Merry Christmas from the Lindley's

Since I am obviously waaaay behind on my posts and just now making it to Thanksgiving, I am giving up hope to get through sharing all the fun that we have had in December before Christmas! I will hopefully give a proper update in the coming weeks, but for now...

MERRY CHRISTMAS from the LINDLEY'S!!!

These two girls are beside themselves with excitement this holiday season and their parents are just as excited to see them so happy - truely the spirit of the Christmas Season!

Thanksgiving 2010

We had a GREAT Thanksgiving holidays!!!

We spent the weekend before Thanksgiving at Pap & Suzy's camphouse with the entire family - it was so nice to all be under one roof! There are 4 beds (which were completely full both nights) in the loft and it was sooo much fun listening to the girls say their prayers and call out "I love you - goodnight!" All of us girls enjoyed cooking together Saturday and the kids loved being able to ride the 4-wheelers and shoot the BB guns. On Sunday, we had a "photo shoot" and I sooo wish we could have taken a picture of our set up of the camera and tripod (it was on top of the roof of Jason's truck!!!). But...if I must say so myself, we got some pretty great shots!

On Thanksgiving Day, we hosted at our house and I made dressing for the very first time and it was actually pretty good! Da'be, CC, Grannie, Nana, and Jill all joined us. After lunch, we enjoyed a nice afternoon sitting on deck and playing outside. It was a very relaxing holiday and truely a time to reflect.

Maggie's First Haircut (or Trim)!

As anybody can tell, Maggie has very little hair! I laugh and say that I just thought Addison didn't have any hair because Maggie really doesn't! Maggie's hair stands straight up off the top of her head which has garnered her another nickname - "baby chickenhead" because if she wore the glasses she would look just like Chicken Little! Any way...while we were in Macon, Da'be gave her her first little trim in hopes of getting that baby hair off the bottom and maybe some new hair will start to come in. For anybody that was following my blog when Addison was a baby...it might have taken her 2.5 years to start growing hair, but as you can tell, once it started to come in - it grew in a hurry (which is why I have a hard time cutting it now - it took soooo long get it!). We are hoping the same for Maggie so people will quit calling her a little boy!

MSU vs. Alabama Game

Carrie invited us to come to Tuscaloosa for the MSU vs. Alabama game a while back and we looked forward to it for a very long time! We had a great time hanging out with she and Wilson (even though the game wasn't very good for State!). The seats were awesome and the stadium was huge - thanks you two! We thoroughly enjoyed our kid-free weekend and they enjoyed their weekend with Da'be!

We got to visit a little with the Norris'

and our good friends, David and Hope

We had a little family photo session while we were all dressed up!

Sweet Sugars!

This is what happens when Maggie gets to be around the people who will let her eat anything (which is pretty much anybody other than me and Lee!)

Pap & Suzy's 25th Anniversary

On November 2nd, Pap and Suzy celebrated 25 years of wedded bliss! Lauren Colby worked hard to plan a special celebration. We met out at the new camphouse (which looks amazing!) with the family and a couple of their friends to toast to this amazing accomplishment!

On Sunday afternoon, we all enjoyed being outside...riding the 4-wheeler, tractor, target and skeet shooting, and all the other fun stuff you get to do out in the "country"

I love the picture below...the girls were playing in the loft and of course, their favorite activity was jumping! Maggie had worn herself out!!!

Trick-or-Treat!

Happy Halloween!!!

The girls had a blast this year running around trick-or-treating and collecting candy and we certainly enjoyed being able to stay a safe distance behind and watching them "do-it-themselves" and of course, encouraging some thank you's!

Since Toy Story is all the rage this year, Addison knew exactly what she wanted to be for Halloween and we even talked (which wasn't hard!) Da'be into making her outfit. Didn't she do a fabulous job?! Maggie got her outfit somewhat by default, but I LOVED it! While we were in Tuscaloosa visiting CC one weekend a few months ago we did a little consignment shop browsing and we ran across this costume for only $8! I didn't get it at first then couldn't resist so we went back and bought it and I am soooo glad. She was absolutely adorable and loved wearing the outfit (she always was making sure that her hood/ears were up!). We got some many compliments on how classic her costume was!

Trunk or Treat at Ridgeland Freedom Ridge Park - the girls had a grand time and got buckets of candy! Da'be sent the girls a Halloween package and below they are enjoying their marshmellow suckers! The dentist will probably be racking in the money!!!

Jessie the Cowgirl!

Dumbo!

