Lake's Birthday Party

Reed woke up yesterday with a fauxhawk.



It was adorable.



I think that his eyes are incredible. I think that I think too much of my son. I admit it.



We headed to McAlister's before we left Memphis.



Lola helped Reed double up his straws.



When we got back to town, we went to Lake's 3rd birthday party. Reed was happy to meet up with Lizzie.



I love Lizzie's tongue sticking out. It's so cute.



Lake's birthday party was at this really cool bounce house place called Monkey Joes.



Reed was a little timid at first. He is sometimes overwhelmed by large crowds of kids or people.



Reed had fun watching Lake open his presents.



Lake, the birthday boy, had fun playing as well. Lake is such a good little boy. He is so well behaved! We keep telling Reed to watch Lake because he is a good example.



Reed was excited when his good buddy "Tate Tate Rollerskate" showed up. For some reason, I've always called him "Tate Tate Rollerskate", so now Reed calls him that as well. It sounds really cute when Reed says, "Where Tate Tate Rodderskate is?"



Reed loved the slides.





Tate's Dad, Mr. Todd, worked the inside of one of the bounce houses until the little ones figured out they could climb up by themselves.



Is that not the cutest thing ever?

Click on this next picture for video.

Super Saturday

This morning, Abbey made Blueberry French Toast Stars. They were yummy.



Reed really liked them, but he called them strawberries.





Everyone enjoyed their breakfasts, especially Reed.



With his mouth open.



Around lunch, Abbey's Uncle Edward, Aunt Darlene, and cousin AJ arrived with her friend Audrey.



Abbey, Lola, and the Burks' went to the Singing Tree while Reed and I napped. Pop was working at the Singing Tree, so he was already there.



I think that AJ likes Reed a lot.



Uncle Edward is Lola's brother.



Abbey made a Rum Cake and we had boiled custard after eating supper at Macaroni Grill. We met a beautiful little girl from Vietnam named Ema. She was absolutely adorable! Her parents are starting to think about their next adoption, so we were telling them about Taiwan.





I think that Reed really liked the attention from the girls.



Aunt Darlene loved the fruit salsa and rum cake, so Abbey wrote out the directions.



Reed likes to stand at the top of the steps and throw balls down to whoever will catch them. AJ and Audrey were good sports.



Pop was in time-out.





I think the girls wore Reed out.



Max usually prefers for Reed to stay further away from him, even though Reed faithfully prays for him every night.

Christmas at Molly and John's

We headed to Memphis yesterday after my office Christmas party to have dinner with Molly, John, and Family.



There was quite an impressive spread of food.



Molly made the money that bought these cookies.



Molly made these yummy chocolates!





Caroline or Little Karen and Ava were all dressed up in their little Christmas outfits.



Brady is pure energy!



Ella was a little overwhelmed by Hugh and Brady's energy.



I don't think that anyone got to hold Ava except Jimmy.



Karen and Little Karen.



Jimmy and Sweet little Ava.



Oh wait, look closely, Molly is holding Ava in the background.



Jason enjoyed the shrimp!



Lola and Reed



Ella and her daddy.



Me and Ella (only long enough to get a picture together!)



Mr. Energy, Brady, trying to get Reed to come and play with him.



At least give him five Reed.



Reed loved the racetrack.



Hugh is a good big cousin.



Mr. Roy with the covington neice's, nephews, and Abbey.



Wait! We forgot to add Molly, that's better.



Reed, Brady, and Me singing Jingle Bells.



Brady and Reed riding Uncle John the horse!



On tap for today: Abbey and Lola go to the "Singing Christmas Tree". Reed and I nap!

Our Little Gymnast

This past Thursday was Christmas themed 'nastics lessons. Here Reed is "Up on the rooftop" walking around the chimney.



Mr. Charles makes the boys and girls behave. I appreciate that. Thankfully, Reed is pretty good for Mr. Charles and so he always gets his turn.



Here is "Roll the Snowball" with the cutest little snowball you've ever seen!



And then, there's always rolling around in "Santa's Top".



