Growing Up in Paradise

My mom forwarded this precious picture of my niece and nephew to me.  I like to think of it as Growing Up in Paradise...

More of the Wedding Weekend

We were so lucky to be able to visit with mom and some of our family while in the Mobile area for the wedding.  Thanks to Jeff and Jennifer for taking such great care of Nora.  She had a great time spending a couple of nights with her aunt, uncle and cousins!  We had a great time visiting with Mom, Aunt Julia and Uncle David.

Christmas 2009

We had a great time celebrating Christmas on the Alabama Gulf Coast with my family for the first time since we were married! We have officially switched to the every other year holiday visit, which is good, but sad too since we missed seeing all of the Newman clan... Thank goodness we had seen them at Thanksgiving!

Mark, Nora and I drove to Gulf Shores for a 10 day visit. It was a great visit! We rested a bit, celebrated a lot and visited a ton! We were all over Mobile, Baldwin county and the Florida panhandle.

Merry Christmas from Nora!

Here's the quick rundown:
23rd - (Christmas Adam - as Mark refers to this day of the year) Drove to Gulf Shores. Nora did great (at least for the first 9 - 10 hours)! Thank goodness for DVD players. Arrived at Grandma's house. Yippee!

24th - Christmas Eve service at Morgan's Chapel, this little church in a shrimping village where our old pastor is the minister. It was this little one room church that was so sweet. Good to see some good friends there and most importantly, celebrate the birth of Christ. It made me miss Dad. Later that night we had dinner with Jeff, Jennifer, Maxwell and Annah. The kids were precious and a bit wound up. Imagine that!

Annah cleaning up after dinner on Christmas Eve

Opening presents on Christmas Eve

Maxwell opening presents

25th -Opened presents with Miss New and Grandma. Nora really got into opening presents. It was very cute! We spent the rest of the day relaxing. I think Nora must have taken two naps. How nice was that?!?

26th - We spent the afternoon at Jeff and Jennifer's house. The kids played and had a great time together.

Opening presents on Christmas morning

27th - A crazy, busy day. We all drove to a little town in the Florida panhandle to surprise my friend from college, who is now the minister of his first church. It was so great to see Terry and to hear him preach! What a blessing to our entire family. We were able to spend the day with Terry; my college minister, Mike; his wife, Stacy; their son, Ben; and the Kendall family. After a late nap for Nora, we then headed to Mobile for cocktails and dinner with our friends, the Grays. It was so great to see Paul, Terri, Erin and Jess. Jess and Erin are getting married in April, so it was fun to hear all about the wedding details. We can't wait for April! We all headed to our favorite burger place, Butch's, where we had a great dinner and Nora got to meet Butch! It was a great night with wonderful friends!

Having fun with the Grays! Nora wasn't sure about Paul trying on her new bib!

Grandma and Nora

28th - We took Nora over to the beach to visit her cousins and go for a quick swim in the indoor pool at their condo. It was fun, but still a little bit too cool for us. Guess we'll wait to hit the waves this summer!

29th - A girls shopping day in Fairhope with Mom, Lisa, Ginger and Nina. Too much fun!

30th - Mark, Nora and I headed back to Mobile to visit our friends, the Davidsons. We hadn't seen them in years and were so glad to meet all 3 of their precious children. Nora had a great time playing with Pape and Cam. Baby Claire looks just like a little doll.

31st - We couldn't believe that it was almost 2010! We spent a relaxing day at home, then headed to Kelly and Kendall's house for dinner and fireworks to bring in the new year. It was great spending time with the Kendall and McCurley families!

The kids on New Year's Eve - Noah, Nora, Bentley and Tristan

Kendall and Mark out by the campfire

Jan. 1st - We started off the new year in the best way possible - relaxing! We also had a fun lunch and watched some football games with Aunt Julia, Uncle David, Jeff, Jennifer, Maxwell and Annah.

