Happy Fall (From the Tropics)

We have been gearing up for Halloween here at our house. Everyday Noah comes home from school with a new Halloween themed art project, we went to Legare Farms for all the fall themed fun, and last weekend we carved our pumpkins. So, despite the fact that it is still 80 degrees outside, we are prepared for Halloween fun. And, oh yeah, Noah picked his costume the other day....he chose to be a Nascar driver. I have no comment.

Here is Noah at Legare Farms with the pumpkins we picked. This was after we did the "corn maze". (I say it with quotes because this year it was actually just a "maze in a random grove of trees" because their corn maze was destroyed by worms. Perhaps the sign that said, "Corn Maze: $6 per person" was a bit of false advertising?)

Noah watches as Wes cleans out our pumpkin. If you'll recall from last year, he is not a fan of the gooey pumpkin insides....

.....and neither is his Aunt J! It must be genetic.

Here are the finished products. Hopefully they won't rot in the heat!

Yikes!

I have recently been called out by my son.

(In the interest of full disclosure I will tell you this. Because of the fact that I am pregnant, I have been slightly more tired than usual lately. So, if given the choice between cleaning my house and say, taking a nap, I will pick the nap every time.)

Anyway. The other day Wes and Noah were sitting on the couch in the bonus room and they had the following conversation.....

Noah: "Daddy, I wish I had a pet baby elephant."

Wes: "What?"

N: "I want to get a baby elephant!"

W: "Why do you want a baby elephant Noah?"

N: "Because if we had a baby elephant he could squirt water out his nose and clean up this room!"

Yikes. I am off to clean my house. Come to think of it, having a baby elephant would be rather convenient!

A Great Weekend

Forget about another government stimulus. I think I may have stimulated the economy single handedly while shopping this weekend. Well, at least the economy in Charlotte that is.

In other news (and is my love of shopping really news?) I had a BLAST in Charlotte with Julie and Gray during our Charlotte girls weekend. We shopped, ate, laughed, and just genuinely had a great time. Julie and I even fit in a run each morning - it doesn't get any better than that!

I hope that we find another excuse to get together again soon! Love you ladies!

Fried Shrimp, Boiled Shrimp,.....

....shrimp kabobs, shrimp cakes, shrimp dumplings, shrimp and grits, shrimp wraps. No, I have not just finished watching Forrest Gump, I am just remembering all the yummy things I ate this weekend at the Beaufort Shrimp Festival!

Our friends Jan and Joe (Clayton's parents) invited us to spend the weekend with them at Jan's family creek house in Beaufort. So, Friday we packed up the kids and headed down for a weekend of fun. We started with crabbing on Friday afternoon.

Noah and I had never done it before and we both looked on with skeptical faces as Jan attached the turkey necks to the crabbing lines. (I didn't offer to help...are you surprised?) Anyway, Noah was very happy to play with the net and kept telling us how excited he was to catch a turtle. I tried to explain that we were catching crabs but he was convinced we would get a turtle. Turns out we got neither because the bugs were so bad we were driven inside pretty quickly. No worries though, we spent the rest of the night enjoying food and company and after the kids went to sleep the Shealys beat the Cruzes in a game of ping-pong. (Well, Wes beat them - I tried my best to lose it for us.)

We woke up on Saturday and had a relaxing breakfast on the porch as the sun was coming up over the water.

I know, I know...what a terrible view. It hurts my eyes.

Clayton, Wes, and Noah watch for dolphins in the creek.

That morning we headed into Beaufort for the Shrimp Festival. It was a beautiful day - hot yes, but that was okay.

Excited to be at the "Shrimp Vegetable"!

We did all sorts of fun things. Clayton and Noah did some face painting. There was music and tons of space to run around. Best of all was the food. So much to choose from - we probably tried it all! Noah's favorite part was definitely not the food - he liked the giant inflatable shark slide the best.

He and Clayton spent the better part of an hour going up and down the shark slide. They had a blast. So did the adults...

...don't you love our shrimp necklaces?

We finally dragged everyone home after several hours of fun and capped off the day with a sunset boat ride. After that, the kids were pretty much exhausted - and so was I - and we enjoyed some yummy dinner (thanks to Jan's parents!) and wine (yes, I had a glass -sue me.)

