Keeping Up WIth the Smiths

Why in the world I cannot put together a blog post in a timely manner after a "happening" in our life is unknown to me. I always have great intentions of staying on top of my posts, but ultimately the blog gets put on the back burner as other things always seem to occupy my time {i.e. the baby, cooking, cleaning, the baby, going to work, the baby, working out--you get the picture}. So anyhow--it's the holiday season, and we have so much to be thankful for during this time of the year {and always}. We spent the week of Thanksgiving on the road visiting our families and reflecting on the many blessings in our lives.

This is the biggest blessing I could have ever received. I am eternally grateful for the joy he brings to our lives daily.

Tuesday morning we packed up the car and headed to Birmingham to be with my family. I haven't been to Birmingham since July, and frankly, that's too long! I'm used to being a short 2 and a half hours away from Birmingham, but that's not the case anymore. It took us 7 hours and 45 minutes to get from St. Simons to B'ham. We made seeeeeeveral stops along the way, but Chapman did great. He was content as could be chilling in his car seat and watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on the iPad.

Chap was ready to hit the road after we got the car packed!

He was very excited to see his Aunt Ashton when we arrived in Birmingham.

Wednesday Chapman and Grayson got to have a play date! We had not seen Grayson and his parents since April, so it was great catching up with them!

It's so funny to see these two guys holding their sons after all of the years of partying together at Auburn...times sure do change quickly, I tell ya.

Little buddy couldn't make it through lunch.

Nanny brought Chapman a Bible story book, and of course he loved listening to her read it to him.

Wednesday evening we had Thanksgiving dinner at my dad's. It was nice to have cold enough weather to enjoy a fire in the fire pit!

These two make me smile.

Chapman's first little Thanksgiving feast. Too bad he didn't want to eat any of it.

We strayed from the traditional Thanksgiving turkey at my dad's. Instead he made a prime rib, and it was delicious.

Thursday morning we hung out and watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade at my mom's before we went to my Nana's for a little while. Chapman spent most of the morning trying to play with Harper, the dog and Colonel Reb, the cat! I have a feeling he is going to be an animal lover when he gets older.

Everyone needs a Thanksgiving morning nap!

We are thankful beyond words for this little turkey!

Hanging out with Big Daddy on Thanksgiving Day.

We got to visit with some of our Haley cousins that we haven't seen in a while.

Chapman loved this old rocking horse. I wish you could have seen him making it "giddy up and go"!

A Thanksgiving family photo--I sure am thankful for them.

Thanksgiving evening we were back at my mom's for dinner. She can set the prettiest of tables, y'all! We kept with tradition for this meal and had a yummy fried turkey for dinner. We enjoyed visiting with my Aunt Nee and Uncle Kenny, my Nanny, and Bunny!

Of course the baby has his own sterling silver. :)

Daddy and Chapman relaxing after dinner.

My mommy and me!

Chapman loves his Grandmommy!

Chapman had another milestone while we were in Birmingham. He got his first haircut! My Aunt Nee is a retired hairdresser, and she gave me my first hair cut. It only seemed appropriate that she give Chapman his first one too. Despite the fact that he had about ten people staring at him, he was a rockstar during the entire haircut.

Goodbye curls; he looks like a big boy now!

It looks like the paparazzi is following Chapman as he tries to escape in his car!

At the end of the day, Chapman says "I'm stuffed"!

Chapman and Uncle Kenny say War Eagle!

Friday morning headed o Atlanta for the weekend. We packed in a lot for the little amount of time we were there!

Izzy is so jealous...she hopped in Grandy's lap as soon as Chapman climbed up there!

While we were in Atlanta we went to visit Santa! If you're from Atlanta you know about Santa at Phipps. People start making appointments with the jolly old man in S.e.p.t.e.m.b.e.r. It's not a joke. Last year I had no idea that I was supposed to make an appointment that early, but we got lucky and snagged a cancelation appointment. This year, I made sure to make my appointment as soon as I was able to. I was very curious as to how Chapman would react to Santa this year. Last year he just looked at us and smiled and cooed. I prepared myself for him to scream and cry this year. However, he did not. He just kind of sat there with a look of horror on his face, like please get me out of this man's lap! I almost think it would have been cuter if he had been screaming crying, ha!

Waiting in line to see Santa!

Frannie came to keep us company while we waited in line!

