Thanksgiving Part 2

On Thursday we headed up to Boiling Springs, NC to celebrate Thanksgiving with Paul's mom's extended family. This year my parents and grandmother were able to join us! The Hedrick clan is always a lot of fun and it's even more fun now that we have the girls. The girls won't have cousins close to their age so I really love that they have SO MANY second cousins to play with...and so many of them are girls! This time Emma, Mary Jane, and Laura Ann were there and Emmie had the time of her life playing with them. I think the only time I saw Emmie in the main room while we were there was when she was eating. The rest of the time she was in the gym running around with the girls. The girls are so helpful to. They took Emmie to wash her hands before lunch and took her to the bathroom when she needed to go potty...I was tempted to bring them all back to Columbia with me...haha!

Mary Jane and Emmie

Ellie had a great time roaming around. She about walked her little legs off! KJ and Cody (second cousins) were playing basketball which just fascinated Ellie and they were so sweet to take the time to find her small ball to play with and show her how to shoot. She was so pleased.

Ellie playing basketball with the big boys :)

Mark coaching Ellie

After lunch I got in the car to head back to Columbia to work on Friday and the girls and Paul and Franklin were staying with Suzy and Clyde Friday night before coming back to Columbia. Fortunately, as I was headed out of town I listened to my voice mail and they wanted to put me on call  for work and there were going to be others on call and I would be the last one called in so I thought about it for a minute and then turned around and headed back to be with my family!
Friday morning Emmie woke up wanting to know where her friends were and when they were coming over. She didn't have to wait long as the girls and their parents came over for breakfast. There were 10 adults and 5 little girls there (and 1 puppy who was willing to eat anything that fell his way!) and it was wild and fun! I think I heard someone say they cooked 30 eggs and we ate every last one!



This is how you cook eggs for 15 people! (Sorry about the picture quality...I had left my camera in the car overnight so it was all fogged up when I brought it in.)

The girls played for a bit after breakfast and then we went outside and played in the leaves and everyone got into the fun!

Running to jump in the leaves!

Ellie was not so sure about the leaves!

Paul got Mary Jane with a big pile of leaves!



Mary Jane and Laura Ann attacking Paul!



Emmie took a break to rock.

Laura Ann, Mary Jane, Emmie, Emma, Ellie

Love this candid shot!

Love attack! (There's a Paul somewhere under that pile!)

Emmie and me...love this picture!

Love this picture of the 4 of us!

When I was growing up we always went to Atlanta to my Granny and Grandaddy's house for Thanksgiving and in they had a stone wall in their backyard that dropped off to a steep downhill incline and my cousins and I used to pile up the leaves and jump off the wall into the leaves. Watching my girls remined me of the fun times I had growing up and I just love that they're able to make these memories.
After the leaf fun we took the girls over to Emma and Mary Jane's house so that we could meet their chickens and they let Emmie pick the eggs AND we got to bring them home with us...they were so good..fresh is always better! Emmie was not so sure about the chickens but eventually warmed up enough to let Paul put her down. Ellie, my child with no fear, was delighted with the chickens! She wanted to pet them and tried to feed them but couldn't figure out how to hold the feed in her hand correctly.

Checking out the chickens.

Egg!

Ellie petting the chicken.

Ellie loved watching Emma feed the chickens.

Emmie helping hold Paul's hand while he fed the chickens.

After some fun playtime we headed back to Suzy and Clyde's where Mammy was waiting to have lunch with us. After lunch (where Ellie fought like crazy to keep her eyes peeled open) we packed up the car and headed home. The girls were asleep within 5 minutes of leaving and they were still pretty glazed over when we got home. We had such a good time and I'm so thankful I was able to be off work so I could make these memories with Paul and the girls!

Thanksgiving Part1

We spent the first part of the week in Greenville with my parents. We enjoyed our time there and the girls had lots of fun helping rake the leaves, going on walks, visiting with their great-grandmother, and playing with Gran and Grandaddy's toys. Ellie was particularly fond of playing a game with Grandaddy that involved hiding behind a corner and jumping out and shouting "boo". He started the game and then went upstairs to do some work and Ellie kept looking around all the corners and saying "boo".  Now whenver Ellie says my dad she says "boo". I may teach her to call him Boo Radley instead of Grandaddy...haha!

Emmie always loves playing on her bike at Gran's (and she's finally mastering the pedals) and she was so sweet and pushed Ellie around some...Ellie did return the favor and pushed Emmie around some. I love watching them play together!

Emmie scrounged up a few peppers that were left on the ground from when my mom pulled her plants up a few days before we got there.

I LOVE this picture of Emmie! She was obsessed with trying to climb  the tree.

Emmie and my dad reading.

When we raked leaves we put the girls in the trash can so they could jump up and down and pack the leaves. Emmie had the BEST time playing in the trashcan...lol!

Love Emmie's silly face!

Wednesday evening we had our family Thanksgiving and it was nice to see some of our extended family. Franklin also got to meet a new friend. My aunt and uncle brought their dog Tallulah with them, she's a Shitzu and they were pretty entertaining to watch together. The girls loved Tallulah because she would hold still and let them pet her. Sadly I was very lax in my picture taking during the festivities.

