Pig Pickin'

Every year during the last weekend of September, Kevin cooks a lot of pork - or BBQ as they call it down here - for his fraternity's annual Pig Pickin'.  This year was no different than the rest...he and his college buddy, Chris, were up at the crack of dawn getting the cooker fired up to smoke 70 pounds of BBQ for 100 fraternity brothers and their families.  

It takes about 8 hours to cook all the meat.  Eli and I hung out outside with Kevin and Chris for a long time - it was a beautiful afternoon.  Here's how E spent his time...

Kevin, Chris and Eli right before they took the BBQ off the cooker.

All of the above happened on Friday; the actual Pig Pickin' event was on Saturday.  It was far too hectic to take a camera to the event, so we only took a few pictures with our phones.  The typical schedule of a pig pickin' day is:

Noon:  Everyone arrives and hangs out for a while

12:30:  Eat!

2:00:  Alumni/Undergrad Football Game

5:00ish:  Everyone packs up and goes home

 Like I mentioned above, about 100 people came this year.  It was fantastic.  It's a mix of old alumni from UNC Charlotte with their families and young undergrad students.  Here are a few more pictures from the day.

sipping southern spirits

eli holding the "Icard Cup".  seriously, they have a trophy called the "Icard Cup" in honor of Kevin saving their fraternity in the late 90's.

and this isn't pig pickin', but it was the night before and eli was "rockin' my baby" as he likes to say.  sweet dreams.

The Next American Idol???

Eli's newest thing is singing.  He loves to sing songs, mostly Itsy Bitsy Spider, Happy Birthday (which he knows from birthday celebrations at school) and Old MacDonald.  Every night after his bath, he asks for "La La La", which means Lady Gaga's song, Bad Romance - she sings the phrase "La La La" many times throughout the song, so it only makes sense that an almost two-year-old would assume that's the name of the song.

I caught him sitting on the steps singing the other day...

You'll also hear one of Eli's key phrases, "Go Mama, go!"  It's not just directed at me, but at anyone that's sitting next to him at any time.  He's moving into such a phase of wanting to be independent.  It's cute, for now...

 

Lovely Lawn

We've lived in our house for almost 5 years (hard to believe!).  In that time, we've spent countless hours maintaining and improving both the inside and outside of our home, so you can only imagine how excited we were when we received a letter in our mailbox stating that we won the "Yard of the Week" contest.  

Recently our subdivision was sold to a large national builder, Ryland Homes, and in an effort to make improvements to the neighborhood, they've started this competition.  Our yard is the second to win this award! It's nice to know that all the hard work, time and money we've sunk into our space is being recognized.   

sign in our front yard

 

 

 

our new patio

my best effort at camouflaging electrical & telephone boxes

The prizes we received are kind of funny, we thought it would be a gift card to a restaurant or Target - we were wrong and no where near close.  We got a free facial at a spa, $50 gift card to a salon and a free car wash.  Kind of weird, but appreciated nonetheless.  :)

Jumping Bean

Eli's newest "trick" is to jump on the couch and do flips over the back of the couch (with our help, of course!).  He is desperate to jump off the couch - he says, "Eye-O (phonetic spelling of how he says 'Eli') jump!"  He's not been brave enough to try it...thankfully.  But here's a little video of him jumping on the couch the other day.  He's a little dare devil that we have to watch constantly!

Yay Pool!

"Yay Pool!" is one of Eli's favorite phrases this season.  He loves to swim and is often too courageous for my liking.  His latest tricks are to put his entire face down into the water, lay flat on his back and float and (my favorite) have Kevin lift him up in the air while he's standing up and once he's up, he put his arms up in the air like he's a little gymnast.  

Here are some pictures of times E's spent at the pool so far this summer:

Icard Cousins: Declan (8), Ella (10), Eli (1)

 Eli and his buddy, Anthony Colantuono

Eli & his girl, Kaylen

July 4 Weekend

Here's how we spent July 4 weekend:

We went to Historic Brattonsville - a Revolutionary War Plantation in South Carolina

Everything was decorated for the 4th!

Mom & Eli outside of the Plantation house.

Reading of the Declaration of Independance

Dad & Eli

Trying on a coon-skin hat in the gift shop

On July 5, we went to visit Grandpa Jack & Barbara 

"Mmmm...I love country ham for lunch!"

Summer Nights

We've been spending a lot of time on our front porch this summer for a few reasons: 

1) Our backyard gets the afternoon sun and it's too hot to be back there, and

2) Eli is pretty contained because our porch sits up on three brick steps which he doesn't really try to go down (I think because he fell off them a few months ago) 

Here's how we spent our evening last night...

Painting!!!!!  Eli loves to paint.  

As you can see, a lot the fun of painting is not painting on paper, but on himself.  

Now I get out my crayons...

I'm in trouble - Dad put me in time-out!

Showing my patriotic side.  ;)

Finishing my night with an evening stroll with Mom.