Annah and Nora with their new baby dolls from Aunt Julia and Uncle David

Wrestling with Maxwell!

Jan. 2nd - After packing up the car, we headed back to Dallas. It was sad to go and leave Mom, but we know that we'll see her soon! It was a long trip back, but we made good time and Miss Nora Newman did great!

Family Reunion Weekend

Mark, Nora and I flew to Birmingham at the end of September for a long weekend with the families. Mom's family actually had a reunion, so it was the perfect excuse to get away for 5 days! Mom picked us up and the airport, then we headed north to Ft. Payne. Our first stop was to see Mamaw at the nursing home. It was good to see her, but it's still so sad. She was in really good spirits, so that was good. Children were not allowed to go into the home due to the flu outbreak, so one of the nurses wheeled her out onto the back patio. We met Jeff, Jennifer, Maxwell and Annah there, so all of the Powell great-grand kids got to see Mamaw, so that made her happy.

After picking up some groceries, we headed up the mountain to Aunt Lynne and Uncle John's cabin. What fun! We just love it up there and are so appreciative of them always sharing it with us! The cousins had a fun time playing and the adults had a great time catching up! My Uncle David came up for dinner and later Aunt Lynne and Uncle John came up for a visit.

The next day proved to be wet and rainy. So much for taking a hike! Mom and I headed back to Ft. Payne to see Mamaw and to organize a bit in her house. It's so sad to see the house so empty and in disrepair. I am going to attempt to always remember it the way it appeared to me in my childhood. I have wonderful memories of great times with Mamaw, Papa and the entire family there.

While we were gone, Jeff and Maxwell took Mark and Nora on a tour of the mountain. Mark had never seen our old family farm and the falls, so he had a great time. Maxwell liked sitting next to Nora, talking to her and attempting to hold her hand. So sweet! My cousin, Ben, and his girlfriend showed up after lunch and we all had a lazy afternoon at the cabin. Early that night, we headed back to town to my cousin Diane's house for the festivities. We had a nice time, but found out that we had missed seeing lots of family that had been there earlier in the day. The joys of nap time! Oh well, we still had a good time. Nora and Annah wore their matching Halloween dresses that Grandma made and everyone thought that they looked precious. That is a good thing, considering that Nora was a wild woman! She had not been feeling well the entire trip and suddenly perked up and ran all over the place. Mark and I had to tag team her! Nora thought it was hysterical, of course!

After cleaning up on Sunday and a family lunch, we met Buddy and Matt on the way to Chattanooga. It was so sad to leave Mom after such a quick weekend, but we wanted to make sure and see the Newman clan too! So, we transferred everything over to Buddy's car and headed to see Grammy, Stephanie and the boys!

Bath time! Nora and Annah

Change that to All Cousin Bath Time!

Nora, Maxwell and Annah

Annah and Jennifer

The family portrait

We arrived just in time for Nora to play with her sweet cousins. She jumped right into the fun and had a great time with them! They had a great time just playing together, playing the piano, eating dinner and giving love and hugs. Matt, Steph and the boys had to head back home on Sunday night, but we feel so blessed that they made a special trip to see us. It meant so much to us that they would drive up and see our family. On a funny note, they Newman boy family got to see Miss Nora New in all of her glory. She threw an absolute fit (probably the worst one ever - thus far!) because we were going to feed her dessert (i.e. a potential mess) instead of letting her sit at the big table with her cousins. She would have none of that and we finally relented and gave in. Sorry for the mess, Grammy!

We had a good time visiting with Grammy, Buddy, Uncle Dave and Aunt Sissy. We took Nora to the Blue and Yellow Park, one of her big sister's favorite parks back in the day! We also had fun walking around the mall and playing in the indoor play yard and stopping at the TN Vol Store to get Nora a Vol sippy cup and Daddy a t-shirt . (I was OK with that since Auburn beat TN the next weekend! Sorry Mark! War Eagle!) After a nap back home, we went out to eat and gave Nora a chance to work on charming everyone that she saw. We thought that these two ladies were going to take her home!

