Family pictures - Fall 2015

This fall was crazy at our house (which, I'm guessing if I say it like 15,000 times you might get it, right?).  Believe it or not, we were able to squeeze in some quick family pictures in a nearby field area with my friend, Sarah!!   

It was fun to coordinate our outfits, but what wasn't fun?  Trying to get my kids to cooperate and SMILE!!  You would think they are just the most unhappy kids ever - haha.  But with some work, she did get some great ones - which I told her, all I need is one of our family and one great one of our each of our kids (so I can update their pictures in our house).

She more than delivered!!!!  I love the results and such great light.  It was quick and easy and, while Jimmy would kill me if I said "fun", I'm going to say it was GOOD!

These kiddos - just the best and their personalities crack me up.

Thanks again so much Sarah for some great shots to update pictures in our house and use for our Christmas card!!  It's amazing how much Maddie has changed from just this June when my good friend, Ali, took her one year pictures in Wichita!!

Royals win - the parade and rally!

Source

So I thought I just needed to catch up through Thanksgiving on our happenings..but boy was I wrong.  Rewinding back to OCTOBER when the KC Royals won the first World Series in THIRTY years.  That's right 30 freaking years.  That's how I old I am...so let's just say that was a while ago.

I've mentioned this on the blog before, particularly when I recapped last year's World Series run that the Royals made and ultimately lost game 7 to the Giants...but Jimmy is a HUGE Royals fan.  Like lives for Royals games.  Always has...even when they were horrible.  So to say when they won might have been the best day of his life (in regards to sports) is probably tied up there with KU winning the NCAA basketball championship in 2008.

So when your team wins the World Series, you get to throw a parade...on a Tuesday.  And guess who shows up?   Like the whole city.  Well almost - to be specific - an estimated 800,000 people made the trek down to downtown KC to witness the parade and the pep rally to celebrate the world champions.  Of course, Jimmy said he was going and taking our kids - because he went with his family 30 years ago.  So I took the day off and down we went with 800,000 other people to see the parade.

We prepared for the worst.  Brought a little stroller and strapped my ginormous toddler to my back and off we went.  We got there pretty early, so the crowds weren't that big yet.

But we were prepared with snacks, blanket, drinks, etc. 

...and Royals gear....

...and best yet - our cousins!!!!

 

I'm not going to lie, I was slightly frightened and filled with some anxiety based on all the news reports and questions on social media about what you could bring, not bring, etc.  But it was all fine.  People were good old nice midwest people, of course.  We staked our spot and had an amazing set up outside of the bank that my SIL works at (so we could go in and out and use the bathroom there) AND my friend worked down the street and invited all of her friends and their families to come in there and eat, play, etc.  Charlie and I made the trek down to NAIA alone so everyone else could hold our spot and the people already started filling up!!

But Charlie was having fun eating snacks and playing ping pong inside!!!  

Once we made our way back to our spot, we just had a few minutes to fill before the parade started and we had to take our spots to watch it.  So this kid wanted me to snap some pictures of him.

He was trying to perfect the thumbs up and it was pretty funny!

Brothers (minus Tim)

The crew we were with (minus Hillary!)

Some more pictures of the crowd getting ready for the parade - people everywhere!!!!

Then it was FINALLY time!!  I took about a billion pictures of all the players driving by in their trucks - but I'm not sure why because I can barely read them!!  Haha.  So here's just one player on the truck and the Budweiser truck all decked out for the Royals!!! 

These were our positions most of the parade!

Right after the parade ended - we just headed out and decided to not stay for the pep rally. On the way back to our car, passing the awesome Carter Glass sign!

We were planning on all going to Pat's house to watch the pep rally together, however, we seemed to be the lucky ones that got out of downtown VERY fast.  Everyone else got stuck in traffic and by the time we go to Pat's house we had hungry and tired kids - so just decided to go home.  

In the end, it ended up being the best choice because Maddie threw up in the car and then Charlie threw up all over me on the way upstairs to go lay down to take a nap. 

So everyone ended up in the bathtub and poor Charlie didn't go to school the rest of the week because he had the flu and couldn't kick his fever.  Poor guy!

Once we got the kiddos down for a nap, Jimmy and I watched the pep rally at Union Station and HOLY COW!!!  We couldn't believe all the people that were there.  It was completely insane and such an awesome pep rally.  This team just had awesome guys and the best speech of the day?  That went to Jonny Gomes (who I didn't even know was until this point!!).

If you haven't seen it - you need to watch it here.  It's amazing!

The Royals win made it VERY easy for gift giving in the Carter family this year I will say!  All the boys pretty much bought each other more Royals world champion gear (in addition to everything they had already purchased), but then Jimmy's parents got all the boys a poster of the amazing picture of the pep rally for us to frame and hang up!

source

What a year for the KC Royals - one that we will always remember!
I will also say that most of the big schools canceled school the day of the parade which was up for debate on whether that was the right thing to do or not.  My mother in law is a principal and very pro education (obviously) and she said the ONLY time she ever pulled all her boys out of school ever (like she never did for vacations, etc.) was to go to the World Series parade in 1985 and she'd do it again.  So yep, I'm happy that we braved the crowds and went - it was a day and event to remember forever!

Here I am - catch up commences now

Hi friends!!!!

Hope you all had a GREAT holiday season.  Between Thanksgiving and Christmas and all the madness that the holidays have to bring with being busy at work, getting sick, school parties, neighborhood parties, work parties, shopping and just being all about merry - I have had NO time to update this little blog.  So this week my goal is to rewind and over the next few weeks {hopefully} catch up.  As this is how I document and keep up with our little family, thanks for following along!!!

