Welcome to the Toddler Frat House

So.........long time no blog........almost 5 years.  And in those 5 years we have had a lot of changes within our family.  Two of the most exciting include the births of our sons (Clarke - 2013) (Grayson -2014).....like I said I'm behind on posting.  We also celebrated 10 years of marital bliss.

Life is busy, life is hectic, life is crazy....but life is good.  Our Toddler Frat House as we refer to it is complete and I reign as queen, or Boss Mom as the boys sometimes refer to me.




Our family of 5

Anyway, this is my attempt to return to the blog world and share the wonder that is our Toddler Frat House.  I have to give a shout out to my new friend Jen, who I met thru my obsession with LuLaRoe clothing....(I could literally have an entire blog about that obsession btw) for re-energizing me on this project.  She has a blog and when I mentioned I once blogged she asked for the link.  So I finally pulled it up to send it to her and immediately loved looking back on the old posts. 

For those of you just recently stumbling on this...I'm a mom of 3 boys (the life of the first is pretty well documented up to age 3....pictures of my other two loves are included below), obsessed with Maroon 5 (still) and believe crafting does heal, despite not quite mastering painting or crocheting.  Gabe, my husband, is an amazing chef that despises the fact that I am content with a PBJ and apple or a bowl of cereal for dinner most nights but he still puts up with me. 

I can't promise regular posts but I do promise to try and share as many of the adventures of the Toddler Frat House as I can so you can all experience the chaos if you so choose. 


 To catch up on some very missed moments.....here is a quick overview

In case you missed it .........we are HOKIES!  Have an obsession with superheroes, love Target and survive on Starbucks!





We are Hokies!

We love superheroes!

We're huge fans of Target and Starbucks!

 

 

These are our boys all at a month old........since I really didn't capture much of the time (any of the time) when the littles (as we refer to Clarke and Grayson) joined us

 

 

My favorite pictures of Clarke and Grayson after each were born are the ones with their brother(s)

 

Welcome Clarke!

Gordon meets Clarke

Welcome Grayson!



One of my favorite pictures of all time - such love!

Stick around.......we'll be back with more.....posts, not kids.....the frat house is full!

 

 



Catching up.....

So its been awhile since Mommy added a new post.....AGAIN!  I tried to explain to her the importance of keeping the blog up to date, especially with all the milestones I am reaching and the exciting events going on in our lives.  Well where should I begin.........there was Christmas and it was wonderful.  We spent time with all of our family and enjoyed having over a week off from the "normal routine" of getting up, going to work/daycare, coming home to housework, bath and bedtime routines.  You would have thought that perhaps, Mommy would have updated the blog at that time but I suppose she took the term "vacation" to the extreme.  Nevertheless, we had an amazing holiday and the new year has started off great. 

Here's a brief summary of where we've been, what we've been doing and who we've been hanging out with since the last time we checked in.


In early December we headed to Charlotte, NC with PaPa, Nana and Aunt Linda and went to the ACC Championship....the trip was a lot of fun, despite our poor showing at the game. We got to go to the NASCAR Hall of Fame while we were in Charlotte and "drove" in a race simulation. I "drove" in the car with Nana and we came in fourth. I guess it was a good thing that I napped during the first part of our visit there so I was rested and alert when it came time to race!

Resting up before the big game

Then we headed to the Bank of America stadium for the ACC Championship.....Virginia Tech was playing Clemson, they proved to be a thorn in our side.  The Hokies did not have a good game by any means, but that didn't stop me from cheering my heart out (we were down by 4 touchdowns when Mommy took this picture of me).

Mighty Little Hokie cheering his heart out

A few weeks later we hit the road for another trip.....Nashville, TN.  Our cousin Sarah was graduating from Belmont University.  We'd never been to Nashville before, but we can't wait to go back - we wanted to do so many things that we could have stayed for a week and not checked everything off our list.  We squeezed in as much as we could though for the weekend we were there though including visiting Belmont University, Opryland, checking out downtown Nashville (complete with shopping for cowboy boots), going to the Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman Auditorium and having lunch at the Loveless Cafe. 

At Belmont University for Sarah's graduation

The music is amazing (not surprising of course but there is something to be said for hearing how amazing these artists are for yourself)  We had a blast and Mommy, Daddy, Uncle David and Sarah went out to celebrate for the evening and got to hear bands cover everything from Charlie Daniels to Heart to Maroon 5......not too mention one of the shout-outs Sarah got from a band included them playing a song she requested that they had never even rehearsed before and they nailed it! 

Our favorite grad - still sporting her cap and collecting shout-outs

In the balcony at the Ryman Auditorium enjoying the Opry

 Saturday, after we had lunch at the Loveless Cafe, I'll admit I slept through most of our visit, but we had a big night planned ahead.....we went downtown and did some shopping and sight-seeing. Then we went to the Ryman Auditorium for the Grand Ole Opry. There we heard the perform of a group called The Civil Wars and the words amazing and incredible really do not do them justice for the performance they gave. They got a standing ovation (which is not a common occurrence at the Opry).

We're already trying to plan another visit to Nashville soon, Sarah is working there following graduation, so we'll have a great excuse to visit again.

