Weekly Update

We've made it to another weekend, finally!  I'm absolutely exhausted this week.  My work week seemed to take forever to pass by.  We went a birthday party for my oldest nephew last night, who turned 10... crazy!  Other than that, we haven't had any plans.  The boys and I ran some errands all morning, and we're visiting an older friend at the hospital tonight, but it's nice to finally have a weekend that isn't packed full with plans!

• I bought some essential oils soap at the Farmer's Market this past weekend for the boys.  The label told me it would help with insomnia, so I jumped on it.  It's also supposed to be good for eczema,  which Clark has terribly on his feet.  We used it several times, but those little turds still woke up early and at all hours of the night.  It hasn't seemed to help Clark's feet either.
• Clark has been puny all week.  He'll run a fever for a little while, and then he'll be fine.  I don't know what's going on with him, but I wouldn't be surprised if a doctor's visit is in our near future.
• Cooper has been as wild and mean as ever this week.  I guess that's just part of having boys, but that child never stops.  With as hard as he goes all day, you'd think he'd sleep late every morning, but no such luck!  However, we had a morning full of errands this morning, including flu shots, a haircut for Coop, and shopping.  Most days like this I have to stay all over him because he doesn't behave too well.  Today though, he was a huge help!  He held the door open for Clark and me (I was pushing Clark in the big stroller), he held Clark's hand when we walked to the car, and helped calm Clark down when he'd get upset.  I can definitely tell there's a light at the end of the three year old tunnel, but we've still got a ways to go.
• I hit up the big consignment sale this week... twice.  I found a lot more for Cooper than I usually do, and I got a few things for Clark.  All in all it was a success, and I'm hoping to be almost done with the vast majority of winter wardrobe shopping for the boys.  Cooper still needs a few pair of shoes, and I'm sure we'll end up buying new coats and a few other odds and ends, but they definitely have enough to get them started!
• Our house is right in the middle of the biking route for the Ironman Race tomorrow, so I'm anxious to see how that impacts our traveling all day.  I'm guessing it'll be a lot more difficult to come and go than we'd like it to be!
• This week at school I had to teach my students how to write an argumentative essay, including how to write a thesis statement.  Let me tell ya, that's a pretty abstract/hard concept for 11 and 12 year olds.  I sat down with every student and helped/rewrote/corrected around 100 thesis statements on Thursday.  It about killed me... I was mentally drained at the end of each school day this week!
• I got my hair trimmed this week.  I've been letting it grown for 2 years now, and I feel like it's just stopped on me!  I go through this every few months, but I'm frustrated it's not longer now.  I've stopped blow drying it, I only wash/fix it every other day or every two days, and now I've started doing deep conditioning treatments on it.  I'm hoping it'll get a boost of life soon and grow some more!
• I got a MAJOR burn on my neck last week from my curling iron.  It's nasty.  I've had to hide it with collars, necklaces, and my hair all week... you know how 6th graders (and some adults) can be.  I didn't want to hear a million questions.  A friend at school brought me some prescription burn cream for it, and it's helped immensely!  I'm hoping all the scabbing will be gone by Monday.
• Andy and I finally sat down last night and knocked out two more episodes of The Killing.  We've got one more left, and it's not looking too good for the main characters.  I'm anxious to see what happens!
• All of my shows started back this week (a couple are still a week or two away)!  The Big Bang and Nashville didn't disappoint, and we've got to watch Amazing Race.  I'm still waiting on the rest, but I'm excited!
• I'm still holding strong at 35 pounds down, but I'm hoping adding in some running with my walking will help me shed a couple of more soon.

I hope everyone has a good weekend!  We're watching Jake and the Neverland Pirates now, the boys newest favorite!  I'm also hoping to buy some pumpkins and get our Halloween decorations done tomorrow or Monday, so I'm sure we'll stay busy with what's left of our weekend!

Fall Bucket List 2014

I absolutely love fall, it's my favorite time of year.  Christmas is my favorite holiday, but you can't beat the whole autumn season.  Since the first full day of fall is today, I figured I should go ahead and roll out our fall bucket list.  I'm big on bucket lists.  I know the boys are still little, and won't remember all of these things, but I love making memories with them.  If they don't remember the things we do together at this age, I will, and I'll have pictures for them to look back on.  I've used most of our list from last year, and added a few more things for this year!  We always have a quite a few things on our lists, but I try to keep it manageable and realistic.  If you have any other good ideas, let me know!

