A crowd of nephews...

With the addition of Hayes to our family, I realized we have a host of little boys running around! I wonder if Catherine's baby will be a girl just to confuse us all :) Scott and I absolutely love our nephews and enjoy spending time with them as often as possible.

The wild Wilsons are just down the road, so we get to see them a good bit--especially during football season (as seen in the last post). When we head to our seats we always look for Eli and Ford. They are usually too busy pregame to look for us--but we know that when the team takes the field that we'll have Ford settle in right next to us. That kid doesn't miss a play! He loves to watch the game, and pays close attention to every down. I thought the perfect birthday gift for him would be his own binoculars, seeing that he always borrows either Scott's or his moms. When I asked him (mistake #1) he thought about it for a split second and said he'd probably rather have a game for his Playstation. Of course. We usually get a good visit with Eli at the start of the 4th quarter when he's visited with every other fan in the stands. He is quite the social one in the family--he is always running around with his best friend. The good thing is that we like his friend, too, so when they make their way to us we're excited to see them both.

Luke puts a new spin to the word "wild." He is your typical three-year-old, and loves to have the attention of his momma, and that usually means the attention of us all. I cannot believe that he turned three this weekend! He had a pirate party, and from the looks of it everyone had a blast! My mom went to visit for the weekend and said that it was so much fun to see all the little kiddos playing with their costumes and treasures. Catherine--you outdid yourself!! I was so impressed by the cake and decor as well as the games and party favors! You set the bar high! Luke is a lot of fun and I look forward to him being a big brother soon. Although he might not be ready to share, I know he will be a super brother. Below is a picture from his party--it's tough to be still long enough to pose for a picture when you're a pirate!!

And then there is Hayes. What a joy it has been to watch Hayes grow (slowly at first and suddenly very quickly!) as well as to watch Sarah mother. I have always known that she would be an amazing mom! I cannot believe that Hayes is already 8 weeks old--he is filling out and smiling and flirting and even holding his head up! I really do look forward to watching him grow and develop more and more. These pictures are from last night--he was stealing the show, as I'm sure is hard to imagine!

Scott and I are so proud of our nephews and love each of them very much. I hope you enjoyed learning a little bit more about our family, and I hope they enjoyed their publicity on the world wide web! (Eli and Ford will have to check out the Football blog for their pics!)

SEC football

The temperature is changing...the leaves soon will too. That can only mean one thing: FALL! I love this season for so many reasons, but one reason common to both Scott and myself is SEC FOOTBALL!! We love it--and it's safe to say we are huge fans. Since I grew up in Oxford, and we live in Oxford, we're natural Ole Miss fans. Although I did not go to undergrad at Ole Miss, I still consider myself a Rebel fan--except when it comes to ONE game. Since I went to college at The University of Alabama, I must cheer for the Tide! I love to watch every game that I can on television and we try to get to Tuscaloosa for at least one game each year. Alabama football excites me!! For most of the season all is calm in the Thompson house--Scott and I have season tickets to Ole Miss games, and we stroll through the Grove each week to experience a second of the tailgating atmosphere. But when the Rebels and Tide play, it's safe to say that Scott and I separate for the weekend! I'll post more on that later...after that October matchup. Below are a few pictures from a recent Ole Miss game. (I don't know why one is TINY...but when I have more time, I'll allow my OCD to take over.)

Weekend visit with Best Friends

This past weekend Scott and I were thrilled to get to visit with both of our best friends! We went to the Ole Miss football game at Wake Forest, which was an exciting game that I am glad we attended. Scott's best friend, Brian, lives in Raleigh so we stayed with him and made a weekend of it. We loved getting to see Brian and his new hometown, as well as hang out with his girlfriend, Laura. Thanks to you both for putting up with us and for entertaining us!! I will post pictures from the weekend as soon as I get them (hint, hint Laura!). I am very sad because we left our camera.

Scott and I had some free time to drive over to Durham where we toured the campus of Duke University. It was beautiful!! I couldn't believe the architecture of each and every building--even their sports facilities (although small) are pretty. On that note, because we were in town we thought we would try to visit with Coach David Cutcliffe, the new head coach of Duke. When Coach Cut was at Ole Miss he travelled a good bit with Scott. I remember when he left Ole Miss Scott was truly upset--he really thinks highly of this gentleman. Because of this, I was hoping to meet him. Side note: Back in January Scott and his great friend John went to visit Brian. During this visit, Scott and John tried to catch Coach Cut at his office, but missed him by mere minutes. Fast forward to now: While we were chatting with his administrative assistant, he walked through the reception area! We got to visit with him for a good long while--he and Scott caught up, we saw recent pictures of his family, and got his impression of the recent changes in Ole Miss football (which I will not post on our blog!). Let me tell you, this man is indeed one to respect and admire. I really enjoyed our special impromptu visit with him and am now a Duke football fan. And let me just say--he has one impressive office with a flat-screen HD television/computer screen that will make even the employees at Best Buy drool!

