SUCCESS!!

Sweet SUCCESS!! Thursday is our day at The Little Gym, and Walker participated today. For those who do not know Walker, this is a huge deal. He is not big on new situations or people. They really stress him out. BUT, today he was a little champ. He made friends and helped with the smaller kids. He sang, ran, jumped, climbed, and had a blast. The highlight was when he looked up at me and said, "I'm having so much fun!". Connor, in his usual style, had a great time as well. He thinks he is big stuff and needs to walk on the balance beam alone. There are mats under it, but still, a 3-4 foot fall would hurt. He would look at me and say, "Go away moma. You go over there." with that little finger pointing across the room. Mr. Independance. I was not able to get many pics because I have to constantly supervise Conman, but here are the ones I got...

Walker before we got started, rather unsure.


Does this place look fun or what?

Connor was ready to go in the gym Literally climbing the walls.

Con doing some of his tricks.

At the end of the day hugging his new friend.

Next we headed to Chick-fil-a for lunch and then to the car lot. Well, that's what I call it. We went to Toys-R-Us for the boys to test out the ride on toys. It was like a car lot for kids with so many choices. They will probably get one they can both ride in for Christmas. Walker's legs are so long, and they both need to fit comfortably. Man have these things changed since I was a kid. They have real FM radios, seat belts, gears. I'm jealous!

Digging the green. They'd be easy to see.

A good fit for Connor.

A little tight for 2.

Too small.

Likey, Likey! They liked the Cadillac Escalade a lot too.

We did a little more shopping, and then the boys had to get flu shots. Walker got the mist up his nose, but he was devastated that Connor had to get a shot. I think he cried more than Con did over the situation.

All in all it was a good and productive day in our house. Hope yours was too.

Anyone need a child?

Okay, okay I'm joking. BUT, crazy Connor may be the death of me. It was a gross and rainy day out today, so we were inside the whole time. Walker loves a day at home so he can watch his movies and play with his animals. Connor, well Connor goes stir crazy. Today he was exceptionally mischievous.


First off, he did some more damage to my blind in the family room. I needed to get a new one last week after Walker got bored and broke some slats, but after Conman went to work on it I will be getting one much sooner.

Look carefully. He is peeping through at you.

Then he decided he would climb in my dryer. Yes I said in my dryer. I was folding laundry and Walker needed a drink, so I left it open and went to the fridge. When I came back, this is what I found.

During playdough time, he turned over my coffee. You want to talk about a mess. Multicolored playdough with coffee in it. YUCK! (This was obviously too gross to photograph.)

Finally, while I was cooking supper he got behind Fluffy's cage and gave it a good push. Just imagine a rabbit cage being dumped on your floor, while you are cooking. Needless to say, Fluffy had to wait until after dinner to get cleaned up.

That would be poor Fluffy scared to death in her purple house.

Well there you have it. Just another ordinary day in my life.

Grandma...

I should start out by saying my boys are very blessed. They have more healthy active grandparents than any other 2 kids I have ever met. As far as females are concerned, they have Nonnie, Nana, Mama, Grandma, Mamaw Russell, Mimi, and Gigi. Amazingly, the boys know all these people by name, so when Walker says "Nonnie" I know he is referring to my Mom.


Walker and Grandma Ligon.

Well last night when we were coming home from the fair, Walker started talking about "Grandma". By this he means my grandma, his great-grandmother that lives 9 hours away. He was telling us that he did not like to visit one of his great-aunts, but "I just want to see my grandma." "I love my grandmother." he would say. This is so funny to me, because he has only got to spend a precious few days with her in his whole life. I guess this is a perfect testimony to the fact that sometimes it is not the amount of time you spend with someone, but the quality of the time spent. He knows Grandma loves him and when he sees her she always acts like it is a huge deal, which makes him feel very special. I asked him a few minutes ago why he loved Grandma so much. He told me "Littlefoot's grandma loves him and my grandma loves me. She loves me very much." I told him he was right and she did love him very much. (For those of you who do not have small kids, Littlefoot is a dinosaur on The Land Before Time, he and his grandma are very close.)

He will get to see his Grandma Thanksgiving weekend, so in this special month when we all try to be thankful, I will send up a special prayer of thankfulness for Grandma and what she means to my little men.

Walker and Grandma his first Christmas.

Coastal Carolina Fair...

We went to the Coastal Carolina Fair tonight. It was a lot of fun and the boys loved it as usual. There was a lot of fried fair food, farm animals, rides (operated by the typical drunk guy)and even a rodeo. I am gonna let the pictures tell the story of the night. So go get a Snickers bar, put it on a popsicle stick, toss it in the deep fryer, and eat it while you look the the pics. You'll swear you were right there with us!

Heading in from our parking spot.

Walker refused to go down the slide once we got to the top of the "House of Mirrors". The line was backing up and the guy manning the slide was getting inpatient. I had to give Walkie a little "push" to get him down the slide. He was SO MAD!!

He did like the carousel this time.

He LOVED the rodeo!

He also LOVED having a drink as big as he is.

Connor chowed down on some fries.

Connor's souvenir was a tractor.

He gave this baby goat a kiss on the lips. It was gross and cute at the same time.

Con's highlight of the night. They let him in this huge tractor.

Walkie liked the tractors too.

Fun was had by one and all!

