Halloween Fun

Trick or treat! My little man Stone will be a firefighter tonight as we plan to head to a friend's house for a light dinner of hot dogs and then go to a Fall Festival at a local church. Hope it will be lots of fun!


Here's a couple of other fun pics... the first is not all that great, as I was taking it with my cell phone and I was driving on the interstate going about 70mph. I happened to look over and see this truck with 2 HUGE pumpkins in it! Had to try to take a picture, so this was the best I could do. I'm guessing whoever had these pumpkins were taking them to some fair or something... wow! I wonder how they lifted them into the truck???


And a friend actually sent me this picture through email... it's supposed to be titled "What happens when pumpkins drink." Thought it was pretty funny and that some people have WAY too much time on their hands!!!

Oktoberfest 2008 Update

Finally, some time to download pictures and post about some of what's been going on this month with our birthdays. We've had a lot of fun, and it was especially great to have family come to visit. Seems like we have opened gifts and cards all month long! (No complaints!) First my parents came to visit the weekend of the 9-11 and we had a great time. Thanks to my parents for all the wonderful gifts and yummy food!!

The next weekend, we not only had Stone's little birthday party, but we got to have a visit from Aunt Gini, and cousins Mercy and Wyatt... so much fun!! We still miss them terribly and are grateful for any time we get to spend with them. We also got some great gifts from them too but more importantly enjoyed the time spent together. Stone was NOT happy to see them go.. :( And neither were we!

And in between all this, we've had lots of fun with friends and good times at school. There are a few highlights below, but to see all the pictures, please click HERE.

I had to make a special website because I had taken so many pictures and didn't want to bog down my blog. Also, especially for family, you can actually order prints right off the site. Enjoy!!

Family Pic taken on my birthday

Stone and firefighter Mercy

At the pumpkin patch with my parents

Lovin' Ma-Ma and Pa-Pa

Fun with friends Matthew and Rachel

And the fire station down the street

Birthday party at Chic-Fil-A

So behind!!

I'm so behind on blogging! I have TONS of pictures to download and post and plan to work on that during the next few days. But I will have to say that we've had a GREAT time celebrating all our birthdays the past 2 weeks! And, I might add, we've all been plenty spoiled! Some have thought that Hallquist Oktoberfest ended with my birthday... oh no, my friends! It continues on through the end of the month!! I'm telling you, why celebrate one day or one week when you can celebrate the entire month?? Maybe others will catch on to that idea and I will have started something cool... :) Will post more soon......

Happy Birthday Kevin!

Happy birthday to my sweet hubbie! He's the best husband and father in the world! (I know, it's a little sappy, but it's true!) As I think I already said on our anniversary post, I'm glad to be married to him, glad he's the person that he is, and not sure what I'd do without him! Love you!

Happy Birthday Stone!

Happy Birthday to my baby! Well, I guess being 3 isn't technically a baby anymore, but he'll always be my baby! Love having Stone in my life and I'm thankful he is who he is (if that makes any sense). So far, Both K and I sang happy b-day him after he woke up, I went thru the drive-thru at the Chic for birthday morning breakfast, took home made rice krispy treats to school for his class, and his class sung happy b-day to him too (which his teacher said made him smile!). She also made a birthday crown to wear, but he wouldn't have anything to do with it!

Last night, we had dinner with K's parents and they gave him some gifts... a COOL firefighter's dress up costume, complete with a new hat (this one is black and his other fire hat is red), a curious George monkey stuffed animal and a curious George book, all about firefighters.... all the perfect gifts!

Tonight, we'll let him open some more gifts and might go to the neighborhood Chic cause it's kid's night and they are supposedly having a petting zoo (not sure how that's going to go down, but thought we might check it out). Will post some pics later.. I have already taken some today, but it's actually a hassle to download pics now (long story for another time) so I think I'll get to that tonight. Happy day, my little one!!! Mommy loves you very much!!!

