Thanksgiving Adventures

We have so much to be thankful for this year especially the addition of Maggie! We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. My mom drove the girls and me to Jackson the Sunday before and Grant came down on Wednesday. My grandmother came over to see Maggie and Ellie as Maggie's middle name, Thompson, is after her maiden name. On Thanksgiving we went to Oxford and saw Grandaddy Ellis. We spent the night and on Fri my mom kept the girls so Grant and I could go to the Egg Bowl (Ole Miss vs. MS. State). We had a blast watching Ole Miss win and go to 8-4 on the season. I told Grant I actually have bragging rights this year in the house!! We also got to see my cousin, Melissa, and meet her new daughter, Claire. She is about6 weeks older than Maggie. Ellie had so much fun playing with Lynndy and Pops and of course Unlce Monkey. When we ask her who he is she does her "ah ah ah", which is her monkey sound! So funny! She is talking up a storm and now knows every Sesame Street character. Maggie is getting so big as well and doing great. She is a great baby. We stopped on the way back to NC at a Wendy's to let Grant's grandparents meet Maggie and see Ellie. Grant's Memaw is Maggie's namesake.

Introducing Miss Maggie

Well, here's the story....I had my 39 week doctor appt. on Nov. 6. Dr. Matthews was worried that Maggie was breach so sent me for an ultrasound. Sure enough she was breach. Dr. Matthews explained my options. She said that I could have a c-section or try for what they call an external version where they attempt to turn the baby. I opted to give that a try first. Dr. Matthews then asked if I could be at the hospital the next morning! If they flipped Maggie they would induce. I immediately started making phone calls to get things arranged. Grant's parents were able to head down Thurs night to be there for Ellie in the morning and then my mom would leave early Fri. morning. Grant and I had no idea what would happen come the morning.

We checked in to the hospital Fri. morning, Nov. 7th and Dr. Lane came in to see if he could flip Maggie. After 5 min. we had success! I was given a pill to start the induction and then we began the long wait. The hours passed and there was very slow progress. I finally had to have the epidural at around 6:30 pm. It didn't work. All it did was make my right leg go completely numb. The dr. came back to try and correct it and it worked for like 2 hrs and I was able to get some sleep. However, I woke up to severe contractions and a numb right leg! Maggie was still up high and it was going to be awhile, but no relief in sight! Nov. 7 turned into Nov. 8 and I was exhausted! The mid-wife, Sally finally came in at around 1am to try to get me to push the baby down some. Little did I know that she was just going to go ahead and have me deliver all at the same time. I was still in hopes of some kind of pain relief! Anyway, as painful as it was (and people in Charlotte probably heard me screaming) at 1:34 am Margaret Thompson Shanks came into the world. She is perfect and beautiful and in the end that is what matters! She weighed in at 7 lb. 3 oz. and 21 inches long. She looked so teeny especially compared to Ellie, who was the same length, but weighed 8 lbs. 5 oz!

Ellie came to visit the next morning and meet baby sister. She was so excited and just kept saying, "baby" and wanting to hold Maggie. She has adjusted fairly well. She has had a few fits since we came home, but gets so excited when she sees Maggie. We are so blessed to have our two girls and are looking forward to all that is to come!

Halloween Week

We had a busy Halloween week! The Sun. before our church, Long's Chapel, had a trunk-or-treat fall fest. Ellie started to get the hang of trick-or-treating. We then were surprised with an inch of snow during the week! My first October snow! Ellie wanted to play in it so Grant brought some in for her to play with, but she could not understand where it went when it melted. She kept saying, "more". On Halloween her daycare trick-or-treated all the stores down Main St. Ellie would break in front of all the kids and walk up to the person with candy and hold her bag open until they put candy in it. Then she would look in her bag to make sure they gave her something! It was so funny. They had a party that afternoon and Ellie wanted all the balloons to play with. Halloween night we had a get together with some friends to eat and take the kids trick-or-treating. We live by a neighborhood that closes off its' streets for Halloween and the fire dept and police dept even come out and hand out candy. There are around 1000 kids out there and houses decorate, etc. Ellie's friends Nelson, Henry, and Will went with us. It was a very fun and busy week for us all!

Now we are just trying to get everything ready for Maggie's arrival! We will know tomorrow if we are going to induce next week. I will update when I know.

Our Little Monkey

My mom came to visit last weekend and got Ellie jumping on the couch to "Five Little Monkeys". She has a big time! You can also hear her say "Crockett" and "Daddy". Notice that Grant is eating and of course watching Jeopardy in the background!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Fall is here!

