123, ABC

We're getting there!

I thought this conversation was hilarious so I just had to share it.

This is my favorite part of this age so far.
The things he says make me giggle sometimes.

Happy Halloween!

Here's to hoping my little money will actually keep his costume on for more than 5 minutes...

Ain't Too Proud to Beg.

Rebecca and I took Deuce and Chase to the NC State Fair last week. As we were walking along I heard a band playing some Motown hits. I asked Rebecca if we could swing by there since it's Deuce's favorite type of music. We kept the boys in their strollers for the first song. The second song was Ain't Too Proud to Beg and that is one of Deuce's absolute favorite songs. I had to let him out. And guess what, he took off down the aisle, by himself to the front of the stage where he put on a show. And then Chase decided to follow. I'm not sure that anyone was watching the band anymore. All eyes were on the dancing toddlers.

My boy has music in his bones.

A Day in the Life.

Alright Carrie. Here is my day....

So if you didn't already know, I work Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday in RTP so I get to stay home with Deuce on Thursdays & Fridays. I love these days and will be sad when I have to give them up. I'm taking a cue from Carrie to document my days with Deuce. This day was last Thursday. I wore no makeup (very normal for me) and I took very candid shots so laugh away... just don't tell me.

7:30am

Deuce ends up in my bed lately somewhere between 3am (ugh!) and 8am. I am usually up for the day somewhere between that time.

 8:30am

Breakfast, mandatory Diet Coke and Dora/Curious George/Caillou

 9:30am

Do the dishes, start laundry and have a snack about 10. He eats all day. He always helps with the chores and always says "I help you mommy?" as if he needs to ask me if he can do chores?!

 10:30am

Brush our teeth. Do more laundry. Pick up around the house. Make beds and whatever else needs to be done.

 11:30am

Take a shower and get ready for the day.

 12:00pm

Start dinner before we head out. I've been trying to do a lot of crock potting lately. Not much fuss when I get home from work and I like the type of meal where I can just dump everything in and not have to worry about "occasionally stirring." And yes, that's an empty bottle of Moscato. The terrible two's will do that to you.

 We almost always get out of the house a little before lunch time. We go to the mall, the park, the library or wherever. This day I chose to take him to his first movie ever. We went to see Finding Nemo 3D. He enjoyed the experience (thankfully we were the only people in the theatre) but he didn't want the glasses about 2 minutes into the movie.

 Before we head home we usually stop to eat lunch. He almost always chooses McDonalds or Chick fil-a. Judge if you must. Doesn't bother me. He eats all of his food and then plays. At this point in my life, I am trying to wear his little butt out any way I can so he will get in a good nap. He fights nap time like crazy so I have better luck if he falls asleep in the car after lunch. Again, might not be the best parenting strategy long term, but right now it works. And with the terrible two's in full effect, I am doing what I need to in order to survive.

 3pm-ish (whenever we get home)

Nap time. Bam. Fell asleep in the car and slept a good 2+ hours.

And guess what... I slept right along with him.

It's almost a given that I am only going to get 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep per night so I am not one of those moms that utilizes nap time to do chores or clean or craft.

Heck no. If you do, then that's amazing and I envy you.

This sista needs her sleep.

I am a grumpy b---- if I don't get it. Just ask my husband.

So if I can sneak in an hour nap, I'm on it like white on rice.

 Daddy comes home around 6:30 while I am putting dinner on plates for everyone. Deuce is either playing or sometimes just waking up, depending on when I actually got him down.

7pm

Mommy Time!

Pre-Zumba. Love it. Obsessed.

 8:30pm

Zumba done wore me out. Every time.

This awful picture doesn't even do justice to how sweaty I actually am.

Gross. Time to head back to the zoo.

 9:30pm

Yes. That's my dinner. And yes, that's what time I eat. Every. Night.

(It's roast from the crock pot and it was durn good if I do say so.)

 Bedtime for Deuce comes usually after I finish eating. If I put him to bed it takes a good 45 minutes for me to read him some books, get him settled in and asleep. Yes, he will freak out if I leave the room before he is asleep. If Ed is home to put him to sleep, it takes him all of 10 minutes. WTH?

Usually by this time, I am exhausted. All I want to do is curl up in the bed and go to sleep. Some nights that's exactly what I do. Other nights, I have to make time to be a wife too so I sit and watch tv with Ed. I am so far behind on my dvr'd shows because if I am watching tv it's usually PBS or the Disney Channel!!

I am back to being woken up anywhere between 3am and 8am to start this all over again.

But I wouldn't have it any other way.

Cow Parade & Bulls.

