Happy Halloween!

We had such a fun Halloween!!  Bryce got to wear his costume to school today for book character day (he was the football player from the Hello Bully book!).  CeCe and I painted pumpkins and put together our sucker pumpkin (which she said looked like Cappy's hair!!) :)  We left the pumpkin out on our sidewalk while we all trick or treated together.  I'm not sure it was in a place with enough light though because there are a ton of suckers left in it and we passed at least 100 trick or treaters!  Oops!  

Here are our costumes from this year......Bryce is a Mississippi State Football player and Miss CeCe is wearing one of my old dance costumes!  

This is from the other night....our friends the Tootles have their hayride again this year and we all went on a fun ride the other night.  The girls were having a blast being silly while the boys rode in the back of the truck.  CeCe and Anthony rode in the hayride again tonight, Bryce and Nick wanted to keep walking with their friends so I stayed with them.   At one point the group of trick or treaters we had was about 40 people!  (kids and parents) I just love our neighborhood and all of the friends we have that live so close!  

Yesterday CeCe wore her Dr. costume from last year to school for trick or treating and the Halloween party.  She looked super cute again!  

Pre-Halloween fun!

We've discovered that Savannah loves Halloween!  People decorate their houses with decorations and lights and the parties start early....we had 3 this weekend!  All in our neighborhood which is awesome!  

 The festivities started Friday night at a friend of Bryce's just down the street.  These parents were brave!  (the mom is the Vice Principal at Bryce's school so you would think she would be over kids by Friday night!) There were about 40 kids there.  Kindergarten - 4th graders.  CeCe and I walked him down to the party but didn't stay.  He chose to be David Freese for this party because Ethan's dad is a Red Sox fan!  :)  GO CARDINALS!!  

Bright and early Saturday morning we walked to our neighbors yard to watch Anthony run a 10K.  How awesome is that, the race course took him right past our house?!  It was COLD at 8am!  We hopped on our bikes and rode up to Bryce's school to watch him finish.  He came in 3rd in his age group!  

After the race we went up to the church to help with the fall clean up day, then had a fun yummy lunch downtown.  We came home for a late rest/football watching afternoon before getting dressed up to go to party #2 of the weekend.  This time we all went and dressed up!  Football coach, cheerleader (I know I don't match, not many choices out there!) football player and referee.  It was a super fun party at another neighbor's house.  

 Susan is a great baker and made these brownie pops and decorated them as eye balls!  She also made delicious praline pecan cheesecake bars, delicious I'm telling you!  

Party #3 was this afternoon down the street at Sophie's house.  Bryce decided he'd rather play football with Anthony and go to his running club so he skipped it.  We are saving CeCe's real Halloween costume for Thursday night so she chose her Snow White dress up dress for today.  

It was a fun party with some fun games for the kids to play!  

We are all so tired after this busy busy weekend!  Early to bed for everyone tonight!  

Cappy and Papaw Ruff

My parents got here this past Tuesday for a week long visit!  My mom's birthday was the Sunday before so CeCe and I baked a cake and my dad made a delicious lemon cheese icing for the cake.  It was a labor of love (the icing took over a hour of constant stirring!), but turned out so yummy!  

We had a busy week planned but some of the activities were cancelled (baseball and running group) and CeCe had a quick but nasty cold on Wednesday night into Thursday that caused her to miss gymnastics. We made it to kids choir Wednesday night before CeCe's coughing started and my parents jumped right in to help out when the choir leader couldn't be there.  Daddy played the piano and Cappy helped lead the songs!  Saturday we drove over to Charleston to spend the day.  I took my camera but left it in the car the whole time!  We had fun walking around the City Market and waterfront park, eating a delicious lunch and walking around some more.  Charleston is such a beautiful place!  

Before church on Sunday

After church we drove to Tybee and had Hucapoos for lunch (our fav!) and then walked and played on the beach for a few hours.  Cappy and CeCe could look for shells for days without stopping.  Kindred spirits!  