Just wanted to pass along some pics from our weekend. Ellie was sick for the first part, but we were able to get out on Sunday and go for a hike to Frying Pan Tower. We decided against climbing to the top of the fire tower. We went a little ways up, though. The leaves are really starting to change here and it is so pretty up on The Blueridge Parkway.

Yesterday, we went up to the Pumpkin Patch to pick out some pumpkins. Ellie had fun with the little pumpkins thinking they were balls. She would pick them up and throw them! We had to explain they were not balls!

Ellie is really starting to talk and say words we can understand! Her vocab consists of, "Crockett" (her favorite word), "hot", "toot toot", "ma ma", "kitty", "duck", "apple", "daddy", "ball", "baby", "boo", "yucky", and she is now saying "tee tee" when she wets in her diaper. Now if she would just go use the potty! We think that she has an interesting set of words in her vocabulary, but it is so cute when she gets close to the oven and waves her hands and whispers, "hot!". She does the same with "yucky" when she is getting her diaper changed or getting close to something dirty. She is a handful for sure and full of energy, but we wouldn't have her be any other way! Hopefully she will get out of her hitting stage before Maggie arrives!!!!

Football!

Fall is for football! At the end of Sept. we made the trip to Oxford to watch Ole Miss play Vandy. Grant got to join us on the trip! On the way there we stopped in Crossville to see Ellie's buddy, Kayne. Kayne is a month older than Ellie. On the way home we stopped back in Crossville to see Sean and Jessica Stephens and meet their little boy, Grove. We had a good time in Oxford seeing Grandaddy Ellis and my family. Ellie also got see my cousin, Rebecca, and finally meet second cousin Tiley.

Last weekend we went to Charlotte to watch the Chiefs play the Panthers. My good friend, Turk, plays for the Chiefs and got us tickets and passes to the player area afterwards. The Chiefs lost, but we got to see alot of Turk on the field and then see him afterwards. Ellie and Turk finally got to meet! It was so great seeing him and we had a wonderful day. I don't think we'll be going to anymore games this year since we are now counting down the days until Maggie arrives. We have less than a month now! Ellie is patting my stomach and saying "Baby", but we don't think she really knows what that means - especially since she will have to share daddy with another little girl!

Toy Box built by GrandRon

About three weekends ago, Grant's parents brought up the toy box that GrandRon built for Ellie and Maggie. It is absolutely beautiful! I wanted to share some pictures of it. We are so grateful to him for putting in so much time working on this for the girls. We were in desperate need of something to put all Ellie's toys in and this is more than we expected. So we say a BIG THANK YOU to GrandRon for all of his hard work on this and it will be something that will be treasured for years and years to come.

Trip to the Nature Center in Asheville

On labor day we took Ellie to the Nature Center in Asheville. She loves animals and loved it here. They have lots of animals that are native to Western North Carolina such as wolves, black bears, and river otters. They also had lots of snakes and turtles. Ellie really liked the turtles and even got to pet one. They also had a petting area and we could not get Ellie to leave! One goat did decide to ram her a little and scared her, but she was fine. Her favorite was this one sheep that just let her stand there and pet it. She also stuck her finger in the turkey cage and a turkey pecked it. She screamed and then was fine. She just loves the animals and wants to touch and play with them all. It was a good time and wore her out! Next we will have to go to a zoo!

Orange Beach

We are back from the beach! Ellie had a blast on her first beach trip. Grant is in clinicals so he could not go. Ellie and I both wished he were there! Ellie loved the ocean and wanted to play in it all the time. She needed her Daddy because chasing a 14 month old while six months pregnant can be tiring! My sister-in-law, Shae, and nephew, Brinson also came. My brother, Bo, had to work. My younger brother, Andrew, or as Brinson calls him, Uncle Monkey made the trip and entertained the kids. He was very good with them and let them torture him at times. My mom came, but my dad had to work. We had alot of fun with the kids and watching them run around in the ocean and sand. It is so different going with kids. I remember the days of relaxing on the beach, taking walks, reading books, riding the waves, etc. Ha! Not any more. We were all chasing toddlers, getting sand thrown on us, catching the jellyfish, keeping kids out of the ocean, keeping Ellie from eating sand, and well, being six months pregnant forget riding the waves! However, it is so much more fun now. I think we for sure have a beach girl. We also kept up with Olympics and I made sure that Ellie watched the beach volleyball since Grant is determined to have her be the next Keri Walsh or Misty May. We were glad to get home to see Daddy and Crockett for sure. Ellie would have stayed at the beach forever if they had been there, but there are two things more important to her than the beach and those are her Daddy and her puppy dog!

Hopefully, I will have some video up soon as well! Enjoy!

