The top photo is one of my oldest two boys and their oldest children playing a game of tag football in the front yard Saturday afternoon. The second photo is our oldest son Brian's middle child, Elijah who is 3 ½. The photo doesn't show all the old Fisher Price toys he was playing with......garage, village, school house, airport, A-frame cottage and castle.....he certainly was having fun and entertaining himself with it all.
His baby sister, Rebecca, 15 months was in the house napping. I was sitting in a lawn chair, camera in hand and trying not to worry as the "big" boys ran through the front yard trying to avoid trees and bushes during the game!

Today, I am finally able to get on the computer and catch up on some reading and writing. Friday was a cleaning day and I had Drew all day so that means the computer was off limits. I will have Drew Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday all day too. My evenings will be free....unless I am too exhausted from chasing and playing with a 2 ½ year old and collapse on the couch after dinner and can't get back up!

Kids do say the darndest things!

I had a memory lapse the other day. It was from lack of sleep but it scared me. At the time, I thought something was really wrong with me. After calling my physician, I was reassured that lack of sleep can do that and he called in something called Ambien for me. But, I digress.....

The memory lapse made me wonder 'what if my memory were going'? Did I tell the kids about the funny things they said growing up? And after thinking about it, my conclusion was 'Yes, I did tell them, but what if they don't remember those things after I've died? Who will tell their children those stories......the ones that make every family get together more enjoyable because of the history of funny little things?

So, I decided to write them down so there is a record.

My oldest son was 4 years old when making his first trip on an airplane. I was traveling alone with 3 small children ages 7, 4 and 2 1/2. After settling in our seats and having survived lift off, someone pushed the flight attendant assist button. As those of you who have flown know, the button sounds very similar to a doorbell. Upon hearing the bell, my 4 year old says, in a not quiet voice, "Hey MOM, Avon even calls up here?" Needless to say everyone near enough to hear was laughing and looking!

Another time, as we were on our way to visit my sister we drove by a rather large cemetery where there was a section set aside for the military. There were statues of military personnel from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. The statues were all facing the American flag and saluting. My daughter, age 12, asks us "Is that where they bury the dead soldiers?" No, honey, that's where they bury the live ones, the dead ones get buried in Arlington National Cemetery!

And then there was the time our youngest while riding in the back seat with his friend, was explaining about another friend and friend's sister and where they went to live after their mom and dad divorced. He told his friend that "they all live in a 'condom' now!" Try not laughing when you hear a child say that! Gee, it must have been pretty crowded in there!


These are just a few of them that readily come to mind. I'm getting tired as I took by magic night time pill, so I will turn in and remember more for another time.

Hopefully Spring is here to stay!

Our weather has finally turned the corner, at least I hope it has. Today is sunny and 61º so far and it is only noon so there is a chance that it will still get warmer! I'm really so 'done' with the cold weather and snow. No one should have snow in April. April is the month of gentle spring rains to bring May flowers, not cold, wet snow to kill the buds. The snowy cold weather we had did kill the blooms on my forsythia bushes but my daffodils were more protected under a bush and they seem to be intact. I noticed that some of the lilacs that were in the early stages of developing flowers have suffered from frost bite, but it looks as if I will still have plenty of blooms this year on one of the bushes anyway!

Although the weather forecaster's are predicting clouds and light rain for later this afternoon I am not unhappy with the weather. If it's just a gentle rain and can soak into the ground as it falls it will really benefit the trees, flowering bushes and plants that are beginning their new growth. Besides, rain is MUCH BETTER than snow any day!!

Here is Drew with Naive and Mr. Naive, and Drew is meeting Amber's hamster, Jelly, for the first time! He was a little unsure of the whole deal at first, but really started thinking it was pretty funny!

We also celebrated Emily's 15th birthday Easter Sunday. She is blowing out her candles while we all watched and sang happy birthday to her. Her actual birthday was Monday, the 9th. Happy Birthday Emily!!!

Winter returns !!!

Okay, now I have had it!!!! I do think that Father Time needs to have a serious talk with Mother Nature. I took this picture right after I got up this morning, after having my first cup of coffee of course. Now the snow has reached a depth of about 3 inches. I. Am. Not. Impressed! In fact, I am downright ticked off! We now have more snow outside than we had on Christmas Day. And this is the 11th of April! This is supposed to be spring!

If any of you living in a warm climate feel inclined to send me fare for a plane ticket to visit you, now would be a good time!!!

If you want to see the pictures of the short time I spent in Kentucky, you can see it here.

Here is a pic Amber had me take of her hamster, Jelly. She says he missed her while she was gone and she missed him. Hmmm.....she doesn't seem to worry about him or miss him when she is at her mom's for a whole week or more! I think it's more of a convenient missing of him to perhaps procure a later bedtime!



Amber, re-introducing Prancer to Jelly! Prancer's thinking she could swallow Jelly with one gulp!!! Ha ha!

Happy Easter !

Easter Blessings to all of you !

Easter Preparation

Easter is only a few days away now and since we will have Amber with us and there will be other grand children arriving I decided we needed to get busy and color some eggs. Of course, Amber was all for the idea. She wanted to do most of it but with color dye I thought it beneficial to supervise. She did a good job. In this picture she is picking up the eggs to spread some glitter on them after the dying process.

We were going to have an Easter Egg Hunt outdoors, but with snow on the ground I'm sure we will move it to indoors. The house is big enough to hide a couple dozen eggs in and the kiddies will have a noisy, good time looking for them. They will all have an Easter basket to gather the eggs in and take their goodies home in!

Tomorrow, I will shop for the food for our dinner of ham, mashed potato's, green bean casserole, corn, rolls, a veggie tray with dip and desserts. I think that should be enough. We always end up with too many left overs even if I send some of it home with the kids.

This is probably the last post until after Easter is done. I will be very busy entertaining the grand kids!

Happy Easter everyone!

Home again, home again, jiggity-jig!

Okay, I'm home and am safe. Had a great time. Daughter and family are doing wonderful. Things have settled down for them a bit. Court appointments forthcoming. If anyone has any questions regarding that, feel free to e-mail me!

I don't have any pictures to post yet. I had a senior moment and forgot to take my digital so I had to buy a disposable camera out there and I have to get it in to get a picture CD made before I can post any pictures. My SIL got here earlier than expected, so I had to hurry and get things together and inadvertently left my camera in the computer room.

We had fantastic weather the entire trip. It was warm with a high of 83º in Kentucky and traveling weather was mostly between 70º and 75º. We didn't make it down to Corbin where the Cumberland Falls are located to see the "moonbow" as my SIL wasn't too keen on driving on the curving and treacherous mountain roads in the dark. Maybe next trip down hubby and I take will be another opportunity to view the "moonbow".

We never hit any rain, although we heard on the radio that it was storming back in Michigan and driving through Indiana there were several tornado watches and thunderstorm watches and warnings in the western counties, but we were able to miss them all and by the time we arrived home the storms here had already passed.

This morning it is snowing here though, and that is quite a difference from the shorts weather we were enjoying!