Lexington & Halloween

The Lexington BBQ Festival. Oh my. It was craaaazy. It's a one day event in downtown Lexington where they block off several streets. There's car shows, 5 performing stages, BMX, street sellers, and BBQ. We had been told that about 150k people come to this thing so we had prepared ourselves for the occasion. We parked about a mile away to get free parking. Addilyn clung to me and Scott carried Levi. We had so much fun, but it was very exhausting.

Brisket. mmm.

that smoke you see is jerk chicken

Addilyn helped twirl a ribbon for a kid's show. She was so cute up there. And she did exactly what she was towl.

the grandstage

We were body to body with thousands of people just to try and see Darius Rucker, Joe Nicols, and another guy for free. It was nuts. While we were waiting, Levi woke up and was hungry. So I nursed him. Set a new record for myself. Granted no one knew what I was doing because we were so packed in. Below: Addilyn made a spot for herself at our feet. All 3 performers came out and we listened to 6 songs and decided to peace out. We coudln't see a thing and we had places to be. Like getting funnel cake.

That night we went straight to our church's trunk or treat. I had packed our costumes so that we could change at the church. I made all of our costumes except for Levi's.

cake walk

fishing

Dorothy, Lion, Scarecrow, and Glenda the good witch.

And below are some more pictures of the week leading to Halloween. I hosted our playgroup the 30th. I had another friend come and help out for when I needed to go feed Levi or put him to sleep.

Dang Costco...

I had Cinderella playing while we waited for her friends to come over. This is what it looked like before I turned it off. Bahhhhhahahaha...I thought it was so cute.

Action shot of Addi falling...

I organized a large playgroup Halloween party. We have 3 play-school co-op groups and so all of us combined for this party. We had darling snacks, decor, crafts, and games.

Halloween night. Scott took Addi door to door. She had so much fun and was great at saying Trick-or-treat and thank you! I stayed home and answered the door. We only got about 30 kids.

More leaves...

This picture is from today. What handsome boys I have. Lately whenever I go out and Scott has both Addi and Levi, he is always praising me when I get home. Like tonight I went to take a meal to a friend who just had a baby and he said when I got back, "I think I just burned 500 calories in the 45 minutes you were gone. I would be a stick if I stayed at home with them." It's nice to be appreciated every so often, so I told him I should leave more. :)

Fall

Geesh. You'd think I'd be awesome at blogging since I'm a stay-at-home mom right? Wrong! It is definitely a full time job and I know I'm not the fist to tell you that. I'm quickly trying to blog while Levi naps (for who knows how long) and Addilyn is content playing with her cars by herself.

"I'm a Vet" hospital

I sure love these free activities. Especially the one they do at the Children's Museum. Levi slept half the time which was awesome. And when I fed him, my friend Nancy was nearby so she could keep an eye out on Addilyn as she ran around.

Scott had the 12-13 year old boys over for a campout a few weekends ago. They came over Friday night and stayed until we took them to church on Sunday. They had a good time and made some awesome dutch oven. They left the house in decent condition which is all I cared about :)

A rare moment where Levi was happy on his belly.

 While the boys were here we took another one of our many walks. Addi and Levi sure love each other.

Addilyn set up Levi's props and was happy to take his picture. She loves getting pictures taken and taking them. But I'll let you know how that really is come time for our family pictures. :)

Lately I've been seeing a huge change in how Addilyn is with being a big sister. She has always been really helpful. But she's been especially helpful to herself. The other day I didn't really have to do anything when it came to putting her down for her nap. She did it all by herself. Addi got her night-night book and climbed in. All I had to do was sing a few songs and called it good. Unfortunately she's got a nasty cough right now. Poor thing.

We started a co-op playgroup/preschool. We're not sure what to call it. It's not quite preschool because they are too little and we are not structured enough. But it;s not just straight up playgroup because we are doing some activities and brief lessons. This was the 4th week of doing it, and my turn to host. From 9:30-12 

 I themed my playgroup "Ocean". We looked at pictures of different ocean animals, we acted some of them out (like a crab or a manta ray), we colored pictures of ocean animals, we went "fishing"...And my favorite was the bath toys. We have some ocean animal bath toys that I brought down in a clear shoebox sized storage bin with some water in it. They were all so fascinated and it was as though they were the real animals.  It was darling. When we went outside we drew with chalk an underwater scene. Two year olds can be quite fun. I honestly couldn't have done it without my friend Chelsea. It was awesome having her here so that when I needed to be with Levi she was there.

They are all admiring a caterpillar. I picked it up when I spotted it on the driveway. It was too cute having them all be so fascinated by it! Only one of them actually let it go on their hand. Another when attempted, but it tickled too much. Addilyn wanted to hold it, but she kept psyching herself out last minute.
And by the way, I started this blog post Friday I think? Maybe it was Thursday. And it is now Sunday night.