one hundred years old

My great grandma Mary is 100 years old.  In early August we made a trip up to Hartwell, Georgia to celebrate her life but first stayed in Athens and spent a little time with the cousins.  The trip (goes without saying) was well worth it. 

in front of my friend, Susan’s store in downtown Athens.  Sadly she was out of town so we sent her a pic

Later that day we headed to Hartwell to celebrate 100 years of my Grandma’s life (she is my great grandmother, my kids great-great grandmother and Mary James’ namesake)

Grandma Mary with her youngest great grandson – Ralston (my nephew)

 

my mom, her mom and her mom’s mom. :)

Molly checking out old family pictures

I have always known Grandma as a quiet, kind, strong woman.  To live 100 years you’d have to be!  Here are a few words of wisdom from Grandma Mary on how to live a happy 100 years:

A promising world is built on small acts of kindness and compassion.  Everyday we have the chance to make someone’s life brighter with a helping hand, an encouraging word, a smile.  We can be a source of strength to those around us.  In the long run these small acts of love may be more value than any earth-shaking deed

When you see someone without a smile, give them yours.

True friends are the greatest treasure you can possess.

Anything the mind can conceive, the body can achieve.

it’s better to have heart without words than to have words without heart.

When the facts won’t budge you have to change your attitude and go from there.

A turtle never gets anywhere without sticking his head out.

Remember your state of mind contributes to your health.

Happiness is not having what you want but wanting what you have.

It’s not what happens to you that makes the difference, but how you react to what happens to you.

Thanksgiving Sneak Peek!

 I snapped these few pictures as we readied our home for Thanksgiving. They make me smile with gratitude!


 

sweet little pumpkins - thanks to my sweet husband making a last minute run across town!

table almost set - glorious weather granted an eleventh hour change of plans!



 bar stocked...

I think we're ready!

happy {waaayyyy belated} birthday

mom!

my mother may very well be the most over-zealous person about ... pretty much anything and her fiftieth birhtday was no different. she spent the better part of about the past 30 months *"planning" this celebration(s).

when the actual day was drawing near and she still hadn't nailed anything down, my sister and i took matters into our own hands.

we took her to the beach with a some of her forever friends

then we hurried home to the most chaotic surprise party in the history of surprise parties (i'm guessing here but we've got to at least be close).

i think she had a blast.

. she always does.

*my mother hasn't ever planned a thing in her life. literally - not. a. thing.

please excuse the poor photo quality. these were all either taken with my phone or yanked from other peep's fb page. i'll try to leave the posts that need pics to Kristen ;)

so proud!

In case you've missed this, E now has it on her blog. Yesssssssssss! I am sooooo proud of and impressed by you, precious friend! xx

and E's not the only person I'm proud of in the Coastal Living(!) article... can you see what else I might be beaming about?!

post by arre

alison & bo

As i mentioned, on our trip this past weekend, our main event was my cousin's wedding. Alison & Bo were getting married and I didn't know too much about the event, except that it was in a remote location, and had a peanut butter & jelly theme.

When we arrived, we were picked up by a golf cart and taken down this path (and i mean down) into the woods.

The scene was amazing! We were told to help ourselves to a drink and have a seat, the ceremony will begin shortly. We were in the middle of the woods, with a tiny cabin and a small creek running between us (the guests) and the wedding party and family seating.

They had written their own vows and although they were hard to hear (from where we were), there was not a dry eye in the crowd! Kelley was sitting right next to me, tears flowing when Bo was saying his vows and I asked if she could even hear him - and she said no, but Alison is crying :)

Alison looked beautiful!

here are some pictures of a few of the details ...

All photos taken by me or Kelley .. we really aren't sure why she even paid a photographer, these are only a fraction of the amount we actually took! (well i guess the fact that she would want quality over quantity!)

love this next idea...

we all signed a window instead of a guestbook

peanut butter & jelly station..yummy!









adorable out house. I don't know what i'm doing...remember, they opened the bar before the ceremony even started. At least I wasn't sitting on the toilet.
First dance. I'm horrible at remembering small details.. so I know i'm not doing this justice. but Alison & bo were so sweet & so cute. They had a fun, upbeat first dance with everyone joining in to sing.

But my favorite was the father / daughter dance. They did a traditional sweet dance, and then broke out in a choreographed dance as the bride pulled up her dress and we saw she was wearing boots! how cute..with blue tights (for her something blue). It's been a while since i have been to a truly FUN wedding..and this one was just that. Fun. So much attention paid to detail, so many people singing, dancing, laughing.

sister kathryn & brother-in-law, brent

and to top it all off, a really cute couple!

Best wishes Alison & Bo!
post by kristen

weekend fun

This past weekend, me & the fam all headed a few hours north to our old stomping grounds in Athens, GA. We have some family that lives in Athens so our first visits were great-grandparents!
First, we visited my dad's parents...

then my mom's mom (nanny). She has a creek behind her house that we loved to play at when we were little. I made the girls stand in the same spot where we stood for pictures when we were little, but I didn't get much cooperation.

The girls with Nanny

That night, we headed to an old favorite restaurant (Last Resort) with sisters & brother-in-laws. So fun!! But, our main event for the weekend was my cousin (Alison)'s wedding (more on this later). We were so excited about staying in downtown Athens and taking the kids to see a little of the university. On the morning before I left, I had this conversation with Mary James.

Me: Do you know that we are going to see where me and daddy went to college and that's also where we met!
Mary James: I know that mama, Daddy already told me. He said that y'all met there and the first time he kissed you... you tooted (giggles).
me: (can't help but laugh myself) you know that's not true.
Mary James: well, that's what he said.
me: i'm sure he did.

So with those fond memories in our little 4 year old's head... we headed downtown at sunrise (kids in a hotel room, enough said) As Jim & I reminisced that we had not been downtown at this hour unless we were walking home from a long night. (how times have changed!)



Later that day, we headed off to see a bit of North Campus. Mostly because it was the closest to downtown and we had 4 kids with us (mine, plus cousin william).

notice the look on molly's face. she was still recovering from being confined to a hotel room


kiki (my sister kelley) helping ring the bell

Thank goodness for Kiki's stroller

And thank goodness for naps

I have no idea why there aren't any pictures of baby jane! She was there and as sweet and cute as ever but was in the room napping for many of our outings! As always, we are happy to be home, but so glad that we had a good weekend & made some really good memories. Hopefully, Mary James learned a little more about what college is besides what her Daddy put in her head :)
Check back for pictures on Alison & Bo's wedding soon!

quick edit
I can't believe i forgot to mention that i got to meet Ernie! He and his mama (and dad) live in Athens and it just so happened that he was born a couple of hours after our arrival. Thanks for waiting on us Ernie! He is precious - has the most perfect little round face. Wish i had a picture to show, but all i got was a really bad quality cell phone pic. You'll just have to take my word for it :)

have a happy Tuesday!

post by kristen

this is love

i love this mama and little girl big time. and i think this might be the sweetest picture of them. ever. even if i did take it ;)
post by arre

family portrait

If I had more time to think about this.....



I could probably develop a complex over it. I'm the largest one.. on the flip side, Mary James says we are all dancing...that's gotta be good right? Don't they(?) say you can tell a lot about a kid's home life by a picture they draw of their family? I'm glad she pictures us all dancing - then again...she lives in a musical (that she is constantly starring in) so why wouldn't we all be dancing?

post by kristen