Welcome to The World, Ada Ruth Brandon!

Early last Saturday, September 11, I got a text message from my little brother saying that his precious wife was in labor!!!! I immediately started calling mom, sister, etc, to find out all I could, and after that, we all started getting ready to make the drive to Birmingham. I cannot tell you how excited I was/am now that my niece, Ada, is here. She is absolutely precious! And, that makes granddaughter #6 for my parents---not a boy in the bunch. We wouldn't know what to do with one of those! :) My grandmother, whose name was Ruth, always said that a boy would be mothered to death with all of the girls in this family.

Enjoy the pictures of this precious, precious blessing!

Third Time's the Charm.....

If you keep up with us at all, you know that we at one time had a boxer named Bella and a 'mutt' named Max. Neither of those additions lasted long at chez Manning. I would proudly own Bella still to this day if 1. she wasn't bigger than my children which constantly led to their being knocked down by her which then led to "Mommy, I wanna go inside. Bella 'cares me!" or 2. her destroying parts of our fence to escape to our neighbors and finally 3. if our neighbors weren't trying to woo her away from us with 'real food' in order to mate her with their daughter's male boxer. Since we weren't giving in to the real food thing, we just decided to give her to our neighbors. A few weeks after, we saw a familiar looking boxer wandering around close to our neighborhood and another one of our neighbors told us that when she went to the shelter to pick up her own dog who had been picked up by animal control she saw a boxer at the shelter and wondered if it was ours.

And Max....well, there's not a lot I can say about him. He pretty much nailed his own coffin when he chewed through a wire on our outside air conditioning unit which shorted out something which led to our being without air from most of March through all of April. Needless to say, Max went away!

But....Reese has fallen in love with chihuahuas. Our cousin has two, and we get to see them every year at campmeeting. During that week, if Reese isn't at our tent, I know she's with Stacey and her dogs. Well, we have been searching and searching for a chihuahua for the girls. I have to admit that I never really was a fan of that breed, but I knew that something small would probably work better for us. Warren works with a guy whose mother in law lives next door to a lady that had one puppy left, and a few weeks ago, Warren surprised us with our new addition....Priss!

She is a very sweet dog, and I think she fits in nicely with the girls. Although, I do feel sorry for her at times because the girls fight over whose dog she actually is and whose turn it is to hold her. I know that this breed is skiddish anyway, but you should see her shake when the girls are hollering at each other to "give me the puppy." She is also good company for us, even though she really is like a baby by sleeping a lot during the day and being awake all night. Oh well, this too shall pass and we have really enjoyed having her......so far! ;)

A New Year... A New School

Well, the girls began a new school year at a new school a few weeks ago. And, if you're counting, that makes three schools in three years. I never thought in a million years that we'd be in a school situation like this, but we're making it. I have to give it to my girls that they handle adjustment to big situations really well. Small ones like bedtime on vacation or campmeeting, not so much! ;)

Reese's new year began with a few interesting developments. Her teacher was originally scheduled to teach kindergarten, but with the number of first graders enrolled, they moved the teacher to first grade----TWO DAYS before school began. I can't imagine how stressed Mrs. Richards was during those first few days. Reese met her 'original' teacher on open house night and kinda got used to her and the classroom, so when she was moved to Mrs. Richards' room, it kinda threw her for a loop. But after a few weeks, she adjusted and is doing beautifully on all her work. She's bringing home loads of 100s and staying on green everyday! So proud of her!

Anna & Maggie have adjusted extremely well, too. They didn't have to go through any teacher swapping, so they we ready when their first day came. And I am thrilled to say that neither of them shed any tears on that first day when I dropped them off. Anna had several melt downs last year when I would drop them off, but no tears so far! I'm tickled that she's growing up, but very sad at the same time. But that's the way it goes, right? We want them to grow but at the same time keep them our babies as well.

I can honestly say that I worried more about Reese & Anna that first day than I did about my Mag Pie! Warren and I have always known that she would be the one that might cause us some headaches. She is very different from her sisters--she is more physical than Reese & Anna. Warren says that no one should mess with Mags 'cause she'll take them down. We certainly got a good example of that two years ago when Mags missed recess because she wouldn't apologize for knocking down a classmate when she accidentally spit on her because she was talking so fast! The 'victim' apologized to Maggie like the teacher asked them to do and was allowed to go out on the playground. Maggie would hear nothing about that apologizing mumbo jumbo, and instead spent her recess time in 'time out'! My sister has always called her 'the criminal master mind', pretty much beginning when the twins were born, and I fear that we are in store for more incidents such as this! But hey, if she won't stand up for herself, who else will?

Here's to hoping that we can get moved and settled in a new home in Jackson soon. Course, that'll mean school #4, but it'll all be worth it when our family is back under one roof again. Please lift us up in prayer that we can get moved soon. It's not easy for any of us, and I know we'll be a stronger family for it in the long run, but we miss Daddy so much during the week, and the weekends aren't long enough!