Big Girl Potty!!

I mean...if that isn't the cutest picture I've ever seen!! 2 weeks ago on Friday night, I left to go to Ryan's football game vs. Goodpasture. While I was at Calypso having dinner by myself, my phone rang and it was Annie. When I answered the phone she said "You aren't going to believe it...Madison Claire just went Pee-Pee in the potty!!!" You can imagine the scene as the conversation transpired with me asking questions about what happened and cheering for Madison Claire over the phone while at Calypso!

Let me take a step back - we aren't really trying to potty train Madison Claire. She has always liked going into the bathroom with us so we bought this little potty at Toys R Us back 4 or 5 months ago and it's just been sitting in our bathroom downstairs. She hasn't really shown a lot of interest in it, but she will sit on it sometimes.

This particular night, she was eating in her high chair and she just looked at Annie and said "pee-pee" so Annie took her in there and sure enough, she went! Annie said that she made such a big deal out of it that Madison Claire just sat there with a huge smile and she wouldn't get off. Before she knew it, she had gone #2 in the potty! We couldn't believe it! Annie took that picture during that time...so cute!

Well - that weekend, I would ask her occasionally if she needed to go "pee-pee" and she would always say "no". So I didn't think much of it. Well, wouldn't you know - Annie got here on Monday morning and I am not joking when I say that within 10 minutes, she was peeing on that potty for Annie. I just couldn't believe it! She went 2 or 3 times on Monday and twice on Tuesday so we thought we were on a roll, but she hasn't shown any interest since then, so we'll see!

At any rate, I'm proud of our punkie!!

Park Cafe

Ryan and I had a date night out to our special place, Park Cafe, the other weekend. It was so nice to get away just the 2 of us and we had a great meal at Park Cafe topped off with a piece of Pumpkin Cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory for dessert! YUM! I love my handsome hubby!!!

Toddler bed

We moved Madison Claire into a toddler bed about a month ago because we caught her trying to climb out. Her crib converts to a toddler bed so we basically just took the front of the crib off and put up a small rail. The first 2 nights were a disaster - she was up at 6am standing at the top of the stairs pulling on the gate and would not go back to sleep. I posted on Facebook asking for advice and our family friend, Vicki Bachman, suggested that we turn her doorknob around so we could lock the door from the outside. We did that and it's been smooth sailing ever since! She will get out of the bed and go to the door but when she can't open it, she'll just go crawl right back into bed and go back to sleep. Thankfully, she is still sleeping until 7:30 or 8:00am! Praise the Lord!

She has been pretty cute though in terms of what she wants in her bed. She puts everything in there - blankets, baby dolls, books, etc. One morning, I woke up and she had her "popper" in the bed with her. The other morning, she woke up at 3:30am and went and got a book and was sitting up reading in her bed. You never know what you are going to find these days - one day, I looked over and found Annie in there with her!

We are proud of Madison Claire for making the transition easily and still can't believe that she is old enough to be out of her crib!

Happy Halloween!!

We drove back to Nashville on Halloween day and after a stop at Whole Foods & Calypso Cafe, we carved a pumpkin and got dressed up for Halloween. It was a beautiful night and Madison Claire had fun watching for the trick-or-treaters. We took her to a few houses on our culdesac and she loved it! Her favorite thing right now is a dum-dum sucker and I'm not kidding when I say she probably had 7 that night! She wasn't too thrilled about having to wear the Raggedy Anne wig tonight. She was still precious! Hope everyone had a good halloween!

Trick-or-treating at Kroger

While I was at Heidi's wedding, mom and dad took Madison Claire trick-or-treating at Kroger. My siblings and I have such fond memories of trick-or-treating at Kroger when we were little. They used to have a cake walk, and all of these fun games that we'd get to play. Madison Claire had a great time and looked precious! She was Raggedy Anne for Halloween this year - a costume that my Mama Howard made 21 years ago for Meredith & Patrick (there is a matching Raggedy Andy costume). It was so special to me for Madison Claire to be able to wear it - Mama Howard you are super talented!!!

Congratulations Heidi & Matt

Heidi & Matt got married on Friday night, October 29th. They had a very intimate ceremony on Friday night at a winery in Dahlonega, GA and then had a huge party in downtown Atlanta on Saturday night. Both events were perfect!!! The winery was gorgeous and the location downtown (Ventanas) was quite possibly the most fabulous wedding reception location I've ever seen! Ryan wasn't able to make it to the wedding on Friday night because that Friday was the last football game of the season for CPA. So I went by myself and definitely missed him! Heidi looked stunning (as you can see below) and the whole evening was just perfect minus the one mishap when our "Wish Lanterns" got caught in the trees and caught them on fire!

Ryan made it in on Saturday and we took Madison Claire and my parents to the party with us on Saturday night. We had a great time! CONGRATULATIONS HEIDI & MATT! WE LOVE YOU!!!

The new Mr. & Mrs. Cornelius!

My besties from high school - so thankful we are still close friends!

Madison Claire was fascinated by Heidi!

Wish this picture had turned out!

She's asking "Where's Daddy?"

Madison Claire loves her Papa Steve

I love my handsome hubby!!!

Week in Atlanta

I had a great week working from Atlanta. I went to the Falcons game with Patrick, shopping with mom, Sarah, and the babies, spent time with Jacob, and of course had some great meals with mom & dad....all of this when I wasn't working!

Madison Claire LOVES Nutmeg!