What flippin time is it?

Let me start with a recommendation. Don't travel to a different time zone the weekend daylight savings time ends. It will mess with your head. It will make you and your husband discuss for hours what time it "really" is, the time your body really feels it is, and what time it would be back home. It's confusing. It's obnoxious. Moving on.

We had a great weekend trip to Nashville, Tennessee, and have already decided we want to go back and spend more time. What landed us in this southern city for a weekend? My dad has this dream/goal of going to all the Florida Football away games. This would allow him to yearly visit a new SEC city/stadium. He decided to get David and I in on this adventure, and who thinks my husband would ever turn down anything footballish? If you raised your hand, you are dead wrong. I figured if they get to have fun and it involves traveling, then count me in.

My mom was up visiting me last week, so Dad just flew in here and we all took the trek down to Tennessee together. We had planned on Parker going to Florida for a week with my mom and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to get him down there. We will be meeting up next week in a city still yet to be determined. What will our adventure be next weekend? Stay tuned. I know Parker is going to have a great week with my mom, buy my house is sooooooo quiet without him. I miss him already, but I'm going to take this opportunity of only having one child and tackle some projects that I have needed to do but had trouble accomplishing with both boys.

Graham stayed with Nana and Poppy, so David and I could have a small break. He had a great time and didn't torture them with any late night parties, thank God. Thanks, you two, for taking good care of baby Graham. So thankful for helpful, trustworthy in-laws!

Here are a view pictures from our weekend. Go Gators!

 The weekend and MeMaw wore him out. Mom and Parker played at the Nashville Science Center while we were at the game.

 Tennessee Titan Stadium

 Downtown Nashville.

 Have a great week everyone!

david and the lamb

I'm not really into Halloween. I've never been, and am pretty sure that I will never be. I don't like ugly things and to be quite frank, everything about Halloween is ugly (in my opinion) except the candy. Candy is pretty. I like it. In addition to the candy I steal from my children since I don't really allow them to eat many sweets, I enjoy one other major part of Halloween. Costumes. I like to get dressed up, and not just to look pretty. Having children enabled me to have two new bodies to embellish as I desire on Halloween. It sounds more cruel than it actually is. I allowed Parker to have some say in his get-up, but I don't think it's a three-year-old's duty to make all the decisions for his young life :). I'm the mom and I think I should get some privileges for carrying them 9 months and for being cut open twice. (Sorry if that seems a bit gory, but this is a Halloween post.)

When I first asked Parker who he wanted to be for Halloween, he said Lightning McQueen. I was overjoyed (written with the most sarcasm that the word overjoyed can contain). I looked for the Lightning outfit, and when I saw it, immediately decided that Parker would not get his first choice. It was ugly...and boring. I'm all about allowing my child to be an individual, but I feel guiding him to better decisions is part of my job as a parent. Being a boring little car for Halloween fits in the "wrong" decision category in my book. (I hope no one reading this is taking me too serious.) Anyway, I then asked him to think real hard about who else he liked and wanted to dress-up as. His response the second time, verbatim, was "David and Goliath." I felt as though I could work with that answer. Though slightly impossible to make my little man both a shepherd and a giant, I took creative liberty to DIY a variation of his desire to be the heroic Bible character combined with the scary foe. He would be David the shepherd boy. I have a fear of sewing outfits with sleeves, but I conquered that fear with this project that required me to follow a pattern with sleeves. I was proud of the outcome, but I'm sure that a real seamstress would have scolded my work. Parker loved it...that's what really matters.

Of course this meant that Graham had to be tortured with a sheep costume. It was a must. David couldn't be a shepherd without a sheep! I wish you could have seen Graham's reaction the first time we stuck him in his fuzzy ensemble. He was furious. He hated it. We laughed our heads off.

Parker is involved in a Wednesday night Awanas program at a local church and they wanted the children to dress as animals, so I picked up a lion outfit for $5.00 at Target. He was a cute lion and insisted on roaring the whole night. Normally I put an end to loud nonsense, but how could I tell him to stop when he was dressed as a lion? Exactly. I didn't. I allowed it...for one night only. That's all my patience could handle.

In addition to his Awanas dress up night and the city-wide trick-or-treat night, Parker's preschool had a trunk-or-treat parade for the kids to show-off their festive garments. I wasn't able to allow Parker to take his home-made sling shot or his brother for props at school, so I stuck a little stuffed lamb in his robe pocket. He loved it and repeatedly told his teachers that he had to protect the sheep from the dogs.??? Whatever.

Here are some pictures from our three days of fun. I apologize now for the barrage of pictures, but I'm feeling slightly indecisive tonight and I think they're all blog-worthy. You have the right to exit my page at any time when annoyed ;)

what you didn't get to see...

A few weeks ago, my family was photographed by Heidi Mitchell while she was up visiting. As always, she did a great job and I really love my photos. For this shoot, I was really hoping to make it to a corn field. Why? I don't know. I think was imagining the beautiful golden-toned lighting with my hair blowing in the breeze while Parker ran through the rows of corn. Ok, so it was unrealistic, but the pictures could have been pretty cute. Maybe next year. Good thing my back-up plan turned out beautiful. We headed up to Fort Hill in Charleston where David proposed to me. The beauty of the the valley beneath combined with a super fun tree and the sentiment of the location created photos I love and can't wait to display in my home.

Parker was in a great mood and cooperated so well. Graham? Not a chance. He was in a fowl, non-smiley-can't-wait-to-be-done-with-this-crap kind of mood. Oh well, so is life. I hired my babysitter, Annyssa (the best in the world), to help with baby Lincoln so Heidi could do her job and to help corral my crazy critters. What a smooth move on my part, and I'm not being facetious. Thanks Annyssa for your help!

I was planning on posting my favorite pictures on here last week, but I was having some issues with Blogger and chose to put the pictures up on Facebook instead. You all were sooooooo nice with your comments. Thanks so much for all of your kind words. Since there is no need for duplication, I'll show you a more realistic view of how the session went since all of you have commented on how great the pictures turned out. This is what Heidi really had to deal with while taking the 2010 Dunn family photos.

First, there are those dreaded double chins from a few extra unnecessary pounds.

 And the baby constipated face complete with shut eyes.

Then there is the ticked-off baby whose trying to escape Daddy's death grip picture.

As well as the famous fish lips.

Getting Graham to hold Parker's hand was like asking him to touch scalding water. At first it was fun for Parker to get to squeeze his brothers hand with permission...

...and then it ticked him off. Graham didn't care.

At first, Graham was only concerned about standing in tall grass by himself.

 Then, he started getting a bit worried.

 His worry then turned to down-right mad.

Poor Heidi had to deal with my embarrassing cheesiness.

 My one-year old's mild depression looks, and

spastic faces like this from Little P.

See, there you have it. That's how our shoots really go. Thanks for tolerating us, Heidi, and for somehow managing beautiful photos of my crazy 'lil crew.