A special lady

Last month our family lost a very special person.  My "Grandma" was one of the funniest, feistiest, and most loving women we've ever known.  I have so many special memories of her growing up; from working with her at my parents' bookstore and card shop from the time I was barely tall enough to reach the register, to having "date nights" with her and Robbie after we moved to Rock Hill, to watching my girls get to know her and love her.  She loved and was so proud of her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.  She is and will continue to be missed greatly.

My Grandma and Campbell had developed a very special relationship.  My Grandma was in and out of hospitals in recent years and it meant a lot to Campbell to go visit her.  On her last visit with her, I took Campbell to Harris Teeter and she spent 20 minutes picking out the flowers that smelled the very best for her Grandma.  She must have smelled every flower there.  Here are the flowers she picked out:

Grandma had planned her funeral and decided she didn't want everyone wearing black and looking depressed.  She wanted everyone to wear bright colors or pink.  It was awesome to see everyone looking so colorful in her honor.  Even the pallbearers wore pink ties.

Some of my favorite pictures:

(I have a feeling this part of the post will evolve as I go back through more pictures and add them...)

Me and Grandma January 2012

 

Campbell and Grandma

Happy 5th Birthday To My Princess!

Happy Birthday Princess! 

Exactly 5 years ago today, Campbell entered our world at 27 weeks and weighing 2lbs 01oz and quite frankly, she hasn't looked back.  

Here's a look back at this day in history . . .

2/3/2012

2/3/2011

2/3/2010

2/3/2009

2/3/2008

Wow . . .  a picture walk down memory lane.  We are so happy and blessed to be celebrating Campbell's 5th birthday.   

Here are our 25 questions with Campbell (something we started last year). 

1.       What is your favorite color?  Pink, purple, and rainbow

2.       What is your favorite toy?  Dolphin (her stuffed animal (pink dolphin) from the Charleston Aquarium  

3.       What is your favorite fruit? Kiwi 

4.       What is your favorite TV show?  Alvin and the Chipmunks

5.       What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch?  Macaroni and Cheese

6.       What is your favorite outfit? A dress
7.       What is your favorite game? Chutes and Ladders
8.       What is your favorite snack? Cheese and crackers
9.       What is your favorite animal?  Ostrich
10.   What is your favorite song? Arial’s song (don’t know what that means) 

11.   What is your favorite book?   The Flower Girl (by Laura Godwin and John Wallace) – a book we bought to prepare Campbell for Sara’s wedding

13.   What is your favorite cereal? Lucky Charms
14.   What is your favorite thing to do outside? Jump on the trampoline 

15.   What is your favorite drink? Iced water
16.   What is your favorite holiday?  Christmas
17.   What do you like to take with you to bed at night? Dolphin
18.   What do you want for dinner on your next birthday? Hotdogs and macaroni and cheese

19.   What do you want to be when you grow up? A Fireman
20.   What's your favorite thing to do with Daddy? “play with you”
21.   What's your favorite thing to do with Mommy?  Go to the store
22.   Who is your best friend?  Jainam 

23.   What’s your favorite thing to do with Maggie?  Play with play dough
24.   What's your favorite thing to do with Nana and Pop (Martha’s parents)? Go to their house
25.   What's your favorite thing to do with Grandma and Grandpa (Robbie’s parents)? Go to their house 

Cheers to another wonderful year with our first-born . . . . Princess Campbell, mommy and daddy love you so much! 

Catching up...part 1

So, it's been over a month since I did a "real"  post.  We've been so busy with the holidays, sickness, and making lots of memories.  I think it's too much to put all in one post so I will probably have to do at least two.

We had so much fun this year with the holidays.  The girls really seemed to understand the magic of the season.  

The season started off Thanksgiving evening with the arrival of Tinker Bell with some new Christmas pajamas for the girls.  Of course, Tinker Bell isn't the neatest of elves so she made a bit of a mess with the girls other pajamas...

Tinker Bell continued her mischief throughout the holiday season such as eating the last piece of chocolate cake...

driving around with the princesses...

playing a rousing game of Hungry, Hungry Hippo...

bringing the family a gift (our annual family ornament)...

and an annual favorite of the girls: drinking the syrup.