Reed's inner ear fluid must have gotten really tossled, because he was DIZZY after this one!

Abbey and Manya Meet the Pioneer Woman

Abbey was thrilled to get to go to the Pioneer Woman cookbook signing. Seated are from L to R Hyacinth (the Pioneer Woman's best friend), Betsy (the PW's sister), and Ree Drummond (the Pioneer Woman in the flesh)!



Of course, Abbey was also thrilled that her best friend Manya has the same affinity for the PW as she does.



Abbey brought her a little gift. I wonder if she actually took it home with her.



The Pioneer Woman with The Suburban Woman. You know, Abbey is pretty good at cooking and making recipes too!

Oh What a Day!

Our kitchen has been transformed into a bakery over the past couple of days, because Abbey (with the help of Manya) has been working to fix our annual Christmas Appreciation Meal for my team at work. The best team in the world, might I add.



Last week, Abbey eagerly ripped into a package from Amazon.com. It was her "The Pioneer Woman Cooks" Cookbook. She was so excited to get it because she LOVES The Pioneer Woman. So much so, that she and Manya headed down to Green Hills Mall tonight to get Ree Drummond (the pioneer woman) to sign their cookbooks.



The girls worked really hard making cinnamon rolls from Ree's cookbook.



They were labor intensive.





Did I mention they were labor intensive?



A bit messy, but that is sort of Abbey's cooking signature.



Reed worked hard being cute, wait, that's not hard is it?



The "rising" rolls.



I think Reed was going for some artistic pose in this picture with carefully placed laundry detergents. I think it was supposed to be some sort of "statement" or something. You know, this generation is all about its causes.



Reed doing yoga while the ladies cooked.



The baked rolls.



The icing is yummy and is infused with espresso.



This morning, Reed was eager to have a cookie.

And now for today's menu:



Christmas Tree biscuits with country ham.



Quiche Lorraine (I'm not sure how to spell Lorraine.)



Sausage Roll-ups and Orange Zest Muffins



Grit Casserole and Blueberry French Toast



Parmesan Crusted Tomatoes

Not Pictured:

Stratford Cookies
Apple Cider
Orange Juice



The Team:

Cheryl - Content Editor - She knows everything, literally! She's like Ask.com. She knows the answer to anything.

Trudy - Content Editor and Carpool Buddy - She's one of my Tennessee mom's. She keeps me in check at work and home.

Andy - Graphic Designer - He designs our magazine and does a great job. He's easy to work with and has a good eye for out of the box design.



Jessica - Graphic Designer - Jess is the designer for the curriculum. She has an incredible eye for design. I've been privileged to work with her since I started work with the publication and she never ceases to amaze me.



Alyssa - Production Editor - Alyssa was our unexpected blessing for the year of 2009. She works on every product and she does and incredible job.

Andrea - Honorable Mention - Andrea was our production editor before Alyssa. She was incredible and I loved working with her, but she was finishing up grad school and she had to start her career as a teacher. Thankfully, she trained Alyssa well!

TUPPERWARE BENEFIT Sale! 4 DAYS ONLY!

A while ago, we met through our blog, a wonderful woman named Nikki. She's from Mississippi and as you know we believe that Mississippi folks are GOOD PEOPLE!

Anyway, Nikki recently contacted us and said that she wanted to do a Tupperware Party for us to benefit our adoption. The only problem: Nikki lives in Florida now. The good news is Nikki has a great Web site from which you can order all of her products. Click HERE for Nikki's Site!


So, for the next four days MONDAY-THURSDAY, if you want to help us get our little girl home and you want to get some Christmas shopping done, head over to Nikki's Web site. Click HERE for Nikki's Site!



She has pledged to give 100% of the profits from this sale to our adoption fund. Click HERE for Nikki's Site!


We appreciate your help! Click HERE for Nikki's Site!

278th -We Salute You!

Before I get into the meat of this post: Fast forward this photo 14 years and we're talking Sc.a.ry! I can't believe that in just 14 short years, these little guys will be driving.



This morning, we battled the bitter Tennessee cold to salute the 278th as they left for 1 year on their deployment to Iraq.



