A Visitor, a Date Night and a Pumpkin Patch

Hello! I was trying to decide which blog to write first; Thirty-One or this one. I decided I wanted to share all of our pumpkin patch photos first so this one won! :)

In the last week, we have had a visitor, had an overnight date night and visited the pumpkin patch. Love it! My mom came into town last Friday, Oct. 12th, for a lengthy visit. Originally she was going to come today, but after a discussion about how ridiculously high babysitting costs are out here, she flew in a week early to babysit the kids. Yay Grammy! Randy and I had decided to go to the Navy Ball for a much needed date night. With Grammy here though, we were able to turn it into an overnighter. Even better! Up until last weekend, we haven't done a date night since June when we were still living in Arizona!

My mom turned our night out into a special night for the kids too. They got pizza, dressed up and did dance party since we were doing the same...kind of. ;)

There were three other couples from Randy's office that also went to the Navy Ball so we all got together in our room for a little pre-party. With $10 drinks downstairs, we needed a pre-party. :) We all took couples pictures before heading down.

Here is one with Randy and I during dinner.

We had a great time! We were guessing about 1,000 people were there. Randy even saw a Commander he had back in his helo days in Virgina Beach. :)

My mom hung around with us all last week. I told Dylan that he had to wait until Randy turned on the shower in the morning before he could run down to Grammy's room. This means she got to sleep until about 7:15-7:30am. Dylan wouldn't even say good morning to us, but instead went straight downstairs. By the end of the week, Ava was doing the same thing. She would yelp at us to help her out of the crib, then took off downstairs. I thought it was funny and my mom loved it!

As many of you know, when mom and I get together there are two main activities; shopping and projects. We did both. Not only do we have crafty projects going, but also visited Old Navy and Carter's for the kids as well as Home Goods, World Market and Target for the house. Our house needs a little decorating. ;) I'll post the finished projects next week.

My mom was worried that we would get sick of her if she stayed too long. :) She says that no matter how much you love having someone around, there is a point where you just want them to go home. Sounds about right huh? LOL! Well, because of this concern, she took the train to NYC to meet a friend for a five day trip. She'll be back on Wednesday. Then...my dad shows up on Thursday. We are a busy group!

With Halloween creeping up on us so fast, we knew we needed to hit the pumpkin patch. At the perfect time, we were invited to join three other families (Randy's co-workers and their fams) to this great little farm for a great Fall pumpkin picking day. It was an hour away,

but so pretty!

This picture doesn't even do it justice!

We saw the goats, chickens and ducks, but this is the closest Dylan would get. He doesn't really like farm animals.

We brought the wagon and hiked up the hill to find our pumpkins.

Dylan spent the LONGEST time looking for his pumpkin! He said he was looking for the perfect "bestest" pumpkin. I swear we looked at every single one.

The stuffed frog that keeps appearing in the pictures is Freddy the Frog from Dylan's school. He got to bring Freddy home for a weekend full of adventures. :) Ava, on the other hand, played with the plants, dirt and baby pumpkins. She just enjoyed running around.

This is one of my favorites...

Once we all had our pumpkins, we loaded them in with the kiddos

and headed down to the vegetable area where we could pick whatever we wanted. Instead of hunting through all of the different crops, we went to dig for peanuts. Dylan found this more interesting because we were using a pitchfork and shovel. Yet again, Ava played in the dirt. :)

We then picked out some apples from the bins...

 and head to a grassy area for a picnic. It was great because two of the other families have kids the same age as us. Dylan did more playing/wrestling with each other. :)

All in all, a great day! So...now its almost Tuesday and a busy week starts all over again.

Brrr...Time to Shop!

It's getting cold here! My wonderful friends and family are still frying on the westcoast and we are entering into jacket weather. Today's high is projected at 51 degrees! Now that is the lowest we've seen out here since July, but I know some of you haven't put away your shorts and tank tops yet. :)

A couple weeks ago, I was going through the kids' clothes to get rid of everything that didn't fit. I then discovered that they had NOTHING to wear! Now, I don't say this lightly...they really had NO cold weather clothes. Here is a picture of part of the stash of giveaways!

Dylan had two pairs of pants that didn't go above his ankles yet because they were bought late in the season last year. Ava had zero that were long enough, but with girls and leggings...you can get away with it. That is when I started actually looking at all the sale emails I was getting from Carter's, OshKosh, Old Navy, etc. I was nervous the temperature would drop suddenly and my kids would freeze. So...I went shopping!

I love shopping online because I can do it while the kids are sleeping, which makes things so much easier!

The last week and a half has been fun because we saw Fed Ex and UPS a lot! :) I got a package from Carter's with some warm coats for Ava, one from my mom with kiddo pants...Thanks!, some Ugg type boots for Dylan...Thanks Oma!, a BIG bag from Old Navy, Randy got his textbooks (I'll share later) and I got a box from Thirty-One! So fun!! To make it even better, ALL of the clothes were on sale...jeans for $8! Here is Ava's Old Navy stash.

She has purple skinny jeans! Dylan did not allow me to take any pictures of his items, although, his favorite is a batman longsleeve tee with a cape! I can now responsible cloth my kiddos as the weather changes, although, I am far from finished. :)

I mentioned a Thirty-One box...

Then I opened it to find this...

The kiddos loved their gift from Nana! Ava is always carrying some type of purse around and Dylan is an "organizer" even if we don't always understand his system. ;)

I loved my hostess goodies too! Thanks to everyone who shopped at the party!

