Our anniversary...

November 24, 2001

I cannot believe Chris and I have been married eight years. When I think of him, the picture that pops into my mind is him walking up the ramp to the elevators when I lived in Massey (for three years.) He was wearing a baseball cap, jeans, a pullover, and the warmest smile I've ever known. He is a simple man (fashionably-speaking) and continues to wear that exact same outfit on the weekends...only now he is taking Eli and Lucy to Chick-Fil-A.

If I tried to sum up my feelings on him and our relationship I would get all emotional and overwhelmed and do....nothing. So, simple is best. When Chris and I talk about our wedding or whenever we got married, Lucy always asks two things: "did I stay home with Daddy while you got married?" and "who went first?" We aren't quite sure what she means by the second question, but we love how she is trying to figure it all out...which is what we were doing 8 years ago and continue to do today...just trying to figure it all out. :-)

Let the feasting begin!

Lucy had her Thanksgiving Feast at school today. Each child in her class was supposed to bring something - Lucy was assigned ham. When I picked her up, I asked her what the other kids brought and she said "Beau brought pretzels and Henry brought chocolate-chip cookies"...doesn't that sound exactly like what the Pilgrims and Native Americans ate? Her teacher told me that Lucy didn't eat any of the ham, but she did enjoy passing it out to her friends. :-) Speaking of eating, look closely and you'll see that Eli is getting two teeth on top (to match the two he already has on the bottom!) At breakfast yesterday, Lucy told Eli "once you have teeth you can eat the peoples' food." There is a lot of good interaction between them at breakfast while they're eating their bananas and pancakes!

Showered with Love!

Here are some pictures from Amy's Baby Shower last weekend! It was so much fun to celebrate their sweet baby!

Casey, Matt's sister, made all of the awesome decorations with Amy and Matt's baby pictures...so adorable! We are quite confident that their baby will have A LOT of hair!

Here's one of my favorite pictures of Amy...look at that smile...she is so happy!

Totally unrelated to the Baby Shower, here's Eli and Lucy at our grocery store...we'll be there A LOT over the next week...we're hosting Thanksgiving! Gobble, Gobble!

Halloween Fun...a few tricks and lots of treats!

Our Halloween fun started last Monday when we hosted a "Big Orange" playdate for Ava, Parker and Mac! Jenny and Emily made the boys matching orange corduroy outfits (aren't they cute!), so it was fun to get them together for pictures and watch them play!

Then, last Thursday morning Lucy had a costume parade at her school. Lucy loved her elephant costume...she told me that's what she wanted to be back in August!

Eli and his friends wore their costumes to Kindermusik!

The Tompkins family invited us for dinner on Friday evening and we volunteered to bring dessert. Lucy and I spent Friday morning baking an apple pie and cookies...

While we were baking in the kitchen, Eli was playing happily in the living room....until he backed himself under the couch...which happens A LOT...his motor only goes backwards right now and I'm always rescuing him from half-way under the bed, couch or chair!

Friday night was a lot of fun! Shelby was excited to have someone younger than her...she kept checking Eli's diaper!

Michele, Brant and Robert were there too! We all had a good laugh when Michele said it was the kids' first double-date...apparently Robert has quite a crush on Shelby...

And, of course, we already know that Lucy and Claiborne are very fond of each other...

Our Saturday morning started with Eli checking his email...

Chris and Lucy carved our pumpkin!

Here's Lucy and I dancing at the neighborhood party!

Here's the finished pumpkin...after being bombed by a bird or berry...notice that it has ears...Lucy insisted!

Here's Lucy post-trick-or-treating...she said Halloween was Fancy Nancy's favorite holiday!

You know I love "self-photographs"...here we are hanging out and waiting for more trick-or-treaters...I love how Ridley is watching Lucy's lollipop, I'm watching Ridley to make sure we don't have an incident, and Lucy's enjoying her Halloween treat!

Completely unrelated to our Halloween fun, here's a picture I took of Eli and Lucy in the bathtub yesterday...notice Eli's newest trick: pulling himself into a standing position...he is such a monkey!

Local Celebrity!

Lucy and I had our dental check-ups this morning. I made these appointments back in April, so the good timing was just good luck! Our dentist was doing a candy buy-back...you bring in your Halloween candy and they give you $1 per pound of candy (up to 10 pounds.) We brought in 9 pounds of candy! The candy is sent to the troops and the dentists make a matching donation to our Children's Hospital. The local news station stopped by to record some footage...click on the link below, Lucy and I made the 5 o'clock news! We have a DVR so we've watched it again...and again...and again...and again. She keeps asking to "watch Lucy!" http://www.wkrn.com/global/Category.asp?c=175880&clipId=4264834&topVideoCatNo=126088&autoStart=true