Mel's visit

The last weekend in September, my friend, Melanie, came to visit for a few days. I know she really just came to go to an Alabama football game, but I'll take what I can get:)We had so much fun and it was so great to catch up with her. She left her two kids with her in laws and Emily kept Alex and Avery pretty much the whole weekend for me because John was working, so we had lots of time together! Friday we went to hear Nick Saban speak at "Nick at Noon." Here we are before Nick came in. For some reason most of the pictures she sent me are really small. Sorry!

That night we went to SipNstrokes to paint. Neither of us had ever done it before. Melanie is creative and I'm not-so I was sure this wouldn't turn out good for me. But as you can see below our pictures look pretty much the same except for the coloring. They are hard to mess up but it can be done:) I don't know why John doesn't want to hang this in our house! It's FABULOUS!

Saturday we took Alex out walking around the quad. He loves Denny Chimes so we had to get his picture!

Then we went over and listened to the band.

Then came the rain!! Mimi had let us borrow a rain jacket and a poncho, but we didn't have them on until the downpour came! Melanie didn't think her jacket was much of a "rain" jacket! She was soaked! Alex and I were sharing the big orange poncho.


Melanie and Avery

Alex doing puzzles with Aunt Mel,as he calls her:), it just stuck I guess.

Melanie and I took the kids outside to try and get some cute pictures of them but we couldn't get them both to cooperate at the same time. This is probably my favorite out of all of them. Thanks Melanie for a fun visit! After she left Alex and I were at the table eating breakfast and I said, "Melanie's gone, I miss her." Alex said, "I know, that makes me so sad momma." Sweet, sweet boy!

Alex's portrait

Mimi, Alex's great grandmother, decided she wanted a portrait made of him back in March. It was one of the best ideas I had ever heard of!:) It all started when she saw Alex in a black Strasburg outfit and wanted it in a painting (I think we actually got a pastel). She found a lady (Jean) that she liked and we took Alex to meet her. Jean started on the portrait and then asked for some pictures of Alex with faces that we liked. We gave her a few and next thing I knew there were two portraits of him-one for Mimi's house and one for our house! Both of them were from pictures we gave her-not the black outfit. Mimi gave John and I one for our birthday, Christmas, anniversary, etc. present (for many years I'm sure). I love it! We just finally decided where to hang it and had the time. It had been sitting under our bed for too long. It is the first thing we have hung in our house (we've been here for over a year) that is not in Alex or Avery's room. We hung it to the left of a window in our kitchen. Hopefully, one day we can put one of Avery on the right:)

He is sitting on Mimi's back porch holding a stone baseball that is on one of the steps. In the other portrait (not pictured yet) he is in a blue outfit my mom made him. They are so sweet! Thank you so much Mimi!

Avery's 3 month pictures

I scanned two of her 3 pictures because I wanted extra copies of them so I thought I would post them too. They are not the best quality but at least you can see them. We went to portrait innovations for her 3 month pictures. She did so well! She just smiled and talked to the lady taking her pictures.
Here she is in a dress Emily bought her and a blanket that Mimi made her.

I wore this dress for my 6 month pictures. The lengths are a little different these days then they were in 1980 so she is already wearing this dress at 3 months:)

More from the TX trip

So, mom did have pictures of Russell in TX but she didn't put them on snapfish with the others. Weird...so I'm making an addendum:) Also, on a side note, Russell and Nan are having a baby boy. She is 15 wks along and due the end of March. They are super excited and so are we! I'll let you know as soon as they have a name.

I love pictures of people walking from behind-as long as it's not me!:)

I love the way he is looking up at Russell in this picture. It is so sweet!

Helping Russell cool off after a run.