Happy 8th Birthday Sophie!

I know I've gotten lazy with the posting, but these slide shows are so much easier and quicker. Sophie had a fabulous 8th birthday that she managed to drag out for four days! We love our precious, sweet Sophie Bug! Enjoy the pics.

Holiday Celebrations

Making Progress...

Finally, the dining room window treatments are complete! Only two years in the making... Thank you Mr. Phil for building my creation! What a beautiful way to hide my mistake. I bought this fabric about a year and a half ago. I quickly made use of about three yards to cover my dining room chairs before I really knew what I wanted to do with the windows. When I finally decided on drapes, I realized I'd used too much of the fabric to allow enough yardage to cover from the top of the window and reach the floor. Then, when I tried to find a companion fabric to create a topper, I just couldn't find anything that worked...not that I didn't try. Anyone want to buy about 6 yards of fabric? So, my solution to the problem? Make the drapes anyway and cover the shortage at the top with a wooden cornice. I'm really please with the final result.



Reagan's room isn't quite finished, but close enough. I've got some decorative painting to complete on her dresser, and she's getting a black writing desk for Christmas that will complete the new look.

I made this topper from the bag that the bedding came in.

The girlies have an advent calendar that they look forward to opening each day in December. Saturday, their goody was to create a gingerbread house. I assembled the walls for them and turned them loose. They did a great job and had loads of fun. I have to admit (for Heather's sake) that after a few starting photos, I left the room. For me, it wasn't to prevent myself from getting upset with them or yelling or what have you. It was so that I wouldn't take over the project or give too much input. We all have our faults. :)

Finally, our dear friends Scott, Wendy, and Tyler King came over Friday evening. Wendy emailed me last week saying that they had a bathroom leak in their shower and wanted advice on tile, fixtures, etc. How ironic that we are going through the exact same thing, so they came over to look at our changes and visit for a while. As anyone who has gone through any sort of renovation will know, we had more unforeseen problems. When the girls and I got home Friday afternoon, we arrived to find that the cabinet guy had accidentally busted a water pipe in the bathroom and had to turn off the main water line to the house. Mind you I had company coming at 6:00. Long story short, the plumber didn't arrive until 7:00. All's well that ends well though. We had pizza and a great time despite being unable to use the potties for a few hours.

The kids had a great time playing together.

December Fun Continued

The girls have spent the last two weekends with their Mimi and Poppy. Both times they've made homemade batches of gingerbread. My mom used to do this with with me and my brother during the holidays. Yummy! The girls get SO spoiled at their grandparents. This weekend they went with my mom to my Maw Maw Cauthen's and decorated her house for Christmas. It's neat that they get to know their great grandparents.


This Sunday we had our children's Christmas party after church. The kids had a great time. We had pizza, talked with Santa, made a craft, and decorated cookies.

These are pictures that go with the previous post.

Our evening at Atlantic Station.

Finally, one of my completed projects...

December Happenings

The last week has been so busy. It's like the first day December hits we never stop going and doing until the New Year. Last Saturday, we enjoyed an evening out with the Thompsons at Ashley Park despite the thirty minute downpour. The kids were excited to see Santa make his grand appearance and light the tree, and the live reindeer were pretty cool too. Wednesday, I had an appointment at Emory in the afternoon, so we made our way to Atlantic Station for dinner afterwards and a "magical surprise" for the girls. At seven o'clock every evening during the Christmas season, they simulate snow in what they call Central Park. It's really beautiful. The girls had so much fun running around for about 20 minutes in what will likely be the only glimpse of "snow" we'll get in Georgia this year. The house is finally decorated although I'm still finishing up my decorating projects. In addition, the guys started the demolition of our master bathroom this week. Many of you already know the story of our three year leak in our shower that we only recently discovered. If you haven't heard, long story short, we are now getting a new tile shower, subflooring and carpet in the master bedroom, and new cabinets and countertops (Those last two were a splurge.). I'm so ready for it to be completed, and they've only been at it for a week. I don't know how people live through a complete house renovation! Here are a few pictures of the latest with more to come as soon as I figure out how to get the photos off the new camera.

Ramblings

The girls and I have been enjoying our week off so far, and thankfully Rome will join us tomorrow. I'm determined to finish all my "half-done" projects, so I've been working furiously on sewing curtains (that I cut out a year ago), painting Reagan's room and dresser and finishing decorating her room, building wooden cornices (with Mr. Phil's help) all amid decorating for Christmas. We scored big time on a deal on the Nikkon D60 today, so I'll be able to take pictures as soon as it's delivered to post. Whoooo Hoooo! I'm so excited. The last two months I've been "borrowing" my grade level camera every weekend from school, but of course I forgot it for the Thanksgiving holiday.



Funny story from Sophie today:

As Romeo is dropping her off to gymnastics today, Lily our dog who was along for the ride, pounced on Sophie's lap to get to the window to see some kids. Sophie yells "Oh my nuts!" "What?" Rome asks. Why do we always ask them to repeat the crazy stuff they say? "She's on my nuts!" I'm guessing it's time for an anatomy lesson. Romeo explained that that's really not a nice thing to say, and BTW you don't have nuts!



Hope everyone enjoys a happy and safe Thanksgiving holiday! I know we have so much to be thankful for.

Happy Halloween

Hope everyone enjoyed their "All Hallow's Eve" yesterday. We took the girls over to Summer Grove and met up with Melanie and her girls for trick-or-treating. We started early and took our time letting the girls run from house to house filling their buckets. Summer Grove is the coolest place to take kids on Halloween. Most everyone in the neighborhood really gets into decorating and dressing up. After about two hours we all went to Chick-fil-A for dinner. They were giving free ice cream sundaes to everyone in a costume, so the kids loved that treat as well.

Here's our jack-o-lantern for this year. The girls wanted him to look scared instead of scary, so this is the best I could do.

The girls were winding down by this point.

Reagan started tiring out early on and decided to sit this house out. I personally think she wanted to have a peek at her loot.

This house was the Peanuts house. The guy came to the door dressed as Charlie Brown and had the theme music playing in the background.

It was so cute watching my girls take care of Avery.

The little Indian princess

Little Miss Avery was a hoot all night. She chattered all night long. After a group of creepy looking older girls came by she kept saying, "It's alright. The scary girls are gone."

We've been taking pictures at Chris and Melanie's in this same spot since Sophie was two years old in a cat costume. My how they've grown.

What happened to our little girls?

Allie had a friend, Delaney from school, who joined us.