Christmas, Part One

Here are some videos taken over the weekend of Maggie's Christmas with Papa, Gigi and Uncle Trey. The first video is her reaction over being able to open her first present and the second video is of her reaction to seeing Mrs. Claus at the Christmas parade at Stone Mountain Park (listen for Maggie to yell "HEY!").







Unrelated to Christmas, please remember Maggie (as well as her parents) on Friday morning. Maggie is scheduled to have ear tube surgery and a cyst on her cheek removed this Friday. She has no idea what is going on but Andy and I are quite nervous about the whole anesthesia aspect of surgery. I will try to post how everything goes afterwards.

Maggie's Christmas Program

About a month ago, we got a letter from Maggie’s school listing important dates for the rest of the year. It included school pictures; class Christmas parties and the big Christmas Program/Luncheon.

Andy and I were very excited to attend the Christmas program as when Maggie was in school previously, she was too little to participate in the Christmas program. Well, the program was yesterday and it was so cute. Maggie’s teacher, Ms. Rebecca, had decorated white turtlenecks for her class, so all the kids matched. We knew that all the two-year olds would be singing a song (I found that out when I dropped Maggie off late one day after a doctor’s appt and they were in the auditorium practicing). Anyway, between all the teachers of the two-year olds (37 of them), they somehow managed to teach them four songs and one even included hand motions.

Maggie even stayed on the stage after she spotted Gigi, Andy and me. After all the singing concluded we were all invited to eat lunch. We have a video of the program and Andy is working on getting it uploaded to the computer.

Gigi came in town Wednesday for Maggie’s program and they are having a fun time playing together. Uncle Trey flew in from school this morning and Papa will be at Maggie’s tomorrow night for us all to celebrate Christmas a little early.

Here are some pictures that Gigi snapped at the program yesterday.

Katie

New Pictures

As promised, here are some previously unseen pictures of Maggie and some (not all) of her company from Thanksgiving. Also, a few pictures from one morning before school.

No, we are not abandoning the website...

I just need a few extra hours each week to get it done.

And go ahead, put my picture on a dart board and start practicing. I haven't downloaded pictures off the camera either.

We have been pretty busy of late, therefore, which causes updating the website to fall really behind.

We did manage to get our house decorated for Christmas last week. Maggie was really excited about seeing a Christmas tree in her house and was happy to tell us where all the ornaments should go. Andy also built a fire, which Maggie was amazed by, and each time it got low, she would run and tell him. She’s also still telling him three days later!

We are going to have more busy weeks ahead of us until the holidays are over. Probably the biggest thing we have going on is that Maggie is having surgery on the 21st. After suffering through ear infection after ear infection, Maggie is getting tubes. While she is getting tubes, we are having the cyst on her left cheek removed as well before it gets any larger (even though it’s still pretty small). So, Andy and I are anxious about that but it will be a quick outpatient procedure and shouldn’t be too big of a deal.

So, I promise to do better about getting pictures up in the future and I’ll try to get some of the house decorations up soon too.

Katie

Gobble Gobble

We hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Andy was looking at one of the toy catalogs that we received in the mail a few weekends ago. Maggie saw that he was reading, climbed up in his lap and started pointing at things she liked. It was pretty cute.

We are gearing up for family and friends visiting over the next few days...more pictures will follow next week.

Katie

Rah, Rah

Rah, Rah!!!

That’s what we taught Maggie to say to go along with her Halloween costume this year. She was the cutest little cheerleader and she had a blast trick-or-treating.

Her new favorite past-time is having Andy set up a “fort” for her using the dining room chairs and a blanket. She will stand at one end and say “Knock, knock.” Andy and/or I will tell her to come in and she will run to the other end, announce her leaving and run back around. It’s hilarious. I’ll do my best to get a video of it soon.

Here are some pictures from Halloween.

PS- HAPPY 5TH BIRTHDAY ANNA!!!!

Fall in Atlanta

This is mostly pictures and TWO videos (yes, I know it's been a while since we've done a video so here are two to make up for that fact).

The pictures are of Andy and Maggie's trip to the Fernbank Museum last weekend while I was out of town for work. Also, pictures of Maggie helping me plant pansies and our walk down to the river behind our house yesterday afternoon.

Enjoy.

How many M&M's are in the jar?

If Andy and I put one M&M a day in a jar since we were married, how many would we have now? 2194.

We put the 2190th in the jar (figuratively) on Saturday when we celebrated our 6th anniversary.

Gran came in town on Friday evening to spend some time with Maggie, thus, allowing Andy and I to have our anniversary dinner without a 2 ½ year old. We went to Canoe, which was recommended by a friend and it was great. The food was really good, but what was even better was the service. The waitress greeted us by our names and we were presented with a complimentary dessert on a plate where ‘Happy Anniversary’ was written in chocolate. Yummy. So, if you are ever in search of a great restaurant in Atlanta, go to Canoe.

Before dinner on Saturday, we all went to one of the children’s playgrounds at Stone Mountain Park. Gigi introduced Maggie to this particular playground and Maggie LOVES it. It helps that there is a rather large sand pit that Maggie stayed in almost the whole time. The weather was so nice and it was nice to be at a park where you can sit in the grass in the shade of a tree instead of a park that is made of concrete and fake trees.

Anyway, Gran had to leave to go back to MS on Sunday and Maggie was sad. Thanks again for coming Gran.

Maggie Sees Atlanta

(Note: Since I have gotten behind on posting again, there is a new post below this one)

As you read previously, Maggie was lucky enough to get to see her Gigi last week. And what did Maggie and Gigi do all week? They played.

Wednesday’s activity was the Georgia Aquarium. To say that Maggie enjoyed it would be an understatement. Maggie made Gigi and Aunt Natalie stay at the aquarium for almost 5 hours!!!!!! Maggie came home with a shirt from the gift shop that she can name all the animals on. They had a great time and Maggie wants to take Gran there this weekend.

Gigi also let Maggie have a lot of time playing at the park, Stone Mountain Park, to be exact. The pictures say it all. Yesterday, we were driving to the mall and had to pass by Stone Mountain. Maggie had yet to see the exit sign off the highway, but seeing the actual mountain was enough for her to realize where she was. She started saying “park, park, park!”

So, what did I do with Maggie as soon as fun-Gigi leaves? I (no-fun Mommy) took Maggie to the doctor. Maggie had developed a cough mid-week but it hadn’t really bothered her. I decided that she needed to go ahead and go to the doctor just in case it was something else. It was just a cold and Maggie went to school. About 4 hours later, I get a call from the school letting me know that Maggie had been crying for about 2 hours and they hadn’t been able to get her to calm down. I went to pick her up immediately, but the crying didn’t stop. To sum the story up, after talking to a nurse, a physician’s assistant, and the doctor, we had to take Maggie back to the doctor. She had an ear infection and started feeling much better on Saturday.

However, the cold-bug traveled from Maggie to me to Andy, so it was a crazy weekend at our house.

Andy and I celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary this weekend. Gran is coming in town to stay with Maggie so Andy and I can go out on Saturday. I think we are also going to go to the pumpkin farm in north Georgia this weekend too.

Here are the pictures from Maggie’s playdates with Gigi.

Cabin Weekend 2007

One bag of Dum Dum suckers for the car ride to Mississippi. $2.99 at Kroger

One twin-size air mattress for Maggie’s sleeping pleasure. $17.99 at Target

One plastic egg with a gummy worm inside. $0.25 from the clucking chicken at the Sunflower grocery in Tishomingo, MS

Fourteen adults and eight kids enjoying Cabin Weekend 2007. Priceless


That about sums what we did this weekend up. Maggie thoroughly enjoyed herself this weekend at our annual cabin weekend. This was our fifth year (I think) to get together with our group of friends in north MS. The first time we did it, we had all just gotten married or were about to be married. The next time, we brought the dogs. After that, the babies came along and now the oldest of the kids is 3 ½. The kids had a great time playing together and were pretty well-behaved. They pretty much played in the dirt, blew bubbles and ran from one end of the cabin to the other for 36 hours. We were all joking that in another 10-12 years, the kids will all be sneaking off together and making all the parents worry. That is after they make fun of us being old and embarrassing!


We had to bring Cabin Weekend 2007 to a close on Sunday morning to head back to Georgia. We were able to quickly meet up with Meme, Uncle Brad, Aunt Cathy, Ann and David for breakfast on our way home and Maggie enjoying seeing her family.


Our week is going well. Maggie is playing hooky from school today to go to the Georgia Aquarium with Gigi and Aunt Natalie (my aunt who lives in Newnan, GA). Gigi is in town for two conferences (one for work and one for church) and had a break today so Maggie is getting her Gigi-time. More pictures of Maggie and Gigi’s adventures to come soon.


Here are some pictures from Cabin Weekend 2007

Maggie and her friends

(Note: There are two posts tonight, so be sure and scroll down past the pictures to see the other one.)

First, Maggie is doing great at school. She is learning so much each week that Andy and I can hardly keep up with her. One of her friends from school, Connor, and his parents came over for dinner this weekend.

Connor and Maggie had a BLAST!!! The house hadn't been that noisy since we moved in, but it was so much fun to see the play off each other. Andy also works with Connor's dad, Jake, and I see Connor's mom, Heather, quite often when we are dropping off/picking up the kids. There are pictures below of Maggie and Connor. Maggie was so sad to see Connor leave that she waited by the front windows of the house to wave "bye bye" to him. Connor, come back and play again soon!!

The other pictures are of Grandparent's Day at Maggie's school. Gigi was able to attend the "picnic" with Maggie and took some pictures of Maggie and her classmates.

I'm off to Washington, D.C. tomorrow for work. I'll be back on Tuesday, but tomorrow night will be Andy and Maggie's first night by themselves in almost a year and a half. I'm sure they will have a fun night together.

Have a good week.

Katie