Weekend with the Zoellers

Our friends, the Zoellers, recently came to spend the night with us.  So much fun to see all of our children running around and playing together!  Sweet Kathryn babysat the little ones while we all had a delicious dinner at The Beirut.  If you haven't tried it, definitely give it a chance - so delicious!  Donald cooked us a delicious pancake breakfast VERY early on Sunday morning (why don't little people understand the need to sleep in on the weekend?) before the Zoellers headed back to Lawrenceville.  It's always fun to catch up with old friends!

Headed home from supper

Storytime - I LOVE Bootsie Barker Bites!

Pancakes and bacon - breakfast of champions!

A little Wii after breakfast

All bundled up and about to head out

Fun with Mustaches

Emily and I decided to "emulate" (that's Fancy Nancy-speak for copy) a cool Valentine we saw on Pinterest and spent an afternoon making goofy faces with a stick-on mustache before we discovered the cool photoshopping capabilities of picnik.com.  Although I ended up photoshopping in a great 'stache, I ended up with this funny series of photos.  Donald even got in on the action.  Hope you enjoy!

My personal favorite - she looks like she's from an old kung fu movie!

Finished products - aren't they funny?

Ladybug Luncheon

The Alpha Gamma Crazy Girls held their annual luncheon and spent the afternoon tellng tales and eating cheese ball.  What a blast!  It's always fun to get together with my oldest friends and watch our babies play together.  We're excited to meet Holly's new little prince when he arrives and initiate him into our secret society!  We should really do this more than just once a year - it was too much fun to wait another 364 days to laugh that hard.

Happy New Year!

Happy 2012 to my blog friends!  I hope the new year brings you loads of wonderful memories with all of the people you love.  We spent the first day of the new year surrounded by family and friends eating some delicious soul food - which I helped to cook, if you can believe it!  The girls enjoyed a new tradition courtesy of our friends, the Blounts - the peppermint pig.  Apparently, it's a Victorian tradition that includes smashing a tiny candy pig with an equally tiny hammer.  We all got to share the pieces, which will bring us health and prosperity for the new year.  Little children are always happy to be destructive and our two REALLY enjoyed hammering that poor pig to bits - possibly even more than they enjoyed eating him.  Happy New Year!

Happy New Year's Eve!  A little toast with the "fancy glasses" - our wedding flutes.

Check out those nails!  And no, I didn't dress her in a tank top for New Year's.  She just stripped off her cute poncho and ran around like this to spite me.  Full of sass....



Poor thing....he doesn't know what's about to hit him!  Get it?

Merry Christmas!

I love photos too much to not include a million in this Christmas post, so you'll get a movie instead!  Takes less time to post them all that way - plus I get to use my new favorite slideshow service, Animoto.  Merry Christmas to all of you!

Lucky #13

Today is our 13th wedding anniversary!  Can't believe it's been that long - we seem to have only meet each other yesterday!  Some might say we rushed it - after all, Donald proposed to me on our second date - but things seem to have worked out pretty well!  Not to be trite and cliche, but I really did marry my best friend.  Much love to you, Dr. White, on our anniversary!  Thanks for cooking such a delicious dinner - and cleaning it up while I blogged!  Hope you enjoy this blast from the past! Now as I look over these pictures, I realize that there's a smudge on my scanner.  Am I going to rescan all these pictures? Not on your life!  Makes me appreciate digital photography even more!

 One of my favorites

 How old were we all again?

 I think they were getting ready to sing.

This picture (lipstick grin and all) has been on my nightstand for 13 years now.

Christmas at Rhodes Hall

We visited Rhodes Hall in Atlanta again this year to have pictures made with Santa Gus.  What a great place - I highly recommend it if you're looking for a location for Santa pictures.  Such a beautiful location and the staffmembers are wonderful.  Santa is pretty awesome, as well.  Emily always looks forward to going to Rhodes and loves making crafts there.  Our pictures turned out great - no screaming Santa pics!

There's a doctor in the house!

So proud of Donald - he graduated from West Georgia's doctoral program in School Improvement this month!  It was a screaming cold day but well worth the wind chill to get to see him in his funny hat.  Emily was super proud, as well, and has been carrying around his diploma tube ever since.  I love to hear her say that she wants to go to West Georgia just like we have.  We got our first piece of mail addressed to Dr. and Mrs. White this week - lots of fun!  It has a place of prominence on the refrigerator.  I'm hoping that by this time next year, we'll get Christmas cards addressed to Dr. and Dr.  White.  Keep your fingers crossed!

 So sweet - she bought him flowers from a vendor to give him after the ceremony.

 The doctoral students get the best seats up front!

 Donald's on the jumbotron!

 Getting hooded - so impressive!

 Horsing around while the rest of the graduates (and there were a lot of them) were called.

 Check her out with the diploma tube - Good thing it was empty because she's never given it back!

 It's official!

 Wondering at this point why I left my coat in the car....

Jingle Bell Trail 2011

Donald and Emily joined me bright and early to help work the 15th annual Jingle Bell Trail, the 5K run sponsored by my school.  Check out the snazzy shirt design.  It's our first ever black shirt and was super popular with all of the runners - all 830 of them! We had a great turnout.  Emily had a fun time working the crowd and visiting the Secret Santa shop.  Once we finished up, we headed off for our traditional breakfast of pancakes with all of the other runners.  Donald headed off to the SEC game in the afternoon and Emily and I headed home for a long winter's nap.  I don't mind coming up to the school on a Saturday when I have such great helpers with me!

Christmas is for the birds..and squirrels, and raccoons, etc.

Emily had the idea of putting a tree for the birds on our patio this year. After a somewhat nutballs trip to WalMart for supplies, she and Abby worked together to decorate it (in Emily's signature colors), and then created some bagel/peanut butter/birdseed decorations to hang on it. The girls had lots of fun and apparently the animals enjoyed it - all the bagels were gone the next day! We saw a squirrel kicked back and munching on a bagel on the railing when we got home. I think it gives our boys something fun to watch during the day! We keep replenishing the tree with various leftovers from the pantry and are amazed by how quickly everything disappears. One of my friends told me that no good deed goes unnoticed - which means that I'll probably be rewarded for feeding the animals with an infestation of raccoons in my attic!