War Eagle

Well, it hasn't been the season we were hoping for, but we love our Tigers no matter what and are there most weeks cheering them on!

Even Landy took in a few games this year.

Eli, with his obligatory popcorn and Sprite.

We even wore our colors to church a few times.

This past weekend we cheered the Tigers on to bowl eligibility.  It was great football weather and we ended up making it through the first part of the fourth quarter.  Not bad for a baby! 

Football

Our weekends have been full of football lately!

Auburn's home opener was against Jacksonville State.  Just the big boys went, and it was a narrow win, but a victory nonetheless!

We've also taken in some high school football, which is just as exciting to Eli as an Auburn game.  He does love the Red Devils (like his Daddy), and it's one of the things that I love about him.

Landon on the other hand....he could take it or leave it.  : )

This was a shirt that Aunt Jan made Eli when he was born, and now Landon can wear it.  19 was Daddy's number when he played for the Red Devils.

The next Auburn home game, Miss State, we all went to.  Tiger Walk was crowded, but at least Eli got to see.

What's wrong with this picture?  This is such an accurate description.  Eli wants to sit and be pushed, Landon wants to be walking around and free!

I have no idea why Squirmy has that look no his face.  He was having a really good time!

Popcorn and Sprite...the new choice snack.

Landy was a good little guy during the game, but we only made it until halftime before Nana and I took the kids back to the house.  We didn't need to see the loss.

Updates on Life!

I started this post a month ago and never came back to it, so the updates are a bit outdated, but here's a few things we've been up to lately.

Eli finished up his soccer season and loved it.  He had a great experience and is totally sold on team sports (as if he needed convincing).  Little brother was a trooper and hung in through the early mornings, humidity, and eventually the cold too!

Eli always had a large group of supporters on the sidelines!

We rooted on our Auburn Tigers.  We started strong, and though the end of the season was a tad disappointing, we're no fair-weather fans.  We're all in; all the time.

Eli also attended his first FSU game, which deserves a blog post all it's own.  It's on the list to do, but considering I've yet to finish Eli's fourth birthday, it maybe Christmas break before that shows up! : )

Landy is changing every single day!  He is so mobile.  The baby gates have come out.  He is all but walking.  Stairs are fun to play with when no one's looking, as are drawers.  He is eating like a champ, and even has a few tricks like saying and waving bye-bye!  All three of us are having so much fun with him! : )

And he gets pretty much what he wants, because who could say no to this face?  Certainly not mommy, daddy, or Eli!

Hopefully more updates on life (and more up-to-date updates) will be coming your way soon!

The Iron Bowl - 2013

Now that the excitement and reality of this season has kind of sunk it, I wanted to blog about the Iron Bowl last weekend.  If you're not from the state of Alabama, you probably don't know just how big it is, not to mention the fact that this year it was #1 vs. #4.  Going into the game there was already a ton of hype that this would be the biggest Iron Bowl in history; and the game didn't disappoint!

We had planned to spend the day tailgating, and we did, we just kind of scaled down our plans for the day.  Wesley had the flu (more on that later), but was insistent on going to the game.  Being the good, SEC loving wife that I am, I understood and let him go.  : )

We parked as close as we could and spent the day tailgating, people watching (saw two marriage proposals), and chasing Eli around Samford Lawn.  Before entering the stadium we found the band.  Love this picture of my boy watching the band.  He loves Aubie band! : )

My brother, Zach, his fiance, Amber, Wesley, Eli, and I all sat in our normal seats in the stadium, while Mom and Dad had seats across the field from us.  Eli stayed with us the first half, bouncing from lap to lap.

After half-time he started begging to go sit with Nana and Puddin.  So, Wesley met my dad and made the switch.  It was probably a good thing, because things got rowdy the second half! : )

We made quite a pair...here we are, one of us with the flu and the other 26 weeks pregnant!

A 2:30 p.m. kick-off means no official naptime for the boy.  So, he caught a few zzz's in Puddin's lap.

They woke him up for the end of the fourth quarter, and I am glad they did!  What an ending!  Eli loved it!  He is still talking about, "all those people down there!"