Once we got back from Nashville, we went into a high-paced planning mode for the holidays.  Daddy's family was coming to visit a few days before Christmas, Memaw, Aunt Linda and Uncle Brooks were coming to visit Christmas Eve through the day after Christmas and then we were headed to visit PaPa and Nana in North Carolina.  I was excited that Uncle Josh, Aunt Jennifer and cousin Emma would be there too! 

Holiday requirement - cookies!

 I was really excited to spend some time with my cousins - we had a great time together.  Well there is a lot more that I should fill you in on, but its way past my bedtime.....so I better run for now.  Stay tuned!!!!

The Petry Cousins - Cuteness and Trouble

Thanksgiving!

Okay- so I know that I am behind on getting this post done (as I have been with a majority of the posts)......but better late than never right! For the week of Thanksgiving we headed down to PaPa & Nana's house in North Carolina. But before we headed down to the warm beach weather, we attended the very cold Thursday night Virginia Tech game against North Carolina. It was fun....but did I mention it was cold? Our sister-in-law Jennifer was in Roanoke for work and got to join us.

The following day Josh and Emma came to town and Emma hitched a ride with us to the beach

While we were in North Carolina, PaPa and Nana treated the grown-up "kids" to a night out on the town. We had a blast! First we went to Calabash for dinner at the Boundary House and then we headed to South Myrtle to enjoy the night life - which was a bit lacking given the off-season. Well until we arrived of course.

CHEERS

Gordon and Emma enjoyed helping PaPa do work....also known as watching Mickey Mouse or playing Snood.

The weather was fantastic and quite warm most days. So much in fact that we even got out to the beach for a day. The kids had a blast playing in the sand.

We had a great time visiting with everyone and I was thrilled Gordon got to spend a significant amount of time with my grandparents (Ma & PaPa 2 -for him). We topped off the Thanksgiving festivities by having dinner at my aunt's house. Gordon was pretty happy with his meal.

Upon returning home, Memaw and Aunt Linda came to visit for a few days. We had a great time building towers, reading, shopping and watching football. Go Hokies!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Family, Friends & Fun Update

The last few months have been busy (perhaps you've noticed we haven't blogged in a while). To get you caught up to where we've been and what we've been up to (other than football) here's a little summary and update. We've hit the park several times - Gordon enjoys the swings and the slide the most

We took a road trip one Sunday and met up with Memaw for the day !

The little man and I also took a road trip down to visit PaPa and Nana at the beach one weekend. We had to get one more day of surf, sand and sun in!

The little man has had a few days off from school that we haven't had off of work. Gabe and I have alternated days off and the little man has stopped by our offices for a visit.

We celebrated our friend Quinn's 1st birthday!!!!

Happy Birthday Quinn!

That's my cupcake Daddy......

Our friend Jaime got married this past weekend and the little man attended his first wedding. He did a great job and we had a blast at the wedding.

Congrats Jaime & Nathan

Pals

Gordon and his cousin Noah are only 5 weeks apart which makes them great partners in crime - here is a picture of them hanging out together.



You could refer to this as the calm before the storm - because this scene didn't last long (so no worries that they were close to the tv....well except that was their first target for destruction)

Road Trip!

A few weeks ago Gordon and I set out on our first road trip - just the two of us! I'm not going to lie, I was a little nervous for how this would turn out as we've traveled a lot as a family but Gabe had to work all weekend so he wasn't able to go with us to Mechanicsville. My cousin and his family were in from Germany to visit and we just don't get to see them, so we decided to hit the road early Saturday morning and arrived in Mechanicsville in time to eat breakfast with MeMaw!



We had a great time visiting with everyone and Gordon had great time playing with his cousins.

My 1st Birthday Party

This weekend a lot of people came to our house...and they all came to visit me! You might find this hard to believe but I am going to be 1 year old on Wednesday...I know right!!!! ONE YEAR OLD!

Mommy and Daddy planned a big shindig for our all our family and friends to come to and boy was there a great turn out...I felt so loved!

Here are a few pictures from the big day...I really enjoyed the party and loved seeing all my friends and family.

My Daddy made this amazing fruit basket....


Mommy found really cool decorations with my favorite animals on them and Daddy made a cake of my favorite animal...a monkey!


Originally we were going to have a big cookout but the weather didn't want to cooperate so we had the party inside instead. After we everyone ate burgers and hot dogs it was time for the cake!


I was a little uncertain about the whole cake eating experience.....but I gave it a whirl


The individual cake that Daddy made for me was a little tough to dig into; in all the craziness of the day the 'rents forgot to take it out of the fridge (amateurs!) So Mommy cut me a slice of the sheet cake we had and I dug in a bit more to that one.


I wasn't sure what everyone else was waiting for so I told them to DIG IN!


All this time Mommy and Daddy have tried to keep me neat and clean when I eat but they seemed to want me to get messy yesterday; but I didn't do it - instead of wiping the icing all over myself I licked my fingers clean!


Mommy quickly got a picture of me in my birthday hat...and then MELTDOWN!


So we regrouped and went to open presents. I didn't have much interest in the process though...




AWKWARD....


But I had a good time playing with some of the toys I had opened and with the other kids at the party.



It was a great day and we were so happy so many of our friends and family could come to spend it with us. We really appreciate it!


And I really missed my MeMaw, who ended up getting the stomach bug and couldn't come...we're going to celebrate when she visits next week though.