Carson's 1st Birthday Photo Shoot

A couple of weeks ago my assistants (aka Connor and Mimi) and I went out to take some pictures of the birthday boy.  Here are a few of my favorites... 

28

October has always been one of my favorite months of the year.  It usually starts cooling off and all the fall decorations start appearing.  It also is the month that my sweet Carson was born.  Yesterday, happens to be one more reason why I love this month... my birthday!  It is a day were I can stop and remember how blessed I am to have such great family and friends.

My boys started the celebration a day early after a late night trip to the store.  Can you guess who picked out the card? :) 

On my actual birthday, my mom and the boys took me out to lunch and on a little shopping trip.  We celebrated that night with family, Chuy's and cake!  

You would have thought it was Connor's birthday by how excited he was about the cake!

Thanks for all of the cards, messages, texts, and phone calls. :)  You all made my day extra special!

Top Ten on Tuesday

1. In one week this sweet boy will be one!

2. We have been busy planning our little pumpkin a family party for this weekend.

image

3.  I LOVE age 3 years and 4 months.

4.  After taking a week off due to sickness, we are back on track and just finished up learning about letter E and Joseph.

5.  Halloween costumes have been decided.  Connor will be Max from his all time favorite show "Max and Ruby" and Carson will be the cutest puppy dog you have ever seen.

6.  I am in the middle of Beth Moore's study on Revelation... AMAZING!

7. My photographer, Robin Winkles, sent me the favorites page today and I can already tell I am going to have trouble deciding which ones to buy.  

Hayden Family Favorites

8. Connor turned a corner and now has a new found interest in his brother.  He literally smothers him with love! 

 9.  Carson has also turned a corner and has become quite good at letting you know how he feels.  (And yes, Connor's hair always looks that good in the morning.) :)

 10.  We are loving this weather.  It is finally beginning to feel like fall!

Kiddie Acres

This morning our MOPS group met up at a local kids amusement park.  I went with very little expectations about how many rides Connor would actually want to ride. To be honest I thought I might be paying to just hang out with friends for the morning.  However, I am happy to say he rode almost every single ride!  I was shocked!  He even was sweet to help take care of Carson on the rides they rode together.

"Can we please make these jeeps go around and around?"

 Bye, bye!

Thankfully the boat did not sink when I got on board. :)

Emily, Caleb, Jackson, & and Eli hiding back there. 

This was also the first carousel that Connor has been on in a long time (maybe ever?).  Granted he wanted to take the bench seat, but he did assure me that he would hold on to me so I wouldn't fall off.

The airplane ride was definitely a favorite for both of them.

Carson's first pony ride was a success!  He tried to grab the mane the whole time.  Connor told me he was going to "just watch."

Connor was so happy to have all of his "friendses" there.  He loves them all, but Miss Beth is way up on top of the list.  He gets so excited every time he gets to see her.  She was so sweet to sit with him on the train ride.

Since we were already up north, we decided to have lunch with Cole.

It was the perfect end to a great morning!

Great Wolf Lodge

We headed north this past Friday for a family weekend at Great Wolf Lodge.  This was our first time there and we loved it!  Another bonus of the trip was that all the guys got  to attend the A&M/ Arkansas game.  We wont talk about the final score, but they still had fun. :)

Poppa, Nana, & all the grands

Amy, Kate, Hannah, and David

Me and my "boyses" as Connor would say.  He adds an "es" to everything that is plural. :)

Love this one!

Little Miss Hannah is going to be walking before we know it!

At dinner one night they gave all the kids wolf ears. Can you tell Carson is already trying to make his move to rip them off?  They lasted about 2 seconds after this picture was taken.

One of Connor's favorite parts of the hotel was being able to use this wand to open treasure chests and other things throughout the hotel.  Kids everywhere were running around with wands playing a game called Quest.  While we didn't play the actual game, Connor was still able to enjoy parts of it.  

Three of my favorite people in the whole world!

One of the main attractions of the resort is the huge indoor water park.  It took Connor awhile to warm up to how noisy it was, but once he got use to it he had a blast.

Connor and Kate loved splashing Nana with their water guns.

This little guy did his fair share of splashing too!

Thank you Nana and Poppa for taking us on such a fun trip!