Halloween 2011

 Bryson had so much fun the whole month of October celebrating Halloween! He is now obsessed with the Charlie Brown Pumpkin Patch movie, pumpkins, ghosts, and monsters. As much as he loves pumpkins, he had no interest in helping Robert carve one. We found some Sesame Street stencil's at Target and let Bryson choose which one he wanted. We thought he would have chosen Cookie Monster, but he chose Elmo. It actually turned out great! Aunt Lisa also painted a Plex the Robot pumpkin from Yo Gabba Gabba and Bryson loves it. He loves it so much that he tore up almost immediately while he was trying to play with it.

We had the hardest time finding Bryson a Halloween costume this year. We had a few ideas of what we wanted to dress him as, but they were all too big for him. (we were thinking Woody or Buzz since he is obsessed with them). Apparently if you are a toddler under size 2t, all the costumes are babyish little animals which is not Bryson's personality at all. After going to 2 Halloween stores (including Party City), we had almost given up. We got to the last store and they had a few cute things like a firefighter or a Marine; but then we saw it. The very last Elvis costume and it was in Bryson's size! Oh I got so excited, Robert, not so much, until we went to the dressing room and tried it on him. It was the cutest/funniest thing ever, so we bought it. Then we went on a mission to find him a microphone, since the store we bought the costume at didn't sell one. Of course we found one at Party City where they did not sell the Elvis costume. Once Robert drew sideburns on our little Elvis, his costume was complete.

 Our Halloween celebration got started by trick or treating at my aunt's house with Will. She loved seeing them in their costumes and they had a lot of fun!
We started out Halloween morning by going to the parade at his school. All the kids were so cute in their costumes but of course Bryson stole the show in his Elvis costume. I think it was because all the other kids were dressed in babyish animal costumes and then there was Elvis, the most awesome toddler costume ever! Bryson had so much fun walking around school getting treats at every classroom. We had a hard time getting him to leave!

After the parade, we went home and rested (well me and Robert took turns running errands so Bryson could take a nap) then we got him dressed again to go trick or treating at Publix. I had always heard about people taking their kids their and really wanted to check it out. It was pretty fun, but Bryson was still a little young for their games so it was mostly Bryson running around the store getting candy while everybody talked about his costume. We even had people that wanted to take a picture of Bryson in his costume. After Publix we headed back home to wait for Robbie, Martha, and Will to go trick or treating. Bryson was singing Old Macdonald in the car which of course made for a funny picture.

For actual trick or treating, we walked around our neighborhood with Will. We started at Martha's sister, Katy's, house. We had the hardest time getting the boys to leave. They had a lot of fun playing on the piano.

Once we finally got them to leave, they had a blast going door to door getting candy. Bryson was so funny because we would tell him to go "knock, knock" and he would go knock on the door; so we just followed his lead all night. Once the people would come to the door, he would get his candy, but then try to go into their house. It was hilarious. The boys both had a lot of fun this year.

Of course the only way to get them to take a picture together was to get them to give each other a hug. Oh well, maybe next year.
After trick or treating, we went over to Amy and Mark's house for dinner. We had planned on doing some more trick or treating, but nobody was out. We were a little disappointed but Bryson still had fun. He was way too distracted to eat dinner though. When we first got there, he loved the decorations they had outside but then he started talking about the "monkers" (monsters) so we went outside and he freaked out! Needless to say he woke up in the middle of the night talking about the "monkers". Bryson had so much fun this Halloween and was interested in everything, I'm hoping he's the same way about Christmas. We have started early by listening to the Christmas music on the radio and we have even bought him a Christmas toy. So far he loves Santa, so we will see.