See what I mean...he's like why am I in this strange man's lap??

But right after, he was all smiles again!

After our visit with Santa we rushed to Atlantic Station to see Cirqu du Soleil Amaluna. I love these shows; they are the coolest! There are always parts of the show that blow my mind. If you have never been to a Cirque show, I highly suggest you purchase tickets to the next show that comes to a town near you.

It's so nice to have adult time with him!

Saturday we celebrated the Iron Bowl! If you live in the state of Alabama, or even if you don't, you probably know how huge this rivalry is. Although the game didn't turn out as we had hoped, we still believe in Auburn and LOVE it! Chapman wore his Tiger hat to cheer on our team...unfortunately all of his cuteness wasn't quite enough for the team to pull out a W on the field. He was the cutest little Tiger I've ever seen, though.

Our family yells WAR EAGLE 365 days a year, win or lose!

Frannie loves her some Chapman...she came over to play with him for a while on Saturday. This picture cracks me up--check out that bottom lip!

Chapman and Grandy watching the Iron Bowl pre-game.

We were so glad John and Meredith stopped by to watch the game with us!

Before we knew it our week with family came to an end. We had lunch at one of our Atlanta faves, LaFonda, and then said our good-byes.

He is such a big boy {or so he thinks}. He would not let me feed him. He had to use the big spoon to eat his lunch!

We took a different route back to SSI to avoid the holiday traffic on I-75. We saw a sign for McIntyre, GA as we were driving along and realized thats where Honey Boo Boo lives. We decided to stop off in McIntyre and found Honey Boo Boo's house very easily. It was all lit up for Christmas, so it wasn't too hard to spot from the highway!

After a long day of traveling we finally made it home around 9:00pm. Chapman was exhausted...check out those poor tired eyes. He was thrilled to be back in his own bed after a week of sleeping in "strange places".

And that's it. We enjoyed every minute with our families. We can't wait to be back together at Christmas! Stay tuned for an update about all of our Christmas fun!

I know it's almost December, but better late than never, right? I love the month of October almost as much as the month of December and Christmastime because it's filled with pumpkins, pretty leaves {well not here on SSI, but you know what I mean}, cool weather {also not here on SSI}, football, pumpkin spice lattes--you know what I'm talking about. We did some fun things in October, and I have no excuse for just getting around to documenting them, but it is what it is...so here it is!

My sister had a Fall Break at Auburn, so she came to visit us! We are so far away from family, that it is always nice to have visitors at our house. Ashton enjoyed spending time with Chapman, we took her to a few of our favorite local restaurants, and we went to the beach for an afternoon {that's something I do like about Octobers here on SSI--you can still go to the beach!}.

Dinner at Gnat's!

Chapman loved playing peek-a-boo with Aunt Ashton.

Aunt Ashton got to see that taking a baby to the beach is not a recipe for relaxation...she still had fun, though :)

We also went to the pumpkin patch and let Chapman "pick out" our pumpkin. We took him to a local church's patch, and he had so much fun running around looking at all of the pumpkins!

He even picked out his own little pumpkin!

After we picked out the most perfect pumpkin in the patch, we {I mean Daddy} carved it into a jack-o-lantern. Chapman was very interested in the pumpkin's guts.

Really, he just liked to stir the seeds and pulp!

The finished product...and our cute little punkin!

Chapman wore his Uncle Brooks' halloween outfit from 21 years ago on Halloween day!

Last year we took Chapman to a block party on DeDe and Grandy's street, but this year Chapman was a little more fun to actually take trick-or-treating. Our neighborhood isn't great for trick-or-treating because it has mostly retired people, which means there are not many kids out and about trick-or-treating. So we joined some friends in a more "trick-or-treat friendly" neighborhood. Chapman had fun running up and down the street, but he only got two pieces of candy because it took so long to get him to go to a house! I couldn't decide what I wanted him to be for Halloween this year. Last year we got him a Tigger costume for 5 bucks at a consignment sale. This year I didn't want to spend a fortune on a costume that he would wear for an hour, especially when he had no input as to what he really wanted to dress up as. I found the perfect solution to my problem, though. My Aunt Renee handmade all of my cousin's Halloween costumes when he was little, so she let me borrow Hunter's bumblebee costume from when he was Chapman's age, and all I had to do was buy a $5.00 pair of leggings from Target and make his antenna!