Thankful for 8 Months

 I am so thankful that these babies are 8 months (Poppy left and Mary Thorne right)!  They are everywhere!  Both are pulling up and standing.  Poppy will walk with something to push.  Her top two teeth came in today (four teeth total)! Last week she crawled up the steps from the playroom to Elizabeth Magee's room.  I about had a heart attack.   Mary Thorne is crawling everywhere and giggling all day long.  We call her the toy taker because she wants toys that her sisters are playing with and will do whatever it takes to get them.  They are having bottles four times a day and eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner with Elizabeth Magee!  We went to church at College Hill on Sunday and our cousin Margaret Guest kept the girls in the nursery.  Such a small world -- she didn't realize who she was keeping till I picked them up!

 Mom and Sis kept the girls on Friday and Saturday so Oliver and I could have some fun.  We ate at GianMarcos on Friday night and headed to the Grove Saturday morning.  It was COLD.  Real cold.  We are not used to having that kind of weather down here.  The Grove was so much fun but I opted to watch the game at Helene's parents house with a fireplace and hot chocolate.
The girls and I stayed in Mississippi after the game to celebrate Thanksgiving all week.  We've been doing some Christmas activities today.....not at all trying to skip Thanksgiving its just we won't be home for Christmas so we are getting it all in.  We had to try on the Christmas hats that Net is knitting:

 And we went to play with our cousins and Biscuit this afternoon and decorated Gingerbread houses.  Elizabeth Magee is so proud of her house.  She kept saying, "I make this for Daddy."  "Look at my house, it's so good."  Poppy was thrilled that she got the highchair to watch the big girls.  My favorite part of this picture is baby Lawes trying to pull up on the table! 

A Beautiful Day

Today was a beautiful day.  The high was 70, the sun was shining and we played at the Tot Lot all morning.  One of my favorite things about staying home is that I love love love Mondays.  It's like our little secret that Monday is a great day.  

Soaking in a beautiful day is not hard when these two are happy.  Poppy and Mary Thorne will sit in the swings for 2 hours and not make a peep.  I'm loving this almost 8 month stage.  They are so content and so engaged in everything we do.  They notice things.  They have opinions.  I've coined Mary Thorne the toy taker…..if she wants a toy that either of her sisters is playing with…she's going to get it. She's now crawling as well as Poppy.

Elizabeth Magee is growing by leaps in bounds.  In the last month, she's really started becoming more social.  She wants to be with and play with children her age.  She doesn't spend our entire time at the park wanting me to push her.  She runs back and forth from friends to me.  Her first question every morning is, "what we do today?'  Her last question every night is, "what you makin for breakfast?"

Mary Thorne favors Elizabeth Magee more than Poppy.  The jury is still out on what color hair Mary Thorne is going to have---EM's was the same color at this age so maybe we'll have another blonde!

An Early Thanksgiving

 We had a very unexpected early Thanksgiving in Greenwood this past weekend.  Unplanned in that we were all coming home to Greenwood for different reasons -- but Poppy and Dee realized that all nine great-grands would be in town for the weekend.  Since they have a wedding out of town during Thanksgiving and Edi's family will be having two small surgeries -- we decided to have Thanksgiving early.  Poppy had all the traditional favorites - her famous salad, chicken and dressing, ham, green beans wrapped in bacon and smothered in BBQ sauce, sweet potato casserole, deviled eggs, and of course, chocolate cake and ice cream.  I'm still stuffed!

Back row: Graham (first grade), Poppy holding Mary Thorne, Dee holding Poppy and Lawes (10 months), Storey (second grade).  Front row: Strain, Elizabeth Magee (2.5), Beckett (3.5), and Olivia (5 in December).  It's strange for me to look back and think that when I started coming to Thanksgiving at this house, not one of these children were born --- we are so blessed!  We can't wait to meet #10 great-grand in a few months!

We also got to spend some time with our other great-grandmother!  Mary Thorne loves her some Babbs -- and her necklaces.

We love our time with Biscuit!

I had to save this picture -- how great is it?  I love Campbell's expression!  Mac was only two when I started dating Oliver---she's in the sixth grade!

A Little Re-do Bathroom

If you had told me on my wedding day that my new husband would build shutters for our house, build a deck, take down a wall in our kitchen, and redo a bathroom in the next few years, I would have laughed in your face.  No one (including Oliver) knew how handy he was back then.  Then we bought a house and then we bought another house…..and now he's pretty handy.  When we moved into our house a year ago there were several things we wanted/needed to have updated.  The biggest was the bathroom that serves as the master bath.  Although there is another bathroom upstairs this is the one that our family and our guests tend to use.  Before the redo there was not a door into the master bedroom - just one door opening from the hall.

These two pictures are the bathroom when we moved into the house.  As you can see, the tile used to be pink and someone painted in white….but it was a bad DIY job because the pink was coming through the white paint!

A few weeks ago, Oliver took the bathroom down to this:

And turned it into this:

Isn't it pretty?  The marble is my favorite…. and I love how pretty and white the tub is now!

He even added a doorway into our bedroom so now there are two entrances -- both from the hall and the master bedroom.

Thank you Oliver!  We love our new bathroom and you!