10 Things We Are Thankful For in 2010

• The fact that we have peace with God through the redeeming work of Jesus on our behalf





• Our beautiful, healthy baby girl





• Our great new house





• Chris' good job





• That I get to stay home with Marianne





• That the Gamecocks won the College World Series

• That the Gamecocks won the SEC East

• Our amazing church and all the wonderful people there





• Our loving and supportive family





• Our fun and faithful friends

Two Notes:

We are also thankful to our friends Vickie and Brian who took the awesome pictures at the top and bottom of this post and other pictures that will be our Christmas card soon!

When we were brainstorming our list Chris also wanted to put that we were thankful for Marcus Lattimore. Since we limited the list to 10 and other things we are thankful for did not make the list I thought it better to leave him off. But I did want to make a note of it because I thought it was funny!

Three New Things

This week started off super rainy. Marianne and I were going out to lunch and I remembered that she had some cool rain boots. They were too big (sorry, Ashleigh) but this got me in the mood to try all her other shoes on her little feet. I found one pair that fit her. She looked so cute in them I had to take a picture!

Doesn't she look so proud of her shoes? It is as if she is saying "Look at me! I am grown up!"

Based on the success of the shoes I thought I would see if the little robe someone gave Marianne fit her. She likes being wrapped up in her towel after a bath so she liked the robe but it is still too big. It did make for some cute pictures though!

I was inspired by some friends stories of how much their daughters liked their bouncy seat to get out Marianne's Ocean Wonders Jumperoo. Marianne looked on as Chris put it together and then she got to play in it. Every time she uses it she likes it more. Today was her third day and she couldn't stop smiling. These picture are the first time she spent extended time in it and she was still trying to figure it out. She is still too short for it so we had to put phonebooks under her feet. You can see them in the last picture covered by a towel so they wouldn't be too slippery!

Surprise Precious Moments

Watching Chris with Marianne makes me love him even more than I already did (which was a lot)! It is so fun to see him interact with her and vice versa. The following picture are times when I walked into a room and found something unexpected but totally precious.
I walked downstairs a few Saturdays ago to find them both sleeping on the couch. When Chris woke up he asked if I ever slept with her like that. When I said no he said, "You should".

Yesterday Chris had to go to a training so he got to finish working from home. I left Marianne upstairs playing at Chris' feet while I went to go make dinner. Chris said he would bring her down if she got too fussy but he never did. I came up once dinner was in the oven to find this. Chris said Marianne had been "helping" him for almost an hour and that she had almost sent an email by hitting the laptop mouse with her foot!

Why I want a new camera

I have really been hinting hard about wanting a new camera for Christmas and below you will see why. These pictures were taken by our friends Jason and Leslie with the camera they bought on the eve of their new baby. The quality is noticibly better than the pictures we take and for every ten pictures they take they get nine good ones. For every ten pictures we take we get one good one! There are a few good ones of the three of us but I am not going to post them yet because one of them might end up on our Christmas card...