Granny turns 60

On November 12th, my mom turned 60.  To celebrate we surprised her with a fun night.  I told her to come to my house for dinner with my sisters, Kate and Nell.......or so she thought.  When she got here, we told her we were not going to cook, we were going out.  So, she said "great!"  While we waited, my sister Abby from Nashville and her family showed up, then her sister and an old family friend showed up.  The grandkids all did a skit called "When Granny was my age" which was totally adorable.  We included a presentation of pictures of her when she was the age of each grandkid.  I videoed it but it is entirely to long to put on the blog.

Then, the final surprise, we walked her outside to a limousine that took us to dinner.  It was a very very fun night and she was completely surprised.  It was very cool to surprise her in this way.

My mom and all her girls..... Kate, Abby, mom, me, and Nell

This kids took a ride in the limo before we left.  They thought that was SO cool.

Mom and Gale

My aunt Maria, Dave and Nell

Kate, Dave, and Nell



Doug and Abby - check out my cheesy sister, Nell, in the background



Me and Erik

It was such a fun night - Happy Birthday, Mom!  We love you!

Halloween weekend

So, Halloween 2010 was not full of boredom, that is for sure.  We had a wonderful time this past weekend making lots of Halloween memories.  Here are some shots of the fun (this post may be a sort of long one but I want to just get this all in in one).

This past week she has really been a stinker about taking her picture.  She always has her hands in her face.  This is her in her Halloween costume the day we got it, just wanted to try it on.  Looks like it fit, and pretty darn cute.  She wanted to be a bee like her friend, Addie, was last year.

We successfully bribed her in this picture to put her hands down :)  Here is her in her princess outfit for our pirates and princess event at church.  She went 3 times, let's just say she loved every minute of being a princess

On Saturday morning we carved our pumpkin - she loved digging the goop out with the "shovel" - so she called it.

Helping daddy carve

Final product - and a pretty cute shot of Elaina if I do say so myself.  I'm sorry.....I'm such a mom.

Here she is with her Aunt Nell before we went trick or treating.  You'll notice Nell had to hold her hands down.

We went trick or treating with our small group and all their kids - very fun - at Julie and Jack's house.  The costume winner was Mason, a 1 year old dressed as a cow.  But not just any cow, the Chik-Fil-A cow.  Totally adorable.  So, there wasn't contest but if there was, he had my vote.

All the kiddos before we ventured out.  Let's just say this shot was about as good as it got.  Getting a pic of all of them is no small feat.

This is Elaina and her friend Addie.  They held hands for the first 3-4 houses.  So sweet.  She just LOVES Addie.

If you will recall, her and Elaina held hands last year while walking through Boo at the Zoo...here they are last year.  Note: Addie is a bee

Getting candy -  this lady passed out tubs of playdough... nice! 

And finally, when we got home, we were able to serve some trick or treaters at our house.  Elaina thought it was super fun to hand out candy.  Here she is sitting in the candy bowl waiting on people.  The bowl only had about 3 left so no worries, no candy was harmed in the making of this picture ;)

Corn Maze 2010

So, we headed to the corn maze again this year. We went to a new one that is in Powell and it was pretty great. It was a smaller maze but they had TON of stuff for kids to do. We all really enjoyed ourselves and so did Elaina.  Evidence of the fun below. 

Going through the corn maze

We pretty much let Elaina lead the way through the maze.  Risky but she did fine.  We made it out.

Elaina and her daddy on the hay ride

Looking for her pumpkin

Daddy's girl - SUCH a sweet photo

They had a petting zoo - Elaina liked this little goat.  She pretty much liked any animal that was smaller then her.  She was not as keen on the animals that were bigger then her (cows, horses, etc...)

When Elaina saw this Llama, she said "Llama, Llama, you mad at mama??"  After one of her favorite books, Llama Llama mad at Mama.

