Milk and Cookies with Santa

I wondered how it was going to go tonight...after we talked about going to see Santa all day long with Tyndale. Well...this is how it went....

...still not such a fan. Look how sweet Quinn is being..smiling apologetically at the elves behind the camera. And Tyndale is pointing at me like, " THAT is the woman that left me here and is making me SUFFER!" He was saying "all done! all done!" the whole time....breaks my heart, but have to laugh just a tiny bit. Next year he will probably not want to LEAVE Santa! Through all the hubbub Quinn didn't even get to tell Santa what she wanted for Christmas...so we wrote a letter at another table and I told her that I would make sure that Santa would receive it.

Tyndale is making sure that Aunt Betsy got enough cookies! See? He recovered! I kept asking him if he wanted to visit Santa again...and he said..."no no."  :)

Here is Quinn making some reindeer food.

Quinn and her friends Anna Grace and Georgia.

The Nutcracker

We went to see our third annual performance of The Nutcracker. We saw the Ballet MS performance and enjoyed it thoroughly. You might notice one new addition to our crew....Kate!! This is her first time to attend and the girls were so sweet about telling her the whole story and explaining what was happening.

Such a fun and special cousin/sister time!

Wesson Christmas Parade

Quinn rode in the Wesson Christmas Parade this year! She and the girls had such fun riding the ponies through the crowd...and I DO mean crowd! Those Wesson-ites really turn out for a parade!

Quinn's smile looks so genuine in the pic above. (ha!)

Quinn's pony Levi was Santa and the rest of the ponies were reindeer. Levi is quite the strong spirit...he kept nipping at me the whole parade. Sweet but stubborn.

Brad and Tyndale watching the fire engines line up for the parade...Tyndale was in heaven!  He kept saying "weeee-oooo!" They even threw him those smarties.

At some point during the Christmas season last year, Quinn said to me, " Mama, I NEVER want to be on stage OR in a parade in my WHOLE life." She is our little star, but she tends to be anxious about the attention of a big crowd. Let me say..she did not even HESITATE to be in this parade. Not once. I think that she is so driven by her passion for riding that she was able to find some confidence in it...and that makes me so happy for her!

Dancing...

...to Tchaikovsky getting ready for the Nutcracker. We have been playing The Nutcracker Suite for a few weeks now...enjoying the season!

Look at Tyndale's concentration in this picture...tongue out...fingers tightened. So funny!

(PS...just noticed the fingerprints on the window...ummm...something just moved to number one on my to do list tomorrow!!!)

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.