Goooooo Boilers!!!

Todd and I both went to Purdue and met through mutual friends while Todd was in grad school at UVA.  We’ve only been to one Purdue game together, Wake Forest, at Wake Forest in 2003, shortly after we moved to Atlanta.  Purdue always plays IU (Indiana University) the last game of the season for the Old Oaken Bucket.  This year the game was the weekend before Thanksgiving in Bloomington, IN which just happens to be about a 30 minute drive from Todd’s parents house.  We’ve been trying to go back for a game (in West Lafayette) for a while but can’t ever seem to get our act together.  This year we finally did and decided to go down to Indiana early for Thanksgiving so we could go to the game and then spend the week with his family!  And, Todd’s sister and brother-in-law were able to score some tickets to the game, so the 4 of us went and left the kids at home with the grandparents!!!!! 

It’s game day, Finn and Joseph with their jerseys on:

 

And Riley (with his gear on too!) standing inside watching the big boys play outside

View from our seats

the huddle

No game is complete without a foamy finger!

The Chick-fil-a cow!  For the record, we did not have chick-fil-a in Indiana when I was in college!

And the final score:  PU 38 IU 21

Another P for the bucket!

And this creepy clown afterwards at dinner

Thanks John and Steph for such a FUN day!  And thanks G-Ma and Pa-Pa for babysitting!!!!

He’s still standing

yeah yeah yeah

everytime I go to get him out of his crib, he’s standing.  And after having just spent a week sleeping in the same room with him, now I know that the instant that he wakes up he shoots straight up to this standing position and either cries or makes noise until you get him.

Finn see Cake, I mean Kate, at the Zoo

We met up with some friends at the zoo, Karen is part of my online moms group, and was the one who found Riley’s birth story for me!  We met up with her and her precious daughter Kate at the zoo….only Finn kept saying Cake every time I said Kate.  It was a cloudy cool day, and evidently, had I bothered to check the weather forecast, would have known that it was also going to be a rainy day!  LOL!  Regardless we had a good time running around, riding the carousel, the train and seeing the pandas and getting our favorite panda hand stamps!

Riley looks super excited to be out in the rain

And Kate and Finn holding hands, how cute!

Karen got a great picture of the group of us on our way out, you can see it here.

The Digger

I know I mentioned in a previous post about this awesome digger contraption at the playground in Cabbagetown and we finally went back and got to play on it and I took some pictures.  This thing is so cool!  When we were there before for the festival there was a line of kids around the thing the whole time, this time we were the only ones there and got it all to ourselves!  It has two levers, one that moves the scoop and one that moves the whole thing up and down and the seat spins so you can spin around and dump your dirt in another spot.  So Cool!

Beautiful Fall Hiking

The weather has been gorgeous here (when it isn’t raining!) and the weekend was perfect, so in addition to our camping, we also went hiking! It was quite an outdoorsy day!

A family shot (look at Riley’s little face, LOL!)

McKenna and Finn on a bench

Playing it cool

The daddy’s and their baby’s

Running and Climbing…..what boys do best

And Finn takes a “Time-Out” in the woods. Yep, just because we’re out and about doesn’t mean you don’t get put in time-out!

Backyard Camping!

Todd finally got to fulfill one of his lifelong dreams….backyard camping with his children!  I’ll admit, I thought the idea was a little aggressive for a 2 year old, but it was a HUGE success!  We started the day with a trip to pick up our food (beer) supplies, then we pulled out all of the gear from storage and showed Finn what everything was!  The Brimmer family joined us in the festivities!

Gear is out, chairs are set up

Getting the fire started

Time to set up the tents……The kids were so excited they kept trying to climb in and on them, seriously hindering the process!

 

Finally!

 

Riley, not too excited

Roasting hot dogs on an open flame

 

We went on a snipe hunt!  Finn is wearing a potholder on his arm….because he heard that snipes bite!  LOL!

Time for some premade smore’s…..we weren’t brave enough to try real smores just yet!

And then time for a bear hunt!  This was the longest, craziest version of a bear hunt ever!

 

Then it was time for PJ’s and story time including “Curious George Goes Camping”

 

While Todd, Finn, Chad and McKenna camped outside, momma and Riley and Christy and Kara, slept snug in our beds inside!  About an hour after they zipped up their tents I went out to check on them and it was silent!  They had actually fallen asleep!  And so had the daddy’s, whose master plan was to wait until the kiddos fell asleep so they could sneak out and drink some more beer by the fire.  Which they did eventually do, after a little nap!  ;)

And I am still in shock they two 2 year olds slept in tents all night long!  Here’s the gang the next morning!

Looking forward to many more camping outings!  Maybe we’ll get brave enough to hit the real woods next time?!?!

Oh and here is a video of the snipe hunt (warning:  its dark for most of it, but you can hear them calling for the snipe, too cute)