Elf on the Shelf

Have you ever heard of Elf on the Shelf? I was introduced to it about two weeks ago and think it's such a fun tradition for families to have around Christmastime with their young children. The family I work for started it this year and Carter just seems to love it! The idea is to put the elf in a different place every morning and when the children wake up they go and find him. The elf is Santa's helper and he watches the children every day and then at night he will report back to Santa how the children were that day. The children can name him and talk to him, but cannot touch him. Carter has named his elf Bill. We have no clue where that name came from! We've also noticed better behavior in Carter because he knows Bill will go tell Santa how he is behaving. Just seeing how much fun Carter has had with it already, I know this is a fun little tradition I would like to begin in my own family one day!

St. Jude 5K and Half Marathon Weekend

Last weekend Brandon and I had some friends come in town and visit. A few months ago we talked them into coming in town and running with me in the 5K and, for those more ambitious, the half marathon with Brandon. All the girls and Ryan did the 5K, while Brandon and Owen ran the half marathon. Brandon ran his personal best in just under two hours! It was a very early and cold morning, but we had a blast!

Before the race

After the race with our medals

After Brandon finished

Owen and Brandon

Love ya!

That night we all got together for a Tacky Sweater Christmas Party! We had Central Barbecue for dinner, played games, and Dirty Santa. We also got to spend time with baby Rylan!

Brunch at Brother Juniper's

I am so glad you girls were able to come in town for the weekend! Love ya!

Thanksgiving and a Little More

Last week Brandon and I went to Nashville to celebrate Thanksgiving with our families. We had basically three days to celebrate with each of our parents. Do the math....that's four times!! On Thanksgiving Day, we ate with Brandon's mother and family. The food was absolutely delicious! Then we spent the rest of the evening with my mother and her side of the family playing games. Friday, we had lunch with Brandon's grandmother in her assisted living home, did a little shopping with his dad, and later went out to his house for dinner. Once again, the food was wonderful! On Saturday, we met my father and Birgit, along with my brother and his fiance, at the movie theater to see The Blindside. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it! After the movie, we went back to their house. Birgit cooked another great dinner for us. I just love the holiday season and being able to spend time with family. I wish we lived closer and our time wasn't as limited so that we wouldn't feel as rushed at each place. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and look forward to coming home for Christmas!

On Sunday, Brandon loaded up his car and drove to Atlanta for, yet another interview! He has an aunt and uncle that live in Atlanta who were kind enough to let him stay with them. From there he drove to Chattanooga for another interview. Both of the interviews went very well! He got back home Wednesday night.

Last night we bought our Christmas tree and put it up! Last year, if we remember correctly the tree we picked was the second one we looked at. Ha, not so last night! For starters, all the trees had netting on them, so we had to cut that off before we could even look at the tree. We probably cut the netting off of ten trees or more. I'm not joking. AND....my family is probably reading this thinking that I was probably being the picking one. Not so...it was the hubby!! Anyways, after about an hour later, we left with the perfect tree!

This weekend is the St. Jude Marathon! This will be the third year we have participated in it. We talked a bunch of our Nashville friends into coming into town and running it with us. They will be here tonight and we are making a whole weekend of it! Brandon and Owen are running the half marathon and then a bunch of the girls are doing the 5K! It's going to be COLD, but so much fun! I'm looking forward to it! I'll have to post some pictures of it next week! Wish us luck!

Residency Update

The last time I updated you on Brandon's residency progress, I believe he had just applied to about twenty-two programs. Since then, he heard back from all but three programs. We had heard to expect to hear back from about half of the programs, so I am proud of him! He accepted fourteen of the invites. Fourteen....holy cow!! That means from now until January he will be driving/flying to fourteen different cities and interviewing with these places. This week alone he drove to St. Louis, Louisville, Lexington, and Indianapolis! Yes, that's four interviews in one week! He seemed to be very pleased with how the interviews went. Four down, ten to go! That still sounds like a lot! He gets home tonight and I know will probably crash the rest of the weekend. He took next week off to enjoy a long, well deserved, Thanksgiving break.

We look forward to next week, as we are planning on going to Nashville Wednesday night and spending the long weekend there with our family for Thanksgiving. I hope everyone has a wonderful time with their families and has a Happy Thanksgiving!

Race for the Cure and Halloween

Over Halloween weekend my mother, aunt, and two cousins came in town for a visit. On Saturday, we participated in Race for the Cure, which means a lot to our family. I am proud to say that my mother is a breast cancer survivor!! She is going on 10 years this coming March! Since Saturday was also Halloween, we took the kids and Bailey trick or treating on Mud Island. All in all, it was a wonderful weekend! Everytime I spend time with family, I realize how much I miss them.


