Family Visits

I was born in Mobile, AL. Because we were away from our immediate family, our extended family (my great aunt and uncle) became like another set of grandparents to me. After all, I was the first born for both sides of the family, so I provided hours of entertainment apparently! After moving back to Birmingham, I still went down to Mobile for at least a week every summer to spend time with Gent and Jerry.

I say all this to say we were able to spend all evening with them yesterday and the majority of this morning. They were making their way south again after spending some time in the Carolinas. I of course, forgot to take pictures last night and then forgot to bring my "real" camera to their hotel this morning. I miss getting to see them! We have got to find a time to go visit them!!

Meeting Baby Linley

Jessica's objective on Wednesday night was to walk and walk and walk, in hopes that Linley would decide to make her debut sooner rather than later...it worked! I received a text yesterday, November 1, at 12:20 informing me that her water had broken and she was at the hospital awaiting the arrival of Linley!!!! Linley Harper made her debut at 6:03pm weighing 8 pounds 5 ounces and 20 3/4 inches long. She is beautiful and both momma and baby are doing well!!

 Glass Party of 3!!

 Isn't she so pretty?!?!

Gavin was thrilled about the visit! Ha!

Once Upon A Time...

Once upon a time there was a princess named Cinderella (a.k.a. Emory). She had a cute little friend named Gus Gus (a.k.a. Gavin) that absolutely adored her. Once a year they would go over to a friends house and go around from house to house collecting candy from people. (It is one of our favorite events of the year) With them, they would bring lots of friends and of course a few adults. It is always great exercise for the adults due to the amount of walking and kid holding that is involved in the candy collecting. Cinderella did so well this year even with the "scary" people that were out and about. Of course she did have her Prince Charming (a.k.a. Daddy) with her to protect her!

 Gus Gus

 Tigger (a.k.a. Sayler)

 Cinderella and her Gus Gus

 All the kiddos..well most of them!

 The Nerds (a.k.a. Leslie and Artie)

 A Black Eyed Pea (a.k.a. Christy)

 Amanda and Gus Gus...sound asleep, Miss Amanda has the magic touch with getting babies to sleep)

 Baby Reston...not sure how happy he was!

 Buzz Lightyear (a.k.a. Kolton) and Cinderella

 Some of the girls...we had three groups walking around.

 Hotdog (Hailey)

 Pumpkin (Brianna)

 

Cinderella and Princess Layla

 

This is an event that we started 3 years ago...we meet at the Watt's house, eat some yummy food, collect some candy, and stay warm by the fire pit. It has easily become one of the events we look forward to every year! Can't wait to see what my little princess and Gus will be next year! Happy Halloween!

Fall Photo Shoot

So I am slowly learning my new camera and my new editing software...very slowly! I don't have a lot of free time so I've spent a little time this morning, since Chase is home, to play with the pictures I took of the kids yesterday afternoon. I wish I had taken my camera to the zoo because they had BEAUTIFUL trees and gorgeous yellow leaves on the ground...oh well, hindsight! Instead I tried to make our backyard an area to take a few Fall pictures. I got some really sweet pictures of the kids, now if I could just remember to print them off and hang them on the wall. Maybe one day!

I think they turned out well. Of course the subjects are pretty cute so it makes it easy!

Halloween--not only for the kids!

I don't dress up. I've never been a huge fan, not even when I was in college. In fact, the last time I did dress up was in college and I was Daisy Duke and Chase went as "the guy that got her to wear those shorts"--goofball! Anyway, so last weekend we went to a Halloween party with friends from church. It was Scott's office party and he invited us to tag along. It was held at The Attic just off Broadway in downtown Nashville. (So not only did we have to dress up, but we had to walk down Broadway dressed up for Halloween-2 weeks BEFORE Halloween!! Talk about getting some stares!) All that to say we had a great time. It's not often we get a night out without the kids, so it was nice to get out and have fun, knowing they were having fun with their G and Dude.

 We bought our costumes at Essex--Chase was a little too convincing with the actual beard and mustache---yuck!

 Sock Monkeys--a.k.a Scott and Rachel

 Ghost Rider and Black Swan--a.k.a. Brian and Laura. Emory was not thrilled about Ghost Rider!

 The whole group before going out.

 Hehe...

 

 Kisses!

 Hot girls!!

 Back to the 70s!

Overall a fun night...

Baby Sprinkle!!

One of my very best friends is due to have her first child in early November. Words can not express how excited I am for her and Wes!! I can't wait to watch her be a mom to her sweet baby girl. Last Sunday I helped host a baby sprinkle for her and baby girl (the name is undecided at the moment-pretty sure it's going to be Linley Harper but they are waiting to see her). Anyway, we had a great time. It was held at Roxanne's house, she did the decorations and I did the food.

 The wishing well. Such a cute idea.

 The yummy food table. I LOVE being in charge of food. It gives me a chances to try all the recipes that I've found!

 Roxanne had gotten a few of the pictures from their maternity session and we used them in the decoration. It was the first time Jessica had seen any of them...she almost cried--or maybe she did cry! :)

 Rachel and Leslie filling out their wishes for Baby Girl Glass.

 Party guests with the mommy-to-be!

 So Rachel was in charge of games. For one of them we had to blow up a balloon, put a diaper on it and draw a face. Apparently Jessica is having a BIG baby based on her balloon size!

 

My finished project.

 So funny story...Jessica is a HUGE Georgia fan, but one of the guests thought she was an Alabama fan and was very proud of herself for finding this dress for baby girl...if it weren't hounds tooth and Alabama, it would be adorable! 

 Super soft mink blanket...I want one!!

 The hostess' with the mommy to be.

 Anna and Leslie--the hugging can be explained below...

The other game we played. We had to take pictures of all the things on this list...I used my actual camera but because of today's technology, everyone else used their phones.

 Jessica and the other Emory in our church.

Can't wait to meet that sweet girl and shower her with love...not much longer now!!