile 8, and just before the 82' high Washington-Baum bridge at mile 9, Will caught up with me. We ran together across the bridge, but at the bottom, Will left me. I didn't have enough left in the tank to keep up. So, the last 3 miles or so, I was back on my own.

I had trained hard to finish under 2 hours, and knew what pace I had to maintain to do that. I kept around a 9:00/mile pace or less the whole race, except for the 1 mile that crossed the bridge. With 1 mile left to go, I picked up my pace a little, but not much because I was exhausted. Thank goodness for the crowds of people cheering us on, because I was so tempted to walk. I crossed the finish line 46 seconds after Will with a finish time of 1:58:13. I was certainly happy with that. I finished 859 out of 3758 overall, 339 out of 2387 females and 67 out of 383 in my division. Not too shabby, I guess!

Here's my little brother, Will, approaching the finish line. My sister-in-law, Melissa, was there to cheer us on!

And that's me, in the black, approaching the finish line. And yes, I'm pretty sure that's a kid to the far right of me that ended up crossing the finish line before me.

Almost there! It's a little deceiving since the race clock already says more than 2 hours, but with the wave starts, the race clock had already been running for about 5 minutes when our group started. Luckily, they based our order of finish on our chip time, not the race clock.

Poor Scott, they herded us on out of the finish area due to the massive amounts of runners, so I didn't get to actually see him cross the finish line. But, he did great and finished around 2:02.

Enjoying a well deserved Coors Light!

After lunch and showers, we headed out to see some of the sights of the Outer Banks. We went to Corolla to see the lighthouse and some of the surrounding area. It was gorgeous and I wish we had more time to explore! Here's looking up at the Currituck Beach lighthouse.

Here's the inside of the lighthouse, looking up the stairs you can climb to the top. After running 13.1 miles, I had no desire to climb all those stairs. So we just stayed at the bottom!

At the lighthouse, there was a boardwalk area through the woods and out onto the water. Here's a little of the view from the boardwalk.

And another shot off the boardwalk.

We had a great time, and definitely hope to get back there again some day. We'd love to have more time to see the sights and take Bella and Austin to enjoy the Outer Banks as well. Maybe I'll go back next year and run the full 26.2 mile marathon!

Halloween

We spent our Halloween weekend quite differently than planned. What we had planned: pumpkin painting Saturday afternoon, oyster roast and trunk or treat with friends Saturday evening, church fall festival Sunday afternoon and then trick or treating in the neighborhood Sunday evening. What ended up happening: Bella throwing up Friday night and running a fever all weekend. Awesome. However, thanks to some regularly scheduled Tylenol, Bella was able to participate in a few activities...

We did enjoy painting pumpkins in the backyard Saturday afternoon.

And here's my girl riding a Tylenol high.

The finished products.

Bella decided one needed just a little more color.

On Sunday evening, we had to miss the fall festival. Hate to be the ones to bring nasty germs to spread them around to the masses. So, we had a quiet Halloween at home. We did dress the kids up in their costumes. Austin was a ferocious lion.

And, once again thanks to Tylenol, Bella was able to trick or treat for a little while. Here's Sleeping Beauty.

Austin didn't really care a thing about trick or treating. In fact, we found his trick or treat bucket in the middle of the cul-de-sac at one point.

"Well, well, what have we here?"

It took a few tries for Austin to finally master how to eat a dum dum.

But he eventually figured it out.

Then he decided that he was done and wanted back in the house.

I coaxed him back out to the porch for one more picture while his sister and Daddy were trick or treating some more.

Although Halloween didn't go at all as planned, we still had fun. Hopefully, some good memories were made in spite of it all.