A GRACEfilled DAY

Emily and Michael came home for Christmas, but Emily came a week before Michael, so we thought it would be a great time to throw Emily a baby shower. Some of her close friends and I hosted the shower and my mom was so great and offered her house.

The Guests of Honor

Emily

Grace

The decorations and food

The Party Guests

The Rose Petal Ceremony - This is something that my mom and her friends do. Basically, each person sprinkles rose petals over the mom-to-be while saying a special wish or blessing for mom and baby.

It was a great shower. It was so good to have Emily home and to honor her and sweet baby, Grace.

Emily-

We love you so much and are so happy for you and the change that's about to take place in your life. You will be an amazing mom and like I told you before....as long as what you do comes from your heart, it can't be wrong. Congratulations!

Grace-

We are so excited to have you as an addition to our family. We already love you so much and are anxiously awaiting your arrival. Keep warm and safe inside for now and when you're ready, we'll be out here waiting with hugs and kisses. We love you!

Happy Turkey Day!

My inlaws' house was on the Tour of Homes this year for Christmas (which meant it was decorated to the nines and OFF LIMITS to curious, playful, dirty little hands...hahah!) and my brother-in-law and his wife had just moved to a new place, so Thanksgiving was held at our house this year. It ended up just being Jay's mom and dad who came over, but it was a nice get together. It also felt good to be able to host the festivities, too.


Truett & I baked turkey cookies using his hand as the 'cookie cutter'.
Emma & PaPaw Jay working hard frying the turkey
The fruits of his labor....YUMMY! Gramma, Truett & Emma enjoying some down time We also celebrated with my family on Thanksgiving Day. We had family from out of town come in for the week. Truett and Emma LOVED spending time with my younger cousins and Jay and I LOVED having someone around to entertain our kiddos!


Mom & MawMaw
Jay & I
MawMaw & Wendy
Aunt Wendy & Emma
Dan & John
MawMaw & John Sherman
My friend, Summer, posted about the holidays and mentioned the 'generation tables' at dinner. We still have the 'grown up table' and the 'kid table' at my house. Here are some of my favorite 'kid table' members. :)



Kennedy
Madison
Truett

Emma Madison made placecards for each of us at the dinner table. Little did we know, but there was also a game involved. If you found something special with your placecard (ie: Jay's included a toy cowboy hat), then you won a chocolate coin as a special treat!It was so much fun hanging out and spending time with our families. We are all so blessed and have so much to be thankful for! HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Happy Birthday, Papa!

So, Jay has never been one to make a big deal out of his birthday, but that is just so FOREIGN to me! :) I tried doing a surprise party for him the first year we were married and it was then that I realized he wasn't kidding about the whole 'not thinking his birthday is a big deal' thing. So, we've always celebrated in some sort of fashion, but it's usually pretty low-key. This year, we had a birthday dinner celebration at my mom's house.

Emma with Aunt Sarah

Emma with LeeLa'

***Side note: Yes....Truett is still alive and kicking, but if he doesn't start staying in one place long enough for me to get pictures of him, people are going to start thinking Emma is an only child!

Truett & Emma giving their Papa his birthday present
Jay - I don't even know where to start and a simple blog post will not come CLOSE to letting you know how much we love you. We are so grateful to have you as the head of our family! We love you, Papa!

Happy Halloween!

Okay, so I've been the most HORRIBLE blogger EVER!!!!!!!!! It's been SOOOOOO crazy around here and I've been SUPER busy filling Christmas orders, on top of the usual holiday chaos. In order to catch everyone up to speed with our family, I'm just going to do some quick recapping, starting with Halloween.

Truett decided he wanted to be a fireman this year. He had gotten a really nice fireman outfit from Gramma and PaPaw for his birthday in June, but had not really played with it much.

Well, a month or so before Halloween, he became OBSESSED with firemen. He wouldn't leave the house without the full get up on. He wore it EVERYWHERE...restaurants, my mom's house, the grocery store, the doctor. I thought I was going to have to surgically remove the thing before all was said and done.

The week of Halloween, Truett's school had a little 'Fall Fest' thing where the kids wore their costumes, played games, etc.... Guess who lost his costume the night before???? Yeah...I mean the kid LIVED in the costume for WEEKS and the night before Halloween, we couldn't find it ANYWHERE! Jay ran out to Target and found a fireman costume to do the job.

Truett at Fall Fest '09

Emma, of course, was the good ol' firehouse Dalmatian

Concentrating really hard on which temporary tattoo he wanted.

We were all given freshly-spun orange cotton candy as we walked out...YUM!

We did find the costume the next day (at the bottom of Truett's laundry hamper....guess he thought it needed to be washed!).

On Halloween night, the kids trick-or-treated through my mom's neighborhood....GOOD TIMES! This was the first year Truett knew what was going on . He thought it was the COOLEST thing to knock on the neighbors' doors, ask for candy, and actually GET it!

Happy Halloween!