My Friend Grant

This weekend Chad's brother, Brian, and his son, Grant, came to visit.  Grant and Eli have such a good time together.  I hope this is just the beginning of a close cousin bond between the two!  They are leaving tomorrow and I know Eli will be sad when he wakes up and realizes Grant is no longer here.  Each morning when Eli wakes up he asks "where's Grant?".  "Grant's my friend", Eli says.  It's pretty cute!

We tried going to the Bentonville Square for their monthly "First Friday".  It was so packed we didn't stay long.  Grant was taking a cat nap in the car and missed the pony ride.  This was Eli's first time to ride a real pony!  He wasn't so sure about it at first but ended up liking it towards the end.

One of Brian's favorite places to eat here (and ours too!) is Gusano's Pizza.  They have great chicago style pizza.  Well great to Chad and I seeing how we've never been to Chicago and had REAL Chicago style pizza from Chicago!  Ha!

Notice what is sitting in front of the boys on the table?  iPhones are one of the greatest inventions!  The boys loved watching Go Diego Go after they were finished eating dinner!  It's a nice way to allow us to finish our dinner in peace!

Poor Grant is so tired.  He was definitely a trooper since he had to wake up at 3am to catch his flight to come visit us!  I don't think Eli would have been such a sport ;)

Sweet cousin hugs!

Can you find Grant?  He was hiding from the picture!  Chad's Dad came up for the weekend too!

This past week Chad had a birthday.  We were both working most of the week and didn't have time to properly celebrate with a cake.  We saved the cake for the weekend when there would be other people to help eat it!  Good thing we did too!  That cake is delicious!  It needs to leave our house ASAP!  I'm eating way too much of it.  Shelby Lynn's Cake Shop is our new favorite local cake place!  Their cream cheese icing is to die for!

Of course they had to take a bath together!

On Saturday the Hogs played S. Carolina.  We had a big tailgate of the year.  The weather was great, cool and sunny!  We tried something new this year, I made chili instead of BBQ!  It was a nice change, especially since the weather is cool now.  Eli was a fan of the cupcakes for sure!  I think he had three. 

Here he is asking for his second one.  Which I gave him.  Hey, we were tailgating.  There are no rules when tailgating ;)

One happy boy!

I had the bright idea of taking riding toys with us to the tailgate.  Good thing we did!  They were a hit with the boys!

Eli trying to sneak another cupcake!

I actually remembered to get a picture of Chad and me.  And forgot to get one of pretty much everything else.  Go figure...

Today the boys played outside most of the day.  We got out the bike trailer and let the boys take a little ride in the neighborhood.  Eli loves to ride in the bike trailer!

I have more pictures of the boys playing outside but my computer is being a pain and won't recognize my camera so I can download the pictures.  I will upload them when my computer quits acting stupid.

Poor Eli.  He is going to be so sad in the morning when he realizes "my friend, Grant" isn't here!  Good thing he is going to Nana's (his babysitter) and will be with Alexi the next two days!  Hopefully she will distract him from missing his cousin!



Halloween Traditions

We've been trying to make some Halloween traditions the past few years since having Eli.  This year we added painting pumpkins to our traditions.  Eli is really into arts and crafts lately so I thought this would be perfect!  It was much better than carving them!  Actually we haven't even carved pumpkins yet and tomorrow is Halloween! 

Eli and I went to the store and I let him pick out his pumpkins.  Eli loved painting the "baby pumpkins" as he called them.

We've been going to this one local pumpkin patch since Eli was born.  It's not really a pumpkin "patch".  They have pumpkins set up with all sorts of fun halloween stuff.  It's a great place to go take pictures!  I've said for the past month I was going to take Eli to a real pumpkin patch but something just always came up and we didn't go.  Eli, I promise next year I will take you to a real pumpkin patch!

Ha!  This picture make me laugh.  Chad told Eli to go stand beside the skeleton and put his arm around him for a picture.  Eli thinks skeletons are funny so he went right up to it.  It started talking and scared Eli to death!  I snapped the picture just as Eli was running away!  Look at his face!

Love this sweet face!