We went over to Eric & Jaclyn Durham's house for a little trick-or-treating on Saturday night and afterwards watched some football and enjoyed visiting with friends. Toy Story was well represented - hate we couldn't get all the kids together for a group picture!

Parker and Addison held hands almost the entire night while going door to door!

The girls with their candy stash and their choice of "one" piece - Addison is my chocolate girl and Maggie will always choose a sucker over anything else!!!

Fun at the Fair!

We didn't make it to the State Fair downtown this year because we usually go on Sunday afternoon and this year instead we had Maggie's birthday party! We weren't really sure that we wanted to try to go anyway because we were a little afraid that Maggie wouldn't be able to ride everything and she would really NOT be ok with being left out after she LOVED to ride at Disney World this summer. I had heard a little bit about the Yazoo Co. Fair and it ran the week after the State Fair so the Friday night after Lee got back from his hunting trip we took the girls on a surprise trip to the fair and they were so excited! It was great - you paid $9 to get in and it covered all the rides you dared to ride (as many times as you wanted and we didn't have to deal with tickets!), there were no lines, and it was a lot more patroled. The girls smiled the whole time they were there and there was only one thing that Maggie got turned away from. We had a funnel cake to top off the night and we will definitely be returning!

Addison's 1st Field Trip...

(click to enlarge and I think if you double click it will zoom in!)

AND we went to the Pumpkin Patch!!! I took the morning off and joined her (you know because she won't always want me to tag along!). We had a great time and it is always fun to see her interact with kids that she plays with on a daily basis (those girls are definitely little prima donnas - they were too funny!) and it is so amazing how much they pick up on that we are sometimes oblivious to! We went to the Nichols-Boyd Pumpkin Patch on Hwy 43 in Brandon. There we all enjoyed a hay ride, ran around the hay maze, dug in the "corn"box, swung on potato swings, petted a few farm animals (Addison was rubbing all over the cow!), drank some pumpkin juice, and of course, picked out our pumpkins!!! It was a beautiful day outside and I had a great time with Addison, her friends, and all their moms, dads, and grandparents.

Thankful...

Now that Lee is back and I am no longer home alone...I feel comfortable posting that I spent 5 nights (well really only 3 since Mom came for the weekend!) at home by myself with the girls!!! And if you know me at all, you know that this is a huge accomplishment - I am a big scaredy cat and hear every creak and crack! But...I prayed a lot about this fear and the need to conquer it and God really sent a peacefulness over me and I wasn't really worried at all. Lee, Les, and Justin went to New Mexico last week on a guy's hunting trip. It definitely sounds like they had a blast (even though they didn't kill anything) and I know that it was special for them to be able to spend some father/son/brother time together without all us women around!

They drove out to their good friend Jerry's house in New Mexico and then they all set up tents, camped out in the mountains, and hiked out each day to hunt.

Lee said this is where they set up camp - beautiful fall setting. I wish he would have taken a pic of the actual camp!

Life was definitely a "little" busier for me as a "single" parent during that almost week, but we did pretty well and had some really good girl-time as well! My birthday was the second day of Lee's abscence and our family and my co-workers made sure that I got plenty of attention! I got lots of texts and phone calls and had breakfast and goodies all day at work. Mom came in for the weekend and we did lots of fun stuff! Saturday, the weather was beautiful so we headed up to Lake Caroline's clubhouse for the annual craft show and I got started on a little Christmas shopping. Next, we drove into Ridgeland for the Annual Fall Festival that is always a lot of fun (Kellis Moore is in charge so I usually get to see lots of CA alumni and their kiddos and that is always fun!). It is a free event for the community - chili cookoff, hay rides, bounce houses, petting zoo, pony rides, characiture paintings, face paintings, rock climbing walls, and cookie decorating!

After an eventful morning, we went back home for some afternoon rest and relaxtion on the back porch since the weather was absolutely gorgeous. Once we were rejuvenated, we took off to the Renaissance to do some shopping and eat out for my birthday.

Now on to Sunday...in case you haven't guess, we love living where there are sooo many fun things to do close by and sometimes even "free". We bought an annual family pass to the zoo earlier this year for 2 adults and children for $40, and since it was so pretty outside...mom and I decided to get some more use out of it! We didn't tell the girls where we were going. We had a picnic by the railroad tracks at the zoo and headed in to play and spend time with the animals. They had a great time!!! Maggie really enjoyed it this time - she seemed a LOT more into all the animals now that she is two.

As you can tell, Maggie was completely worn out! So...I am so thankful to have my husband back home and very thankful to my mom for coming to spend the weekend with us so that we weren't lonely (and I didn't go crazy!!!)