Jackson/Oxford trip July 2008

We had a great trip to Jackson and Oxford. Ellie got to play with her cousin, Brinson, and see her second cousins, Curry and Anna Grant. We also got to go to a surprise birthday party for Mr. Bill Gayton and hear Magi play. Magi was the band that played at our wedding reception three years ago that weekend! We also went to my first cousin, Mandy's, engagement party in Oxford and got to meet her fiancee. On our way down we stopped and had lunch with Grant's grandparents as well. We saw lots of friends and had a great time.

Special outfits

I just wanted to share a few photos of Ellie in some special outfits. The first picture Ellie is wearing a dress that belonged to and was worn by my mom when she was a toddler. She wore it to church and everyone loved it. It is very special.
The yellow dress was one that my mother-in-law wore when she was a toddler and that she had saved through the years. I was glad that she got to wear dresses of both of her grandmothers.
The next picture is of me on my first birthday in Munford, TN. in front of the daisies in our yard. How I remember those daisies! The last pic is of Ellie in the same outfit 30 yrs later at my parents' home in Jackson, TN. Glad the outfit survived the tornado in Feb and that my mom was able to get out the mildew stains the tornado left on the outfit. It is so neat to have a pic of Ellie in the same outfit all this time later and also in the dresses of my mom and mom-in-law. I hope to get the same pics of Maggie in these outfits, too, and that they will survive for another generation.

4th of July weekend

We had a very busy 4th weekend. My brother, Andrew, came up on Thursday to spend it with us. On Friday we spent the afternoon on Main St. where they were having music, bands, and free watermelon, which Ellie enjoyed. The humane society also had animals out on the courthouse lawn for adoption. Ellie ran up to every cage with a dog in it and would get so excited and pant! It was so cute. That evening we headed to our church 4th of July celebration. It started with a 800m fun run straight up a hill. I think Andrew about died! He did win the male division due to the fact that Grant was pushing Ellie in the jogging stroller up the hill. However, he pushed Ellie to a 17 and under victory! It was lots of fun. Ellie played with her friends and really liked the bean bag toss. The night ended with fireworks over Lake Junaluska and Ellie enjoyed every minute of it.
On Saturday we headed off the Blue Ridge Parkway. It started at Sliding Rock where it is basically a natural water slide. Andrew and Grant had fun doing this. Ellie and I sat this one out! We then went to another hike by Looking Glass Rock to a waterfall and then to Black Balsam trail. Ellie fell asleep on this hike. It ended with a hike to the top of Devil's Courthouse. Indian legend says this is the place the Devil holds Court. Even if he does it is beautiful at the top! We were exhausted by the end of the day!

Ellie goes to Washington

Ellie went with my mother and me to the VA suburbs of DC to visit my brother, Bo, sister-in-law, Shae, and their 2-yr-old Brinson. Ellie had a great time trying to keep up with Brinson, going to a farm to see the animals, touring some of the sights of DC, and going to her first Major League Baseball game.

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Here is a slide show of Ellie over the past 12 months. It is so hard to remember her being so little!

Baby #2 is a girl!

On June 9th we went to have our ultrasound to find out what baby #2 was going to be. Before the nurse was even able to say it, I was able to tell it was a girl. I think Grant is plotting to get his basketball team! It will be nice to have two little girls so close together. I always wanted a sister so I am excited for Ellie for sure. I joked with Grant and told him he better start saving for weddings now! Ellie is such a Daddy's girl so Grant is excited as he put it, "to have someone else to worship me!" ;)
The name we have picked out is once again a family name. Her name will be Margaret Thompson Shanks and go by Maggie. Margaret is Grant's paternal grandmother's name and Thompson is my paternal grandmother's maiden name.

The first picture is confirming that baby Shanks #2 is a girl. The second picture is of one of Maggie's feet. I think she is going to have big feet like Ellie and her Uncle Andrew. The third picture is of Maggie in a tuck. Her hands are wrapped behind her legs. The nurse said she had never seen a baby doing this. Future gymnast?The fourth picture is of her face. I can't tell who she looks like!

Ellie's first birthday!

Our baby girl is now one! On June 6, 2008, Ellie turned one! Unfortunately, she also started running a 104 fever. On Sat we still had her party at our local park, but poor little Ellie felt so bad. We had a great time and some of Ellie's little friends from daycare came as well.

It was Strawberry Shortcake themed due to Ellie's strawberry hair. Ellie has moved up to the one-year-old room at daycare as well. She is the baby in there! They went ahead and moved her up due to the fact she has been walking for a while and is doing so well with it as well as she is off the bottle. She looks so little compared to the other kids, who are at least 5 months older then her. She has adjusted well to eating in big kid chairs and sleeping on a cot! At her one year appt. she was 22 lbs. 5 oz. and 30 1/2 in. long. Hard to believe it has been a year since she changed our lives!