Happy Valentine's Day!

DM just accidently colored on the floor with her new Valentine's Day crayons.  She grabbed a rag and cleaned up the crayon marks!

Road Trip!

We headed this weekend to the mountains for some family time!  I'm embarrassed to say we haven't ventured far from home with DM in over a year so we definitely needed to get out.  We only booked two nights not sure of what we were in for and ended up wishing we'd planned to stay longer.  The weather was CRAZY warm and we had tons of fun on the porch and around the cabin grilling, making s'mores, coloring and  playing with playdough.  DM and David appeased me and went antiquing for a bit, and BOY, are there some deals to be had in Ellijay, GA!  If we'd had room in the car, I would have packed it FULL!  We ventured out for some "country cooking", which was yummy!  I think Tahoe may have had the best time of us all.  He was so good!  Here are some pictures!

 DM hugs the bear by the front door.

 DM is really getting more interested in coloring these days!

 Couldn't leave home without Elmo!

 I think we exhausted our old guy.

 It was so warm we could run around outside in our pajamas in the mornings.

January: Where did you go?

January is my least favorite month of the year.  Always has been.  It is cold, dreary and always dark, but this one wasn't so bad!  We stayed busy with play dates and company!  DM had her first "train wreck" of a play date.   She was a total stinker.  Totally out of character and of course, we are just getting to know the parents so I can only imagine what they thought.   The good news is they still invited her over to play so we must not have scared them too much.

Our Auntie E came MLK weekend, a visit that I think all of the adults needed!  Elizabeth is one of the few people I have ever met who you can be completely real with and she will listen and encourage but never judge.  David hung out with DM while I took Elizabeth to my FAVORITE - Scotts! 

Our friend Amie has also been staying with us on Monday nights and that has been a great way to start off the week!

We made cookies for Valentine's Day with Mimi!

 (And ate icing!)

And just as we were finalizing furniture plans for the screened in porch, we discovered this:

Our entire yard is a muddy mess (and so are Tahoe's paws)!  But we now have a completely repaired septic system!  AND the contractor was generous enough to "bump" that little tree in the picture above so we didn't have to pay someone to take it down. 

Brrr!

DM REALLY loves her hat and coat this year.  She doesn't want to take it off! She really only takes it off willingly to eat!

Maybe this is a sign that I really do keep our house a bit too cold.

Heaven Has a 4-Legged Angel

2011 was a year of many blessings for our family, but on the last day of 2011, we lost David's parents' dog Grant.  He had been trained to be an assistance dog but turned out to be too timid for the job so John and Jeannie had the opportunity to welcome Grant in to their home.  I remember so vividly Jeannie asking me if I minded if Grant attended our engagement party. Of course I didn't mind!  If anyone in attendance was annoyed by the VERY well-behaved golden, they probably wouldn't be in our lives very long term! 

 Grant loved to swim and please his owners! 

Rest in peace precious Grant!

Christmas

Christmas was everything we could have imagined, complete with tons of quality family time, rest and an amazing worship service.  We hope your Christmas was all you'd been hoping for!

We are "rearranging" a bit in the Patterson household.  In an effort to share more photos, we've started a Picassa site, which can be viewed on the right under Family Photos / Our Family.   Loading photos in Blogger is entirely too time consuming, and while I'd love to move this entire blog, but it isn't happening this month.  :).   

Cookies, Parties and More!

We decorated (ate icing) with friends!  Some of the kids did pretty good.  DM really just wanted to keep decorating another cookie so she could lick the icing off.  We iced a lot of red cookies as soon as I realized that the red icing was going to blend best on her red dress.

Mommy brings home a GIANT nutcracker from her office party!  Yippy!

Our class party.  Fun times!

DM with Ms. Arleathia who has been amazing!  She has so much of the same teaching style that I had, even if the children are ten years younger.  She is so consistent.

Our DM loves to eat, even if she is the ONLY one left at the table.  Completely unphased by it!