Playing in the corn - this was pretty fun for her

Me and my girl



They had a bounce house area - she LOVED this.  Here she is going down the slide.  And below that, she is riding the "train."  I wish I could put into word how excited she was to ride this train and the look on her face that said, "PLEASE Mommy, let me ride it or I may explode."  I will never forget her face and excitement. 



Riding in the back seat....

So, this blog is a tribute to what goes on in the backseat of the car as we travel across town from here to there.  We've posted other fun shots in the past of what happens in the back seat but here are some more.  There is a LOT of singing that goes on in the backseat.  Elaina is a big singer.  There is also some other fun stuff.  Check it out.

Once again, she had the camera...  a close up of her face



And her feet - there are literally 20+ pictures on our camera just like this one.  Thank goodness for digital cameras.  Speaking of this, when my mom saw these pics, she told me this story about me when I was little.  I was about 6 years old or so.  We had a station wagon and I offered to sit in the very back (you know, sitting facing backwards).  Evidently, this was something I never normally wanted to do.  We were on our way to the mountains for the day.  Well, when we got there, I had taken a whole roll of pictures and eaten all the bananas - around 6 of them.   I like bananas, but 6 of them??  When my mom got the film developed, it was pictures like this one and pictures of the cars behind us.



And now, some singing from Elaina.... She had trouble with finding the right tune of "Jesus Love Me." She was singing it to the tune of "I'm a Nut" :)

Hide and Seek

Like any toddler, Elaina loves to play hide and seek.  She has gotten a little better at finding spots to hide other then sit in plain site. She actually now understands what it means to hide.  Anyway, Erik was playing with her the other day and found her in her closet under her clothes on the top shelf of her old changing table which we use as a shelf in her closet.  Kind of funny....

Weekend Getaway

Erik and I went to the mountains this past weekend.  We had intended upon going to Notre Dame for our annual football trip but decided to not go this year.  This is a little bittersweet since we have gone every year for about the past 8-9 years.  But, there is always next year.  So, we opted to take a shorter trip up to the mountains.  It was fantastic.  We relaxed, took a hike, I read a book (which I have not read that much in that short of a time in SO long), and enjoyed each other's company.  Elaina was in good hands back home with her mamaw and papaw.  Not many shots of the weekend but here are a few....

A view from where we stayed.  The weather was amazing

Me just before I started the trek up the mountain to Grotto Falls

The happy couple at the falls - ironicallly, the campus at Notre Dame has a Grotto so hiking to Grotto Falls only seemed appropriate to pay homage to our "would have been" trip to Notre Dame

My wonderful husband....  He's the greatest!

Aquarium

We took Elaina up to the Aquarium of the Smokies a few weeks ago.  She had never been so we were pretty excited about taking her.  She really liked it although she was a little afraid of some of the stuff which was expected knowing her.  She did not like going into the dark parts - kind of freaked her out - and I can't say that I blame her. It is a bit scary.  And, she was not into touching any of the animals that you can touch, which is just like her mother so she comes by it honestly.  Here are some shots of the day.

Here she is checking out a starfish

I forget what we were looking at - some sort of something swimming in the water

She loved this huge fish tank - she kept screaming "it almost got me daddy!" when a fish would swim close to the glass in front of her and would just laugh so hard.

This was in the tunnel that went under the water.  Honestly, she was more infatuated with the moving sidewalk then she was any of the fish or shark.  She did see a sea turtle and loved it.  She still talks about seeing the sea turtle.

Erik touching the crab (or whatever it was).  Just like her mama, she did not want to touch anything

Erik and Elaina inside the fish tank - look at her point to the fish that looked like Dorie.

And then I crawled in there with her

Then we climbed in the penguin exhibit.  She loved the penguins.  I love penguins too - how can you not?  They are so gosh darn cute.

I love this pic - just the two of us with the Penguin.  She was a bit freaked out by this penguin so she is snuggled up to me for protection

The only reason I show this picture is because of how tired she looks.  I tried to get a mother daughter shot after we were done but she would not smile.  Needless to say, she sacked out quickly on the car ride home

And to complete our tour, a picture of the sign on the front of the building... courtesy of Erik :)