Happy Birthday Mimi!

The girls and I weren't with it enough this year to get a card in the mail in time for Mom's birthday today, so I thought I would make a picture montage of her, Avery, and Lucy. We are all so lucky to have this wonderful lady in our life. Being such a great Mom, it is no surprise that she has taken the grandma role in stride, and it warms my heart to see the special gleam in Avery and Lucy's eyes when they see their Mimi or hear she is coming to town. From your squeeze hugs to your scouring the sale racks for gorgeous little girl clothes, we appreciate everything you do, Mom, and wish you a stress-free, fun-filled, snow day birthday. We love you!



(double click to watch at youtube so it isn't cut off)

Thanksgiving

Not much time to write, but here are some pics from our super fun Thanksgiving in Destin. Had lots of fun hanging out with Mom, Dad, and Katie, had a great time shopping. The weather was kind of cold, but the girls loved playing on the beach.

Lucy really loved the sand and surprisingly didn't eat any!

Movie afternoon

 let's go fly a kite

 picking up seashells

learning to walk- yikes!

 Christmas pjs!

Christmas Spirit Already!!

Avery is brimming with holiday cheer already and I thought I'd show you these super cute videos from this week.

Thanksgiving Diddy she learned at school (make sure to listen to Lucy's humming along) Lucy "sings" like that every time we are singing!



Here are the girls meeting Santa last weekend at Kristen Weigel's photo shoot.



Love Lucy's transition from suspicious to upset =)

And here are the girls singing their FAVORITE song, Frosty the Snowman. Lucy sings along here too- we are having too much fun with Christmas already!



You may need to double click these videos to watch them directly from youtube, not sure why it cuts part of it off here on the blog!

Lucy 9 months

Here are a few pictures of Lucy- she is amazing up with her ability to crawl super fast and even stand up all on her own. Her favorite thing is to head for the stairs so we're in the market for a new baby gate there =) The stair video is even several weeks old- you can imagine how fast she is now.

she is obsessed with Frosty the Snowman- here are her faces... she thinks she hears the song

frosty!

 yay! and you haven't even seen her with the singing frosty stuffed snowman =)

 new tooth up top!

Halloween

Here are my 2 bumble bees on  Halloween. Avery was VERY into Halloween this year, and we had so much fun. We walked over to our friends, the Hannolds, trick or treated with Annie and Addison, and walked home to hand out candy from our house. Avery loved that part just as much. She was standing at the corner of our house shouting to people who didn't bother to walk up the little hill to our house, "Hello trick or treaters! Do you see, our light is on!!" So cute.

Pumpkin Patch, Misc Fall

Here are some misc pics from before Halloween. 

We went up to the Bottom View Farms Pumpkin Patch in Portland, TN. Avery liked picking her own pumpkin off the vine, the hay maze, the super fun slide, and the hayride!

Avery's first official soccer picture

Soccer is finally over!

Here are a few pics from their team party:

Visitors from Far and Farther!

This past week, we've had the pleasure of having two sets of dear friends come to our house. Sunday-Tuesday, Chris Brede and Nick Douville came down. Chris (on the left) is a urology resident at the Cleveland Clinic and Nick is an MD-PHD in Ann Arbor. Both were great friends of ours while we were in Michigan so we were delighted that they drove down to see us and our new digs. 

Here they are accompanying us to our church's "Trunk or Treat" festival

While Dave was at work, we hit the park, took a driving tour of Nashville and ate at Nashville staple, Rotiers.

Both guys are SO good with the girls- I would love to have house-guests like these all of the time, I just got to mill around while they played with Avery & Lucy!

Here we are Monday afternoon at our My Gym Halloween party (didn't subject the guys to that one)

Lucy loved the balls!

My big bee =)

Then on Wednesday, we had another set of guests- Dave's brother Dirk and his lovely girlfriend, Crystel. Dirk & Crystel did get to meet Lucy in May when we visited San Francisco, but that was just a quick hello, and Dirk hadn't seen Avery since the Christmas before last!  Wow! Anyway, Avery & Lucy immediately bonded with both of them, and we had a great visit with them. We really enjoyed getting to know Crystel, she is wonderful. When they left last night, Avery gave Crystel the longest, most lingering, touching hug I'd ever seen. I just wish they both lived closer- California is so far away!

Here they are snuggled up to watch the Princess & the Frog. I brought in some Halloween candy for them and Avery was literally in heaven. She proclaimed it a "snack party!"



Brothers =)

A darling picture of them- I love this one!