• Paint/carve pumpkins
• Go trick-or-treating
• Watch the steam engine come through town
• Visit a corn maze/fall festival/pumpkin patch
• Play in the leaves
• Make hot chocolate
• Make s'mores
• Go on a hayride
• Updated pictures of the boys
• Go look at the leaves as they change colors
• Go to the Chattanooga Farmer's Market
• Trunk or Treat
• Have a bonfire
• Make homemade soup
• Make apple stamp art
• Make leaf art
• Make Halloween cookies
• Watch a Halloween movie
• Go on a date with Andy
• Make an apple pie
• Decorate for Halloween
• Go to a football game

Sunday Funday {Photos}

Every September our church holds our annual picnic at Cloudland Canyon State Park.  Today was the day for the fun, and thankfully, the boys took good naps before we left.  Andy was pretty sore from his race yesterday (which he and his team placed 1st in!), so we weren't planning on hiking down to the falls, but ended up going down anyways.  The boys loved it, but I about died on the way back up, carrying Cooper practically the whole way back up the side of the mountain.  Here are some photos of our day... enjoy!

 

Our second oldest nephew, Sawyer, got baptized this morning as well.  We're so proud of him!

The End of our Summer Bucket List

We had a good run with our summer bucket list this year, accomplishing almost everything we wanted to.  It took us the WHOLE summer, but we had a lot of fun marking items off of our list!  Here's a little rundown of what all we did!

Family vacation

Watch fireworks

Have a picnic

Go to a waterpark

Make a summer hand print craft with the boys

Play putt-putt

Catch lightning bugs

Take family beach pictures

Visit Andy while he's working

Have a summer bonfire and make s'mores

Family hike

Build a sandcastle

Star gaze

Go to the local farmer's market

Have an all outdoor date with Andy

Find seashells

Make bible story crafts

Take a full moon walk

Go to a "new to us" park

Try a new restaurant in Chattanooga

Go to the library's story time

Have more play dates

Take the boys to the movie theater

Buy ice cream from an ice cream truck

Make more crafts

Take more pictures

Go to an outdoor movie

Weekly Update

Hello, Friday friends!  I don't know about you, but this week went by fairly quickly for me.  It felt busy, so I guess that's why the time moved right along.  We've got another busy weekend ahead.  Andy's got an adventure race down in Rome tomorrow, and we've got our annual church picnic on Sunday.  Here's a little update of what we've been up to!

• Cooper and Clark have been pretty "normal" this week.  Normal sleeping, normal fighting, normal attitudes.  Clark hasn't been eating too great, but that's not really out of the normal in this household.  
• I'm still coming off the high that was the NeedtoBreathe concert.  They're in Atlanta tomorrow at a music festival, and it's taking all I've got to not run down there to see them!
• Summer and I went to a Pinterest Party last night at Red Barn Designs, in downtown Chickamauga.  I had been seeing them all over Facebook, so I was glad I finally got to go to one.  We made burlap wreaths, and I love mine!  It looks great on my front door with all of my other fall decor.
• The weather has finally cooled down, just a smudge.  Since it wasn't blazing on my nightly walks, I threw in some running.  It felt good to stretch my legs, and lungs, some more this week!  It's also made me want to wear all of the cute sweatshirts and flannel shirts I've bought for this year, but it's not quite cool enough for that yet.
• I'm finally down 35 pounds!  The one pound from 34 to 35 took me almost a month to lose, but I'm not complaining.  I ate more than normal due to my birthday, so I'm thrilled I didn't gain any back!
• Andy and I have been in another TV lull the last few weeks.  We told ourselves that we're going to get through The Killing before we start the next season of Dexter, so I need to light a fire underneath us!  I'm missing Dexter!  Plus, all of our non Netflix/Amazon shows start back next week, so we're running low on time!
• The big consignment sale is coming to town this week, and Cooper desperately needs some more clothes.  Clark shouldn't need anything, but I always end up getting him stuff anyways.  
• I made two crockpot meals this week.  I love crockpot meals, but always feel like they're geared for cooler weather.  It made my evening routines much easier though, as dinner was ready when I got home from school.
• We just got a note that our neighborhood community yard sale is on October 4th.  Andy throws things out so quickly that we never have anything to sale, but I like rummaging.  