Each morning the girls were so excited to get up and find out where the Elf had flown to over night!

Campbell was so excited to decorate her tree again this year!  Since they now share a room, it is "their" tree so Maggie got to add ornaments this year, too!

The girls were able to see Santa several times during the season and each time was magical for them.

Rock Hill has an annual "Christmasville" event which lasts for several days.  Despite Maggie not feeling well for much of that week, we managed to enjoy several of the activities.  

Maggie ran into one of her BFFs, Winn, at the snow day.  Aren't they cute together?!

We made crafts and met Jingle the Elf at the library with the Popes.

Robbie took Campbell on her first ferris wheel ride and it was a hit!

Once again this year, we had the girls empty their piggy banks and sort and count their money (with lots of help, of course!).  They did two things with their money: separated all the dimes for a donation and counted out money for a gift for each other.  I then took each of them to choose and pay for a gift for the other and then donate their dimes.  It's one small way we're trying to show them that the holidays aren't supposed to be all about the gifts they are going to get...
They really enjoyed shopping for one another and paying for their own purchases!

 

Here they are making their donations.  Campbell gave to the Toys for Tots and Maggie to the Salvation Army. I hope this is just the beginning of a life filled with generosity and charity.

More holiday fun coming soon!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Compton Family! 

 (we hope to have a more complete blog post up very soon...)

The Comptons and The Popes

Click here to view this photo book larger

If you read this blog regularly, you have heard about our activities with our good friends, the Popes.  Well, they are moving to Texas tomorrow so I made a photo book to document the growth of the friendship between our families.

6 on Saturday

This week's post will be a 6 on Saturday instead of 5 on Friday due to my being out shopping all day yesterday on Black Friday (one of my favorite days of the year!).

So, this week, here are 6 of the reasons I'm loving my girls:

1.  First, speaking of Black Friday, yesterday Campbell asked Robbie first thing when she woke up: "Daddy, can I go shopping like mommy and Aunt Sara?"  I'm raising my girl right!  Here I am with 2 of my sisters and our coffee mugs that say "Eat, Sleep, Shop" courtesy of my mom just for our annual shopping trip!

2. This week we got to celebrate Thanksgiving with our wonderful family.  We were so blessed to have my friend Amy LaFontaine (who did our family photos a couple of weeks ago) come and take some family pictures of all the Hoppers.  I've just seen some sneek peaks, and now I can't wait to see all of them.  I love watching the girls with their cousins and I hope they're making memories as special as the ones I have from growing up!  Here are just a few of the shots...I can't wait to share all of them!

 

3.  Rock Hill finally got a Krispy Kreme and we of course had to check it out!  The girls loved getting fresh donuts!

4.  Robbie and Campbell took some time on Black Friday to practice her bike riding without training wheels.  She did so great!  Check out the video (and please disregard the too-big shoes and helmet...it was a spur of the moment practice when they were at my parents' house and they had to make do).  I'm so proud of her.  She fell off several times and just kept getting back on.  She is so resilience!  She even told Robbie "I'm so proud of myself!"


5.  I love this time of year!  Our Elf on the Shelf (aka "Tinkerbell" aka "Elfie") is back!  She started off making mischief by dumping out the girls' pajamas to put her gift of new Christmas pajamas for the girls while we were at my parents' house for Thanksgiving.

Campbell, especially, has been waiting for her to come back and is really excited about her elf.  The first night, she was wondering what Elfie would do during the night and said "I bet she'll eat the rest of our cake."  Sure enough...this is what we saw when we woke up:

6.  Maggie is so sweet these days.  She loves to cuddle and is very concerned about others. It's even sweeter seeing this side of her when she is normally so headstrong and opinionated!

World Prematurity Day

Yesterday was World Prematurity Awareness Day.  It's hard to believe this is the same girl!  We are so blessed.

Family Pictures

We had family pictures done recently with a friend of mine who does amazing photography. https://www.facebook.com/AmyLaFontainePhotography 
I love how they turned out!
(Sorry there are so many, I had a hard time limiting them!)