I am so ready for sweater weather...

Fall is one of my favorite times of the year. The days get a little cooler and there is a crispness in the air. As soon as that starts happening, I start asking the question, "Is it sweater weather today?" I love sweaters but, unfortunately, only have a limited amount of days each year that I can wear them here in Mississippi.
Well, Mama and I went shopping yesterday, and I am hoping for sweater weather even more than usual! Mama and I hadn't been shopping in forever, and we had the best time! My fall and winter wardrobe is now greatly improved with the addition of a couple of the cutest little three-quarter length sleeve swing sweaters, several shells, tops, jackets and pants for work and great new shoes! As all girls know, there is nothing better than a cute, new pair of shoes, and with Macy's sales and promotionals, I came home with three! The cutest black heels for work, brown causual flats with a rock-looking button and gray and black herringbone flats. And of course, everytime I go shopping with Mama, I come home with more than just my purchases...she bought me two great short jackets for work and the most fabulous pair of Coach heels! Thanks, Mama for always keeping me in style!!
Even after all the shopping and looking at clothes, shoes and purses, we found time for a stroll through Le Fleur's, one of our favorite shops in Memphis. Their flowers are always gorgeous and smell so good, but their seasonal merchandise is always fun to look at, and this time of the year, the store is filled with things for Halloween. Mama and I both love Halloween, so we had a wonderful time! I think it made us both ready to pull out our Halloween decorations!
When I arrived home, pumpkins were on our front entry, courtesy of Charles...I guess everyone in the Willoughby house is ready for fall!

Cubbies Clinch!

It was an exciting day at the Willoughby house when the Cubs clinched their division! Those of you who know Charles know that he is a HUGE Chicago Cubs fan. In 2005 for his 30th birthday, I took him to Chicago, and we caught a game at Wrigley (the Cubs gave him a special present by winning against the Cardinals). From that time on, I too have been a Cubs fan.

We have been reminiscing about our trip and hope you will enjoy reminiscing with us...

Charles in front of Wrigley Field

We had already explored parts of Wrigleyville and had walked on

Addison, Clark, Waveland and Sheffield!

Inside the park

Charles in the stands ... check out all that ivy in the background!

Carlos Zambrano on the mound

Charles singing the 7th inning stretch

We love seeing the W flag flying atop the best scoreboard in baseball

Cubs Win!!

Harry Caray' s Restaurant

We had to eat at Harry Caray's and enjoyed delicious "Holy Cow" burgers!!

A one, a two, a three...I took Charles out to the ballgame

Soldier Field and Lake Michigan from the Sears Tower

The Chicago River

Charles in front of Willoughby Tower

The Art Institute of Chicago

I really enjoyed the Impressionist collection

These columns flanked one of the many drawbridges in Chicago

Chicago Theatre

This flock of seagulls was in the park near Buckingham Fountain and across from Lake Michigan.

Charles had a fun time running with them.

Buckingham Fountain

Charles enjoyed watching Married With Children and since Buckingham Fountain is featured in its intro, we thought Charles should recreate a few Al Bundy poses. This one is Al's football pose.

Charles with our guide from the Untouchables Tour.

This was one of my favorite things that we did in Chicago. We were able to see all the points of interest from Gangland Chicago. We would recommend this tour to anyone traveling to Chicago.

Lake Michigan and the Chicago skyline

We had a great time in Chicago! It's a great city, and we both want to visit it again.

Hopefully after the deciding game of the World Series, we will hear...

"Go Cubs go, Go Cubs go, Hey Chicago, what do you say? Cubs are going to win today!!"

GO CUBBIES!!

Friday Night Lights

The weather this week has been great football weather, so Charles and I decided to enjoy it! Any time South Panola plays in this area, we usually go. South Panola was playing at Horn Lake last night, so we caught some high school football action!


