Shark Attack!

Are you ready for some serious picture overload? Ok, good because you know I couldn’t post just one picture of Maddie from Halloween. Oh, by the way she was a shark, and according to her, a “scary” shark. Fortunately it was a cool evening so Maddie wore her big puffer jacket under her costume which did a decent job at filling it out – aka so it didn’t look like it was swallowing her. I guess since she was a scary shark that’s why she chose not to smile in any pictures I tried to take.


Like I said, the jacket really helped fill out the costume.


To our first stop – Park’s house!


Look at these two together again! I’m sure Park’s thinking “man I am so lucky I have teeth because I can eat candy, sorry Mads.”
2 teeth = no candy.

These two last year . . . a whole lotta monkey business.

A giraffe spotted in the wild!


When you let Donny operate the camera, you get some rare finds, pictures that really capture the essence of the situation. Something like this for example – can you see Maddie through the tree that Donny apparently climbed to take this picture?

Or how about this – normally I would never post a picture of myself from behind let alone pregnant, and huge – but anyway – a real gem by photographer Donny.


We trick-r-treated to one house up at Mimi and Pop’s house and Maddie meant business . . . she took about five peanut butter cups all of which she said were for Dada – nice work Mads!


Oh wait, I did get one half smile picture . . .

. . . with her eyes closed, ahh maybe next year!

Family Weekend 2011

My parents came down to visit with us and catch up with Rick as it was family weekend up at W&L. We got to do dinner, watch a  swim meet, walk campus, eat an early dinner and all hang out throughout the course of the weekend. After Saturday I was pretty much spent – Maddie was too – she went all day on just a quick 45 min snooze on our way up. Running around at the meet kept me pretty busy but I did get a couple “gems” captured.

Rick = intensity


Playing with Ga


Yawning/doing “isty bisty spider”


Gampa trying on Maddie’s tutu – she thought it was almost as funny as the rest of us did!

Wordless Wednesday

Maddie’s first “field trip”

Maddie’s class at school took their first field trip down the street to the “pumpkin patch.” It is really just another church that is selling pumpkins. The parents had to go to do some man-on-man coverage of the kiddos so they didn’t wander too freely. This is the same pumpkin patch where we did Maddie’s little photo shoot a little while ago.

They put all the kiddos in the stroller and off we went.  This buggy is a six seater that Maddie loves to ride in next to her buddy Jake. She talks about him all the time.


Once we got there Maddie headed straight for the scarecrows – go figure. We had a difficult time trying to find pumpkins we liked because Maddie did not want one that was dirty. We compromised and I told her I would wash them when I got home.



I also got some really cute pictures of Maddie and Jake sitting together – but I’m going to check with Jake’s mom to see if she minds that I post them. Maddie won him over by shoving goldfish in his mouth – therefore he kept his seat next to her. It was so cute to see all these little kiddos wandering around and climbing on pumpkins – we sure are lucky to have found such a great school with sweet, caring teachers!


Oh, and the clean pumpkins . . .

A great fall day . . .

. . . at Jeter farm with some great friends! We did a little animal petting, a little hay ridin’, corn mazing, pumpkin picking, and sliding! And, Maddie and Emery may have been nibbled on by some animals too – but we did leave with everything in tact – just a lot of tired adults and more tired kiddos!

Animal petting:

How big? So big!


Tractor driving:


Letting April lead us through the corn maze!


And probably the most fun – the slide!!
The daddies and their girls!


Three ladies down the slide? Maddie doesn’t look to sure about it!


Maddie may weigh a little less than Emery so maybe that’s why she went down so fast – you can barely see her at the top there.

Hello Homeplace

. . . and happy birthday Emily! A group of hungry people decided to get together and celebrate Emily’s birthday at the Homeplace, excellent idea. We got there right before we went in so I didn’t get a chance to do any great pictures before dinner, and after dinner it was dark. Bummer. I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the meal even though I could not hear any of the conversations going on at the rest of the table – basically I sat next to Lincoln and we ate chicken and potatoes until they waitress stopped bringing them out. And, I may have asked Donny to take a plate of chicken off another tables tray – Donny was embarrassed and just blamed it on his pregnant wife.

Before dinner – Donny and the girls:

After dinner attempts at group pictures:



Here we all are at the Homeplace back in April: