Happy Thanksgiving! We had Sy's parents here and got a quick visit today with his sister Jennifer and our nephew Caid. Can't wait for Christmas!

So, we cut James's hair...
He'd had a haircut at Easter for the FIRST time, but that was just a trim. Here is James "helping" Mama Coley blow out her 90th b.d. candles last weekend, with all the curls.




Now here is James last night after "the shearing"...
He did NOT like the clippers and we had to do a little, turn it off, give him a bite of ice cream, and then pin him down to do a little more!

And here is James today much happier and looking so grown up! We will probably let it grow out more again just because I decided I'm not quite ready for him to be a big boy. And, yes, we saved some of the curls :)

We moved into our home 2 years ago today and even though we are in the deep South, we didn't realize that when the seasons changed from summer to winter, it would be cold! It is a damp kind of cold here and in an old home (built in 1925) the floors are cold and the windows and doors "breathe" easily. Our first winter here, we spent our whole first year's natural gas allowance in 2 months....so I went out and bought a couple space heaters and we lived in the back of the house. After we had our chimney inspected, they said the masonry was so deteriorated that we would have to line the whole thing, etc. = VERY expensive and still inefficient as far as a source of heating the house.

Last year, we had insulation blown in the attic and using the space heaters and sometimes the central heat, we made it through. This year, after some saving and lots of research done by Sy (I wish I had a picture of him in front of the computer wearing his hat, gloves, and his sweater & fleece jacket looking at wood burning stoves!) we had a wood-burning stove put in.

This "Freedom" Stove by Lopi is about 500 lbs. and took two men, one big dolly, a huge dowel rod, and 4 hours to install.
What a difference warmth makes :)