Our Weekend

We had a fun filled weekend for the last one of October. I cannot believe it is about to be November already... time to start getting the Christmas decor out (sister has beaten me on this one). Matt's game was on Thursday night this week.. so KK, Fulton and I went for the tailgate dinner before the game, but decided not to stay for the actual game. Food is always important, so you must make it for that... we watched the game online and stayed warm inside.

So... that meant that Matt had Friday night off.. woohoo.. hot diggity dog. First Friday night off in 10 weeks. Awesome! Can you tell I was excited? We took dinner to one of the coaches who just had a sweet baby girl last week and then we met Aunt Keri for dinner and then did a little running around town.

Saturday we got a slow start... but Saturdays are supposed to be that way. This was the best attempt at a family picture and of all the pics taken.. someone wasn't looking at the camera in all of them. We are working on Fulton and Harley looking at the camera at the same time.

Our first child... little Harley man. Have you missed seeing his picture? I know you have. He wanted to try on his costume that Aunt Keri got him. It was a perfect fit and now he's ready for trick-or-treaters.

Look who else put their costume on... in case you aren't sure what he is... Fulton is a monkey. I know he sort of looks like Yoda or something.

Once we had our costume on, we headed to the Taylor's house for a Halloween pumpkin carving with some couples from our small group. We love to fellowship with these sweet people. We have added some little ones to our group in the last couple of months. We have lots of babies all around now.

Let me admit that I didn't help carve our pumpkin at all. I have to say, it's a little different with a baby to tend to now, so my focus was a little distracted. Matt is a champ and did it by himself.

Some of our sweet friends with their carved pumpkins.

Matt's end result. He did a great job!! Super proud of the hubs. We are displaying it proudly on our front porch.

Our little fam!

Sunday morning it was time to rise and shine and get ready for church. Fulton had his Bible and was ready to get into the Word. It was a great weekend!!

Just Because

These are random pictures over the last week...it's official. Our life and house are completely babyfied (how do you spell that word?) and we love it!! This little guy has brought so much joy (and dark circles under our eyes) to our lives and we are having so much fun with him. This little booger is already 6 weeks old and we are starting to see his little personality come out.
Look who started smiling this past week?! Of course Matt calls me in the room and says, guess what?! He smiled at me.. of course my little heart broke because I didn't see it first. So I proceeded to tell Matt that of course he did... he has done that for me a hundred times and he already called me momma too. Whatev!

Look at those sweet little innocent eyes... these next few pics were just a few back to back that we took.. his little facial expressions are too much. This is what he likes to call his "serious" look.

Daddy taught him how to fist pound. This was right after a sucessful nail trimming experience. What a challenge.

And right after that came this pretty sight. Nothing like spit up running down your leg.

He loves to catch his zzz's too. He was crashed out and I moved him to the changing table to get a fresh diaper and the little guy didn't even move. At this point in his short little life, he can sleep through anything... hopefully he will stay like that.

Look what a great momma I am... and just found these Halloween PJ's in the drawer that I bought.. nothing like wearing them one time before the actual holiday. Don't be surprised if you see these again in December. Little man was begging to wear his house shoes too.

Pumpkin Patch

Saturday we braved the pumpkin patch..just a small one close to our house. We will save the big daddy patch for next year when little man can actually hold his head up. We stopped for a quick photo op with daddy at the hay barrels. Fulton slept through most of the adventure. We told him all about it once we got in the car. Good thing we didn't have to pay for him.

Another picture with mommy this time. I know.. lots of pictures.. but he was too short to ride anything. No pony rides, jumpy things, or train rides. Maybe next year. What else do you do with a newborn at the pumpkin patch.. just take pictures.

Want to know how to wake him up? Try propping him up next to a pumpkin to take a picture. I know someone was already dialing DHR on their cell phone. Don't worry.. we were right there.. ready for the bobble head action to take place. By looking at his face, do you think he liked it? Doesn't he look like a little old man in these jeans. I love it!

After that little meltdown, Matt decided to go ahead and pick out our pumpkin. He has to make sure he gets just the right one for carving.

Poor guy was pooped out once we finished for the day (we also snuck in some lunch, a haircut for daddy, and some shopping--we were pushing it).

Matt was eager to get in his "tummy time" too. Little side note ... we have all these baby tools to entertain this little guy and he really doesn't want to have anything to do with them. He enjoys them for about 5 minutes and then he is so over it. Makes me think I will just get him some old cans or tupperware to play with later on in life.

The Sling

We aren't talking about an arm sling...although I thought after my flu shot last week I was going to need one of those. This is the baby sling.. and I am loving it. My mom and I saw this at a consignment sale and I really didn't think I would use it because truthfully I thought it was a little "too hippie" for me. Sorry if I offended someone... but I must eat my words, because this thing is fab. My little man loves to be held and you can only do so much stuff with one hand before you really need the other back.. so this is where the ole sling comes in handy. I tried it out one day last week and like magic, he was zonked out and I was able to continue about my tasks.

Only problem.. sometimes he ends up like his by the end of it. He doesn't seem to be bothered by it. The first day I put him in it, his head was all cocked sideways and I worried he would get a crick in his neck. My mom quickly reminded me that he was curled into much more of a crunch than this when he was in my belly. So, I guess this is my new fall accessory. Good thing it's brown.. it should go with a lot of stuff.

Off the subject of the sling, here's my little jogger. It turned extremely cold here in the middle of last week and we had to break out the fleece hoodie. Doesn't he look like a little rapper? He does know how to play the trumpet.. the tooting trumpet. Poor fella has some serious gas.

