Knees to the Earth

In Sunday School this week our teacher asked us to think of song lyrics that influence our life. Of course there are plenty of songs that have negative influences on us, but the song I kept thinking of was my favorite, "Knees to the Earth." I couldn't think of the song title in class, but I finally remembered it. I heard this song in a few weddings and think it is one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard. It should be playing for you as you read this. As we near Jesus' birthday I wanted to share the lyrics with you. It is a time to be in awe of Jesus and how wonderful He is! We are so blessed to have a Saviour that loves us unconditionally and would give His life for us! I hope that we will all glorify Him, treasure Him, love Him always, and remember that He is the reason we celebrate Christmas! We are praising Him for all the wonderful blessings He has given us this year, Grady especially!

Knees to the Earth
Wonderful Savior
My heart belongs to Thee
I will remember always the blood You shed for me
Wonderful Savior
My heart will know Your worth
So I will embrace You always as I walk this earth

Chorus:
Be blessed, be loved, be lifted high
Be treasured here
Be glorified
I owe my life to You my Lord
Here I am....

Beautiful Jesus
How may I bless Your heart?
Knees to the earth I bow down to everything You are
Beautiful Jesus
You are my only worth
So let me embrace You always as I walk this earth

Chorus

Christmas Time is Here!

Christmas is only 9 days away! We hope you all receieved our first family Christmas card! I was very eager to get those out as it was my first time to make and send Christmas cards! We have been very busy and really enjoying this time of year with Grady! He is such a precious miracle and we are so thankful for him!

Grady had his first overnight away from Mama and Dad this past week! Yes, it was HARD for us! We hosted a Christmas party at our house and they wanted to babysit him in Spartanburg. He spent last Thursday and Friday night with Richard's parents, Papa and Gmom/Nana/Grancy (not sure still)! Grady had a blast and Aunt Irene even came on Friday! Gmom bought him an adorable Christmas outfit and took him to meet Santa! He liked Santa, but we'll see what happens next year! Remember on his "4 Month" post how I said he wouldn't smile in his pictures at Portrait Innovations? Well, here is the only picture I bought. It's still cute, even though he didn't smile.

Grady helped me decorate the tree! At least he laughed and giggled at me while I decorated. I guess his help was not being fussy so I could do it.

He's holding his ornament from Papa and Gmom!

Mama and Grady waiting in line to meet Mr. and Mrs. Claus!

Grady with Mr. and Mrs. Claus!

An attempt with the timer to get a family photo by our tree.

Daddy taught me how to stand

This past week I had a lot of Christmas parties to go to, Bunco, Bible Study, etc. and Richard therefore had a lot of one on one time with Grady! Well, the other day Richard said, "I want to show you what I have taught Grady the last few nights." He propped Grady up by the coffee table and let go. Of course I was nervous (my baby is only 4 months old) but he surprised me and stood by himself for a few minutes! I videoed most of it and he even let go two or three times and grabbed back on. I was shocked! After that we got a picture of what we mainly work on . . . sitting up! He's getting the hang of it, but leans forward to stay balanced. He's growing way to fast for us! Grady doing what he does best . . . checking out those cool hands!

Grady tries to watch TV

One of Grady's favorite places to play is on his Tigger mat (thanks Mama!) and for us to make all sorts of noises at him. Well, if we have the TV on (very often in football season) he does his best to watch it, even when we have him facing away from it. He will turn his head further than we thought a head could turn. Here are a few pics that show just how much he loves TV! What's that your watching Grady???

OH, it's football, as usual!

Weekend in Savannah

We went to Savannah with Jamie and Sarah (and new baby on the way in June...YEAH!) about a week ago to visit Gene and Rosanne. We made a stop by their cool store, Genealogy (http://itsinhergenes.com/index.html) for Sarah and I to do a little shopping for ourselves! On Saturday we went downtown Savannah for some yummy pizza and walked down River Street. When we left Sunday we stopped by Ridgeland so Grady could meet his greatgrandmother.