Friday evening we went with Brian and Laura to Chapel Hill to enjoy a night out at The University of North Carolina (which is Laura's Alma mater). We didn't get to see much of it, but we were very, very impressed with The Carolina Inn, where we went for drinks and bluegrass on the lawn. If I lived anywhere in the area this would be a regular weekend spot for me!

Saturday was game day, and we loaded into a mini-van and headed to Winston-Salem where we toured the campus of Wake Forest University. Again, a pretty campus! It was fun to see where 2 of my post-college roommates went to undergraduate school. I got a quick glance at the chapel where one of my friends got engaged! The only facilities we "toured" were the restrooms outside of the baseball field (Can you believe the women's room was unlocked!? Seriously, the guys decided on a bathroom break in this back parking lot where we were turning around...and we looked up and there was a bathroom! The ladies decided to take advantage of this unexpected blessing, and were disappointed when the guys realized the men's room was locked. I said, "At least check the women's room---it ought to be a universal rule that ALL women's rooms are unlocked at all times." And indeed it was! Because this never happens, I had to document it!).

The game was super exciting--and Ole Miss almost won. Sadly with 1:01 left in the game, our defense ran out of steam and Wake kicked a winning field goal with 3 seconds left. Heartbreaker. The major highlights from the game were sitting so close to the band that I felt I needed an instrument and getting to see my friends Jason and Brent (I haven't seen Brent in probably 3 years and Jason lives in freaking Iowa!). It really was fun to see familiar faces in the crowd!

Now, I have shared a lot about the weekend except for when I got to see my best friend. Because we were flying, we decided to fly out of the Birmingham airport so that we could see my best friend, Dana and her great husband Chris. They are special friends to both me and Scott and we were eager to visit with them because they just had their first child at the beginning of August. I wanted to get to meet Wells as a tiny baby, so was thrilled when our flight plans worked out as we hoped. Wells is a great baby--and managed to stay awake until we arrived in town Thursday evening (He was so excited he didn't take a nap all day! Sorry Dana!). I couldn't believe how alert Wells is--and how quickly he fell in love with his Aunt Mary. He really is adorable and we had fun seeing our friends as parents. The picture is of Wells' sporting his new bathrobe we gave him in true Hugh Hefner style. I can tell already that this boy is going to have the ladies lined up!



Another highlight was getting to spend time with my brother Brad and his wife Bentley. Although that visit was quick, we did appreciate the guest bedroom and ride to the airport. It's so fun to have family and friends living so close to one another so I can visit with lots of fun people when I am in town.

Now that we are back in Oxford, things are somewhat settling down....but as can be expected there are more adventures to be shared. It's football season, Debate time, and classes for Scott. We will share more soon!

Home improved

Recently I posted that Scott, Mo and I were busy with home improvement projects. At that time, we were painting our guest bedroom. This bedroom was the "step-child" of our home--the room that we had great intentions to get around to earlier, but seemed content with simply shutting the door and ignoring the plain walls and post-college/first apartment furnishings.

Our major motivator to complete this bedroom was football season. I know, it sounds crazy, but football season is not only a motivator for us but it has also become a nice little money maker to finance our home improvement projects.

This is our third football season to rent out our condo for home football games. The season that Scott and I got married (yes, we married during football season!) we took a leap of faith and posted our condo on a fan blog. That season was a trial-and-error, and we rented to several different groups. I won't elaborate on the errors, but the blessing was a wonderful weekend tenant--a precious family from Jackson. The next year our tenant, who we now consider our football family, rented for most of the home games so we didn't worry with multiple renters. Thank goodness for Coach Nutt, because I was seriously wondering if our football family would commit to this season! Now that Scott and I are both employed, our football funds can now go to finishing our last little projects on our home improvement list (and savings, of course!). First on our list was finishing our guest bedroom.

After completing our projects, I thought I would post pictures. I also came across some of the pictures we emailed to our football family three seasons ago. Prepare to ohhhh and ahhh.

The Living Room 2 years ago:

(When our football family came the first season we had a warped TV Stand!!)

The Living Room NOW:

The "master" bedroom 3 years ago:

The "master bedroom" NOW:

And now...for the guest bedroom (which we didn't photograph before):

And today, after our annual Labor Day road trip, we added this beautiful piece to our living room: (It has a great hutch that sits on top, but we don't have room/need for it now.)

Many thanks to our football family for contributing to our house! We will forever be grateful for the Ray family :) And I must also thank both my parents and Scott's parents. Scott's parents helped us attempt to landscape our backyard. Unfortunately the seed we spread did not agree with the pine trees. My parents have helped with numerous projects around the house. The most recent is making the cornice box and headboard for our guest room. I think they turned out looking great :) They have also played a big role in our football weekend deal, as they allow us to crash at their home! Now that our guestroom is done, we need to have both parents and friends and family come stay with us. I promise you'll be much more comfortable!!!