Fall 2010 in Review

It's Thanksgiving and while WHG is napping, I am going to attempt to give a review of Fall 2010 so far. (Really, I started this Thursday during his nap and I am finishing while he is still sleeping on Saturday morning...) Life is wonderful and I am reminded so much with Thanksgiving that we have so many things to be thankful for today and always. I hope that I can remember to be happy in the present and give thanks in every situation to the ONE that provides our blessings. With that being said, let me show you some of the blessings and activities we have enjoyed this fall. Warning this is very long...get comfortable.

Here we go...

Meme invited us to Fall Festival at AES where we went fishing, picked up ducks and ate pizza with Britt and Parker.

We went to the Kiwanis Covington County Fair. William loved the merry-go-round, the trucks and the live-stock. He rode the merry-go-round with Mama and the trucks with Asher and again with Cooper and Crews.

William has developed a sense of style that is required to be "like daddy!" You may start to see a trend....

We visited Quette and Grandaddy for the Fall Festival at Bethany Baptist. William's favorite (other than the bag full of candy) was the jump house and the slide.

Hunter and I celebrated 7 years of marriage on October 25th. Hunter cooked a great dinner and set the table with our "fine" china and the Auburn place mats. My husband and our marriage is definitely something that I am ever thankful for!!

We attended Grover's 2nd Birthday. It was a dress-up party and William was a dog. We spotted an Auburn Football player, a UPS man, a duck, a cow, a pumpkin, Eore, Robin and lots of other fun things.

This is the only picture I got of the birthday boy...the back of his head...he was busy to say the least!

Later that night, William and some cowboys went Trick-o-Treating. William was not interested in changing out of his jersey, so he was a football player.

We went to Dream Field Farms with the Cottons, the Wells and the Bentleys. The boys all had a blast. It was a beautiful afternoon to spend outside. We watched pigs race, fed the goats, slid down the hay bail slide, went on a hay ride, rode the cow train and even brought home a pumpkin.






We have watched Aunt Kat twirl at the Andy High football games. It is so much fun to watch her perform...I love it! I cannot believe that she is a Junior this year. My baby sister has literally grown up before my eyes. My eyes fill with tears every time I watch her, simply because I am brimming with pride for the young lady she has become! Kathryn is beautiful and she loves William so much.



We have been to several of the Auburn home games. William loves the tailgate and everything about it. From eating things that Mommy does not allow much of at home to playing tackle football with cousin Winston. There is no way that I can post pictures of everything we did and everyone we have seen and visited with at tailgate this year. I know that I saw Aunt KK like 4 weeks in a row and I don't have a single picture with her. What I can do is tell you that it has been a wonderful season and we have loved every minute of it!! Aunt Leigh, Uncle Dale and Elizabeth allow us to make their home ours for the fall and for that we are so very thankful!!

We have made several trips to Tiger Walk with Winston, Sam and the Cotton boys once.

One of our trips up to the plains, Aunt Leigh treated William to a park visit. The boy loves to slide! We got to watch Elizabeth perform in the half-time show at Auburn High. This is the only picture I have of Elizabeth in her uniform; I did video though.

Nanny, Pop and Kat came up for the LSU game. No pictures of Nanny and Pop, but lots of Kat, Elizabeth, Grayson and Rob.
The Reaves and the Meeks were also on the plains for the LSU game and Ms. Tatum's 1st birthday!!

The day before the AU v. GA game, we went for my ultrasound appointment and found out that we are going to have another sweet baby boy in April!! He is healthy and we could not be more excited. AU v. GA was a big weekend...lots of people to see. Like the ones below at the Chi-O tailgate reunion. So much fun to visit with you on the plains for a bit.

The Kings were also on the Plains for the GA game. It was wonderful to visit with Kayla and Janna...but again I do not have a picture!! Janna definitely gave the tailgate a special "Auburn Spirit" and I am so thankful and blessed by her attitude and constant smile.

So, since it took me 3 days to finish this, we now know that Auburn has finished our regular season 12-0!! War Damn Eagle! On to the SEC championship game to face the Gamecocks one more time!

The Big 30!

Well, 30 has come and gone and much to my surprise; I am still alive. I will be honest with you, I have dreaded turning 30 all summer long. I have not looked forward to it one bit...no real reason, just did not want to leave my twenties. I am very blessed though, I have wonderful family and friends that made sure that I celebrated my 3oth birthday, whether I thought I wanted to or not!

My husband has never been too good at surprising me, but he sure pulled off a good surprise for my Birthday. I had been pouting for quite sometime about the fast approaching milestone and had told him that I did not want to do anything. Maybe go out to dinner with a few friends somewhere in town...which means Mexican or our new Japanese Steak house. I was incredibly lazy on Saturday, the day of my birthday, and I just thought Hunter was taking William out the house for a bit to let me rest. Afterall, if I haven't mentioned it, I am almost 3 months pregnant with #2. So, I thought Hunter was being sweet and letting me and #2 rest on Mommy's birthday. Lynsey (who was most definately in the know) and I took quick trip to Opp and met Suzanne and Katie to go "junkin." I came home and called my parents' house (where William and Hunter were supposed to be swimming) and got what should have been my first clue of the day. My mom answered the phone and when I inquired about what she was doing, she calmly told me she was "planting mums to get her front porch ready for Homecoming." Uhhh, I have been around for a long time...30 years.... and my mama does not plant mums 3 WEEKS ahead of time!! However, I guess my pregnant, tired self just skipped right over that little nugget of info and decided I would stay put and watch HGTV on the couch for a bit. Later, I got dressed and ready to go to dinner, but Hunter said, "your mom said to bring WHG some pjs before we eat." Uhmm, okay, well we are going to be late.