In our adoption papers, we often have to share how we will keep Reed in touch with his birth culture. I feel that it is very important to keep Reed in touch with his culture, but I also think it is very important that we teach him about his American culture and especially about our military forces!



The two buses in the picture are carrying some of America's finest.



Reedy saluted the troops as they drove past. Of course, I'm a weenie so I teared up. I felt bad until I heard Abbey sniffling and then saw Tamara's eyes with tears in them.



Some kids from my Sunday School class were there too.



After church, we went to Pizza Hut.



Tate, Reed, Britton, and Cade had a great time playing on the booths.





While I was not thrilled with Reed playing on the booths, I was not about to let these cute shots get away.



Our church has quite a few little boys who are around the same age.

Several Day Recap

I have mentioned before that we are blessed in our town with an incredible Parks and Recreation Department. We have the best parks! Reed loves one park in particular that has a beautiful pond/lake with ducks and swans.



The other day, after school, Reed wanted to go to the park to see the ducks.



It took it a while, but winter has finally arrived.



Even though winter chill has arrived, the weather has not exactly arrived. It seems like our friends in Mississippi and Texas are experiencing a lot of snow. That's kind of wild, because we are pretty far north of those places. We've been Tennesseans for 5 years now, we still haven't had a good snow!



Here's a picture of Reed terrorizing the ducks.



The other day, while Reed and Ab were at the park, people were putting up the beautiful, huge nativity scene. It is so pretty at night reflecting off the water.



Reed still loves his 'nastics class.



Mr. Charles helps them learn how to stretch and tumble.



Reed takes his class very seriously.



Here's an action shot of Reed on the bar.



Thursday night, we got an unexpected visit from Pop. He was traveling through town from a project he is working on in Knoxville. It was extra fun because we got to eat at our favorite Bar-b-que place, "Famous Daves."



Last night, we went to the Nashville Christmas parade with Uncle Bill.



We got to sit by the Meadors' family. Miss Shannon was our children's minister at church and now she is the children's minister at First Nashville. It was great see them.



Jacob and Ava Lauren are growing like little weeds.



One of the benefits of living in Music City is lots of access to famous people.



John Rich was the Grand Marshall of the parade. I sort of feel like the Elf was exploited, but I think it was also a neat touch.



Uncle Bill said, "The majorettes didn't dance like that when I was in the band."


Click on the picture above to see Reed's Christmas wish!

Busy Day

"His Cuteness" was in a very happy mood. Mama was out of town for a couple of days and so he was really glad to have her home.



His potty training is going pretty well (I type this right after changing him because he #1'd in his pull-up), but of course there are accidents.



#2 is still elusive, but everyone says that comes last.



Tonight at church, Reed studied about stars and their creation.



Before we left, we asked Reed about what he has learned and he said, "Stars." We asked him who made the stars and he very matter-of-factly said "Lizzie's Mama".



Lizzie's mama is his teacher, so I guess something got lost in translation. Abbey went back up to tell Missy (Lizzie's Mama) and she said that apparently there were lots of kids with different translations of what she taught them because every time she asked Kolby who made the stars he threw his hands in the air and said "Jehovah!"



So, it looks like were going to have to work with Reed to realize that Lizzie's Mama teaches his class, but God made the stars.



And, in case you are wondering, I think we're going to have to buy stock in "Spray n Wash". He got this shirt filthy and I don't even think he was outside for too long! There were dirt stains even inside the sleeves!

Thanksgiving Revisited!

We had Thanksgiving again on Thursday, when most other Americans were celebrating Thanksgiving. We had Manya and Alyssa from work.



Abbey once again created an amazing spread.



The next day Abbey and Manya went shopping early, so Reed and I fixed cinnamon rolls for breakfast.



Reed loves the icing.



It was yummy.



Later Reed and I went riding on the boom boom.

It's really called a plasma car, and Reed likes it a lot.



He loves to be outside.



I was so proud of him when he figured out how to make it move the way it was designed.

You move the steering wheel back and forth and it makes it move.





After the boom boom, we decided to hang out in our backyard.