Thanks for a fun weekend Grammy and Buddy and for taking us back to Birmingham to catch our flight. We had a great time!

Nora tackling Jesse

Getting in on all the fun with Jesse and Seth!

Nora eating with her big boy cousins - Jesse, Seth and Luke

Playing the piano with Seth

The Boy Newmans with Grammy and Buddy!

The babies with Grammy - Nora and Aaron

How sweet is this? Nora giving Aaron a hug!

Swinging at the Blue and Yellow Park

Sliding with Buddy and Daddy

Hanging out with Buddy and Grammy

The Newman family!

Summer Vacation - A Very Long Post!

I am finally getting some time to do a long (more than anyone really wants to know, but they might humor me anyway) re-cap of our great summer vacation. Mark, Nora and I headed out early Friday morning (June 26th) to make our way to Orange Beach! Yippee!! We needed this much-overdue vacation so much that we decided it was worth it to drive with our very busy 14-month old. It might have taken us 12 hours to get there, but we finally made it with no incidents whatsoever!

Highlights of the drive included:
Miss Nora watching videos for the first time. She had quite the little set up with her own DVD player in the back seat. Thanks to Patrick for letting us borrow his Wiggles DVD. I think she liked it!
Nora eating McDonald's for the first time. I guess that this is a right of passage for kiddos. We were actually hoping for a Chick, but the town only had a drive through - what kind of craziness is that? Anyway, it was super cute to watch her eat her french fries (since that is all that she wanted and had to have one in each hand at all times!). Thank goodness I had some yogurt and other healthy things for her as well...
Mommy falling asleep with her head on Nora's car seat after watching The Wiggles one too many times! (BTW - this was before our Sonic stop.)

We made it to Orange Beach and were greeted by Grandma! Nora went right to her, which melted all of our hearts. It was so great to see Mom. She stayed with us at the Beach House on and off during the week. She definitely spoiled all of the Newman clan.

On Saturday morning, we all headed down to the water. Jeff and Jennifer lent us their jogging stroller, so that we perfect for heading down the road and through the sand on our way to the bay. Nora did great and really loved it! Mommy and Daddy loved handing her off to Grandma for her afternoon nap so that we could just lay on the dock for hours. Hello sunburns! It was worth the pain.

On Sunday morning, we all headed to church. It was a great service, highlighted by the fact that our niece and nephew, Annah and Maxwell, were baptised. It was fun and amusing to watch. Check out the pictures for more details! Annah was a doll baby and Mr. Maxwell was in rare form. Oh - the joys of having kiddos and never knowing exactly what they are going to do! Jennifer transferred her membership to the church, so that was great as well. Guess we're in the business of converting Baptists to Methodists in our family! I had to put that in there just for Mark!
:) After the service, we headed to Jeff and Jennifer's house for a fun brunch and an afternoon of the cousins playing together. Naps were nowhere to be found. Thanks to Jeff and Jennifer for a fun afternoon in the pool. We all loved it!

Mom took Nora to her house on Monday for some special one-on-one time with Grandma. That left an entire day for our date day. Fun, fun! We went and saw a movie, The Proposal - definitely a chick flick, but super cute. Then we headed to our favorite place for lunch, Sea 'n Suds, for shrimp sandwiches and some adult beverages. What a treat in the middle of the day. We then headed up to the outlet mall for some shopping, but the rain scared us away. Back to OB we went for a restful afternoon and evening to chill out. I missed Nora so much that I cried, but Mark promised that everything would be OK. Mom told me later that before she put Nora to bed, Nora saw a picture of us on an end table, pointed at it and cried a little bit. Of course, that made me cry again...