Well, 5 mins later we round the corner to parents house and the vehicles lining the street start to make little things throughout the day make more sense. "Surprise honey!!!"

My parents back yard was full of family and friends ready to celebrate my 30th birthday! Hayley came from Auburn, Leigh, Dale and Elizabeth made a very fast trip from Auburn, Hannah and the boys came from Birmingham and Kayla was in town from Orange Beach. They had all been planning for weeks. We visited, ate and were merry for hours on end and it was wonderful! William had a blast and was still going late into the night!!!
I have gotten to visit with these two for the past four weekends in a row (it always fun to see KK's smiling face no matter how brief our visit) and I am going to be lost this weekend....good thing next week is an Auburn home game!!

My sweet husband, Mama, Daddy, Kat, Meme and Chuck and I am sure countless others had been working all day to get ready and it was wonderful! I had so much fun and it was the perfect way to jump start my 30's!!

Thank you so very much to everyone that came and helped Hunter and William surprise me on my birthday!!



The next day, the Winston, William and Sam had a blast swimming in Nanny's pool. They are such good buddies and I adore watching them play together!!

William's 2nd Birthday

What a whirl wind the past two years have been. I look at my sweet baby boy and wonder how he turned into a little boy right before my eyes so very quickly. I thought that as he got older it would get easier to leave him all day long while I work, but it really has not. I miss him so much every day, that I am absolutely about to bust to pick him up in the afternoons. His vocabulary is growing like a wild fire and he is putting together sentences so well. Hunter and I are amazed every day at the conversations we have with him. He used to say "Momas" for "Thomas" (the train) and just this weekend, I noticed that he is saying "Thomas" clear as a bell. He tells Hunter and I all the time, "No!...My do it!" Mr. Independent!! He is constantly asking, "Daddy, what you doin?" and my personal favorite, when he and his Daddy leave for school in the mornings, he says, "I love you Mommy!" That is when I forget that I was mad because he was up all hours of the night and just melt!! William has also been singing a lot lately. His favorite song is "Old McDonald." We sing it several times a day. So, we decided that since William loves tractors and all things farm related, we would celebrate his 2nd birthday barnyard style.

We celebrated with a "Barnyard Bash" in our very own backyard and on our new BIG deck!! William had a blast at his birthday party...he played with every tractor he has and played in the blow up pool with Winston and Logan in his diaper and barnyard T-shirt that TT made! I am sure that we looked a little "red" to the neighbors with our little one running around in his diaper and T-shirt, but who cares...William was loving it!

This was his fabulous Birthday Cake, made by Mesilla Jenkins...and the fondant was good!

We played pick up ducks and won prizes...Colored barn-yard scenes...Rode tractors, pulled wagons and pushed bulldozers...We cooked slider cheese burgers and had homemade icecream to eat with our Birthday cake. William decided it would be easier to let Mommy and Daddy blow out his candles...that way he could just get right to digging into his smash cake!

And of course on the morning of his actual birthday, Sunday, May 23rd; we had birthday pancakes!

We love you William!! Happy 2nd Birthday! Love Mommy and Daddy!

Winston's 3rd Birthday and Other Fun Times

A couple of weeks ago, we made the trip to B'ham and help Winston "construct" a great 3rd birthday celebration. WHG was not too sure about the "tractor" at first, but later he thought sitting on it with Daddy would be ok. Happy, Happy Birthday Winston...we had a wonderful time!

We had dinner with Kylie and her Aunt Claire and Uncle Russ one night and those two had the best time. It was seriously "monkey see, monkey do" if Kylie was wearing her back pack, William had to wear his. If Kylie was going to eat Mac and Cheese, so was William.

This past weekend was the 1st Annual 3 Notch Market hosted by the Andalusia Junior Women's Club and it was a success. We had over 40 vendors...one of my personal faves being Smitten and Co. aka Aunt TT. I really enjoyed being downtown Andalusia for some great shopping and visiting. William's favorite part... the jumping house. We heard, "I jump!...I fall down!" a hundred times.

And last but not least, this morning when I told William to bring me his tennis shoes, he brought me his rain boots and demanded that he wear them. So what did I do? I let him...not worth the battle. He was so proud of himself, he even said cheese for the camera. Check out that bed head; there is no controling that hair of his. I LOVE this kid!!

Easter 2010

Just a few pictures from our Easter weekend. We had lots of family in town to celebrate with. Most of them helping us with a little home project!! We had an Easter egg hunt at our house on Saturday both for William, Winston and Sam and for the big kids, too. One special birthday girl, found a prize egg with a key to her very own car in it! Can you believe my Sugar Bear aka Kathryn is 16! I am just now getting to where I don't tear up when I see her drive off in the car by herself (don't tell her though!).

When she opened her prize egg, she said, "Who has a Honda?!" Duh, B-day girl, YOU DO!

We had a wonderful dinner with family Saturday night and then woke up early to attend the sunrise service at Mama Quette and Grandaddy's Pond. C.T. Eldrige gave the sermon and it was such a wonderful service as always.

William did not feel well Sunday morning, hence the reason for him being uncooperative for pictures. This is the best I could get before church.
We went to Opp for the BIG Easter Egg hunt, but left before they hunted eggs, cause William was not in the mood to participate. Thankfully, after a loooong nap, he perked up enough to play with the new golf clubs the Easter Bunny left for him.