It's beginning to look a lot like...

Christmas!!

Quinn and I had such fun decorating the tree and house. I just love pulling out all of the ornaments that I remember from my childhood, and now Quinn is starting to remember them too. My favorites are not the fancy ones (although I do love those!) but the ones that are sentimental to me. I made reindeer one in elementary school. I still remember sitting in the art room making it!

These little toy marching band members are fun to play with each year. They came from Nana and Grampa and Brad loved playing with them as a child.

My all-time favorite ornament. On the back it is dated 1976, so it is from the year that I was born. Just love this sweet little nativity scene. This picture makes it look really big, but it is actually pretty small.

Ha! My sisters will get a kick out of seeing this fella again! Remember the saxophone mouse?? We always fought over this one!

Here is Quinn's room...looking SUPER pink with the tree and lights. Very festive!

Quinn wrote me a note and put it on my bed...so sweet!

We had a faux fire in the fireplace and enjoyed all the new decorations and lights. Looking forward to a beautiful holiday season!

Thanksgiving 2010

We spent a fun-filled Thanksgiving Day at Big Daddy and Gimmie's house this year. Here are Gimmie and Quinn taking a walk around the backyard:

We tried our best to get a picture of these boys together...but there was a lot of wiggling and whining...this was the best we could do.

Love how this picture sums up the boys...T is picking his nose, James is half undressed and is wearing Quinn's boots....backwards. They are so funny!

Quinn with a yummy chocolate souffle that Aunt Betsy made...delicious! We have many blessings to be thankful for!

Ole Miss Homecoming

We spent a fun weekend in Oxford for Ole Miss Homecoming. Uncle Steve, Aunt Becky, Emily, Lauren and their friend Brooke came down to visit Ole Miss and us! We were all really excited to see them and to give them a little taste of what Ole Miss is all about. I wish I had pictures from the Homecoming parade and Proud Larry's with the Simms on Friday night, or even from the Square or Ajax or the Grove and game on Saturday, but things were just so hectic and I never had time. We had such fun though! These pictures are from our campus tour on Sunday morning. We promised the Sullivans a "true" tour with the professionals next time they come in town...they settled for our very rough sketch of the campus for now. Here we are in front of the Lyceum.

And here is the Sullivan clan (and Brooke) in front of the fountain and chapel.

Hadley and Quinn making wishes in the fountain.

Tyndale making a wish...do you see his penny in mid-flight next to Hadley's shoulder?

Here are Tyndale and Quinn in front of the KD house. I took the girls through the house for a tour and I think they really liked it. Such great memories for me!

I just loved the excitement on Quinn's face in this picture. If you have never eaten the Sunday Brunch at the Alumni House at Ole Miss...it is insane! They had everything from your regular breakfast fare...fresh fruit, bacon, eggs, biscuits...an omelet chef, a waffle chef, ribs, raw oysters, sushi, salmon...they have it ALL covered! Well, Quinn's pride and joy was this little Key Lime pie...you can tell how excited she is about it! They also had wall-size screens to watch (what else?) football. Brad really wanted to stay there all day!

We had a wonderful weekend with the Simms and Sullivans. So happy to see everyone and get some quality time in. We are even happier that Emily seemed to like Ole Miss and they said they will be back soon for a basketball game!

Happy Halloween!

Several weeks ago Quinn chose to be a Pink Lady for Halloween. Tyndale made a great T-Bird! Brad and I decided to go as a German couple...I guess honoring our roots a bit...ha! We had such fun!

Check out this tough T-Bird with his number one Pink Lady!

Might be the best pic of this group of cousins yet! This is a hard crew to corral!

I just LOVE this time of year...and I love that we get so many trick-or-treaters. Check out our huge spider that we adopted (by the light). He is really very friendly.

Had to have a cheers with our steins. I didn't want to lug my camera the entire night, so I left it at home and missed many other great memories. We joined a hayride with our friends...where Quinn and Tyndale met up with their counterparts...Sara Rodgers and Hampton, who were a Pink Lady and a T-Bird too! Our friends Mark and Dorothy were Dat-Man and Dat-Girl...awesome outfits! Wish I had more pictures to show yall, but it was a super fun night with friends and family. 

Quinn's first horse show

I have to admit that "why does my child look like this?" went through my mind after we gathered all the apparel for the horse show. I grew up riding english and the clothing choices are way more attractive in my opinion. (I will have to dig up some old riding pics) Quinn will be riding english in the future, but for this age group apparently western is the way to go. Quinn was so excited about her first show, and it made it even better that two of her closest friends were in it too.

Sara Rodgers, Quinn and Georgia getting ready. Funny note: Q and I tucked her jeans into her boots since that is the style now...well Mrs. Linda about died! Evidently that is super tacky in the western world...who knew?

Mrs. Linda giving some last minute instructions.

Georgia and Quinn with Peanut



Quinn with her pony, Levi. She won second place in the halter ponies class! There were six ponies/riders in that class so that is really great!

Here is Quinn getting ready for the Lead-in class. They all won blue ribbons for this class and the ribbon is definitely a prized possession in our house!

It was a fun day. We have a lot (a LOT) to learn about this whole world of horses. Quinn loves everything about it...she would ride every day if she could. This is the first "extra-curricular" that she has really adored and I am happy that she is so excited.

Happy 2nd Birthday Tyndale!

Since May, we have been getting our milk from the Brookhaven Farmer's Market. Jamie Mauthe is a delightful lady who runs a Progress Milk Barn with her husband, family, and six milk cows. We return our bottles to her each week and pick up our new milk. Her milk is pasteurized, antibiotic-free (and organic...although she can't label it that way due to government regs) and SUPER fresh. They love their cows and what they do and it really shows. And our kids looooove the milk!

It was one Friday morning when I was picking up our milk when it hit me...I was planning to have a farm party for Tyndale's birthday party...so why not ask Jamie if we could have it there? Luckily she said yes and then had idea after idea of fun stuff that the kids could do while we were there!

Some of the decorations. The milk bottles are sentimental to me because my grandfather gave them to me several years ago, with many other antique bottles. They are Borden bottles from the New York/New Jersey area, and I thought they would be a perfect decoration.

Moo...a lucky finger got some icing off of the front cupcake..ha!

Tyndale blowing out his candle...2! Can't believe it!

 

Quinn and Hadley feeding the chickens.

Tyndale feeding the chickens.

Quinn gathering fresh eggs from the chicken coop.

...she found the biggest one!

And they all got to hold some baby chicks. We were laughing because Quinn's chick was a platinum blonde too...just like Quinn!

Here are Quinn, Hadley and Christian feeding one of the calves. They named him Brownie.

 

And here is Violet with the other calf. We also all got to watch the big cows get milked, but unfortunately none of my pictures turned out very good. It is really cool to be able to think of "our" cows when we are drinking milk at home!

We watched a beautiful sunset and made special family memories. We had a fantastic day on the farm!!