Christmas 2009

It seems like Christmas gets more fun every year. With the girls fully understanding the excitement of Santa as well as celebrating Jesus' birthday, we had a ball! We spent our time in between Birmingham, Montgomery, and Auburn with wonderful family and friends. The favorite gift thus far is the $5.00 beads and string that Santa brought.....we have multiple jewelry creations, many of which are hanging by safety pins to decorate the inside of their new princess tent:)

Way Overdue!!!

My blog posting days have been few and far between lately, so let me update you on the Thames crew. First of all, we are expecting a baby boy mid April! He will be Allyn Mabson Thames IV, and we will call him Allyn. My Allyn is very close with both his grandfather and father, so he is so proud to be able to continue the name. Needless to say, he is thrilled with the idea of having a little "buddy" to tag along beside him in all of his manly adventures. I keep having to remind him that it will be a while before baby Allyn will be spending the night at the hunting camp with him and holding a rifle! Because our whole world will soon be changing with the addition of a baby, we decided to go ahead and take a vacation to Disney with the girls. I have to say that it far exceeded our expectations! It was priceless to see their excitement upon meeting all of the characters and having them sign their autograph books. Disney is so beautiful at Christmas time, and it was a vacation we will all remember!

Family beach trip

Since my sister has been harping on me to finally update my blog, here I am. We do a huge family beach trip with my parents, sister, and 4 other extended families every summer. This year is, I think, is the 32nd year. It is so wonderful to see my girls enjoying the same experience that I have had for so many years. They absolutely love their "beach friends," and are already counting down the says until we return next summer. Here are a few pictures of our crew. Notice the birthday hat on Ella....my birthday happened to fall during the middle of our trip...the girls insisted on wearing their celebration hats down to the beach.

Lots to write about!

We have had a fun couple of days. The girls have continued to enjoy our new puppy and have quickly taught him about living with 2 little girls.....check out the pictures of them pushing him in the stroller the other night.



We had a blast last night at the Opelika 4th of July celebration with friends from Allyn's office. Gray and Ella loved hanging out with the "big girls." They were enamored with the skydivers....everyone there probably heard the squeals! The fireworks were great too. After getting home at almost 10:00, we all hit the sack hard!





O.k., for a totally unrelated but hilarious story, he is a re-cap of the conversation I had with Ella last night after bath time. Here's the set-up: we had all just gotten out of the tub when the doorbell rang. We couldn't get there for obvious reasons (not dressed). Here's the dialogue:
E: Mommy, who whas that at the door?
Me: Don't know, but they are gone now
E: (Very animated and excited voice) Mommy, I bet I know who that was!
Me: Really, who?
E: Michael Jackson

Needless to say, I couldn't stop laughing. Do you think that the media has been a little crazy with the Michael Jackson talk/photos/music, etc. since my 3 year old knows who he is?

Banks

We have a new member to our family, formally known as "Mr. Banks." We are calling him Banks. Most of y'all know that the girls love the movie, "Mary Poppins," and we named the dog after the Banks family that she comes to live with on the movie. The girls have been praying for a dog (literally...every night!) for a while, but we hadn't made a decision on what kind or when we would get one. Yesterday, totally out of the blue, we saw an ad in the paper for Cairn Terrier puppies(the "toto" dog from the Wizard of Oz). We decided to call and find out about them......a few hours later we were on our way to Eufaula to get one. We hardly ever do things on the fly, so this was WAY out of character for us! When Allyn told the girls we were going to get a puppy to come home and live with us, they were beside themselves. Ella even jumped up into Allyn's arms and said "thank you so much daddy." Well, we were locked in for sure at that point. Little Banks has been a very sweet addition to our family, and the girls absolutely adore him. Here are a few pictures of the little guy:)

Beach Bums

We had a blast at the beach last week with Allyn's parents. Talk about the difference a year makes.....the girls were so content to play in the sand and the ocean all day without needing a change of scenery. There were times when the adults could actually look at a magazine while the girls played....major milestone!! It was a WONDERFUL vacation! Some of our favorite activities were listening to Memee tell countless stories, playing in the sand, swimming in the ocean, and hunting for crabs at night. We even got to enjoy a great fireworks show at the state dental conference on Saturday night. We are couning down the days until we can go back!!

Day at the Lake

One of our favorite places to be is at the lake. We celebrated Allyn's grandfather's 89th birthday this past Friday at the lake with family. Allyn has always loved to water ski along with anything else daring that he can do in the water. Did I mention that our first date was water skiing, and he proposed to me at the lake?? Maybe Gray got some of his genes, because she was loving all things having to do with the water this weekend. She even asked Allyn to pull her in the tube several times!? We were shocked, seeing as how she used to be so reserved and hesitant to try new things. She LOVED it, and the more bumps the better! You can see that I got the privelage to ride with her....at least I knew Allyn had to behave with the driving (no crazziness in trying to throw me off). Ella loved being daddy's little helper in the boat. She says she wants to try tubing "when she gets a little older." We always joke that when Allyn used to think of being a father (before we had kids) that he always imagined himself driving the boat with the kids. I think his dreams were fulfilled today:)

CIty Fest 2009

Here are some pictures from City Fest today. The favorite event was riding the ponies....thanks Holly for snapping some pictures! How funny is it that Ella got to ride one named Hawkeye? When we lived in Iowa, the mascot for the U of Iowa football team was a hawkeye. They said the pony got his name because he has one blue eye and one brown eye (just like Ella!). We had a ball seeing all of our sweet friends and enjoying some family time....the girls are in the bed for a nap, and I'm not far behind them!

Easter

Easter Sunday was such a beautiful day here in Auburn. We enjoyed waking to discover what the Easter Bunny had left for us followed by church and lunch with friends. All 4 of us took a nap that afternoon. That's my idea of the perfect day!

Country girls

We took the girls to Mitchell Station today to some of Allyn's relatives' land. Activities included feeding the goats, fishing, swinging on the tire swing, chasing the cats, and having a picnic lunch. We had such a blast being outside in the beautiful weather and enjoying some family time. These girls LOVED getting their own worms out of the bucket and reeling in their own fish...I think we caught about 20. The pond at Mitchell Station hardly ever dissapoints! Thanks, Daddy for planning such a fun day. We will all sleep well tonight!

Marshmellows in Heaven

I decided to try a wonderful Easter recipe Holly told me about....Resurrection Buns. It's a fun activity to do with children that teaches about Christ's resurrection. Basically, you get a can of biscuits and place a large marshmellow in the center of each biscuit. Wrap the sides around the marshmellow and pinch the seams together to make a ball. The biscuit is supposed to be the tomb, and the marshmellow represents Christ. Once the biscuits are cooked, the marshmellow melts and leaves an "empty tomb." The girls were totally shocked to see the marshmellow missing, and it gave us an opportunity to talk about what Christ did for us and how he left the tomb and came back to life. We even got into the discussion of heaven and how Jesus now lives with God in heaven. All of a sudden, you could see the light bulb go on in both of their little minds as they said "oh, the marshmellows are in heaven!" At least we are planting seeds, right?....this will definitely be a fun Easter tradition to continue for years to come.

Hippity Hoppity

...Easter's on it's way! Here are some pictures from the Easter Egg Hunt/party at school today. The girls were NOT shy about racing to get as many eggs as possible this year...quite a change from the shy little girls last year. I am loving this stage of their lives! P.S. There is another new post under this one:)