Nora had a great night and slept the entire time. Yippee for Grandma's house! She spent the morning playing with her cousins, which we had a late morning and a nice walk on the beach. We picked up the baby girl and headed to Sea 'n Suds again. Crazy, but true! They have the best shrimp sandwiches, I must say again. Nora ate her first shrimp and loved it! Super cute. It was then nap time and swim time down at the water. I had a dinner with Kelly at Cosmo's (another favorite) and had a great time catching up with her.

On Wednesday, we headed to Kelly's parents house for swimming once little bit was awake from her morning nap. We had lots of fun playing with Kelly, Bentley, Noah and Miss B's friend. It was great to see Pam, Mike and Shannon. Plus, we finally got to meet Shannon's baby, who was completely precious. Tristan and Nora loved the water! Nora decided on this day that she could swim. She refused to stay in her float and wanted to swim between all of us. She was even kicking her legs. How cute is that? After a late nap, Mom treated everyone to dinner at Brian's new restaurant, Cobalt. So yummy and the best view of the bay! Amazing! Nora was a fish eating machine. She ate a ton of my grouper and lots of the crab meat that was on top. She is our good little Southern girl! I just know that she will love sweet tea. Maybe next summer...

Thursday was a laid back day at the house and on the dock. Erin came over and spent the day. How fun it was to have her with the family! Don't you just love friends that just fit in so well that you don't have to make any special effort when you are with them? That's the best. I would say that applies to some many of our friends and we just love that about them. Anyway, I digress. We just chilled out, got some sun, jumped in the bay when we got hot and had fun hanging out with my McNutt cousins that were down at the bay too. I could do that everyday...

Friday - Another fun day! Mom was back with us for the rest of the weekend. We had a fun morning playing with Nora. Erin's parents, Terri and Paul, arrived in the late morning by boat (love that) for an afternoon of fun and sun. We had a great, great time with them. After finishing lunch, Mark and I headed out on the boat with them. It was so beautiful on the water. We anchored out at Ole River and hung out in the water, catching up on all the news from Mobile. We had such a great time. We just love the Grays and always look forward to seeing them when we head home. After a bit, we took a fun ride around Ono Island and headed back home. The water was a bit rough, but that just added to the adventure. We had fun catching up with the McNutt cousins once again and then playing with Nora. My Aunt Julia and Uncle David arrived while we were gone, so it was great to see them too. That night we had a seafood feast - yum! Thanks Mom for the great jambalaya and Julia and David for the shrimp! I am getting hungry just thinking about all of the great food! We then headed over to the Ogle's dock for cocktails and dessert. It was fun to catch up with more family, including Ginger, Sonny, Carol, Rich, Connor, Steve, and his family. Later on, the rest of the fam watched fireworks from the dock while I stayed at the house with Nora, who just couldn't keep her eyes open any longer after all of the fun she was having...

The Fourth - what a fun, laid back Fourth of July. We had a great time visiting, getting some sun, playing in the water and resting. After Julia and David headed back to Pensacola, Mom, Mark and I took Nora to the Gulf. We couldn't leave without actually taking Miss New to the beach! Nora absolutely loved it. She would walk right into the water or just sit and let the waves crash into her. She was absolutely fearless - we're still trying to decide if that is a good or bad thing... It certainly was precious! We played for a bit, took lots of pictures and then headed home. Mom watched Nora that night while Mark and I walked down to the dock to view the fireworks. We've decided that is just about the best place to be for the show. You get to see a bunch of different shows, coming from every direction, visit with family and best of all, not deal with traffic!

After a good night's rest, we packed up and headed home on Sunday. It was hard to leave Mom and the beach, but we know that we'll be back! It was a long trip back, but overall, it went pretty well. Nora did much better than expected, so that was a blessing!

We hope that everyone had a super 4th of July!

Click here to see our vacation pictures:

July 2009

Holiday Rundown - The Long Version

Whew! We are wiped out from our Christmas/New Year adventures. Being gone for 11 days was great, but exhausting! We flew to TN on Christmas Eve morning, spent some time with Mark's family, including meeting our newest nephew, Aaron! We then headed to AL to see the Powell/Crow clan. We made it just in time to change everyone for church and rush off. Can I tell you how cute Annah and Nora looked in their matching Christmas dresses that mom smocked?!? Darling!

