good times

I'm very sad that my maternity leave is quickly coming to an end, but I've had some great times. I had planned my entire leave to eat lunch with Avery one day at her school. Awhile back I had selected yesterday (Friday) to be the day since it was my mom's day off and she could keep Whitten while I went. Earlier this week we were informed that her class had won a pizza party that they would get on Friday! YAY! I got to go on PIZZA PARTY DAY! It didn't really matter, I was very much looking forward to my lunch with Avery, even if it had been cafeteria food. So, Thursday night Whitten & I spent the night with my parents to avoid a chaotic Friday morning trying to get out the door headed for my lunch date and also to let M get a good night of study & sleep before a big test he had on Friday. I had a great day with Avery and enjoyed seeing her classroom. I even got to go to recess with them for a little while.

Friday night Mom, Dad, Krystal, & Chris wanted to go out to eat so we offered to keep Avery & Brodie at our house. They are too funny! We had lots of good laughs and have so much to look forward to when Whitten is their age. I even got a little work out of them by putting old socks on their hands and "allowing" them to dust! After their baths, they got into their matching monkey pajamas and we got out the book Pajama Time. Avery sounded out words and absolutely impressed us with her reading! M & I just kept looking at each other in amazement. We had no idea she could read that much. We're very proud of her.

Today (Saturday) we finally got around to using a gift card Jackson had given us a long time ago to the Majestic Grill, a restaurant downtown. (Thanks Jackson, we enjoyed it.) After lunch we went to a movie. Rod & Karen kept Whitten while we were out. I was away from her for 6 1/2 hours, the longest ever. M said this may help me from having such a melt down when I go back to work. We are very grateful that Karen will be keeping Whitten when I return to work. I cannot imagine leaving her with strangers at a daycare.

Pacifiers!

One of my monthly goals is to take a picture of Whitten beside this lamb we got for her this summer in Ireland. I'm sure we're going to be amazed at how quickly she grows. She is one month old now, so we'll see how long this lamb is bigger than her!
Friday night we were very brave and took Whitten with us to Memphis Madness (University of Memphis basketball kick-off event). It takes place downtown and entails a walk down Beale Street to get to the arena. Whitten wore her Memphis Tiger outfit that is size 3-6 month, so it swallowed her, but we wanted her to be spirited. I added the furry headband so people knew she was a girl! Here's a pic of Mim holding her and protecting her from the loud noise inside the FedEx Forum.

Brodie LOVES to hold Whitten. He doesn't even want you to take her out of his lap to change her diaper. I think he finds her very intriguing.

I don't know how or why, but 4 of Whitten's 5 pacifiers are currently on the bar! This seems to be their favorite landing spot.

A baby sure can keep you busy!

Today was Martin's 2nd & last day of Fall Break, so we had business to do. One thing was going to see our financial advisor to add money to Whitten's college fund. She was so excited she slept!

Whitten's 1st bath!

Last night Whitten got her first semi-real bath since her umbilical cord fell off.

other goings on...

Whoo-hoo! Today, Whitten's umbilical cord stub fell off.

Here's a picture of Whitten & her proud Aunt, "KK", and one of me reading her a bedtime story Saturday night, she was awake for part of the story.

I've said since the first couple of days that Whitten looks like her daddy based on the baby pictures I had seen of him. I could tell that he really wasn't convinced, so today I pulled out his hospital picture. See for yourself...(if only I could catch her eyes open like his were in the picture)

Jackson is 24 (what?!)

(Once again, my pictures have gotten into a jumbled up order--sorry.)

Yesterday we took Whitten to church for the first time. We only went to Sunday School and left from there to head to Burlison to celebrate Jackson's 24th birthday which was actually Friday. You can see in the first picture that Whitten was awake when we put her in the car, but she fell asleep on the way to church which is about 10 mins. away. She slept the entire time and didn't wake up until we got to Mom & Dad's house which is an hour away (& that was after an hour of Sunday School). At "Mim & Pop's" Marty, Avery, Brodie, & Pop fed the fish which is one of the kids' favorite things to do. Afterwards, Brodie & I took a nap outside in the shade.....boy, was that a good nap!

The professional pictures are now online if you want to check them out. Go to http://www.epcphotography.com/ & click on "proofing site". Choose "Heritage Day selected photos for packages", page 4, 2nd row, 2nd from right to see the picture of Whitten that we'll be getting. (You'll notice that Avery & Brodie's picture from last year's Heritage Day is the thumbnail for this year's Heritage Day albums in the proofing site.) Also on page 4, the 4th & 5th rows are pictures of Whitten with Avery & Brodie & then the picture of Avery and Brodie. If you go back to the proofing site, you can view "other Heritage Day photos" and see Whitten on page 12. The quilt she is pictured with was made by Martin's grandmother for her.

from Saturday 9/27/08

Saturday, Whitten was 10 days old. It was Heritage Day in Covington, so we took her to have her 1st professional picture taken there. She had one taken by herself & one with Avery and Brodie. We've not seen them yet, but I'm hoping they turned out good. Daddy took the picture of all three of them while they were posing for their group shot. The picture of me with Avery & Brodie was while we were waiting our turn. Then the picture of Brodie "working" on the gator at Mim & Pop's house was later that day. I thought it was too funny. He looks like he really knows what he's doing.