We did manage to get some family pictures on Thursday morning. Emmie was not being very cooperative but we managed...pictures with an almost 3 year old are a chore!!

Happy Birthday!

Papa's birthday was a week ago and I'm just now getting this up...sorry! Paul was tasked with the job of getting  a video of the girls singing or a picture of them holding a birthday sign...epic fail! (Really not his fault though, it's pretty hard to do at this stage.) What he did get was this hilarious video and I just had to share...I love the expressions on their faces!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAPA!!!!

Thankful

I started my Thanksgiving celebrations with a heavy heart as we just found out that my mom's cancer has returned. (http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/janerainey) This time around she will have chemo and then a stem cell transplant. My heart is so sad that our family, and particularly mom, has to go through this again. At the same time I know there are many blessings through all of this. We are so blessed that Hodgkin's Lymphoma is not only treatable but curable. We are blessed in the timing. My mom was recovered enough from the first round of chemo that she was able to stay with us after Ellie was born. She was healthy for my brother's college graduation and for his move to Arkansas. We had a wonderful family vacation this past summer. She will most likely just be starting treatments or about to start treatments for Christmas this year so she should still be feeling good and the girls and I got to spend some time with her before Thanksgiving and hopefully by next holiday season she'll be all fixed up! I am also very thankful for Skype so the girls can see and talk to Gran and Grandaddy while my mom is going through the transplant and can't be around germs! While I so wish she didn't have to deal with the chemo and transplant I am comforted in that there is perfection in the Lord's timing.

While my heart is heavy I also have many things to be thankful for. I am so thankful for the wonderful family I married in to. I love watching my girls play with the older girls at family gatherings. This year we stayed an extra night with Aunt Suzy and Uncle Clyde and got to spend part of the day today with the big girls and their parents and my girls (especially Emmie) just had a BALL! Emmie woke up with morning asking when Emma, Mary Jane, and Laura Ann were coming over and I love that! I was so blessed to marry into this fun loving Christian family and I'm so thankful for that. I'm also so thankful to be getting a wonderful sister-in-law this coming June and I KNOW my girls are super thankful to be getting an Aunt Emily!



Laura Ann, Mary Jane, Emmie, Emma, and Ellie
(I'm quite thankful I was able to tell Mary Jane and Emma apart...lol!)

 
I'm so thankful this year for modern medicine. The medicine that has given two of my sweet Cystic Fibrosis patients lung transplants in the last year and a half and for the first time in their lives they know what it feels like to be able to breathe like the rest of us and to live lives where they're not dependent on oxygen and they're not in and out of the hospital every few months. I am thankful for modern medicine that can cure my mom's cancer. I'm thankful for the modern medicine that helped my cousin John live 5 years after being diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumor and a prognosis of only living 15months. Even though John lost his battle with GBM I'm so hopeful that what the doctors learned from John's treatments will one day save someone's life and allow them to live a long, disease free life. I'm so thankful for a God that has given the doctors the wisdom to treat patients with a variety of illnesses and to learn constantly and then to develop even better solutions to devestating illnesses.

Most of all I am thankful for my little family. I am so thankful for Paul. He is a wonderful husband and a wonderful Daddy to Emmie, Ellie, and our furbaby Franklin. I am thankful for my sweet girls. I am thankful for my little cuddle puppy. I am thankful for all the memories our little family has made over the years and for the blessings God has given all of us.

I hope you and your family had a very happy Thanksgiving!!

Fall

When I was little my grandmother had a HUGE backyard and one of my favorite memories is of going to her house and she would rake the leaves for me to jump in. Friday I took the girls outside and I raked up a big pile of leaves and they had a blast! After a while I had the bright idea to move the pile across the yard and put it at the bottom of the slide...they thought that was so much fun!

As you can see, I'm not opposed to child labor.

I love the expression on Ellie's face.

First Haircut!

Last Thursday I took Emmie and Ellie to Snipits to get there hair cut! Emmie's desperately needed cutting and so I figured since we were going anyway I'd get Ellie her first haircut...she needed a little shaping up! We tried to go in the morning but the times on their website were wrong so we drove back home and went after My Gym that night. (Did I mention Snipits is in Lexington...about 20-30min away. Apparently children in NE Columbia don't need haircuts.) I was a little worried that the girls would melt down with such a crazy evening..My Gym ended at 5:15 and I threw them in the car with a plate of food and fought traffic all the way to Lexington...ugh...but the girls did really well. Emmie was a little wiggly but no meltdowns or temper tantrums so all was good! Emmie was funny though because Mrs. Beth has always cut her hair at her house and even though I explained to her that Beth wasn't going to cut her hair this time (she had the audacity to move away!) I think it didn't really sink in until we got to Snipits and Beth wasn't there. Emmie was a little hesitant at first but she warmed up and then afterwards they painted her fingernails so overall she was quite thrilled with the experience! Ellie did AWESOME!  She sat relatively still and seemed quite pleased with the results. (And they didn't really mess with her curls much so Mama was pleased :) )