And of course Bryce brought a ball and between Anthony and Papaw Ruff he was able to play ball the entire time we were out there!  

All last week Bryce had to care for and carry around this pumpkin, which he named Jamerson Love (Miss St. football player) for school.  

As we were leaving CeCe started doing these 'cannonballs' into the sand.  It was hilarious!  

Kiki and Papaw Duke and a hike

We had a great visit with Kiki and Papaw Duke a few weekends ago.  They were here for Bryce's baseball tournament which was great!  That made it seem like a busy weekend but we were able to fit in a trip to Tybee for dinner on Sunday night.  

CeCe has been talking about hiking lately.  She has this plastic backpack of play McDonald's food that Bryce got her for her birthday that she carries on her 'hikes' around the house and neighborhood.  She talked about hiking so much we decided we needed to take her on a real hike!  We headed out to Skidaway Island State Park last weekend (the plastic backpack came with us of course!)

The one mile hike was perfect for us!  We were able to see some tiny fiddler crabs, watch the tide begin  to come back in, watch a woodpecker at work, and learn a little history along the way.  We had a picnic lunch at the park before heading home.  

Baseball Tournament!

FINALLY!  No croup (although he woke up this morning, the day after, coughing!), no broken finger, tournament didn't get cancelled and the team had enough players to play.  Bryce Duke made his tournament baseball debut!  He's been itching to play in a tournament since he started practicing with this team over the summer.  They don't do many tournaments since there aren't too many local ones in the summer and fall, but this one worked out perfectly.  Kiki and Papaw Duke were here to watch!  It was in Rincon which is about 45 minutes from our house.  It was a long day and I was a little worried about him getting tired, but of course he didn't!  I think he was nervous for the first game, but after that he was loving it!  They played 4 games and we were there from 11am-8:15p.  It's going to take me a while to get used to that!  Luckily CeCe loves going to practices and now tournaments because of the other siblings there.  She had a great day too!  I always feel so bad for the siblings of baseball players at these things, but she was on cloud nine having her friends to play with all day.  For an October day, it was HOT.  88 degrees and sunny!  

Bryce in his Hot Rods uniform, ready to play!

His number one fan!  Love that crinkled nose!  

It's taken a while for Bryce to 'get' the pitching machine.  Weeks would go by at practice and he would only hit a few balls :(  He was getting very discouraged but something clicked last week and he got it!  He only struck out once yesterday and scored 3 runs!  

 He played right center field mostly yesterday and did a good job!  He looked so cute out there!!!  

Short videos of one hit and one run from 3rd to home.

Hopefully there will be another tournament this fall!  

Lately

I can't believe it's been over a month since I last posted!  Life has just been chugging along here.  We are in the school year groove now.  That means homework every afternoon, baseball on Tuesdays, church choir for CeCe and supper there on Wednesday's and CeCe's gymnastics on Thursdays.  It keeps us pretty busy but we still have plenty of time to play at home.  School has been great for both kids this year!  CeCe missed all last week because of a cold that just wouldn't go away, but hopefully she can get back this week.  Bryce is now coughing so I guess this will be his week to be home with me!  Hopefully he can kick it quicker than she did.  As I'm writing this he's outside playing football and baseball with Anthony and Papaw Duke so he's not feeling bad, just coughing!

Here is CeCe in one of her new gymnastics leotards.  She is loving gymnastics this year.  She's in class with 4 of her friends so of course it's fun!  

Now that it's football season again, Bryce is splitting his time between football and baseball in the backyard and on TV these days.  

Last weekend one of CeCe's good friends from church had a superhero party (it is a little girl who wanted a superhero party, how fun!?) We were excited to get some of Bryce's old superhero gear back out!  

Before church last week. 

Kiki and Papaw Duke are here this weekend and we've packed in the activities!  Yesterday Bryce played in his first baseball tournament and they were able to watch it!  (post on that next) Today at church was a big day for both kids....Bryce finished up a worship preparation class and was recognized at the communion table with a special cup and CeCe's choir sung in the service.  No picture of Bryce, we went up there with him.