Oh, Caleb.

This sweet boy. He is a mess. Totally ruined by these big brothers of his.

This is his new favorite thing. He goes up to the boys' room and gets their sparring gear on. He can put it all on himself - although you'll notice his helmet is sort of backwards and his gloves are on upside down.

Then he runs at you (or his sibling) full speed and it is just hilarious. The kid thinks he is as old and as big as everyone else. Oh my.

But he is still my sweet Caleb. Talking up a storm these days. Wanting to be right with his brother or sister. REALLY playing with Callie these days...and fighting with Callie. But loving everyone. Is so quick to say sorry in his sweet voice. To tell his teachers at church thank you. Precious. I love him. Caleb Isaac - you are my precious baby boy - even though you tell me all the time that you are a big boy!!

And We're Off!!!

I should remember this and always make plans to get away in November. We were SOOO looking forward to getting away for this race. Not only for the race - we definitely were looking forward to that. And not only to see our sweet friends Beth and Anthony - we were SUPER excited about that. But it is VERY good for us as a couple to get away in November. It's about this point in the semester that things get totally insane - the fall semester of school and church stuff is in crazy full swing, and it is super nice to escape for a little bit and catch our breath before Thanksgiving and Christmas totally overtake us!

As soon as biblestudy was over, I gave my final instructions to our sweet friends here in town that were staying at our house with our kids on Thursday and Friday, gave kisses (to Callie & Caleb who barely noticed we were leaving :) ) and we hit the road!! We stopped for lunch at Ruby Tuesday (does any other restaurant give out HALF the amount of coupons that they do? Love their salad bar!!), and then got gas...

...at this gas station! Yes, they had cheap gas, but I also told David it was a sign from God that we were going to have a GREAT race weekend! :)
Just a couple short hours (we live closer to Savannah than I thought - we were there in 2 hours!!) later, and we had arrived! We checked into our hotel and then headed out to explore downtown a bit. We were greated with these cute "Welcome Runners" signs everywhere we went! :)

This was a MUST - I had to know where The Lady & Sons was...it was to be a future stop later in the weekend, and I just couldn't hold myself back any longer! Didn't even go in, but had to see it!! It was so freeing to just be able to drive around, take our time looking at things, have NO agenda or schedule or bed time or whiny kids to deal with - what a vacation!!! We drove around until we decided on dinner (Miyabi's Japanese Hibachi) and then saw Footloose! What a treat! Got back to the hotel in time to go to bed early - two nights before the race is the MOST important night of sleep, so we ENJOYED a great night sleep...and knowing we could sleep in!!!

Happy Halloween 2011!

For the record, I do NOT like having Halloween fall on a school night. Ugh. But we'll have to deal with it for the next 4 years until it's back on the weekend again I suppose!

The boys have karate on Monday afternoons right after school, so when they got home from karate, they were BESIDE themselves with anticipation to go trick or treating. I decided to buy myself some time by taking them all trick or treating at Publix first! :) LOVE that place. They have stations set up all over the store with games and candy for kids from 4-7 pm. It was perfect!

Here's the only picture of the 4 of them in costume. I thought Caleb was going to be Buzz Lightyear...but when I went to the closet to get the costume, I realized I sold it at a consignment sale a while ago. Ooops. So I pulled out the lion costume from the attic...which freaked Caleb out. He is NOT a fan of costumed characters, mascots, etc. Poor guy. Jacob was a ninja - got it for two dollars or something crazy last year AFTER halloween. Josiah was Mario....a friend at church said to me one day "hey - your boys like video games. Either want to be Mario? We have the costume from last year". Love that. Callie was Tinkerbell - she chose a dress up costume from her closet of many options. Changed her mind a hundred times leading up to halloween but settled on tinkerbell.

my kids seriously love these little carnival types of games. LOVE them.

Still not super happy about the costume thing, but the candy thing perked him up!

We got home, forced the kids to all eat one chicken tender (while David & I greatly enjoyed the subs we got while at Publix - they are the BEST!), and then gave in and let them get started. Caleb REFUSED to put his costume back on and said he wanted to stay home and play ball with David (he was the candy hander-outer. Okay with me! Callie didn't want to wear the wings that came with hers. Fine with me. This is why I don't ever spend money on costumes. Half the time they change their mind or don't want to wear half of it. Not worth the stress!!