I swear I will catch up to what's happening NOW in our house very soon! 

In the meantime, enjoy this video of our kiddos having fun together splashing in the bath.  She loves her big brother!

Secret (really!!) Santa blogger book exchange

Hi December.  Wow.  Work has been crazy.  Kids have been sick.  Then mom gets sick.  And guess what? In the midst of trying to keep up with the crazy that December already is...poor blog gets no attention.  I hate it I really do- but unless you can find some extra time or energy my way...this will have to do.

When I saw that some wonderful folks were hosting their second annual secret Santa blogger book exchange- I jumped on to participate!  I had a lot of fun with the scarf exchange this fall and thought something that involved my kiddos would be even more fun!

Thanks to Liz, Courtney and Ashley  for hosting this fun exchange!!

We got a nice surprise of three fun gifts.  One for me, one for Charlie and one for Maddie!!!

I had the kids come upstairs from playing (yes that's a buzz light year costume...nope, not Halloween ;)) to open up their books!

Hard at work ripping open the books and practicing for Christmas Day!

Per usual. Checking out what each other got!!

I tried to get Charlie to hold them up- but you cannot really see them.  But he got the Little Blue Truck's Christmas which was a HUGE hit!!! We don't have any of those books and I think we will have to buy some.  He loves reading this book and especially the blinking lights of the Christmas tree on the last page!  And Maddie got a little mermaid book- which lo and behold, she got to read like once and it's found its way into big brothers nightly book rotation (as if he doesn't know the little mermaid story by heart!)

And for me?? Well I cannot wait to read this book!! I loved Gone Girl and heard great things about this!!  And for the sweet bookmark!

What even funnier is that my awesome partner kept anonymous the whole time!! For real! She wrote a sweet card but didn't reveal herself!  So then I started freaking out thinking "oh my gosh, I ruined the surprise for my partner too!".  So I quickly sent the Crystal from a direct message on Instagram telling her I'm sorry I ruined it- haha. I'm a mess!!  She responded and let me know that if i did it wrong then so did she!!  I emailed the coordinators and found out finally who our awesome books were from and it was Whitney from Work it mommy blog  . Thank you for an awesome package of books!!! We have loved reading them this holiday season!! 

********************************CORRECTION**************************
I'm a moron and misread the email from the hosts - ahh!  My package was NOT from Whitney, it was from Stephanie at Wife Mommy Me.  SOOOO sorry!  I tell you what, this has not been the month for me.  Thank you so much for our books Stephanie!!!
********************************************************

And thanks for the hosts- this was a fun little exchange that I enjoyed getting to meet new bloggers and send and receive some Christmas cheer!

Here's wishing to no sickness in our house the second half of December and more blogging!!!

Friday: crazytown

Where has the month of November gone!?!?

Linking up with these ladies: Darci, April, Natasha and Christina.

{ONE}

We attempted to decorate for Christmas last weekend with our new 10 foot tree.  Well, apparently the tree company that shipped it (bought through Home Depot) didn't get the memo that yes, a tree stand in fact is required to make your tree work.  Ha.  Jimmy almost started crying (he LOVES Christmas!) and has since been fighting with them to get it shipped to us ASAP.  Cross your fingers (for all our sanity) it will get here ASAP!

In the mean time, my parents are amazing and offered to pay for my sister and I's houses to get Christmas lights!!! AHH!  What a treat (and peace of mind that my husband will not be getting up on a huge ladder in attempt to decorate...) and look at how nice it looks!!

{TWO}

Went to a LulaRoe pop up party at Vanessa's house on Monday night and boy was that fun!!  Their clothes are awesome and so simple and SOFT!!  We had a great time trying on a bunch of different clothes and buying some.  I love the baseball tee that I bought and haven't broken down YET to buy the leggings, but I will soon.  My work friends liked my baseball shirt so much they want me to host a shopping night too- done!!!

Have you heard of LulaRoe?

{THREE}

Maddie cakes has been rocking some sweet drainage in her ear - poor thing.  Luckily for tubes when you have an ear infection you just use drops - except when you get picked up from school and have nasty blood coming out of your ear (GROSS!).  So off we went to a walk in clinic by our house that we have been meaning to try out (versus driving all the way across town to our doctor and during somewhat normal business hours - I mean REALLY, who's kids actually get sick during normal business hours/!?!).

The kiddos loved the waiting room (and the candy I was able to bribe them with that I found in my purse!)

Maddie does have an ear infection - but not a popped ear drum, and got some meds for her nasty cough. Here's hoping for a well family during Thanksgiving - mine and yours!

{FOUR}

Crazytown is the title of this and that is what life feels like these days.

With thanksgiving less and a week a day and the need to get to Christmas shopping along with 14 other things that Jimmy and I are wanting to wrap up before year end (our will/estate plan, solid budget that we can both be ok with following, etc.) paired with some craziness at work - somedays it feels like we are just swimming.

However, the weekends seem to be a wonderful break from the crazy when we get some family time.  Love these two kiddos!!!

{FIVE}

PREVIEW!!

My friend, Sarah, was sweet enough to shoot some family pictures of us a while back.  I haven't been on the ball enough to actually ORDER our Christmas cards (yep, need to get on that!), but I love the pictures!  She has a talent for sure.  Even though my kids weren't all smiles - I love the images she got because it's more reflective of our "real"!  

Here's a sneak peek!

Happy Friday!!!