Introducing...

Mr. Personality!
When we got a letter home at the beginning of October announcing school picture day in a few weeks, I couldn't believe it. I thought it was hilarious that they even had school picture day in Daycare. John and I discussed what he would wear. John wanted to make sure he looked like a boy, so I agreed that he would not wear a John-John to school on picture day. We went with a navy blue polo and cargo pants. I could not wait to get the proofs back! At the end of October, six proofs came home. One he looked on the verge of tears, a few were cute and he was looking at the camera doing somewhat of a smile...and then there was this one. From the moment I saw it I cracked up because his face honestly portrays how he felt about daycare the first 2 months! I never considered ordering it, though I have to admit it was probably my favorite, until a lady at school gave me some pretty good advice. She said, "Brooke, you are going to pay someone good money to capture good pictures of him that you will put all over your house, but you will never capture this personality like this again. Plus, you have to have good funny ones like this for his rehearsal dinner video!" After that, I was convinced we were making the right decision. His teachers all told me they were glad I ordered this one too...they literally said this was pretty much his main facial expression the ENTIRE first month and a half or so. Thank goodness he loves going now (this morning I put him down and he looked up at me and said BYE BYE)-Progress people!!! So here is our sweet boy at 21 months old...his first school picture!

And while we are on introductions...Introducing Rocky...He/She has already fallen into the role as 2nd child seeing as we had this ultrasound a month ago and the picture is just now debuting on the blog. For those of you who don't know, John decided when we were pregnant with Will that all of our fetus' would be named after former Auburn Football legends (Will was Caddy after Carnell "Cadillac" Williams...you can read about that here). So Rocky comes from Tracy Rocker. I had another doctor appointment today and everything looked good. I am 13.5 weeks. We are set to find out if Rocky is a boy or a girl in January! We are thinking BOY....I feel basically the exact same as I did with Will. While I have had no corn dog cravings, I am craving all things meat and salty....no dessert really which is insane because I am such a sweets person! Most recently, my weirdest cravings have been mayonnaise on sandwiches (I can't even believe I just typed that...I have NEVER eaten mayonnaise!!), fried bologna sandwiches (again, so weird. My grandmother, EE, used to make these for me when I was little and I would visit her in Piedmont-I probably haven't had one since the last time she made one for me...at least 15 years ago), bacon (can't get enough-we eat it every morning for breakfast and BLTs have become a week night regular), guacamole, and potato chips! At our ultrasound appointment, we learned the heartbeat was 182-this was exactly what Will's was at our first ultrasound appointment (both at 9 weeks). I guess time will tell. You can now cast your vote on the right of the blog-tell us what you think Rocky is!

Thankful!

This year we have so many things to be thankful for....ESPECIALLY this little guy! He warms my heart and makes me smile!!
We love Thanksgiving because it gives us lots of time with family we don't get to see as often as we'd like!! Will loves playing with all of his cousins...
The night before Thanksgiving we celebrated Thanksgiving Part 1 with the Vakakes side. Will and James entertained themselves, and all of us for that matter dancing to Choo Choo Soul, throwing things, basically being boys. They got to take a bath together and James taught Will how to "swim" in the bathtub. They looked like little frogs in there!
Their Yia Yia's thought it would be a good idea to pile up all of Will's stuffed animals in his crib and then put them in there. They thought it was pretty funny!
I hope these little guys are the best of friends!
Thanksgiving Day we celebrated Part II with my dad's side of the family. There are LOTS of cousins there-Will is the youngest. I had to be in the little cousin picture this year because Will would not let anyone hold him. I have a feeling I will be in the little cousin picture for a while!

We moved on to Thanksgiving Part III at John's mom's side of the family. There he played with Emma, in matching outfits of course!! We tried to get some good pictures of them but they all looked like a jail line up!

Emma and Will were so sweet playing on the stairs...they kept giving each other kisses through the rails! Adorable.
Thanksgiving Part IV took place on Friday at my parents house, and well through the weekend as we got to visit with my brother, sister in law, nephew, and niece. John was at the Iron Bowl, which was a good thing-it would have been very interesting to watch that game all under the same roof with John and my dad and brother-especially this year. Saturday we hung out some more. Kiki TRIED to get a good picture with her grandkids....You can see how Will felt about that. We celebrated Brandon's birthday Saturday night at Maccaroni Grill and sent them all on their way back home on Sunday.
The picture at the top was taken on Saturday afternoon when I desperately tried to get a few good pictures for our Christmas card. I thought last year was bad....NOTHING compared to this year. Will would hardly stand still for a split second. When I got inside and looked at all that I had taken, most were blurry because he had taken off into a sprint. I managed to get one, maybe two options. This is why I decided not to do a whole family card this year-too difficult getting Will to look at the camera, much less all of us at the SAME time!
We are looking forward to getting our Christmas tree this weekend and a much anticipated trip to see "HO HO."

Back to Elastic

Well....the time has come....I have to say goodbye to my zipper and button for about 6 more months! I can vividly remember the first time I put on regular jeans and zipped them up and buttoned them after having Will. I was so happy to have that part of my life back, because it meant my wardrobe was not limited to about 4 pairs of pants, 3 shirts, etc. Now I am back in elastic. These are my new favs! If you are expecting, I think these are a must! I just ordered them in 3 colors and I am hooked. They are super comfortable and what I love so much about them is the low waist. I could not stand the "secret belly fit" that comes on about 95% of maternity pants. It just wasn't comfortable. These fit just under the belly but come up in the back sort of high so when you bend over nothing is...exposed. I only paid $16.50 for them! Now they are $20, but that is still a steal in my opinion!!

