I Voted!

Today in Walker's class at school they went to the voting polls. His teachers set up a mini voting box with pictures of an ice cream cone and a cupcake. Each child voted for their favorite and placed it in the voters box. Each voter received an, "I Voted" sticker. After a very close race the winner was announced....****Ice Cream Cone****

Walker's class will have a very special celebration party with ice cream for EVERYONE on Friday!! I mentioned to his teachers this morning if "ice cream" won then I volunteer Patrick to make his homemade ice cream. Patrick is so excited to make chocolate and vanilla for all of Walker's classmates on Friday:)

Happy Halloween!!

We had such a great night celebrating Halloween and trick or treating with our friends. We live in a great neighborhood to trick or treat with such special friends. We all met around 6pm to get all the kids together. Walker was a dinosaur this year and he was the cutest dinosaur I know:) In the group we had Alice in Wonderland, Iron Man, Firefighter, Yoshi, Dora the Explorer and a Ladybug and of course Walker the Dinosaur. We brought the wagon, but Walker wanted nothing to do with that, so Miss Ladybug Keeley enjoyed being pulled around. Walker did so well keeping up with his friends and surprisingly walked right up to the door and said, "Trick or treat". It was funny, because he was always the last to get the candy. He waited very patiently for all of his bigger friends to go first and then it was his turn:) About a hour later after running around he looked at me and said, "Mommy, Home". He did so well and we are so proud of him. I will leave you with pictures of the cutest Dinosaur you will ever see:)

Thompson Farms

This afternoon we visited Thompson Farms with the neighborhood gang. We had a blast watching the kids run around. Thompson Farms has a little bit of everything including a corn maze. The little ones did not dare go in the corn maze. Y'all know how fast Walker can run, so I was terrified we would misplace him in the maze:) It was only 90 degrees today, but we still had a lot of fun. There were nine adults chasing around seven kids:)

Walker enjoyed looking at the turkey, the pig, horses, chickens, and goats. He loved feeding corn to the goats and pig. He's a brave little boy to stick out his hands to feed the animals. He probably would have stayed there all day feeding the animals if we would have let him.

Walker and Pierce had a blast jumping around in the jumpies.

On the hay ride pulled by a giant green John Deere tractor. Right up Walker Leigh's alley:) He kept saying, "Tractor, pulling sitting on hay". It is so much fun to experience these things with him.

They had a blast playing in all the corn. Walker definitely was not ready to get out. They ran and jumped and had such a good time.

Caroline, Keeley, Walker, Pierce and Jayden posing for a picture. The girls did not move around much, but the boys took full advantage. I had to tell Walker I saw a lizard for him to come over and sit for a picture.

Taking a quick break. Doesn't he look like he's worn out....oh wait, he rested for 2 seconds and he's ready to go again:)

Caroline, Pierce, Keeley, Walker, Brendan and Annika sitting on the hay. We all live in the same neighborhood, basically all beside each other. The kids have formed such a great relationship with each other as well as the parents. We are so lucky to have such great neighbors.

We couldn't leave without playing on the John Deere tractor. They had about eight tractors sitting in a row for the little ones to play on. Walker's Papa will love these pictures.

And he's done!! He has crossed the point of no return!! Running around with no nap equals a tired little boy. We had such a great time and feel so lucky to celebrate the fall season together with family and friends!

Fun at the Zoo

We headed out bright and early this morning for a trip to the Riverbanks Zoo. This was our second time taking Walker to the zoo. Last year we had a great time, but this year was SUPER great:) Tonight I looked back on the blog and compared pictures from our trip last year. What a big difference one year has made. This year at the zoo Walker can say all the animal names, tell you the sound of each animal and/or show you how they move:) As we would arrive to each exhibit he would say, "Mommy look elephant" or waddle like a penguin and say, "Penguin mommy". It is truly so much fun to listen to him talk and hear the excitement in his voice to show us something.

The bear exhibit was our first stop. You can see the big guy in the background. He was perched up on a rock chilling.

The giraffes are so cool and will come right up to you. Walker enjoyed watching Daddy feed the giraffe lettuce right from his hand. If you look really hard you can see Baby Isabella. She was born over Labor Day weekend. She is only out from 9am-12pm during the morning, so we were lucky enough to see her. She is so tiny and cute.

My favorite are the elephants. I think elephants are such beautiful happy animals. We enjoyed watching them eat hay and drink water. It's so cool to watch them use their trunks. Walker said his favorite animal at the zoo are Elephants too. Like mother like son!!

The zebras and ostrich's' shared an exhibit. The zebras weren't feeling all the attention, but Mr. Ostrich was. I was very impressed that Walker knew what kind of animal he was and could say Ostrich very well.

We had so much fun riding the little choo choo train.

The Siamang monkey's are always so entertaining. I copied this off of the website: One feature that distinguishes Siamang's from other primates is the duet song that marks their territory with sound. It consists of loud booms and barks, amplified by resonating sounds across their inflated throat sacs. At first they were being very quite and we wanted Walker to be able to listen and watch them. We decided to have our picnic lunch by the monkey's and hang out for a while. Sure enough almost half way through our picnic they started making lots of noise. He loved it!!!