I still can't believe the epic finish.  We had so much fun celebrating our big win in the stands.  I am surprised I didn't shake Landon right out jumping around as much as I did.  We stayed in the stands for a long time, just watching everything and taking it all in.  It was one of my top three most memorable games (a win over LSU 10-9, West Virginia in the rain, and 2013 Iron Bowl).

We met back up outside the stadium and went to Toomers as a family to celebrate the win.  It was Amber's first Auburn game, and she sure got an epic one.  I'm not sure that can be beat!  : )

War Eagle and here we come, Mizzou!!!

A New Day

I have sooo much blogging to catch up on, but first here's some pictures from Auburn's first game of 2013.  (Excuse the quality.  I relied solely on my phone for this game.)

Eli was just as excited (if not MORE) as we were to head to Auburn for "a new day" with our new coach, Gus Malzahn, as our head coach.  Even though we won, we've got a lot of work to do, but it sure was nice to see the Auburn spirit back - with the fans and on the field!

We didn't leave to go to Auburn until after nap, so by the time we got there, we headed straight for the Spirit March (we missed Tiger Walk).  Eli was so, so excited, and so, so enamored at the amount of people who were there.  Everywhere we went he kept saying, "Look at all these people!"

Checking to see if the band was coming...

Pregame fesitivies are still one of my favorite parts of the whole experience...so many memories!  Everyone in the stands around us was so complimentary of Eli.  We had a very nice conversation with one of the men behind us about how long Eli has been coming to games (he's a regular and remembers Eli) and how Eli knew EVERY word to EVERY cheer.

Love that sweet face!

Eli was SUCH a great little man throughout the whole game.  He never got whiny or difficult to manage.  He paid attention the WHOLE game and cheered for the Tigers!  We only made about 8 trips to the bathroom, and Eli ate a small fortune's worth of food (pizza, Sprite, pretzel, and popcorn!).  Our only real compliant was the weather, and no one could control that (seriously, it was SO humid.  It felt like a sauna in the stadium!).

We didn't stop to roll Toomer's Corner after the game, but wanted to see the new wires set up.  It's a decent attempt at continuing the tradition, but it just wasn't the same.  I was a little sad to not see those beautiful oaks there.  I know they're just trees, but we have so many great memories there.

 

Here's to starting the season off with a win!  War Eagle!

One Last Roll

Like all good Auburn fans, we headed with Nana and Puddin' to our alumni, Auburn, for the spring A-Day game, and to say goodbye to the Toomers Oaks.

 Like all trips to Auburn, we started with play time at our favorite park!

Then, we made our way to Toomers Corner to say our goodbyes.

The best picture family photo we go.  Real life though.

One final roll.

Eli with Nana and Puddin' at the A-Day game, along with 83,000 of our closest friends.  It was crazy crowded there.  I can honestly say it was much more crowded than A LOT of our games were last year.  It's nice to see people excited about Auburn football again.  Hopefully it wasn't just 83,000 fair-weather fans, and everyone will still be excited come this fall.

Eli sure does love him some Auburn (he gets it honest).  He's been singing the fight song and singing "War Eagle" nonstop!  He wants to go back to the football stadium.  Too bad he's got to wait another 5 months or so to go.

We had to leave at the end of the third quarter to make it back in time for a gender reveal shower for some friends (it's a girl!).  We made one more trip through downtown on our way out.  It was a little sad to part ways with the trees.  We have so many memories here!  It was kind of depressing looking at the pictures and videos of the trees coming down today.  I realize this sounds pathetic to non-Auburn people, but it's more than just toilet paper and wins for us.

It is a spirit.  It is an attitude.  It is a way of looking at life and at one another.  It is, almost, a way of living.  Unless you have experienced it; you will never understand it.  Once you have experienced it, you will never be the same.  A part of you will, forevermore, be an Auburn man or an Auburn woman.

- David Housel

And, finally, I'll leave you with this video.  It was made by someone that Wesley and I were in the band with during our days at Auburn.  He is amazingly talented.

 ...because I believe in Auburn, and love it.
War Eagle!