So now that my clothing wardrobe is severely limited, what's a girl to do, but buy rockin' shoes that make the standard maternity uniform a little more exciting. Seriously, I may about to be large and in charge but at least my shoe size won't change. These are what my eyes/heart are set on. I got the new Loft catalog yesterday and about died when I saw them. How perfect they would be this holiday season, especially for the cocktail party we have in December. I don't think the price is bad either! Size 7 please!!

Big Boy Room!

I can't believe the time has come for us to start thinking about Will's big boy room. But he is quickly becoming a big boy and we would like to make the transition to a big boy bed in his new room during spring break when I am off work. We are going to keep the room Will is in now the nursery, we will just paint if need be. So we are losing the playroom...this will become Will's new room. I have already picked out his bedding...I went with something I thought was super cute but it could grow with him for a bit. I wanted to stay away from a "theme."

I need advice on what we might find useful in a big boy room. Like I said, our playroom will no longer exist, so we are going to need some good storage that is pleasing to the eye. We haven't bought anything and I am trying to make a list of some possible pieces we might need so that we might can put them on someone's Christmas list!! I also would love some type of something to display all this cute art he brings home from school...For all of you that have bigger kids, let me know if there was anything you absolutely loved! I have had my eye on this toy chest from The Land of Nod for a while...

Trick-or-Treat

Sunday night we decided to take Will trick-or-treating with our sweet neighbors the McCleary's. I had no idea how Will would do since last year I just carried him around.
Will and Ava were NOT in the mood for pictures before we began....The Kangaroo and Lion just weren't feeling it....We set out with Will's pumpkin for collecting his treats, and he didn't quite know what was going on.
By about the 3rd house, Will had totally caught on. Someone would ring the doorbell and when the owners opened the door, Will would just hold up his pumpkin :) It was hysterical!!
Our street was perfect. Our neighborhood is by no means filled up, and there were about 10 people home on our street. This was just the right amount for the kids to have fun and enjoy themselves but it was over before they got grumpy and tired :)
Will loved the fact that he didn't have to do anything but walk up to a door and he was immediately rewarded with candy. When we got home, it was like he had hit the motherload. He was totally overwhelmed and didn't know what to open first. He ended up having some m&ms, a sucker, and a three musketeers...this was after his Yia Yia and Papou had come over with a goody bag AND his Kiki and Pops had dropped off another goody bag!And I have to include this picture below so I will forever remember Halloween this year. At Will's school party he brought home a goody bag. In it was this cute lift the flap book about trick or treating. Behind every door was a costumed person....Will would go through the first three doors and just point out ghosts, pumpkins, the candy, etc. But when he got to the 4th door, he would always open it up and say, "DADA!!!!" He totally thought that the vampire/Count Dracula character looked like Dada I guess....We got a pretty good kick out of it and he does it every single time he reads the book....totally unprompted. We have no idea where it came from!

Will's School Pumpkin Party

Will's first "school" party was on Friday...not wanting to miss out, I took a half day so I could be there to watch and help. There was a costume parade first. The real participants are the 3's classes, but all classes go out to watch and then join in the parade at the end. When I arrived, Will was sitting on the curb with his class doing just what he was supposed to do. As soon as he saw me, all following of directions went out the window. He got teary and just wanted me to hold him.After the parade, everyone went inside to their classrooms for special treats. You could tell Will had no idea how to act since I was there. He was confused, like it was time to go home or something. At this point all of the kids still had their costumes on, so one of the moms suggested we get a group picture of them on the rug. His teachers looked at each other and sort of smiled and said "ok..." We should have known then it was a bad idea. A REALLY bad idea. ALL of the kids started crying and reaching out for their moms or dads. This made me feel better to at least know that Will wasn't the only one acting this way. Will and Minnie Mouse completely had a come apart on the floor.Like total melt down mode....Minnie Mouse decided the photo opp just wasn't worth it and just got up and left.Will stayed, but continued to reach out his arms until I finally told him we were done and it was okay to get up. They were the most pitiful bunch of almost 2 year olds you ever did see. Once picture time was over, all the kids changed into their regular clothes and it was time to eat. Will was still a little bothered by why we weren't leaving and would cry anytime I would leave his side to take a picture.
Once food was on his plate, he was FINE. He got super excited over the variety and sat with his friends, and ate almost everything! He even drank out of a cup like a big boy. No more sippy cup for Will (at school at least, I'm not brave enough to do that at home just yet).The rest of the party was fun and it was especially fun to visit with the other parents and see Will interacting with his friends. Will has become pretty popular there-first because everyone knew him because it took so long for him to get adjusted...I guess when the other kids got dropped off, the parents would always see Will sad. Now, he is more known for his game day gear. Every Friday Will wears his Auburn jersey or tshirt. One of the dads told me it was his mission every Friday to try and get Will to say Roll Tide. I told that Dad that Will's dad would promptly dis-enroll Will if he came home having learned those words at school :)
I am SO incredibly thankful for all of the people at Will's school, and especially his teachers. Will LOVES going there now, he never cries when I drop him off. He is happy when I come to pick him up, and sometimes he is not quite ready to leave! They bring home the cutest artwork and have learned many songs. They are working on their first bible verse this month, and have taught him how to "say" the blessing (He really just folds his hands and says his version of Amen at the end, but it is start). My blog should be a testament to ANYONE that is about to start their child in daycare that you shall survive (both you and the child) and that it WILL get easier!