We're just waiting on that Baby Fever to catch, but so far they like other people babies better than one they have to take home!

"That's my pink and camo hat!"

"No, you keep it! It looks better on you Uncle DJ"

"Ok, I'll take it, I do really like it."

Grandaddy w/out a Name Quinn

On Christmas Eve Eve, Percy's dad, sister and her fiance came over for dinner so we could have an early Christmas celebration. Percy's dad has no more idea what he wants Chesley to call him than my dad does so right now they are Grandaddy Without A Name Quinn and Calhoon. Anyway, Chesley got some precious pj's and an adorable Christmas dress for next year from her grandaddy Q. After dinner we tried for a couple of pictures but Chesley was so worn out from her new infatuation with Casey's fiance Buck that she couldn't hold her eyes open for the photo op. This was the best I could get!!


There just might be another tooth coming in...

"I know you're still there and you're still trying to take my picture but I'm just resting my eyes!"

"I will smile for you though, but no baby blues on display tonight!"

Canton Christmas Lights 2009

Mrs. Dorothy, aka Gammy, has been trying to get us to go with her to look at the lights in Canton for two weeks but the weather would not cooperate. So last Wednesday it finally quit raining and was just good and cold so we went. It was lots of fun. Chesley loved looking at the lights-although she's not that particular about what she does when she's with her Gammy. We walked around and took lots of pictures then rode the carousel and stopped for dinner on the square. We ended up running into Mary Katherine and Chad and their boys and Brittney and Derek and Beckett. Apparently we weren't the only ones waiting for a clear night to take in the lights. When Percy and I were dating in high school we used to load up with his family and go look at lights all over. We traveled far and wide from Canton to Raymond and Pearl to corners of Jackson I didn't know existed. But we saw some spectacular lights- and some interesting ones as well... So it was fun to revive the tradition and have Chesley there with us this time. Thanks Gammy for a fun night!

Chesley really wanted to grab one of these light strands or branches, Gammy considered sitting down in the middle of them for a better picture-we didn't let her.

Aunt Casey got a good giggle out of Chesley for this picture.

Aunt Casey and Chesley

I love this picture.

She was kinda starting to squrim, maybe it's because her knees were getting cold, those britches would NOT stay down! Should have put her in full out tights to keep those chunk-a-love legs warm!

"Gammy, can I really climb this decoration? My mama wouldn't let me do that..."

Casey stayed off the carousel to take pictures for us, thanks Aunt Casey!

Pops' Family Christmas

Last Saturday Gammy had Pops' family over to her house to do Terry Family Christmas. I took Chesley over for lunch. Pops, aka Mr. Ronnie's, daughter Courtney and her husband Kirk were there with their twin daughters, Sharlee and Savannah. Pictures ensued, Pops was overrun with small, screaming, females-and Chesley. She was playing the cool cucumber for picture time, on spite of Sharlee and Savannah's attempt to get her up to their excitment level. But Courtney managed to bring Gammy, Pops, and me up a notch or two when she announced they are expecting again! Baby due this summer, gender unknown but there is ONLY ONE for sure this time. I told Courtney she would think one newborn was the easiest thing in the world after twins-although she does still have the girls to contend with AND a newborn, so... We couldn't be more excited for them, and although Kirk is one of the best girl daddies ever- I'm rooting for a boy this time, he needs an ally in that house. He's holding his own for now but the estrogen levels could get toxic when the teenage years roll around! Good luck to yall and we can't wait to meet Baby Shumpert #3!


They are in fact hugging her, although it looks more like they are trying to each get one half of her for their own!

Chesley looks a bit dazed by all the attention, but don't let her fool you-she's used to it, she was just taking it all in.

Here the girls are holding the sonogram pic of Baby Shumpert, while Pops tries to figure out what one more grandchild will mean when he's already being taken over as it is!

Chesley is trying to walk but not there yet so when she wears the cute dresses I can't resist buying for her, I have to ball up the back with a hair rubber band so she can actually crawl-but when she stands up to cruise around it makes a funny sight. Check out those chunky thighs!