Saturday was the first White Out game for the Tarheels against Va Tech. They wore all white, including new white football helmets, for the first time since the '60s.

The Cow Parade is in town and there are several throughout campus. You can bet that the kids are obsessed with them. So we had to get pictures taken with some of them.

This is Alex. He sits behind us. We have sat near his family since he was a baby.

He has a little crush.

He held my hand the entire walk to the stadium from our tailgate.

When we saw the cow he was adamant that we take a picture together...with no one else in it.

 After the game we took some family pics with the cow in the stadium. He is painted as Moo Moo Justice after Tarheel legend, Charlie "Choo Choo" Justice.

On the way back to the car we stopped at the cow outside of the Carolina Club.

How is that for a picture... the boys on the Tarheel cow where we had wedding reception pictures taken.

And since we're talking about cows, we went to the Efland Rodeo after the game. I thought Deuce was going to sleep through it because he hadn't napped all day, but as soon as the horses came flying out of the gate he was wide awake. He has become slightly obsessed with bulls too. Can you tell?

And for those of you that have been asking.

Here is Daniel riding the mechanical bull at Arizona Pete's last month.

His thighs were bruised for days! Comical.

Sorry I've been MIA. We've hit the terrible twos for real and it's mentally exhausting.

I need to write a good post about all of the things he is doing so I can document it for him later in life.

And I need to document all of the funny things he is saying right now.

Like how he points to the kangaroo in his Curious George book and says "Kanataroo."

Or how he has to listen to The Temptations over and over again in the car while he plays his "Tanerine" (tambourine). And he is fierce with that thing. Head bobbing and shaking it hard.

My friend Carrie posted a day in the life on her blog where she took a picture of herself every hour documenting her average day. That was such a good idea and I totally need to do it like once a month. Everything is changing so often and going by too fast. I need to write it all down!

Football Season.

I know I haven't blogged much this month but there really hasn't been that much going on. Well, other than Tarheel football. It consumes our weekends and that's how we like it. We tailgate before the games and then some more afterwards. We never leave the game before it's over. Even if we're winning by a landslide or losing by 50. That's just how we are. Deuce went to every game the year he was born. But he was 3-7 months old so he sat/slept in my lap just fine. Last year we took him to a few games and it was very difficult. He was super restless. So we decided that we would try to take him to the Elon game this year to see how he would do now at 2, since it wasn't a big game. He was awesome! He was so into the game. Sat in my lap pretty much the entire time and even took a nap during the game. He watches the game and cheers when he's supposed to. He has been to every game with us so far this year. Here are some pictures from football season so far.

Elon at home

 At Wake Forest

Rain Delay 

 ECU at home

And here's some video for you.

1. Deuce dances all throughout the game.

2. Laura challenged Dad to push ups.

I know it's dark but we stayed in the deck until all of the jello shots had been depleted and the last of the strawberries soaked in whipped vodka and topped with whipped cream were gone. 

BLAST!

family vacay. 2012

We had one of the best vacations ever back in early August.

We spent hardly any money.

We hardly got dressed in much more than a bathing suit or yoga pants/basketball shorts.

We only wore flip flops.
And we just sat by the beach.

It was perfect.

 Rebecca's parents have a house at Topsail so we went for a week. Rebecca and I drove down with Chase, Austin and Deuce. Ed, Daniel & TJ came down a day later. The first thing the boys wanted to do was go to the water and throw rocks and mud. They could do this for hours.

 Rebecca's sister and nephew came over to hang out for a little bit. Talon is only a few months younger than Deuce & Chase.

 All week long the boys had their fair share of timeouts.

They would push, shove, fight over toys, cry and scream and then hug it out a few minutes later.

Neither of them go to daycare yet so it was good for them.

Rebecca and I just laughed most of the time.

 We spent most of our time at the beach. Believe it or not Deuce has never been to the "ocean" part of the beach. We usually go to mom's place and it's on the sound with it's own beach area so we never have reason to go to the ocean side. Deuce immediately became obsessed with the ocean and the waves.

 Like he didn't want to get out of the water obsessed.

Like he had super bad diaper rash from the sand and water.

 You know we played sports.

Is that a stance or what?

 We hung out on the amazing screened in porch.

 We napped on the beach.

 We attempted to put Deuce and Chase together on a mattress on the floor. They both slept through 1 night and got up at the same time super early. Both boys crawled into bed with me & Ed and slept a little longer.

 Daniel & Rebecca took the boys on the kayaks so I could take a nap.

Alone.

 Deuce had so much fun on the kayak that it put him right to sleep.

I'll let the pictures tell the rest. It was beach, beach, beach for us and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. I am missing summer vacation already.