My work here is done!

Oh yeah!....Give me 5 minutes and I can do some damage!

Craft Fair at Lyndhurst Castle

It was a beautiful fall day on Saturday! The sun was shining and there was just a touch of fall in the air. Our new alarm clock (aka. Lukie) woke us up at our daily waking hour of ~7:30am. He has thought this was the perfect time to get up for the day for about 10 months now. Needless to say we had a time getting adjusted to this new schedule (especially Jeremy who is a crazy night owl and likes to sleep in), but all is well now- Luke has us TRAINED as much as we like to think that we have HIM trained. As you can see, Jeremy looks quite chipper to be up and out of the house by 9:30am on a Saturday. We decided to walk the mile to Lyndhurst Castle to the craft fair on the aqueduct walking trail. It is very woodsy and was actually pretty sparse this morning (but that could have been that normal people were sleeping in on Saturday- Haha). Anyway, the walk was gorgeous. Whenever we walk on the aqueduct, it always makes me think of camp. On our way home, we even passed Meredith Vieira on her Saturday walk (she lives in Irvington and we see her out and about in our little town every so often).  Anyway, I digress, ....on to the craft fair.....

They have this craft fair two times and year- in the fall and in the spring- and I love it because I can usually find all kinds of fun Birthday and Christmas gifts. However, this year there weren't any MUST HAVES, so that was a kind of bummer, but we still found a few items for us (mostly food). They have the WORLD'S BEST kettle corn at the craft fair, so I always buy the biggest bag and have it eaten in like two days. We also bought some homemade salsa and fudge. Yum!

Why is it that toddlers go the exact OPPOSITE way that you want them to go???

Why is it that BOYS will find even the smallest patch of DIRT to dig around in???

Our only purchase besides food: a wooden cheese board! Now, I know you are asking, why a wooden cheese board for heavens sake?  Well, there are actually a few reasons.... 1.Jeremy and I will be celebrating our 5 year anniversary (I know it really is hard to believe- time goes so quickly!) in just a couple of weeks and the "traditional" anniversary gift is wood, so I have been on the look out for a unique wooden gift. 2. This cheese board is made from a Maple tree, which is the same type of wood that Luke's tree (see older blog post) is made of. 3. If you look closely at the grain of the wood you can see some dark "spots" on it and this is actually made from a little beetle that walks up and down the tree in the sap and leaves these little markings in the wood (I just thought that was cool). 4. It is in the shape of a guitar and since Jeremy plays, I thought it was the PERFECT anniversary gift. After talking to the artist and telling her that we were buying this for our 5th anniversary, she gave us both a huge hug and then gave us the wooden cheese knife (which sounds like it wouldn't work, but it actually works really well) for FREE (it is normally $13)! She wanted to give us an early anniversary gift. She was so sweet. 

Whew! This was a long post....thanks for reading! 

Roll Tide Roll!!!

I know that we are a split family, in that, my momma's an AL fan and my Daddy's a TN fan. But I have to say that Mom and I have really been working on Dad to come over to the AL side and it seems to be working! 

Since we are all the way up in NY, and we don't get to see all of the SEC football games... Mom and Dad bought the college football package. It is great fun to see Mom and Dad yell and jump up and down for their teams! This year I am even getting in on the fun....

yea, Alabama! Drown 'em Tide! 

Every 'Bama man's behind you; 

Hit your stride! 

Go teach the Bulldogs to behave, 

Send the Yellow Jackets to a watery grave! 

And if a man starts to weaken, 

That's a shame! 

For 'Bama's pluck and grit 

Have writ her name in crimson flame! 

Fight on, fight on, fight on, men! 

Remember the Rose Bowl we'll win then! 

Go, roll to victory, 

Hit your stride, 

You're Dixie's football pride, Crimson Tide! 

(Oh yeah, Mom is teaching me the fight song early, so I can sing it when we go down to the game in November.)

Mid September Randoms

Oh, was I not supposed to climb in this basket? It sure was fun! I love being able to get to my toys so easily. This bookcase from Ikea was such a great purchase. It holds all of my toys and mom's scrapbooks!

Whew! I sure am glad I rescued this lego coaster from this toy basket!

What's up Moms? The Payne boys say yo, yo!

One of my favorite things to do these days is "talk" on the phone. Whenever I find the phone, I know exactly what it's used for..... I put it up to my ear and jabber away! It's at these times that Mom and Dad wish they could speak baby talk. 

The storm troopers were at Pottery Barn Kids today. I was ok at first, but as soon as they started talking in their robot voices, I decided that these guys were up to no good. Dad told them my name was Luke and as soon as I started crying one of them said "Well, little buddy. It's ok. Guys named Luke don't like us much anyway!" 

My Tree, Papaw's garden, and Rusty...

Thanks for taking such good care of my tree, Papaw. It looks so nice with all of the leaves on it. Don't tell Mom I told you, but it is a good thing she is not in charge of this tree!

I've never seen corn actually growing on a stalk before. Do I really get to tear something apart with out getting in trouble for it?

Look Mom, I am almost as tall as this stalk of corn! Papaw your garden is so cool! Maybe you can teach me how to grow one in a few years!

Rusty is Papaw's doggie and I have decided that I like dogs better than cats. Papaw taught me how to say "wuff, wuff," but I would only say it if I heard Rusty do it first.  

Cousins!

Man, it was so much fun getting to see my cousins again! 

Enough with the pictures...let's get back to splashing around!

This is what happens when you don't have a swimmy diaper ;)

Getting to play with Madison and Emily was great fun, but I had to get in some good rough and tumble play with Jared. Jared kept trying to get me to say "Hut, Hut" when I threw the ball. 

Big man at the Park

We spent the long weekend down in GA with Mamaw and PawPaw (my daddy's parents) and they just finished a new park in Ringgold, so before we went to Cracker Barrel (a stop we always have to make when we are home since the closest one to us it over an hour away) we stopped by the park. There were all kinds of swings and rides and kids, but all I wanted to do was go on the slide!

"This airplane is OK, but when can I get back on the slide?"

"After Mamaw showed me how to go UP the slide, it was ALL over. There was no more going DOWN the slide! I was on the UP and UP!

My mom called me  a monkey the whole time and couldn't believe how strong I was and how far I could make it UP the slide. 

Even though I couldn't make it all the way up the slide by myself, my mom was glad to stand by and give me a helping hand and make sure I didn't lose my balance at the top! So much fun!