Grandma Gini and Maddie Mae

Here are a few pictures we took today of Maddie Mae and Grandma Gini

Christmas Presents

Maddie Mae loving her present from Grandma and Grandpa Grissom.

Maddie's first Christmas

We had a lot of fun today. It started with americanos for Jeff and I and a latte for Mom. We then proceeded to open gifts and stockings. Maddie was blessed with some wonderful toys and it was so much fun to see her face light up and interest in her eyes as things lit up and played music. She is just growing and changing every day :) Jeff and I were just going to get each other items for our stockings but he surprised us with a very special gift, a Canon 7D! We have been playing with it quite a bit today and are including some of the pictures below, very exciting!

Today we remember the amazing blessing of our Savior coming to earth and are so very grateful that He came! Merry Christmas!!

Birthday dinner

My birthday was on Monday and Jeff did it up right. He made reservations and the three of us got dressed up and went to dinner. Jeff had sea bass and I had beef tenderloin with apple crisp and pumpkin creme brulee for dessert. When we arrived at our table the restaurant staff had signed a birthday card for me and our desserts came with candles. I must say that I preferred their way of doing things over the entire staff singing their own version of Happy Birthday at the top of their lungs so that the whole restaurant stares. We had a group at the table next to us that was incredible impressed with our little Maddie Mae and were kind enough to take a picture of the three of us. It was a great birthday and I must say this has been a great year :)

Caught on Camera

Our sweet little girl is smiling more and more these days but we have had trouble catching them on camera... Jeff was finally successful today :)

mmm mmm good

Yesterday a box was delivered to our house addressed to Jeff. He has been grinning about my birthday present for days just waiting for it to arrive so I assumed that the contents of the box were the source of the grin. He was flying in from Utah and when I texted that it had arrived he quickly texted back "open it!". I am the type that usually makes people wait until their actual birthday or Christmas to give them their gifts but Jeff just gets so giddy about it that he can barely contain himself. I did not open it until he came home last night but I also did not wait until my birthday because of his excitement. He bought me an espresso machine :) So, today I had 2 americanos and am currently sipping some hot chocolate that was steamed with my new toy and it has all been so very tasty. I am pretty impressed with this little machine, even though I am used to working with the big daddy machines at my old job, everything has come out beyond my expectations and it should be much easier to stick to our new coffee budget now :) It is such a sweet gift and I am so grateful! Especially because my sweet husband was so excited to bless me with it.

We also finally decorated our tree today. It is actually leaning quite a bit, we had trouble when the hole was drilled for our tree stand when we bought it, but I must say that the leaning is actually endearing and I love it all the more for the flaw.

Here are a couple of pictures. My new toy and our tree:

Talk Time

Maddie Mae making dinner conversation.

Merry Christmas

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Thanksgiving 2009

This year's Thanksgiving was so special for a number of reasons. It was Maddie Mae's first Thanksgiving and our first time ever to host a Thanksgiving. We felt so very blessed that Jeff's family came for an entire week. We had good times and they really served us as well. They helped us make progress on our renovation and helped with the clean up project we had out back. I must also say that it was wonderful to be able to cook for so many all week and have almost every bit of the clean up done :)












Thanksgiving Table


Thankgiving Day just before dinner


Grandma and Madeline


Grandpa and Madeline


Michala and Ruger


Michala and quarter round


Grandma and Michala