I hope everyone has a good weekend!  I'm sure I'll have some pictures to share next week.

Conversations with Cooper and Clark

It seems like recently both of the boys have come out with some pretty funny sayings.  I knew I needed to write them down or I'd forget what they said.  Here are some of my favorites, from both boys!

Cooper:

Anytime someone asks him how old he is he says; "I'm almost J!"

The other day when it was raining;  "Momma, are you going to grab the rainbrella for us?"

When looking at a picture of Andy and me when we were dating (Andy had longer hair, which was curly);  "My daddy doesn't have silly hair anymore!"

While singing a song at Walmart last night;
Cooper: "It's in my pants... it's in my pants..."
Me:  "What's in your pants?"
Cooper:  "My weenier!"

He's also started singing along to all the songs he knows in the car.  He knows almost all the words to all of the NeedtoBreathe songs, and I must admit, that makes me very proud!  He calls them all his "favorite songs" and requests them regularly!  He sings really well, and picks up on a lot of words that are hard to understand.  On the flip side of this, I was listening to "Fancy" the other day, by Iggy Azalea, and I heard him singing/spelling the "I-G-G-Y... who dat, who dat..." part.  Granted, it was the "clean" version, but I guess I need to stick to NeedtoBreathe or Frozen at all times when he's in the car!

Clark:

The other night when he was feeding himself some baby food and he spilled it;  "Ahh, I make a mess!"

The other night when he was done with that baby food and refused to eat more;  "I all done, throw it in the garbage!"

The other day when Cooper shut him in a room;  "Cooper Andrew Smithson, come here RIGHT now!"

When I ask him what he wants to be for Halloween;  "A tractor, and a snow monster!"

Anytime he gets hurt;  "Kiss it right here!"

When Andy just asked him if you wanted a drink of juice;  "No, I don't like it.  I'm going to go walking and running."

Clark rarely ever shuts up, and with the way he pronounces things, he keeps us laughing all the time! He's talking so much, so much earlier than we expected, it's a real joy to hear the things he comes out with!

NeedtoBreathe Concert // Nashville

In case you somehow missed me talking about it for the last 3 months, we went to the NeedtoBreathe concert in Nashville this past Saturday night!  Andy and I saw them in Atlanta (when we met the lead singer... be still my heart) in May, and came home and immediately bought tickets to another show.  This time around, my best friend, Kaitlin went with us! 

This concert was at an outdoor venue in Nashville, called The Woods at Fontanel.  It was a really neat venue.  It was out in the middle of nowhere, in a field.  When they finally let us back (we waited in line for an hour), you walked forever before you got to the amphitheater area.  Once you finally got back to there, you walked in right by the stage, so I just knew we'd never get a seat as close as we wanted.  Fortunately, we really lucked up though and got really close!  We saw a small, free section of grass at the middle of the stage, so we put our blanket down and claimed it!  I was thrilled with where we sat!  It makes such a difference when you can see them up close, and see their facial expressions!  No denying that I'm in love with the lead singer, so it was great being so close!  We ended up sitting right by their bus driver's wife, so I thought we may have an in to meet them officially, but no such luck!

The openers, the Oh Hellos, came on right before 9pm ET, and I was already freezing by that point!  I knew the forecast was calling for cooler weather, but they'd missed it so much this week that I didn't really plan on it being that cool.  Once we were up and moving around for NeedtoBreathe I was fine, but even the band commented on how cool it was!  They came on right around 10pm ET, and it was AMAZING!  I know I said that last time, but they truly do put on the best concert I've ever seen!  I think this one was a little bit better than Atlanta, just because we could see so much better.  It really does make a huge difference when you can see their facial expressions and interactions with each other.  Bear (the lead singer) also talked a lot more this show, and I really liked that! 

I always hate when the shows are over because I look forward to them so long, and now there's not one that we have lined up!  I'm already waiting for the next tour to kickoff... whenever that'll be.  Like I said before, if you even remotely like them, you should definitely see them in concert!  They're wonderful!  Also, if you don't listen to them now, you should definitely do that, too! 

I've posted a couple of videos at the bottom, but once again Blogger wouldn't let me upload most of them.  Oh well, here's some pictures until I get us to the next concert!