I love this picture too!  It looks like Eli is reacting to the huge pumpkin beside him but he's not.  He's fighting the crazy bush behind him!

Peek-a-boo!

One of my favs!

 

Another favorite.  Such a sweet smile :)

Look at this gorgeous tree (and my gorgeous boys)!  The trees have really been pretty this fall!  Much more so than we thought they would be with the hot, dry summer we had here.

Eli was over taking pictures at this point.

Happy Fall, Ya'll!





PJ20

Because I promised you and I always try to keep my blog promises, I'm blogging about PJ20 today.

What is PJ20 you ask?

Twenty years ago one of the greatest bands, Pearl Jam, was formed.  I have been a fan ever since their first album, Ten.  Yes, I was only 11 years old!  I remember hanging out in my room and listening to my CD on repeat.  I was hooked and have been a fan ever since.  When I met Chad he knew a few of their radio hits but wasn't the fan I was.  He was quickly converted to a huge fan like me!  I always wanted to go to a concert when I was younger but never had the opportunity.  Finally in 2000, Chad and I attended our first concert.  Since then we've been to many shows all over the US.

This year in honor of Pearl Jam's 20th anniversary they put on a 2 day music festival in East Troy, Wisconsin at Alpine Valley Music Theatre.  At first I didn't think we would go because it's just too far away and it was being held the week before our beach vacation.  Chad convinced me it was something we couldn't miss and we decided we would make it  happen.  Boy am I glad we didn't miss it!

The trip was fantastic and a great get away!  We went with our good friends, Robert and Mandy, who are also big Pearl Jam fans.

Of course it had to rain off and on the first day!  We didn't care.  We ran to Target to buy ponchos and went on our way.

They had set up a "Pearl Jam museum" inside the pavilion.  It was pretty cool to see all the memorabilia collected by the band over the past 20 years!

Eddie Vedder (the lead singer for all you non-fans) uses an old typewriter to type his lyrics.  They had displayed some of his lyrics he's written over the years.  This was my favorite part of the museum!

Eddie's compilation books.  Look at all of them!  He's always seen carrying one of these on and off stage.

They had an artist painting this graffiti art on the billboards as you walked into the venue.

Our first night we had seats in the pavilion.  And great seats they were!

The whole band! 

One of my favorite pictures of Eddie!

The second day the weather was beautiful but chilly!  We had lawn seats this night so we just hung out at the top of the hill and enjoyed the day/night in the special fan club area.  That's right... we're important!

Patiently waiting for Pearl Jam to take the stage!  Once the sun went down it was down right cold!  We weren't prepared for cold weather AT ALL!  Thank goodness for the mall right next to our hotel!  We ran there to buy warmer clothes.  And thank God we did!  I was still cold in jeans, long sleeves and a jacket!  I couldn't imagine what it would have been like if I had worn the summer clothes I had taken!

Pearl Jam finally took the stage and played one of the best shows I've ever seen!  Okay, so I say that after every PJ show I attend!  But maybe that's why I like them so much.  They never disappoint me!

Look at the sea of people in this picture!  They said over 30,000 people attended the two-day festival.  I believe it!  Look at all these people!  And that's not even all of them.  My camera would only get part of the crowd!

What a great weekend!  And I forgot to mention this was the longest Chad and I had been away from Eli at the same time.  Thanks to the in-laws for coming to stay with Eli and the dogs!  We couldn't have made the trip possible without you!  Wisconsin was a beautiful state (what little we saw anyway).  It reminded us a lot of northwest Arkansas.  Rolling hills and farmland.  Well there aren't a lot of farms here but the rolling hills we definitely have!

What a great trip we will always remember!

Thanks Pearl Jam!

Argh Matey!

This year for Halloween Eli is going to be a pirate.  I ordered him a really cute pirate costume and these pajamas at the same time.  I was so excited when they came in the other day!  Of course the costume was too small and I had to return it.  When I went online to buy the next size up they were gone!  Now I'm on the search for another pirate costume.  Chad loves these PJs so much he wants these to be his costume.  I have to agree, they are pretty cute!  Especially when you add the bandana on his head!

This is Eli's "Argh" face.  Too cute!