I don't know if you can tell or not, but Walker got his first lesson on how turtles mate. I did not know turtles made noise. You may laugh, but I'm serious the turtles were making lots of noise. Thank goodness Walker's still too young to understand what they were doing.

Helping Daddy feed nectar to the birds.

He wanted to feed the birds out of his cup. He said, "Birds come" like we usually say, "Ribbie come". I guess he's heard us yell to Ribbie way too many times. Last year he did not like the birds getting close to him.

We enjoyed seeing the farm animals. We saw goats, lamas, rabbits, a turkey and mice.

We look forward to taking him back to the zoo. The memories we made today will be with us forever and I hope I never forget all the sweet things he says. And I hope I never forget seeing the excitement in his little precious eyes. He is such an awesome little boy!!!

Lots of fun going on!!

We have been having so much fun and staying so busy I haven't had time to blog. I know I've said this before, but when I start getting emails asking why I haven't blogged lately or asking if everything is okay...I know I'm well overdue. I haven't blogged in 2 weeks, so I do apologize to all of our friends and family. I will try and do a better job:)

Seriously, we have been so busy the last 2 weeks and lots of changes are taking place at our house. Walker is growing so fast and learning so much. At school they have a different lesson/activity everyday. Every Wednesday they go to chapel, every Thursday they have Spanish class and Stretch and Grow class. He absolutely loves going to school. I'm also proud of him for being able to say in Spanish numbers Uno through Siete all by himself:)

Walker has been pacifier free or as he calls it "Nee Nee" free for almost a week. It was such an easy process. We were dreading it so much, but it was a piece of cake. I think I was just sad knowing he was another step closer to growing up and not needing those "baby things". Daddy and I worked on a little story that we started telling him almost a week before the disappearance. The story went a little something like this....

Walker: Mommy "Nee Nee".

Mommy: Walker don't you remember how the dinosaurs came and took all of your "nee nees" to heaven way up in the sky, because Toby needed them?"

Walker: "Nee Nee" dinosaurs in the sky, Toby needed them."

Mommy: Yes buddy all of your "nee nees" are in the sky now.

Explanation: He loves dinosaurs at the moment and Toby is our wonderful neighbors dog that recently passed away. We had recently explained to him how Toby went to heaven in the sky. Walker was actually the one that said, "Toby needed them, so I went with it".

He only asked for it a few more times and now we don't even talk about it. This will be a story I will never forget:)

On another note, Moppy is here to stay with us for the week. We are having so much fun with her. Walker actually took a few steps forward again today. He poo pooed on the potty this morning and pee peed tonight. WoooHooo!! We will see if he makes any progress. Pictures of Moppy's visit to come this weekend.

Walker loves Ribbie so much. They have a love hate relationship. Ribbie takes so much from Walker. She really only pays attention to him when he is eating. As you can see she was wanting some mini Nilla Wafers. Walker thinks its so funny for Ribbie to take food directly out of his hand:)

In September we celebrated Ribbie's birthday, Daddy's birthday, Jules' birthday and Uncle Matt Matt's birthday. We also celebrated Pops' birthday yesterday. Walker got lots of practice saying, Happy Birthday. We are so thankful for Skype!

Happy Birthday to Daddy!!

We celebrated Daddy's birthday on September 24th. I got up bright and early and cooked everyone pancakes with bacon. The birthday boy got to blow out birthday candles with his pancakes. Daddy asked me if I could get up early every morning and cook breakfast and be nice in the mornings:) I can only be nice in the mornings once a year and that's his birthday:)

We went out to dinner with great friends to celebrate the special day. Nothing beats a fabulous dinner at Frank's in Pawleys. Thanks for helping us celebrate such a special day Gus and Amy!

Last Saturday morning we met my dear friend Alicia and her family at the beach. Walker and Zuri had so much fun playing at the beach and at the pool. Walker decided he would eat all of her snacks while we visited. We look forward to seeing you guys during the holidays.

We attended another exciting football game last Saturday. Walker only likes Chauncey from a very far distance. Walker is very good at cheering. He will say, "Hey, Go Chants".

We met our friends at a fall festival over the weekend. We checked out the pony rides, but the boys only liked looking at them and we rode on an antique fire truck. The boys had so much fun running around.

Peyton's dad Michael is such a good trooper for going with us. He calls Walker and Peyton his two sons:) We've been together the past 3 Saturdays celebrating Chanticleer football and the fall festival. Michael said he feels like he has two wives and two boys:) Abby is a lucky girl:)

These two are best buds. I absolutely love watching them interact with each other. They are two fun loving, easy going balls of energy. Walker is very lucky to have Peyton as his best friend. We were missing their other side kick. JD's mommy was working hard at a yard sale. We can't wait to get the three monkey's back together.

On our way to the car we saw a balloon man. Walker saw a little boy with a fishing pole and thats what Walker asked him to make. Walker loved it!!