Chicks Here, There, and Everywhere...

In July, at Eli's birthday party, Sandy(Nana) revealed to me that she was gonna get the boys some chickens for their place at the river. Now you would have to know Nana to appreciate this gesture. She is a true animal lover, but she HATES chicken. Atleast that is what I always assumed. She does not eat chicken. She lives on a farm and has no chickens. She is one of the cleanest people you will ever meet. If you know anything about chickens, you know they are not so clean. Anyway, Aunt Kay (Sandy's best friend) got Eli(her grandson) some chicks for Easter and when Sandy saw how much Eli enjoyed them she decided the boys would love chickens too. She was now on a mission. Papa and Jerry built the chicken coop, Aunt Kay gave her a rooster(Cocky), and she talked Lon into goint with her and the boys to buy some chickens. She originally started out with 1 rooster and 4 chickens.


Cocky the rooster.

Well Nana was right. The boys love the chickens. They get in the coop and feed them. They chase them around. They really enjoy them. Walker clucks after them, you get the picture. It is hilarious!


Walker ready to feed the chickens.


Walker and Connor getting MORE feed.

About a month after she got the original chickens, a friend gave her 7 black chickens and a rooster. She had no intentions of letting the chickens make babies. She makes trips to the river every other day to collect eggs, but as you can imagine, nature took its course. Nana was not able to keep some of the eggs from being fertilized so she now has 39 eggs, hatching daily. 19 have been born so far, and 16 are happy and healthy.

Since their chicken coop is at the river, and Sandy and Jerry have a different primary residence, she had to bring the baby chicks home with her. Now imagine this if you will, Nana, the cleanest person alive, has 16 chicks and 2 chickens living in her house. Of course they are in cages, but I still get a serious chuckle out of this, and thought you would too.

Here are the black hens sitting on the eggs.

This would be Walker clucking.

Here are some fun pics of the boys and their chickens. More proof that grandchildren make you do crazy things.

Connor and one of the new babies.

Walker and "Scarlett". Where he gets these names I will never know.

Dinosaurs...

Today was a regular Sunday at our house. We went to church this morning and then on to Mama and Papa's house for lunch. I spent most of the early afternoon elbow deep in playdough, and my cookie cutters are worn out, not to mention the mess on my table and floor. Oh well, there's always soap and water.

I decided I would go grocery shopping this afternoon instead of tomorrow, so that Lon could keep the boys while I went. Well of course that was not happening. They would much rather torcher Mom at Wal-mart than stay home and watch football with Dad.

I must give credit where credit is due. They were exceptionally good at WallyWorld. I did cave and get them both a toy. I am not too proud to bribe my children. There is no shame in my game.

Anyhow, about the dinosaurs. During church this morning Walker looked through a dinosaur book over, and over, and over, and you get the point. Then, at Mama's house Uncle Paul had to read the dinosaur book to him. We have done dino flash cards, Dinosaur movies, and he has even practiced all of his dinosaur roars today. So, in going with the dinosaur theme, we spent the last 20 mins. doing this...
Lining up, ever so precisely, his favorite dinosaurs on his toybox in his bedroom so they could be there while he slept. Man Walker is OBSESSED!

I am gonna go watch Desperate Housewives, but I will leave you for tonight with some of my favorite "Dinosaur roars" from this month...

I think Pop is really scared!

Check out those jammies!

I think this is a Parasaurolophus (sp?)...

and this is definitely a T-rex. I'd know that one anywhere!

Hope your Sunday was as blessed as mine!

Yardwork...

Well today was an exceptionally productive day at the Nettles household. Lon had to work this morning, so I got a lot of housework done. Then this afternoon we got out in the yard and did a lot of badly needed yardwork. I raked the whole front yard...

(this is just the corner, but does it look good or what?!) I should have taken before pictures then you would really want to give me a pat on the back. Walker was such a good little helper he carried piles and piles of pinestraw to the flowerbeds as I raked.

I took down all of my Halloween decor, there wasn't that much, but I had to leave out this wooden pumpkin. I just love him and can't bear to put him away until Thanksgiving.

Lon helped me plant the 9 mums I had in pots. The only ones still potted are the 2 on the porch, and this one...

I had planned to cut back all of my sweet potato vine, but it is still so pretty. I think I am gonna have to let the frost get it before I have the heart to cut it back.

Well needless to say, after all this hard work we were all hot and deserved a treat. We heard the ice cream truck, yes I said ice cream truck, in the neighborhood and we were gonna get one but by the time we got finished the "Oh Susanna" had stopped playing. I guess he had moved on to another street. Bummer. Oh well, we loaded up and Mama treated us all to an ice cream at the convenience store around the corner.

Can you believe we took poor Connor anywhere looking like this? I was so embarressed! I told him he really did look like a red-headed stepchild, and his Nonnie would kill me when she found out I took him out like this. The worst part was that we were all about this dirty. Luckily we didn't see anyone we knew at the gas station.

At the end of our day we burned our brush in the yard and let the boys get even dirtier, if that's possible, and play outside a while. Here are a few more pics of them.

Now that is some air-time Con!

Walker trying to get Connor to let him catch him.

More dirt.

Walker lands on his knees. every. single. time.

Lon tickling the dirtiest boy on the block.

I hope everyone had as fun of a day as we did.