Erin Akin Carroll

1. How is it possible that I will have a three year old next week? This feels like it was just yesterday. It makes me want to cry.

2. We go to the beach next week with Todd’s parents and my parents. We’ll celebrate Hudson’s birthday there. I’m so excited to get away with everyone! I picked up the last of our “supplies” for the beach, including that funny looking flotation device for toddlers that goes around their torso and arms. And it has a scary little smiley face on it. Why does everything need a face?

3. I am planning on reading Twilight while I’m there. I’ve never seen any of the movies and I resisted them for long enough. But I need some books to read that I won’t be able to put down.

4. I started the Paleo diet today. I’m not feeling super grumpy about it yet. We’ll see how I feel after my training session in the morning. I’m hoping to have fewer headaches, more energy, and less bloating. Yay Paleo!

5. I’m determined to get a pedicure before our beach trip. I can suck it up and deal with being tickled as long as I can sit back, sip my wine, and read my magazine. I don’t like it when pedicurists want to chat it up the whole time.

6. I’ve got a slight case of writer’s block as if that wasn’t completely obvious. Hopefully something very exciting will happen this week for me to write about! Or not. I’m having a fun time with our low key days.

7. We walked to Walgreen’s from our house today. I loaded the boys up in the BOB and away we went. I had washed their car seat covers and they weren’t dry yet. So we couldn’t go anywhere in the car. The walk to Walgreen’s was fine- all downhill. The walk home was a doozy! But we made it, obviously.

GIVEAWAY CLOSED!

The winner of this giveaway is…

 

I have a few friends that make adorable kids clothes. One of my friends that I met through blogging and Twitter owns an adorable kids clothing business called Pumpkin Butter Kids. I linked to her Etsy shop here. And you can also follow her on Facebook.

Ashley is so creative and comes with adorable, whimsical designs and fabric choices for boys and girls. We have some cute little seersucker whale tees, a fun little “H” golf tee with great argyle fabric, and a little tee with a brown lab riding in the back of a pickup truck.

My boys have been wearing the heck out of these adorable seersucker whale appliqué tees. Hudson was so proud to wear his whale tee shirt at the aquarium this past weekend.

And Hayes wore his after he ate his birthday cake. Here he is walking with little Miss Ella.

And her girl stuff is so fun, too! How fun is this little strawberry outfit?

And I just love this set and the beach towel!

Ashley is giving away one $50 gift certificate to one Blue-Eyed Bride reader.

All you have to do is “like” Pumpkin Butter Kids on Facebook and then leave a comment back here! Good luck!

(This post is an attempt to catch everyone up on what we’ve been doing this week. It’s really just a picture dump. Apologies in advance… )

I told y’all that posting would be a little lighter than usual this week. Truthfully, the less frequent blogging was nice this week. I didn’t spend any time on the computer in the evenings, and we were so busy during nap time this week that I just didn’t even think to get to the computer.

My brother has been here this week. Half the time he has been visiting with friends that live here and the other half he has just been making us laugh and playing with the boys. We love having Uncle Walker around! We get to see him only 2-3 times per year that we really cherish the visits.

Hudson had swim lessons this week. We chose an 8:00 a.m. lesson time because I thought it would be easier on him to just get up and go swimming rather than having to wedge it into his day and interrupt whatever fun he was having. He cried a little bit on the first day when Coach Zia was reminding him how to hold his breath and blow out with his mouth. He did not like being dunked.

But he started having fun really quickly and every morning on the way to his lesson he’d say, “I’m going to swim with Zia!!!” He loved it.  And he did really well. I’m hopeful that when we go to the beach next week he’ll be even more comfortable swimming unassisted. (With supervision, of course!) The most important thing he learned this week was how to get to the wall and pull up out of the water.

On Friday morning, Walker and I took the boys to the zoo. We had a lot of fun and Hudson got his first blue ICEE. Yum! Hudson loves the animals and Hayes just liked looking at everyone and smiling.

We have already gotten our money’s worth out of our zoo membership. It’s such a great deal and we will probably go once per week this summer. On Friday night, we went back to the zoo with Todd’s parents because it was Family Night. There are a few times per year that the zoo stays open late and has fun activities for the family. They keep the animals out later and it’s great because they normally close at 5:00. So we saw a lot of the zoo on Friday! (Are flamingos the stinkiest animals ever, or what?)

Today, we loaded everyone up and drove to Charleston for the day to go to the South Carolina Aquarium. We stopped and ate lunch on the way there. Hudson was really excited to see all the fish.

And we made a new friend! (Hey, Tiffany!) I love this picture of Hayes with his face for the octopus face. He’s so happy.

Some of the fish and animals were outside, so we loved being out and looking at the water. It was a beautiful day and we had a lot of fun with our family.

My boys are loving each other more and more every day. Hudson absolutely loves to get in Hayes’s crib when Hayes wakes up from a nap. So they both get in there together. Hudson was actually willing to give Hayes a hug the other day!

But then I took this picture and realized that his smile looked a little bit scary. Maybe he’s hugging a little too tight? Ha!

Happy Memorial Day weekend to all of you!

P.S. I am so happy that Phillip Phillips won American Idol. He is just a class act and so humble. I loved his final song, “Home” and will be buying that one on iTunes. Y’all should read Emily Freeman’s post that she wrote the day after Phillip won. I love it!