We both had a great time! I enjoyed watching the X Factor (Xavier Lee, 7); he is so little but can run the ball! The Tigers also ran one back all the way for a touchdown, and that is always exciting to watch!
The South Panola Tigers beat the Horn Lake Eagles, and now South Panola's record is 65-0...the new state record.
GO TIGERS!!

Sunday Football Get-together

The Dillons and the Willoughbys started a tradition of Sunday football get-togethers when we were all living in Oxford. Thankfully, the Willoughbys escaped, but the tradition continues.
We traveled to Matt and Mary Ann's weekend before last for a great day of cooking out and football watching, and today, Matt, Mary Ann and Nathan traveled to Hernando for Sunday lunch and football.
Charles and I decided to serve a Sunday lunch rather than cooking out, so we served bar-b-qued baked chicken, Ma's baked beans, creamed potatoes, rolls and brownies with ice cream, and for even more of a twist, I decided to use our Vietri cucina fresca rather than pottery today...
We had a great time and a good visit.
Unfortunately, today Brett Favre tied Dan Marino's record. For those of you who know Charles, you know that he is a Dolphin, and especially a Marino fan...and you also know how Charles feels about Conference USA, Southern Miss football and Brett Favre (he definitely doesn't think any of them are TTT). Well, Matt went to Southern for undergrad, and both he and Mary Ann are from the Hattiesburg area, so I guess you can all just imagine the shenanigans that ensued after it was announced that Favre had tied the record and during Marino's comments following the game!
I had the best time holding and playing with Nathan all afternoon, and as you can see, he too, was closely watching all the plays...

First Day of School

Well, not really the first day of school...but it was Charles' first day of Quest, the after-school program.
I have enjoyed Charles getting home early and spoiling me by grilling or preparing dinner and taking on chores around the house and will miss my greetings from him as I walk through the door after work, so tonight I thought that I would prepare a special dinner for him (although I told him not to expect a home cooked dinner every evening after Quest)...

salad

chicken croissants and corn

apple pie a la mode

The dinner turned out great, and it was nice to have a leisurely meal at home and discuss our day.

Happy Birthday!

So, Charles is another year older...
But even though he is even closer to being an old man, I think he had a good birthday.

Charles says that he thought that the certificate for catfish was his birthday present, and as you all know, he decided to enjoy that present prior to his birthday; however, I think he knew there was were more presents in store for him...
Tuesday morning after he woke up, I gave him a birthday card. Then he left for school for a short day with the students.
I had planned to prepare a nice birthday dinner of chicken croissants with corn on the cob and apple pie a la mode; however, that evening because it was his birthday and because I had had a long day in court, I treated him to delicious bacon wrapped shrimp appetizers and steak dinner at the Mesquite Chophouse.
Then after dinner, I brought out his presents...

A new pair of running shoes, t-shirts, a list of 32 reasons why I love him and a digital camera (although the digital camera is really just as much a gift for myself as is it for him).

Those of you who know us well know that we had refused to trade in our old school cameras which require film for a digital camera, and while I still like the anticipation and fun which comes from not really knowing what the shots will turn out like and then later seeing that the shots turned out great and reliving all of the memories as you look through the developed pictures for the first time, I realized that since we have joined the blogging revolution, we needed to upgrade the camera technology. Charles seemed to be pretty pleased with this line of thinking!!

Hope you will enjoy all the pictures we post using our new camera!
Charles and Megan

Meet the Willoughbys

Charles and I met at Mississippi State University in 1996. We became friends and dated twice during college.

Charles proposed to me in November 2001, and we were married on June 1, 2002.

Charles and me outside the First United Methodist Church, Batesville, Mississippi.

The wedding party

The groom's cake

Charles and I went to New Orleans for a long weekend in the Spring of 2005. We stopped in Ponchatoula, LA, for strawberries, and while we were there, adopted our bunny, Toula. Toula is so sweet and fluffy. She loves getting "rubbies" and comes running into the living room anytime we go into the kitchen and especially when we open the refrigerator -- she thinks that means she is getting a "treat" (a carrot, lettuce, craisins, animal cracker...she likes them all). Charles taught her to turn around, and when we happen to come back into the living room empty handed, she'll turn around and look so sad, we always go back to the kitchen and bring her a yummy treat!!