And the little rascal celebrated a 5 week milestone last week. He is sporting his Halloween shirt and socks here... he is going to have to a different one everyday to get them all in before Halloween. He likes to be festive though. Stay tuned for pictures from the pumpkin patch.

Baby Dedication

This morning at church we had baby dedication. As much as I thought I had prepared everything last night to make this morning go smoothly, it was quite the mad rush to get to church on time. I guess this is the Lord convicting me for all those times that I couldn't understand how people with children couldn't get places on time...oh I can never take back those words enough because now I totally understand and I am just going to go ahead and accept the fact that I will probably never be on time anywhere, ever again. That's what I get for my comments over the years... so sorry.

Our sweet little family of 3.. guess who's the worst mom in the world and forgot his little booties to wear today.. yes, that would be me.. go ahead and call DHR since I had no socks on my child this morning.

This is our sweet pastor giving us the charge to take the initiative to be the primary faith trainer for our children. We often think about what Fulton will be like when he grows up and what he will enjoy, but our prayer for him is to know his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We pray for his salvation in this broken world. That is so much more important than what cute clothes he will wear, or if he will be good at sports or make good grades. All that stuff is so trivial compared to his relationship with the Lord. We realize now that our example to him is huge and we know we are no where near perfect, but we must strive to be the godly parents that the Lord desires for us.

My sweet fam came to support us today. They love them some Fulton!! We appreciate them being there and all leaving their own churches today to be with us.

And Matt's fam got to come as well. We don't get to see them enough, so we enjoyed them being with us today.

See this face... he is saying "I am so glad that is over!!" We talked all the way to church about how we would behave once we got on stage and that he could add a few more things to his Christmas list if he didn't cry in front of everyone and boy was he a charm up there. He did fabulous!!

We went back to mom and dad's house for lunch and the first thing Fulton did was ditch those dress up clothes and get into something comfy and do a little stretching. He was worn out from all those pictures and people pinching his cheeks and oohing and ahhing over him.

We enjoyed a delicious lunch with the family and a fabulously cute and yummy cake. Little man was eyeing that puppy and I think he really wanted to dig into it...but he will have to wait until his first birthday for that.

Pigskin Pictures

Since it doesn't look like we will make it to any Bama games this year... we are just celebrating from the couch at home. Look how festive our little man is in his birthday suit!! We had his newborn shoot a few weeks ago and this picture was taken by Stacy Hart. She did an amazing job on his pictures. Don't worry, I thoroughly sanitized this football before we place our precious child's head on it. Our little booger celebrated a month of life today...amazing! We celebrated by going to the harvest festival in a cute little nearby town. Maybe I will get around to posting those pictures before all the leaves fall off the trees. On the football front... our Bucs and Tide both beat the Rebels this weekend.. Hooray!

Our Friday Night

Fulton made it to his first Hoover game Friday night. I am not going to lie... I was stressing out about taking him and almost backed out on the way, but I am glad I went, it was a success. Sister came early with me and we actually made it to the tailgate dinner beforehand. We stopped for a quick picture with daddy before he headed down to the field. I know we should have taken him out of the carrier for a better picture, but goodness it's such a process getting him in and out of that booger, so we opted for this instead.

Little man did great!! I was so proud of him. He just sat there looking around and listening to all the sounds. Wow how things have changed from the games last year... slightly different :)

Mom and Dad came to help support too. I only had one picture of mom and dad and it didn't turn out good.. so I know mom will thank me for not putting it on here.. but I promise she was there too. Pops entertained the little booger for a while too and gave my arms a rest.

Sister and Steven were an awesome help too and carried Fulton's carrier all the way up the hill for me. Champs! We only stayed for half the game, and I really admit I only saw like 2 plays, I was a little distracted, but I am glad we went. It was fun and Fulton got to see where daddy works.

They Are Everywhere

Burp cloths!! Geeze louise, I never imagined how many of these things you would need. It's really crazy. These are a few of Fulton's burp cloths and when we received all these as gifts before he was born, I seriously thought... what are we going to do with all these? We will never use this many. I could not have been more wrong. They literally are all over our house, sort of like coasters. And we go through so many in a day. Not to mention bibs too... never thought you would need many of those either. Obviously I was totally clueless on this whole feeding thing and now I realize you can never have too many of them.

Speaking of burp cloths... look at this stinkin cute burp cloth wreath a dear friend of our family made for us last week. Love it.. so much that I really don't want to take it apart to use them. It's just too cute. He is well decked out in the Alabama gear. We are rounding up on 3 weeks here in the Howard household. The dark puffy circles under my eyes may never go away, but the little man is worth it. Little buddy's cord finally fell off this week, I thought he may have to go to kindergarten with that thing still attached. Yay for real baths now!!

Fabulous Family

Humor me for a minute while I take a minute to give a shout out to my fam. They are FABULOUS!!! They have been here for us since the minute our little buddy arrived and have been such a huge support to us. Dad is the master of soothing making this little guy happy. Fulton can be all upset and Pops takes him and he is just instantly happy.

KK is a champ and stayed with me several days last week and was a huge help. She is awesome at keeping him awake when he needs to be... so he will sleep at night.

Aunt Keri is the ultimate rocker. She can rock this little man to sleep in no time. I keep telling them they are all working on really good Christmas presents. I know I am sucking the life out of them since Matt has gone back to work and football, but they are amazing!! So thankful for my fam! Now, it's time to get focused for the Bama game... Fulton had his cute houndstooth elephant gown on and then had a major blowout, so maybe you'll get to see it next week.