Thanksgiving Thursday

Thanksgiving is a great time to reflect on our blessings and all we're thankful for. This should be something I practice all the time but on special days and time spent with family, one often becomes more introspective. At least, I do. :)

I am thankful for so many things- from our basic luxuries like plumbing and electricity to having a warm bed at night and room for our whole family to spread out in our home. If I had to pick some of the top things I'm thankful for this year it would be the success Maggie has seen at Health in Motion. Our two trips this year have made a big impact on her core strength and therefore her independence. To go along with that, I'm thankful for our successful fundraising efforts that made those trips possible. 

I'm also very thankful for our little Allie- a fourth blessing who we were not at all prepared for and didn't know how we would handle has balanced the scales in our home. We love you our sweet, sweet baby girl. I'm so thankful for my little family--well, a big family by today's standards for sure-- but we're outnumbered by littles.

I hope you found time to reflect on all you're thankful for today! Happy Thanksgiving 2014. 

Baby Allie- 3 months!

Allie turned 3 months old on Friday, so she's already officially out of the newborn stage. My last newborn, kind of bittersweet. I know there's all that sleep deprivation during these first months, but my goodness, there's just nothing sweeter than a newborn. So tiny, such sweet noises, so fresh from God. Just precious. I've held Allie as much as I can, especially those first 6 weeks and I'm so glad I soaked that in because she's moving out of that stage now.

A few things about our sweet Allie:

• you're talking so much with your sweet little coos and goos, smiling and even laughing some
• I cannot believe you haven't rolled over yet, you were showing signs so early. You're really close though, so it won't be long
• you moved up to 0-3 months clothes now but still get caught up sometimes when you pull up those little legs
• I just put you in size 1 diapers the other day because I ran out of newborn and have several boxes of 1's. They're a little big but not so much that they're leaking
• for many reasons I only recently moved you from the bassinet in my room to the crib in yours and you're waking up more, you still wait 6-7 hours to eat, but sometimes wake up after 4
• you still eat every 3- 3 1/2 hours during the day and have made it 7-8 at night without eating
• head control is pretty good, you're lifting it during belly time- which you don't like by the way
• we still get lots of compliments on how pretty and tiny you are :) 

I love you my sweet baby girl! 

Thankful Thursday: A St. Louis Trivia Night

When we first started down this fundraising path last year, I considered having one in St. Louis. While I consider myself a Tennessean because I've lived here longer than anywhere else, I lived in St. Louis until I was 12, so I still have a connection with it. Plus, the majority of my very large family lives there. I knew it would be more likely to get everyone to a fundraiser where they live rather than everyone coming here. However, the logistics of planning an out-of-state fundraiser seemed difficult to say the least.
I changed my mind this summer and several of my cousins, aunts and uncles pitched in with the planning. November 8th was the big night and it went great!! Trivia nights are pretty big in St. Louis, so it was a great venue. Lots of family and friends came out to support us, thank you!

The raffle baskets my aunt Rose and I packaged the night before:

Like I said, the night went great, we raised $4,007 for Maggie in Motion! You can read more about the breakdowns here if you like: http://maggieinmotion.lotekness.net

Halloween 2014

First, I went to Will's class harvest party where they painted pumpkins, had treats and some free time at the end of the day. I love getting to do stuff like this with him since I rarely get these alone moments with my biggest boy anymore. I rarely leave the baby but I was gone less than two hours, so I knew she'd be fine with Daniel.

We were invited to my brother and sister-in-law's house for Halloween this year. They wanted to check out a neighborhood nearby that was supposed to be really cool. Since candy day fell on a Friday this year, we were able to make it down. There were so many of us trick-or-treating that we ended up splitting into two or three different groups. We did manage to get a picture of everyone before leaving...we just took Allie to the first few houses so she could be a part of her "first" Halloween then my parents took her back to the house since it was so cold.

This was the only decent outdoor pic I got, my night mode didn't work very well. We had a cold, but fun night!