You can kind of see Ava's head at the bottom. She didn't want to sit still for the picture, she wanted to go grab everything and mess it up. :)

I have my first home party since moving on the 20th so I'm excited! The online party really helped me get some new stuff to show off at the party. I met with my hostess yesterday, without kids for both of us, to plan the party. She's excited, I'm excited...this should be a great kick off party in Alexandria!

As far as Randy's textbooks go, he is going back to school! Beginning in November, Randy will be a graduate student at American Military University getting his MBA in Human Resources. The classes are online and the degree will take three years...I think. Yay for Randy! He wanted his focus to be Finance, but since his job is HR and the Navy is paying the majority of his tuition...he is going HR. :)

We are and will continue to be a busy group! My mom comes into town on Friday then Randy and I get our first date night since moving on Saturday. We will be getting gussied up and going to the Navy Ball! So stay tuned because I will post pics!

Have a great long weekend!

He got promoted!!

Today was promotion day! Randy was selected to be promoted to Lieutenant Commander back in July 2011. Yep...that's right; over a year ago! So, today has been long awaited. :)

One of the aspects I love about the Navy is that they are family oriented. When the hubs is being honored, promoted, celebrated, etc., the Navy invites the family to be apart of it. It's nice to be wanted. :)

I arrived with the kiddos at his office just after 11am and the ceremony was scheduled at 11:30am. I say "scheduled" because something always comes up. :) While we were waiting, the fam met many of Randy's co-workers, the other officer being promoted and his wife then finally the Admiral. We chatted in the Admiral's office and Dylan seemed to steal the show. Of course he wore his pilot outfit including his Naval Aviation t-shirt. We had him take off the flight goggles while inside. :)

When we walked into the room where the promotion took place, there were at least 25 Naval personnel standing around the room. It wasn't even my thing, but I felt like we were the show.

Dylan picked up on it and at one point we needed to remind him to be quiet and listen. That's a 3 year old for you. :)

I guess Dylan did make a good impression on the Admiral because then he gave Dylan a coin. Of course then Ava felt like she should have one too.

I took this one at home. A little bright and blurry. :)

Notice that her hand is out ready to collect. :) I was whispering in her ear that we were only getting one coin and she could hold it later. Apparently Randy's office thought this whole exchange was pretty funny.

Now...on to the oath...

After the oath, it is time to pin the LCDR pins to the collar. I got to help with this. Randy gave me an instructional session the night before. :)

I was a little slower than the Admiral. I think it was because I had to move the old pins away from Ava because she went right after them on the table. Of course...I wouldn't expect anything else. LOL!

After the other officer was promoted, everyone in the room came over to say congratulations. It was like a receiving line.

We celebrated with a lunch out and the kids were honestly awesome the whole time. We had a good time!

Congratulations to the new Lieutenant Commander Krekeler!

Our Last Week In Phoenix

I was looking through the pictures on my camera and found so many cute ones from our last week in Arizona. I wanted to share them! :)

Dance Party!!

We spent the 4th with our friends, The Rayburns!

 Everyone in got a bath after swimming!

Randy was the target in Wrestle Mania. LOL!

This was Dylan's last day at school. We had to pull his carseat out of the van so he borrowed Ava's. :)

After school we went for yogurt with our friends. We're already miss everyone!!

 Dylan decided that he needed to mark every box just like the packers did.

We tried to stay busy while the movers loaded the truck. I wanted an empty house picture of the kids, but Ava wanted what Dylan had instead.

I only have video of the first part of the roadtrip. We had a camera incident before leaving. No worries, the good camera is still working. Then, Dylan got so excited about the flip video that he ran the battery down and the charger was buried in the car. Oh well. We are taking plenty of pictures now!

A Week of Boxes!

We have been buried in boxes since Monday. I have to say though, we have really tore into the boxes. We should be all unpacked by tomorrow, but we will still be organizing...probably for a while. :)

At 8am we heard a knock on the door from our moving truck driver and the madness began. We waited about 20 minutes for the moving crew to show up.

I got the job of marking off the boxes (they are numbered) to make sure everything made it. That meant that I had to sit in a lawn chair in order to not miss anything. This was a pretty good job. :)

As toys started being unloaded, watching the kiddos got easier.

Ava actually spent a lot of time in the car, but decided to take a break while I was taking pics. :)

We had boxes everywhere!! Once we get it all unpacked, I will post pictures of a decorated house.

During the unpacking process, we have been doing SO many stairs!! The movers never put the boxes in the exact space they belong and since we have more space than the last house, we have been walking from the top floor to the basement over and over again. The first part of the week was also ridiculously hot! I know, I came from Arizona so I should be used to it. Ummm...NO! This humidity thing is completely different! The temp was in the 90's with humidity, our A/C needed to be serviced and we have three skylights in the front room just cooking up the house. Along with A/C, other things came up...

* Terminex came out for ants
* We ordered a water cooler and it was delivered on Wed.
* Randy installed smoke detectors all over the house because we only had two detectors for three floors! Virginia law "suggests" one in each room, but doesn't require it. Crazy!
* Safety gates galore
* Changed out all the curtains in the house except the dining room
* Ordered tinting for the skylights. It will be here on Tues.

Is that it? Nope, but a good start.

I tackled the grocery shopping with my helper Dylan. We first tried Giant and they the neatest scanners that we checked out then took with us while we shopped.

I would take the item off the shelf, scan it then bag it in the cart.

This is a stock pic, not my scanner. ;)

When finished, I scanned a barcode at the register and my whole cart uploaded to the screen! We scanned the coupons then paid. Pretty cool! Dylan was my scanner and he loved it! I'll take a pic with my helper next time. :)

Slowly, but surely we are putting the house together. I'll post updated pics by the end of the weekend.