Toula demonstrating her favorite passtime...chewing

I love when Toula cleans her face; it looks like she is praying.

Charles and I moved into our first house May 2005 and have enjoyed making it a home.

Charles, Megan and Toula Willoughby

Guess who is turning 32??

Charles will turn another year older Tuesday!

Saturday, I decided to give Charles one of his birthday presents a little early. He opened the present to find inside a certificate for a birthday dinner at Country Catfish. It's only open Thursday through Saturday, so I knew that Charles would not be able to enjoy his birthday dinner on his birthday. I told him he could decide when to use the certificate...

Those of you who know Charles know that he loves catfish (I don't think that I have ever seen anyone eat the way Charles does when it comes to catfish!), and Country Catfish in Oakland, Mississippi, has the best fried catfish and "fixin's," as they're called in the South, of anywhere we have eaten.

Of course, Charles decided to use the certificate Saturday, so we both enjoyed a delicious early birthday dinner!

NFL Kickoff Weekend with Nathan

We had a nice, relaxing weekend.
Sunday, we traveled to one of our least favorite college towns in Mississippi - Oxford - for lunch and an afternoon of football watching with our friends, Matt and Mary Ann.
The visit was even more pleasant than usual because I got to hold baby Nathan all afternoon!
Below is a picture of Nathan Dillon, taken a couple of weeks ago (he has grown so much since then), the newest addition to Matt and Mary Ann's family.

Charles and Megan

Are you ready for some football??

We at the Willoughby house certainly are!

We held our second annual live draft a couple of weekends ago. Charles was in charge of getting the draft board all set up...


And I was in charge of getting the snacks prepared and set out. We had chips and dips (the Tillmans brought a delicious homemade salsa -- Thanks!!), cookies, fruit, peanuts and M-n-M's for snacks, a sausage and cheese plate for appetizers and yummy grilled hamburgers courtesy of chef Charles. I was excited because I finally was able to use a few of my new Peter's and McCarty pottery pieces that I picked up (and Mama bought for me) during Mama's birthday trip to the Delta!

We had a great time at the live draft and enjoyed seeing everyone who came! Charles and I really enjoyed opening night with the Colts vs. the Saints because both he and I are currently winning this week's head to head competition. Hope this trend continues!

And even though we had to watch our MSU Bulldogs come in second place last week against LSU, most of the bullies, especially our defense played hard. We're still proudly flying our flag and hope for a better outcome in the weeks ahead...

And, of course, I couldn't end this post without mentioning my alma mater, South Panola High School -- Go Tigers!!

So much football to keep up with - hope we have time to post!!

Charles and Megan

Labor Day Weekend

Our Labor Day Weekend labor...

We spent our time off re-doing our guest bathroom. I have been wanting to change it up for a while. When we moved into our house every room was painted a creamy light mustard yellow. We asked the contractor to repaint most of our house; however, we left the guest bedroom, computer room and guest bathroom their original color. I had seen pictures of entrances and bedrooms painted in stripes in a magazine a long time ago and decided that yellow and white stripes would be the perfect look for the guest bath. I decided this would be a great first real home improvement project for us, and Charles agreed.

Of course I wanted a different color yellow stripe, so the first step (after spending quite a while in Home Depot deciding on paint choices) was to paint the entire room white...

The next step was to tape off the stripes (this one took a while!!)...

Then came the yellow...

And the completed project...

I think our first real home improvement project turned out pretty good!!

We hope you all had a wonderful and relaxing Labor Day!!

Charles, Megan and Toula

Our first post...

So, the Willoughbys have finally started blogging. We have enjoyed our friends' blogs so much and have found that it makes keeping in touch so much easier that we decided to join in.
Hope you enjoy the Willoughby Chronicles!
Charles, Megan and Toula