It was so special to go to Christmas Eve service at my Mamaw's church. It makes me remember so many holidays in the past and and the people from that church who have blessed the lives of our family. That is the church where my parents were married; where my brother, cousins and I would argue over who got to ring the church bell when we were little; where my Mamaw played the organ for decades; where Mr. Malone (who is still a loyal member) always had sticks of Juicy Fruit gum for all the kids; and now, where Mark and I spent our first Christmas Eve with Nora. What a blessing! It made me really miss my dad. He would have just loved having us all together... This sweet couple from the church told me that they were married on the same day as my parents. Apparently back in the day they had lots of double bridal showers held in their honor. I thought that was so neat! Anyway, on our way out of the service, they told me that they are going to have flowers placed on the alter in June in honor of both of the wedding anniversaries. That touched me so deeply and of course I started boohooing like a baby.

After church we all headed up to my aunt and uncle's cabin on the mountain for our family dinner. It was so much fun and totally chaotic - just how it should be! We had my soon-to-be 94 year-old Mamaw, Mom, my brother Jeff, his wife Jennifer, their kids Maxwell and Annah, Aunt Lynne, Uncle John, their son, John, his wife Alicia, their kiddos - Will, Maggie and Emma, Uncle Neil, his son, Ben, Mark, Nora, and me. Not the whole family could make it, but we still had a great time!

Mom, Mawaw, Jeff, Jennifer, Maxwell, Annah, Mark, Nora, and I stayed on the mountain for 2 days. It was great! What a fun Christmas morning! All of the adults were awake and anxiously waiting for Maxwell to make his appearance. This is really the first year that we had a kiddo old enough to really get Santa. He was so cute and really excited! I think that Nora and Annah were just happy to be there and be held! We all had a great time out on the mountain. My aunt and uncle were so sweet to let us all stay at their wonderful cabin - and even decorate it for the holidays! Mom brought all kinds of special treats/food/decorations/etc. that just contributed to the festive time we had. I love how she can just whip up such special treats!

After visiting with more family on the 26th, including finally meeting my cousin Meg's little boy, Hayes (and seeing her husband, Shawn), we headed back to Tennessee for our Newman family Christmas. Thank goodness the two families live close!

Needless to say, Grammy and Buddy, along with Aunt Sissy and Uncle Dave were completely enamored with Miss Nora - who can certainly put the charm on when she wants to! They just loved having her there and being able to love on her. We had such a great time with everyone! It was so great to see our precious nephews, Seth, Jesse, Luke and Aaron. They are such sweet boys and we just adore them. Every time I am around Matt and Steph, I wish that we lived closer together so we got to spend more time with them and their family. I am in awe of their parenting skills, calmness, ability to handle everything so effortlessly and most importantly, their Christ-centered lives. Grammy cooked up a storm - yum! She and Buddy totally spoiled us with all of the fun activities and playtime.

We did a lot over the holiday break, so I'll spare you all of the details, but here are some highlights:

• Nora officially started crawling (life will never be the same again...)
• We had a fun (and very southern) New Year's Day lunch with my Uncle Harry and Kathyrn in Georgia
• We met our new nephew, Aaron, finally!
• Visited with lots of old friends in TN, including the Fergusons (who will be parents at the end of the month!), the Brady family, the Tadlock family and the Burton family - including meeting Marshall (doll baby!)
• Listening to Matt and Mark sing on Sunday at the new church where Buddy is the interim minister of music. They each sang so beautifully!
• Visiting the aquarium. It was amazing!
• Going to the park and riding the carousel - a family tradition
• We got to spend our first Christmas with both families since we got married. How fun was that?
  
  

  Christmas 2008