Fat Lip

Weeza and I went in to get Chesley up from her nap one afternoon and she got so excited at the mere sight of us, (Weeza), that she started jumping up and down and slammed her lip into the top bar of her iron crib. There was a little blood and a lot of crying but as always, the sight of Weeza cheered her up enough for me to get a picture of her newly enhanced lip. Poor Baby! But it was almost completely gone by the next day.

Better than an Exersaucer

I love it when I have an empty dishwasher when it's time to cook supper. I can let stuff I'm using pile up in the sink and just put a couple cups and spoons in the dishwasher and I have an instant baby-attention-holder! I can almost get supper cooked in the time it takes Chesley to grow bored of playing with the dishwasher. The only problem is this new climbing into things gig she's got kicking. If the bottom drawer rolls back too far then she feels the need to go after it. It doesn't matter that she can almost always still reach it, she HAS to climb up onto the door and pull it back out. This is when I worry about punctured eyeballs. I am going to find a way to lock the lower drawer in place-because if I didn't have to worry about her climbing the dishwasher I would probably pay a little more attention to dinner...

Uh-oh, the drawer is making it's escape.

Climbing up into dishwasher in order to return runaway drawer to proper position.

Retreiving runaway drawer.

And we're back on solid ground. Job well done.

'Loving' Weeze

The other night after dinner Chesley was crawling around and she came upon her very favorite thing in the whole wide world-Weeza. She is obsessed with this dog. She says. "Weeze?" all day long, over and over and over, whether the dog is in sight or not. When I am putting her down at night she is scanning the floor saying. "Weeze, Weeze?" like she needs the dog to tuck her in. So she was a little sleepy the other night and is always more loving when she's tired. When she found Weeza she just collapsed on top of her and made moaned a little. It's what she does whenever we tell her to 'love' somebody. So she was 'loving' Weeza. Weeza wasn't so much loving it but she put up with it like the sweet pup she is. Percy went and grabbed the camera because she just kept doing it over and over and we decided it should be documented-it doesn't take much for us to decide that though.

"I was having a moment with my best friend, Weeze, and you go and get the camera to interrupt."

She kept looking at the camera instead of Weeza once she saw Percy had it, so we were telling her to "Love Weeza," to get her back on track and at one point she was standing up looking at Percy, so she just dropped her head down on the couch and said, "Awww." Not quite what we were going for but, ok.

Weeza managed to slip out from under her in this picture, but Chesley just kept laying there saying, "Awww."

She would pat her, then collapse on her again. Then pat and collapse.

Poor Weeza, I love that dog.

You gotta admit, it is pretty sweet.

Happy 1st Birthday, Pruet!

Pruet turned 1 on December 9th and Hillary had a party for him at their house the next Saturday. She moved a bunch of toys into the garage, laid out blankets and put a food table with some snacks for the adults, (and Caitlin Penton who never stops eating- our favorite little bottomless pit!), and voila! The perfect 1st Birthday party! I still can't believe that it has been an entire year since this big boy was born! It has been a fun year with Chesley, Pruet, and William all being born so close together- hopefully they will grow up close and appreciate how fun it can be to have cousins your age. Of course, Pruet has never really been the same age as Chesley and William, who are both fairly content to stay in one place for decent amounts of time- he came out of the womb a month old and hit the ground running-literally! It's hard to find him without a huge open-mouthed smile on his sweet face and is always on the go, just ALL boy! The kind of baby who was impatient with that crawling business and headed straight for walking asap! He is unstoppable now and it's a good thing he has someone as energetic as Hillary as his mama-she's the only person I know who could keep up with him! Anyway, I am very grateful my little girl has these two sweet boys as her cousins. Hope you had fun at your party P-man! We love you!

Hillary had a bunch of balloons out for the kids to play with and I made one into a hat of some sort and proceeded to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to make different babies let me take their picture wearing the balloon hats. My first attempt with my child failed-but I managed to get a couple ok pictures of her wearing it.

"I think there is something on my head..."

"Take the picture quick, Mama, I'm not wearing this thing much longer-yall are all laughing at me!"

Herrin let us put a balloon hat on him too, but he was busy having a war of some sort with his Santa bib so I couldn't ever get a good picture of him wearing it!