Santa Visit

Our visit with Santa this year.....

It's about time.

Well, looks like I have skipped Thanksgiving and moved right into Christmas.. I figured that a new post was in order since Christmas is a week from tomorrow. holy cow! Andrew and I did a photo shoot for our christmas card and here are some of the pics.. It of course, was a bit of a challenge.

This was after I yelled at Tucker for pulling on Wes' ear.

My picture perfect boys.

Just had to post this

Stuff in the Green Dish

This week I have actually been good about cooking meals for my family every night which rarely happens by this point in the week. I have a recipe book from Andrew's mom that contains some great, midwest family recipes. One of the dishes is literally called 'Stuff in the Green Dish.' It is one of Grandma Emmie's (Andrew's Grandma) recipes and Andrew and Tucker both like it a lot. After coming to visit, Andrew's mom (Carol) decided that I needed a Le Creuset to cook casseroles and things like 'Stuff in the Green Dish' and she sent me a green one! So, now I can truly carry on the tradition.. This will be a great recipe for our family for years to come.

Halloween Fun (2)

We have been busy with Halloween activities the last few weeks. Wanted to share the fun....

Wes saying hello to the Halloween pumpkins in our front yard. he is a frog this year!

We went to 'Boo at the Zoo' last Sunday and had a great time.

Andrew and Tucker riding the train at the zoo. It's Tuck's favorite thing to do there. His 'doggy' had to come to the zoo with us too..

Tuck in his new 'skeleton' glasses from SonicBurger. This is the coolest toy I have ever seen in a kid's happy meal! He loves them.
It was our turn to host the neighborhood get together, so we had a Halloween party last night. Jenna decided that she wanted to be in the picture too. We have Nemo (Bode), a giraffe (Addy), Mickey Mouse (Jensen), a Ninja (Tucker), a lion (Avery), a chicken (Annabelle), a cat (Sophia), SWAT team (Sebastian) and a frog (Wes)!
I had to post this picture. Tucker went 'poo' for the first time in the potty last weekend and he got a set of two matchbox cars. He knew that he would get these cars if he did it, so he was really excited to finally open them. He did it all on his own and showed us afterwards, hooray Tucker!

Crawling

Wes has been doing the 'army crawl' now for about a month. We have been waiting for him to start to crawl with his belly lifted off the ground. Yesterday (Friday) we were in the back yard and he finally did it! Check out this video.. Tucker makes a quick guest appearance too.. ha ha!

Halloween Fun

We are definitely in the 'Halloween' spirit this fall, even if it is still hot here in Atlanta.

I took the kids to Berry Patch Farms to meet my friend Kara and her son, Graham. Tucker had fun driving the tractor..

Tucker and Wes had fun playing in the pumpkins. Even if they aren't smiling in this picture!

Wesley and Graham in the 'baby' pumpkin patch. They were so cute crawling around in the field together.

Today my friend Renee had a Halloween party for all of our friends. It was so much fun and she even set up this fall scene for us to take pictures. I love the way Wes is looking at Tucker in this one.

Another great photo at our house. Wes' beautiful smile.

Matchy Matchy

My friend Jenny and I met for lunch this past week, and to our amusement, we had both dressed our kids in matching Halloween outfits. I can't believe we got all the kids to smile for the camara - Tucker and Wes have 'Trick' and 'Treat' shirts on that my friend Renee made for them. So cute!

Costumes

The boys in their Halloween Costumes. Wes is a dinosaur and Tucker is a ninja!

Lately...

Tucker and Wes have been playing so well together. They make each other laugh and enjoy playing with Tucker's cars.Wes has been pulling himself up to standing on anything that he can find. I swear he will go from the army crawl straight to walking.

Tucker always lines up all his cars in a row. I find rows like this all over the house. He likes to be organized like his daddy!

We went to the zoo last Friday. Tucker loves posing in these 'scenes' at the farm, the zoo..wherever..
This pic is from a previous post when we went the farm.. see what I mean??

Date Night

These pictures are from a few weekends ago, but I thought they would be fun to post. Once the kids and I got back from Ohio, Andrew and I got to go on a date night.

Here we are at the restaurant...

The patio was great and we watched a thunderstorm during dinner.

Anytime my mom comes down to visit, she loves doing yard work. So, not only did she watch the kids so we could go out, but she also planted flowers, mowed the yard and mulched our leaves!!! Love you Mom!

Savannah

We spent this past weekend in Savannah. It was a great family trip with just the four of us which we have never done before. We stayed at the Marriott Courtyard about five blocks from the City Market and River Walk.

When we arrived, we headed straight for the pool to cool off. It was a hot 92 degrees and sunny.. Still summer here!

That night we walked to City Market. It was a cute little historical area with lots of shops and restaurants. Tucker loved the horses and wanted to see them every time we went there. He would 'neigh' to the horses and pet them.

Our first dinner out was at a pizza place called, 'Vinny Van Go Go's'. Of course we had to have pizza! It was really good and had a fun atmosphere.

In true Cullen fashion, Wes tried pizza (crust) for the first time and obviously loved it!!! I never thought I would say he ate pizza at seven months old.

Tucker hung out in his stroller a lot too. He was nice and comfy eating his pizza .

Just wanted to prove that Wes didn't sit in his stroller all weekend...

Day Two: We headed to the oldest coffee shop in Savannah.. it was about five blocks from our hotel. The coffee and quiche were delicious but we had to leave quickly b/c the boys were being loud and all the patrons were quietly reading.

Savannah has a lot of 'squares' with historic monuments. It was fun to learn about the history of the city.

We headed to the River Walk to check out the boats.

That night we went back to City Market and ate at a little tapas restaurant. Pretty typical scene here - I'm trying to feed Wes and keep Tucker happy at the same time. Thank goodness for the iphone!

My friend Renee inspired me to make sure we got a family picture.. This is the best one we could get. At least Tucker is smiling b/c he has an ice cream.

Tucker (and me) eating his ice cream.. it was really good.

Wes was pretty good the entire trip.. not a surprise!!

First day of School and Sleep!

First, I'd like to say that we are all (Tucker, Wes and I) happy to be back with Andrew/Dada!! We have missed him.

This week was Tucker's first week of pre-school and his teachers say that he is doing great and has picked right up with all the kids in his class. He is in the 2 year room this year and there are 7 girls and 3 boys in his class. He started a month later than everyone else because we were visiting my family, but he seems to have adjusted fine!

This was after his first day. He was hot and sweaty from playing on the playground!

Tucker on his second day today. He did not bring his doggy to school this year, which was good!!!

Wes is also doing really well. He loves to eat baby food, oatmeal, and has started eating some finger foods like puffs and cheerios this week. He wants to be big boy like his brother. We also had a huge breakthrough - every night this week he has slept all night from 8:30pm-7:30am.. I have been waiting for a good night's sleep for a long time.. I hope this is his new schedule. Before this week, he was still waking up at least once a night. Andrew and I are both happy with a full night's rest!!
Wes being his normal happy self!