Uncle Gene and Grady in Genealogy

Richard and I

Uncle Gene, Aunt Rosanne and Grady

Uncle Jamie, Aunt Sarah and baby cousin!

Grady staying warm in Uncle Gene's jacket.

Grady giggling at Uncle Gene!

Family photo - believe it or not, the red was not planned.

Uncle Jamie, Aunt Sarah and baby cousin! Richard ordered the extra large icecream cone!

We got a picture that included the boys pulling the carriage we were in, but I think it was on Sarah's camera. Love this one though!

Aunt Rosanne, Grady and me

Great-Grandmama Nettles and Grady

Grady LOVES his thumb!

Grady had his paci until he turned 4 months old. We went ahead and took it away because he didn't want it all the time, often spit it out and we didn't want him to get too attached to it later on. We mainly just didn't want to have to keep up with the paci anymore. After two days of a lot of crying at the times he usually got it, he chilled out and accepted that it was gone. Then the next day he found his thumb. Oh well. At least he can have it when he needs it and I don't have to find his paci for him when it pops out. This is how he puts himself to sleep . . . thumb in his mouth and he rubs his head. Oh and he always kicks his right leg as well too.

Clemson beat Carolina!

We packed up EARLY Saturday morning to leave Charleston and make it to Clemson by 10 am to tailgate before the game. It was a cold and rainy day, so we had Grady bundled up well. Grady and I watched the game at Aunt Irene's apartment, but did tailgate before and after the game with everyone. We only have these three pictures from the tailgate thanks to Irene because we didn't want to take our camera in the rain. Here is a picture of what Grady was wearing underneath all his winter coat layers. Aunt Irene with a warm Grady.

Willy Korn, Mason Cloy and Grady.

Grady with our cousin Katie. I don't if it's Grady's second cousin, cousin once removed or what??? We'll have to ask Grandmama Nettles!

Thanksgiving in Charleston

We were in Charleston for Thanksgiving this year and had a blast spending time with my family. My parents had a full house . . . with 16 people! It was so much fun and the best is all the cousins that Grady has to play with. Meme and Ditdough, my parents, gave the grandkids matching outfits this year and we got some cute pictures of them together.

During the photo shoot everyone was willing to sit and smile, but Anna was determined to dance for the pictures! Meme was singing "Peter, James and John in the Sailboat" while Ditdough took pictures. Obviously Anna is such a ham and was hearing the dance/rap version in her mind and was hilarious! Kate was smiling perfectly the whole time, Grady just chilling and taking it all in, Troy and Asher were not happy about the whole situation and couldn't understand why Anna wouldn't just sit down so they could be done and go play.

Beth trying to convince Anna to sit down for a few seconds.

Yeah...never gonna work...I think it's too cute this way!

AHH...the best one of many!

Kate wanted her own solo picture, but you can see how put out she was with Asher because he kept jumping in the picture.

Aunt Beth and Grady

Kate fed Grady many bottles over the weekend. She's so grown up and such a great helper!

Beautiful Kate!

Proof that the guys did help out with the cleaning since the girls did the cooking! Thanks!

Aunt Neely and Anna

Josh (Neely's boyfriend), Kate and Asher. Asher refused to smile for any of my photos unless Josh was in it with him. He LOVES Josh!

Myrtle Beach

Richard, Grady and I took a short family trip to Myrtle Beach just before Thanksgiving. Thankfully my sisters had swimmy diapers, bathing suits and a pool float for Grady to use since you can't find those items in November. Grady LOVED the pool! I would share pictures from the pool but they are all foggy from the steam that the indoor pool made. We also took him for a ride on the carousel and got some cute photos in the candy shop - he woke up looking shocked for some reason! The best part on the way down was getting to see our friends Lee, Tiffany and Cade. They used to live down the street from us and now live in Indiana and were here visiting family for Thanksgiving.

We were in the candy barrel store and he was sleeping. When he woke up I looked down and he had this look on his face for almost 10 minutes! We couldn't stop laughing.

Lee with Cade and Grady. They had fun meeting each other.