We had a great weekend - even though I may have gained 10 pounds from all the yummy food!

What's New Here...

I haven't felt all that busy lately but we must have been because the month of September has flown by!

Noah started school at the beginning of the month and is loving it. He is going 5 days a week, from 9-12, and he is excited for it every single day. He is learning a lot too. They are working on letters and are on the letter C this week and he is amazing me with things like, "Yeah, Mama, C is for cat." And, even though they are in different classes, he still gets to play with his buddy Clayton on the playground and even carpool with her some days. So he loves it - and lets face it, I love having 3 hours to myself every morning - so it is working out well.

Noah has also started tennis lessons. We go on Tuesday afternoons and he brings his little racket and water bottle and marches onto the court to spend 45 minutes with Ms. Denise learning the basics of tennis. I usually watch from a distance (if I am close by he gets distracted) and it is so fun to see him hit the ball with a big smile on his face. Of course the Popsicle he gets at the end contributes to his love of the tennis lesson!

And, in baby news I hit week 12 on Tuesday so I guess I am through the first trimester. I had a good 3 or 4 weeks where the nausea and fatigue were pretty bad but other than that it wasn't too terrible. Definitely better than how I felt with Noah. Plus, my whacked out taste buds are finally returning to normal (for the most part - I still can't stand peanut butter) and I am able to eat normal foods again! Wahoo!

So that's the news for now. I am off to enjoy a run this morning - fall finally decided to come to Charleston!

Noah has something to tell you.....

Yes, it's true. For those of you who don't know, we are expecting baby #2 around April 12th, 2010! We told our families this past weekend by putting Noah in this big brother shirt. We thought it would be so cute to just put him in it and wait to see how long before anyone noticed what it said. Well, never count on the cooperation of a 3 year old to carry out elaborate plans. Because Noah had just gotten new school clothes for the fall, he was insistent all day about wearing his new green, long-sleeved (yes in 90 degrees) shirt with the tractor on it. When we tried to put the other shirt on instead he pitched a fit and the best we could get out of him was to put it over the tractor shirt. However, even that was not to his satisfaction and he was completely cranky about it, so basically, we went ahead and just told everyone while Noah fussed in Wes' arms. (I do love his face in that picture though...it's like, damn, I don't know what to think about this whole baby thing. Will I have to actually share and help?)


So anyway, I am about 10 weeks pregnant and looking forward to the end of the first trimester when food might actually taste right again and I won't be constantly nauseous and tired. We went to the doctor for the first ultrasound yesterday and got a few good pictures of Baby Shealy.



This was the best one. It was really cool because he/she was moving all around, kicking his/her legs and waving at us! Noah was never that cooperative for ultrasounds - or anything else for that matter! I am hoping this is a good sign!

The McKees Visit Charleston

I am very behind on my blogging! I have several things to post about and I will try to get to them all sometime this week....

First of all, we had a visit from our friends the McKees the last week of August. Adam and Andrea and their two little girls, Maggie and Emma, came to stay with us for several days. Noah was very excited that we were having guests come and even more excited when he realized that there were "two babies". (I had been prepping him and he really seemed to understand that baby Maggie was coming - he has spent time with her before - but I'm pretty sure he was confused about Emma until he saw her and said, "Look Mama, there's another baby!") We had a fun time playing with all the kids and Noah really did some first class flirting with little Emma.

On Saturday we celebrated mine and Adam's birthdays with Adam's annual low country boil. We invited our friends the Morgans - with sweet baby Hamilton - and Cy and Carissa and we all enjoyed some yummy shrimp.

Here is Maggie "helping" Adam set up the cooker!

We also had a cookie cake for dessert. If you notice the cake says, Happy Birthday Adam and Kelly, but despite that Noah seemed to be under the impression that it was for him. He sat right in front of it while everyone sang happy birthday and then blew out the candles. This pretty much happens anytime there is a cake involved!

It was fun to see our friends and Noah had a blast hanging out with the girls - he was sad to see them go. Thanks for coming to visit McKees!