Ellie's Turn

Just a few pics of the "other" child. We don't yet go on true dates, but we do play around a bit. Enjoy!

Just a bit of light reading at Papa's house

Not to bad a place to be on a cold winters day

Our typical dates right now.  We will pick up the pace soon, but this is pretty darn good

With her new found friend, "Lamaze, " previously CJ's from uncle mitch  (CJ doesn't know Lamaze has moved on down the line)

A Walk in the Woods

So this is Daddy.  Just wanted share about a little trip Caroline and I took this winter.  We decided that Saturday morning is a great time for "dates."  We often go to "daddy's store" (Home Depot) where Caroline often recieves a balloon and can drive the "cars" (carts) around and run into things.  Playgrounds, schools and neighborhood walks also qualify for dates, but on this particular Saturday we decided to exploring at Radnor Lake.  She is currently into animals and so the goal of this date was to find animals, yell at them and let her try to take pictures of them.  Here are a few pics of our "date" together.  Enjoy!

Out of bounds!  Anyone who knows me knows fences don't mean much.  Don't worry, a ranger reminded us to stay on the trail and that there is a $185.50 fine for what we were doing.  Yes, $185.50 ticket for this barbaric rampage through the woods.

Sticks are cool. 

Similar ride to the ferris wheel at the fair

Not bad for a 2 1/4 year old.  Pretty good shot if you ask me

Pure Joy

Dancing with Daddy

I don't have much time to write at the moment, but you really don't need to hear much from me with this video.  It was obviously taken before Dan's surgery, so it's a few weeks old -- but I don't think you'll mind too much.

Post Operative Patient

Okay, so I uploaded these pictures last week with the intention of getting this post up right away...and now a week later, I still haven't written in it.  Oops!  Things have been a little busy around our house.

For those of you who didn't know, Dan had surgery on his shoulder almost 2 weeks ago now.  He has had issues with his right shoulder since college -- probably an old throwing injury from his quarterback glory days -- and since Miss Ellie helped us meet our health insurance deductible, he decided to go ahead and have an MRI to see what was going on.  What they found was a bit of a mess, a torn labrum (the same injury Drew Breeze suffered before his time with the Saints), and surgery would definitely be in order.  Long story short, the surgery went very well, and we are thankful to be on this end of things and not have it looming over us any longer.  The first few days post surgery would pretty rough as a result of a bad reaction to either the anesthesia or pain meds (or both), but now we're both adjusting to his one-arm-edness :-)  It's amazing the simple things that become monumental tasks without the use of your [dominant] arm!

But any of you that know Dan know that he's one of the most capable & determined people you will ever meet, two traits that are serving both of us well right now.  He even managed to get socks & tennis shoes on and tied by himself this morning...just think about doing that with only your left arm for a second!

We've also been incredibly blessed to have his wonderful parents living so close.  Both stayed with us in the days following the surgery, and his mom has continued to come and go since then.  I honestly don't know that we would have survived all intacted without their help.  And the girls have both loved having lots of Memaw & Pepaw time!!  I don't know how to begin to thank them.

And these two are truckin right along like nothing ever happened.  And because of that, let me again say...THANK YOU MEMAW & PEPAW!  (We also we're blessed with the company of my dear old Mom this past weekend, giving me yet another break.  I'll write more about that in my next post.)

On Tuesday last week, after quite possibly the longest 4 days of Dan's life, he was itching to get out of the house.  We had not yet been down the Natchez Trace this year, one of our favorite drives in TN, so he decided he'd like to just sit back and watch the world go by from the window of the van.  And of course, do a wee bit of hiking (because Dan can't possibly sit still for that long!).  So we loaded up the van & Memaw and headed down the Trace.  I'm quickly running out of blogging time at the moment, so I'll just let these pictures speak for themselves:

We had a wonderful time, and I really felt like this was a turning point for Dan in his recovery.  God is gracious in the midst of challenging times!

The Doctor is OUT...

like a light.  As in, in bed.  And the cute little duck is too, for that matter.  But I thought you'd all like to see a few pictures:

Dr. Caroline

She was way into this Dr. business

Ellie...not so much into the duck costume

She has had her eye on this pumpkin for weeks now.  A close up was a bit more than she could stand...she literall screamed in excitement when we took this picture!

We did some trick-or-treating for about a block, but handing out candy on our front porch was way more fun.

Caroline took her job very seriously...one piece of candy per kid, and she had to be the one to put it in their bucket.  Oh, and she decided it was a good idea to hand out all the candy she didn't like and keep the M&M's for herself.

Ellie decided the duck wasn't so bad afterall.  But she still didn't feel much like smiling about it.

Happy Halloween!  Hope you all had fun and don't make yourself sick on candy tonight :-)

I try

I try to take pictures that might be worthy of a frame some day.  Heck, even worthy of printing.  I have thought so many times, "How hard can it really be to get a good picture?  As long as I have a cute subject (which I do), surely I can capture the beautiful picture I see in my mind's eye!"  But alas...I can not.  Oh every once in a great while I get lucky and the camera magically falls to the right angle to capture the right lighting and the perfect smile, but it's rare.

All that to say, I have to rely on the artistic eye of others (namely my sister) and their wonderful lenses to capture my family when I want a picture worth framing.  After several repeated attempts on my part to get some cute pictures of the girls together in their matching dresses (which I'm afraid Ellie has officially outgrown now), I off-handedly asked a friend of mine with one of those magical "eyes" and the use of a great camera if she'd take a few for me.  She went above and beyond and even brought her husband for help (because he's got one of those really great eyes, too) for a real-deal photo-shoot of our family this morning!  It was an interesting experience as Caroline was up around 5 am and Ellie was not in the best of moods (of course), but I think Amy still managed to get some great shots.  I'm so excited to see them!  While I wait for those, I thought I'd share a few of my best efforts here.  For a good laugh (mostly for my sister who will find many of these quite humorous), and because my girls are cute no matter how poor the photographer's skills.