Almost December...

It's so hard to believe that it's almost December - 27 days until Christmas! I just uploaded pictures from last week, so I wanted to share a few. We had a wonderful visit to GA - just not enough time to do everything we wanted to do and see everyone we wanted to see. It was nice to visit with Nana, Papa and Mema and then my Uncle Steve and Aunt Dodie and Ryan were at the house for Thanksgiving and that was great to see them. It's always nice to visit with family!

Friday morning, Mom and I took off to Perimeter Mall for some shopping. Neither one of us was looking for anything specific- but it's tradition to go and shop and eat at Cheesecake Factory. This year we took Nina instead of my dad - he decided to work. She was perfect and seemed to enjoy sleeping in the middle of the craziness. We had a lot of fun just walking around drinking our Starbucks. Funny story - Mark and I were supposed to go to the mart while we were home because part of my 30th from him was a "right hand ring". Well, while at the mall, Mom and I were both looking at some rings and we both found something we liked. I called Mark and told him and he told me to get it because we weren't going to make it to the mart this trip. Well, I found 2 that I liked and couldn't decide which one I liked better. So I bought them both. I had hardly walked away from the counter when my cell phone rang and it was Mark....he told me that the fraud department from my credit card was on the other line and wanted to know if I had just charged "x" amount.....BUSTED!!!!!!!!

Saturday we did get to go to the Auburn/Alabama game and we had so much fun! It was our 10 year anniversary - the Iron Bowl game in 97 was our first date. So that brought back a lot of fun memories for us. Auburn is the best little town and we love it so much and actually act like we love each other when we're there. HA! It was sooooo cold, but we had layered well, so were fine. We had great seats and enjoyed the win over Alabama!! This picture is at Toomer's Corner right after the game was over. War Eagle!!!

We got back to Memphis Sunday evening after a long day on the road (and after only 3 hours of sleep the night before). Mark had been busy cleaning while we were gone, but within 5 minutes it was destroyed and I'm still trying to recover. It doesn't help though that when we got back I looked through the mail and realized that Garden Ridge was open until midnight.....so after the kids were in the bed, I hit Garden Ridge at 11pm. I was the ONLY shopper (not in a good area of town either) - the rest of the people were workers trying to clean the store after they had been open since Thanksgiving without closing. You should have seen some of the ugly looks I was getting as I walked around casually with my cart. I did get some good deals though - and that's what it's all about!

Last night we went across town for the town of Collierville's tree lighting. Marion, Kathy, Adam and Madeleine Maund live there and they invited us to join them. It was cold but we got all bundled up and had hot cocoa...it was a very nice evening and all the lights were so pretty. I used to babysit Adam and Madeleine and now they are so big - Madeleine is going to babysit Ethan and Nina sometime soon. I got some good pictures of everyone but Kathy - the women are always behind the camera and the only reason I'm in the pictures this time is because she took them for us. So she was there, just behind the camera. We had a great time with them - It's nice knowing they are just across town!!!

Hopefully my next post will be one with our live tree, decorated. We're hoping to get it this weekend! I'm running in the St. Jude's race this weekend - was supposed to do the half marathon, but am only doing the 5k. So hopefully this weekend I'll have time to get everything completely decorated and I can start painting the guest room. Come to Memphis - I'll put ya to work! Enjoy the last couple of days of November! 2008 is knocking at the door!

Nina enjoying her first taste of McAlister's sweet tea. Of course she liked it - she is MY child!!! Ethan riding on top of Mr. Marion's shoulders looking for SantaNina and Mr. Marion at the tree lighting - Nina loves him - I guess it's payback for Madeleine always snuggling up to my dad when they still lived in GAThis picture is a little blurry - but I still wanted to post it so you can see how big Adam and Madeleine have gotten! They are still so precious! Nina with her newest babysitter