Total Clutz (and other things to catch up on)

Ever have days when you are just a total clutz? Yeah, well, I had a WEEK last week where I was a total clutz! Seriously, 2 days in a row, I spilled Stone's juice cup after pouring into the sippie cup and attempting to put the lid on. This accident occurred on the cabinet right beside the fridge, which made for a very small space to try and clean. And of course, it happened RIGHT before time to leave for work/school. The next day, in the exact SAME spot, I did the exact same thing while trying to put the lid on. You'd think it wouldn't be that hard.. the second time though, I also got the juice all over me. So in addition to having to clean the floor, cabinet, and side of the fridge, I had to change clothes as well. All right before leaving for work, which put me a little late. The day before all the spills, I was knocking over things in the house left and right while trying to clean and put things away. The day after the juice spills, I managed to spill my entire cup of a large sweet tea from the Chic all over the counter space and floor in my preschool room! I was taking down my heavy bag from up above the cabinets, lost balance, and it fell down onto the counter, taking the tea with it and making a huge mess, right as the kids were arriving. Then, Friday night, I was cleaning dishes and putting them in the dishwasher and low and behold, I knocked off one of our glasses onto the floor, which shattered into a billion pieces!! So, I've had enough of clumsiness to last me for the rest of the year!!

This past week, I've been working on some home improvements: cleaning the house, making a project for Stone's room, and purging things from boxes to TRY to de-clutter our house some. I get being a pack-rat honest (from my parents!) and it's hard for me to get rid of things! But I am trying and I do feel better with less clutter around overall. Friday night and Saturday morning I managed to purge some more thing and then clean (and really clean) the living room and the guest bath. Today, after church and a nice, relaxing "brunch" at Panera, both K and I went into cleaning mode again and went through our clothes, Stone's clothes and toys and got rid of things we didn't need anymore. Then, we really cleaned up our bedroom and put the rails together in anticipation of getting our king size mattresses tonight (long story there, but the king mattresses have been in storage and we just haven't had a chance to move them here so we've been sleeping on our queen mattress just on the floor). Afterwards, I started decorating Stone's room! This has been a project I've been wanting to do for quite some time, just haven't been able to for one reason or the other. I took pictures beforehand and afterwards, just need to download them. Will post soon. It's super cute (with lots of cars and trucks, tractors, firetrucks, etc) and Stone was so excited over it, he was jumping up and down!!

Birthday month and celebrations have begun and we have lots more planned for the rest of the month! Kevin got to spend some great, relaxing, quality time with his dad over the weekend (got to go fishing too) and we kept some kids of friends of ours (new friends we made since moving here) so they could go on a date and had a blast with them. They have a daughter who just turned 5 in August and a 2.5 year old son (adopted and adorable) who get along great with Stone. In fact, Matthew didn't want to leave once his parents returned! That made me feel good! We had pizza for dinner, home made rice krispy treats for dessert, and we took a walk down to our neighborhood fire station where we were in luck: one of the firefighters saw us, came out and invited us to look at the truck and all the equipment. Rachel was Ms. Inquisitive! She asked some great questions, and to the amusement of the fireman, Kevin and I, we had fun learning all about what firefighters do. She even got him to "jump" into his boots and coat/gear just to see how fast he could do it!! Ha ha!! That was great... I wonder what else she could talk him into doing???

This week, we are having K's parents over for dinner, we will have a "small" celebration on both Tuesday and Wednesday nights, since those are Stone's and Kevin's actual b-days, and then my parents arrive on Thursday afternoon. We'll party the whole time they are here and hopefully get to go to a pumpkin patch on Saturday before they have to return home. Then the next week is Stone's b-day party for his friends on my actual b-day and we get to have a SPECIAL visit from Aunt Gini, M and W!!!! I am super excited about that! My other SIL Mer was going to try to come but plans changed for her, so we are going to MISS her and getting to spend some time with her but we totally understand! So, lots of fun things to do and quite possibly, we'll get some family photos done and some photos of Stone, since he's turning 3. I'm not quite ready for him to be 3!!! This means he'll no longer be a baby!!!! This is quite depressing, actually. I know it supposedly gets "better and better" but I just want to freeze him in time just as he is!! Ahhhh.... time does go by WAY too fast!

Better get off to bed!

How Obama ruined our Anniversary Date and other random thoughts

Yes, Obama himself ruined our anniversary date this past Saturday! No kidding! Here's the story. We had decided that instead of spending lots of money on a nice dinner, we'd like to enjoy having a "tea" like the British do. (Sometimes it's called a "high tea.") So, we found this very reasonably priced tea room and K called and made a reservation for us for 1pm on Saturday. They had to squeeze us in, as there was a huge bridal shower there at 3 and usually a nice "tea" takes almost 2 hours, if you do it right and sit and enjoy. There's the background....

So, we asked K's parents if they could keep Stone for our date and they could. Due to a small miscommunication between us and the parents, after dropping Stone off, we were going to be a little late to the tea so we called to see if that would still be okay. The lady said yes, if we could be there no later than 1:30. We were pretty sure that wouldn't be a problem. Until, we went the wrong way for a while (yes, we had directions, but still got a little lost!) which put us behind even more. THEN, we finally get to downtown G'boro, where the tea room is located, and we are greeted by tons of pedestrians. At first, we couldn't figure out where they were coming from or why there were so many of them. Then, the road we needed to continue on was completely blocked off and traffic rerouted. So, I call the tea room again. I tell them that we're not that far, but wondered if they could help us go down another road to get to the tea room (since we didn't have a map with us and still aren't that familiar with the downtown yet). They gave us directions, but still, between all the pedestrians going to get into their cars and traffic cops directing traffic in certain directions, we still couldn't go the way we needed to in order to get to the tea room. By this time, it was almost 2pm, so we called and cancelled our reservation, since if and when we'd get to the tea room, we wouldn't have enough time to actually enjoy it. And since having tea is super cheap, we didn't want to waste the money. SO, why all the people, roads shut down, traffic being directed?? For the Obama/Biden rally that had just let out!! Obviously, we had no idea it had been going on, or we would have planned for that but it still frustrated us that our plans had been ruined.

However, our story does end well as K remembered that there was a hotel East of G'boro that actually held "teas" in their lobby. We took a chance and went there without a reservation to see if we could get in and thankfully, we were able to enjoy our tea after all. Afterwards, we went a little shopping, picked up Stone and then had dinner with him before returning home. Oh, and my hubby brought me beautiful Fall flowers.. my favorites!!

On other random news, I saw Santa Claus today at the gas station while filling up with gas. Seriously, while the gas is pumping, I look over and see this guy get out of his car. Not only does he have the snow white hair and snow white FULL beard (and I do mean Santa Claus-like beard) AND a red shirt on, black pants with suspenders, but he is also "robust" just like Santa Clause. I think he was even wearing glasses! Ha ha ha! I thought it was a little early for Christmas, but I guess you can't start too early these days???

One of my kids from my preschool class cracks me up all the time with things that he comes up with to tell me. The other day, they were coloring some pictures to make a little reminder of words that start with "G." Cole was coloring the neck of the girl with a red crayon and says to me, "Mrs. Shelby, look.. redneck." Just as straight-faced as ever. I burst out laughing! This same kid also said to me, "Come on Ms. Shelby, I don't have all day," after having to wait a few minutes for me to finish getting down all the craft supplies. I mean, really, what else does he have to do? He's in preschool!!! And I told him as such! He's really a sweetie though and the most patient kid on the planet, I'm convinced! (Besides that one time mentioned above.)

Stone... I mentioned before how much he makes me smile. Last Thursday, when I took him to the doctor, we get to the room and there's a sea theme on the wall (wall paper with dolphins, fish, etc.) On the wall over the patient table there's a picture of a whale. Stone sees it and says "fish." And I tell him, "No, it's not a fish, but something that's sort of like a fish. It's a whale." At this point, without missing a beat, he starts making whale sounds (this is hard to explain in written form so you gotta think "Finding Nemo" when Dorrie the fish speaks "whale" to the whales to communicate and you'll get the picture in your head.) I about fell off my chair. Kevin had been speaking "whale" to him in the bathtub at night cause he has this little foamie bathtub puzzle of Noah's Ark and one of the animals is, of course, 2 whales. Ha ha ha! I believe he will say and do anything Kevin teaches him! And that is our life as we know it. :)