Brandon ran the race

Bailey was a cowgirl for Halloween, but she did not like her hat!

Brandon tried to show her how to wear it.

It worked for mmm....a minute!

Logan and Allison....Prisoner and a Witch

Happy Halloween!

October at a Glance

I have to apologize for being so bad this past month at blogging. October flew by, and I feel like this is the first chance I have had to sit down and post. We have had a very busy October! I will let you see for yourself what we have been up to this month!

The first weekend in October, one of my very best friends, Betsy, came in town to visit. We always look forward to spending time and catching up with her. We had a great time!

Of course, we had to take her to our favorite cupcake place, Muddy's!

Betsy met Rylan for the first time!!

The following weekend we went to Nashville for a wedding and to see friends and family. We went to lunch with Jenny and Owen on Saturday at Baja Burrito!! We miss them so much and are so glad that we were able to spend some time catching up with them.

Music and Molasses Festival 2009

Brandon and his mom

Picking out our pumpkin

Guys hard at work

Our Pumpkin!

The whole gang!

There is a rock wall at UT that we have been saying we need to try one weekend for the past year. Since our time in Memphis is beginning to become limited, we decided to go a few weeks ago. Jason, who is in Brandon's class, along with his wife, Brittney went with us. We had a great time, although we paid for it the next day!



Carter was Cookie Monster for Halloween

Sweet Connor was a Chocolate Chip Cookie

I don't have a picture of the costume, but it was really cute!!

Brandon and I were trying to take a picture of the two of us and then......
somebody was feeling a little left out!!

Long post I know, I will try to update more regularly! Hope you enjoyed the pictures!!

From Haiti to the Balcony

A couple of weeks ago, Meaghan and I participated in a fund raiser run for a medical mission stationed in Haiti. It was called the 24-hour Tour d'Esprit. The premise of it is that teams have 24 runners who run in one hour blocks so that there is someone running around the clock. We ran together for the 10am hour and logged 6 miles for our team, the UT Medical Students. When it was all over, our team had logged 103 miles over the 24 hours.

That evening, after the run was over, we went to dinner and then went to the symphony. The title of the show was "Music as Muse" and was a compilation of music that inspired screenwriter Craig Brewer as he wrote his movies. If you don't know who Craig Brewer is, he is the writer and director of the films Hustle & Flow and Black Snake Moan as well as others and is a Memphis local. He was at the performance that evening and talked about how different classical pieces inspired different aspects of his films. The pieces ranged from the Overture from West Side Story to a few movements from Mozart's Requiem mass and a little bit of everything in between. It was a very enjoyable evening. Even Meaghan had a good time!

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend where we were able to enjoy some local events in this city of ours. The End.

Sweet 26

Two weeks ago from today I turned twenty-six, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Maybe that's why I have put off this post. I was ok with twenty-four because I was still in my early twenties. When I hit twenty-five, it hit me that I was in my mid-twenties, which I was still ok with. I am twenty-six now, and I for some reason get depressed thinking about it. Maybe because my mother had me at twenty-six, and I always wanted to be a young mother. I just have to remember that Brandon and I are in a completely different situation than my parents were in at our age. Anyways, now that I am twenty-six, birthdays aren't like they once used to be. I don't look forward to them just to turn a year older and get gifts. I look forward to them to spend time with family and friends.

For my birthday dinner, Brandon took me to Pearl's Oyster House here in Memphis. Every year for my birthday, he makes me a strawberry shortcake, so we came home for dessert. Everything was really good, and we had a great time!

The next weekend we went home to celebrate with my family! It was so good to see everyone! Saturday night, we celebrated with my mom's side. We had Mexican for dinner and then mom made Paula Deen's banana pudding! On Sunday, we celebrated with my dad's side. He grilled lunch for everyone, and then we had banana splits! Can you tell I'm not your traditional birthday cake kind of gal? Thank you mom and dad for making my birthday weekend so special! I love you!

When I got to work on my birthday, I had this

birthday card waiting on me. Carter had worked

hard on it for me. He's so sweet!

Brandon got me a memory foam mattress pad

Strawberry Shortcake

Banana Pudding Birthday Cake

My sweet family

Opening gifts

On Saturday, Brandon and I were finally able to go over to my cousin Kelly's house and meet her adorable twins, Hutch and Anniston. We got to play with them for a few hours, and I got to catch up with Kelly! I just want to eat them up!!