Off we went! I'm a pretty smart mom. I had a couple of plastic Publix bags and water bottle. Learned from experience. We get very thirsty. And their buckets get very heavy from the candy but they don't want to quit. So I take the plastic bags to dump their buckets every now and then so they don't get too heavy. Smart, right? :)

We did the back half of the neigbhorhood and then brought Callie home. She wanted to go back out, but agreed to stay with David when I told her she could eat some candy. She discovered that she LOVES handing OUT the candy and I had to pry her off of the steps later that night when it was over. She may never trick or treat again - she may be our candy hander-outer forever more! :)

Caleb and the Ball

This boy. May very well make us millions of dollars with some kind of ball one day. At 18 months, we'd be watching the older kids at soccer practice, and there he goes. Dribbling the soccer ball all the way down the field. While 6 year olds on my other son's team are falling over themselves. He is crazy coordinated. (Does NOT get that from me). He LOVES it. Would play ball all day long. Lately he loves throwing the football (with his left hand!), but still loves kicking the best. He found a beach ball on this particular Sunday afternoon with David and did this for an hour....

Pumpkins and S'mores!

We finally had COOLER weather (although you wouldn't know it from looking at my boys in short sleeves), so I opted to do my last long run (only 8 miles - I'm in taper!!) in the afternoon while David took the kids to choose their pumpkins. Because of football/cheer on Saturday mornings, I've been having to get up and do my long runs at 5:30 am - in order to be back and showered in time to leave by 8 am - it's not fun! So I was thrilled to get to do it in the afternoon for once!!

Our neighbors were excited about the cooler temperature too, and invited us to join us in their backyard around their fire pit for s'mores. Yippee!!

My boys! LOVE them!

Callie and our neighbor Sage. SWEET girls!!

Josiah's Rank Test - GREEN Belt!!

The long-awaited day was finally here - Josiah's rank test. Once he got his blue belt, he knew it was going to take longer between tests as they get more difficult. He was super excited and had been counting down the days! It fell on a Saturday morning, so we had to split up to get Jacob & Callie to football/cheer while I took Caleb and Josiah to his rank test.

It always starts off with the physical conditioning part - which kicks off with a one mile run. I let Josiah wear my Garmin so he could see how far/fast he was. He loved it! :) (and big surprise, he's faster than I am! Of course he was only running 1, but still!)

Pushups for 3 minutes....I'd rather die....

Caleb did a GREAT job - these tests last SEVERAL hours...and it's so crowded in there. We were sitting on the floor along the wall for a long tie...but right next to the water fountain which he LOVED since he is tall enough to reach it (on a stool).

Josiah's right in the middle - only white uniform in the group...

Gross. He put Josiah's mouthguard right in his mouth before I could catch him...ewww...

Awarding the new belts!

Goodbye blue belt! Hello GREEN belt!!!

We have two very good friends in this group with Josiah - Savannah and Noah. Sensei bragged about all 3 of them in front of EVERYONE when he was awarding belts. He said that the three of them knew all of their requirements for this rank test several months ago, but used that extra time to perfect and strengthen their skills. He said that in doing so, it brought the level of the entire class up and he was very proud of their effort! SO proud of them!

Josiah and I went to Ruby Tuesdays afterwards for lunch to celebrate and I enjoyed my time JUST with him. I'm SO proud of you Josiah - I hope that you always stay as focused and determined as you are right now! God has given you wonderful gifts and abilities, and I know you will use them to do great things for Him!! I love you!

a FULL Friday!!

Started off making the Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls. Yes, I do have a half marathon next week. Really would have loved to just lick up the table after the mess all that butter made! :) They were going to serve as my take-home gift for all the pastors :)

A crockpot FULL of Shoyu Chicken...

Some lovely fall flowers for my table...

Homemade apple pie in the oven - crust from scratch and apples picked off the trees by my kids! Doesn't get much better than that!!!

Stopped by IHOP after the boys came home from school for a special afterschool snack (I realize that to most children it would count as a meal...not my starving boys...they made it clear that this was NOT dinner!) :)

LOVE free pancakes at IHOP!!

We had all the pastors and their wives over for dinner and dessert. A great evening to fellowship and relax with one another. It's been a tremendously stressful and busy last few months, so it was nice to have an evening together just to relax and enjoy each other! We put our kids in bed and this is how I found them shortly after. These two are cuddle bugs!!

Yep...

...its just been that kind of week! Exhausting! :)

(This was how I found Jacob after he finished his reading this afternoon...)