Grand Ole Pumpkin Patch

This year we decided to try the Grand Ole Pumpkin Patch in Clanton instead of the pumpkin patch in Hayden and it was so much fun! Last year we went to the one in Hayden and were very disappointed. The hayride was a joke and so was their so called pumpkin patch. It looked like all they did was go to the store and buy some pumpkins and throw them in the field. Thankfully Bryson was too young last year to really enjoy it anyway. It was more of a cute photo-op than anything, but this year, it was way better, and closer. It only took us about 30 minutes or less to get there. They had helicopter tours and Bryson loved waving bye bye to the helicopter. We went with our friends Steven and Jessica and her 2 kids Coby and Jeffrey. While we were waiting for them, we did a little exploring. They had a cute little set up outside of the store for us to get some cute pictures of Bryson.

They also had an area where it looked like they did little Native American presentations with real teepees. Bryson had fun going in and out of them.

They also had a petting zoo, a train ride, some bouncy houses and a few other things, but we decided to pass on those this year since Bryson is still so young. Once our friends got there, we got in line for the hayride to the pumpkin patch. It was a short ride but they had the trail decorated with all kinds of cute and spooky Halloween decorations.

Once we got there, Bryson was in heaven. He loves pumpkins (or mumkins as he calls them). This pumpkin patch was actually a real pumpkin patch unlike the one we went to last year. The pumpkins were sitting by the vines (the owners had already cut the pumpkins off the vines so they were easier to get), but you could still see the baby pumpkins growing on the vines. Bryson kept pointing at all the pumpkins with excitment yelling "MUMKINS, MUMKINS!".  He had so much fun. Once we selected our pumpkins, we headed back to they hayride. It took us at least 10 minutes to walk back because Bryson had to say bye bye to every pumpkin he walked past. It was the cutest thing ever!

It was extremely hot when we went (gotta love Alabama weather) so we had to stop for some water before taking our pumpkins back to the car.

They had another cute little setup to take pictures on the way. Bryson loved standing on the hay surrounded by all the pumpkins and scarecrows (or snowmen as Bryson kept calling them).

We all had so much fun this year at the pumpkin patch and I think Bryson really enjoyed going with some of his friends. We will definitely being going back to this pumpkin patch next year.

War Eagle!

Last weekend we headed to Auburn for our first game of the season. We went with our friend Carl and his kids Hannah and Charlie. It was their first Auburn game and they had a blast.We didn't take Bryson to this game because it didn't start until 6 and we thought that would have been too late for him to enjoy the whole game. Hopefully we will be able to make it down for an earlier game with him before the season is over. We played Florida Atlantic and even though we won, it was an ugly game. We were on the 10 yard line, row 11 so the seats were amazing. I just wish we could have seen our Tigers play a better game. It's hard to come off such an amazing year with experienced players to a year full of new, young players; but hopefully after this season our Tigers will be back. The first stop we made was to Toomer's Corner to check out the trees, and oh man were they sad. I still can't believe somebody could be so stupid and cruel enough to poison those trees. I know it's a rivalry but that went way too far. After checking out the trees, we went and bought Bryson a new jersey and hat for the season. The game was fun and we had a little bit of entertainment going on in the stands. There was a family of 3 sitting in front of us; a dad, mom and older daughter. I'm not sure if they were just lazy or had never been to a game before but we never saw them cheer or even stand up the entire game. At one point the family in front of them got really excited about a great play and stood up (along with everybody else) cheering for our players. The family that sat down made a comment to the other family that they couldn't see what happened because they were standing up. Of course some words were exchanged and the weird family went and got security. It was quite funny. The funny thing was, the security guard worked for the family sitting beside us so the dad was able to stop him. Why in the world would people like that go see an Auburn game. The drama came at a good time during the game because honestly, it got a little boring; but in the end we won, and were able to make a fun trip to Toomer's Corner to celebrate. Here's some pictures from our fun game day.

 The sad trees at Toomer's Corner

 Carl with his kids Hannah and Charlie before the game.

 Me and Robert before the game.

 Chizik getting the players ready for the game.

 Trooper getting the players ready for the game.

 The Eagle. (I had a hard time getting a picture of it flying because of the sun.)

Aubie

 After the win.

 Carl with his kids at their first trip to Toomer's Corner.

 Charlie's first time to roll the trees.

 Hannah's first time to roll the trees.

 Toomer's Corner