Mother's Day 2010

The girls enjoyed playing around in the yard after we had lunch.

Dabby Do spent a week recently with her great grandmother, Dee. I'm not sure just who had the most fun. She got to stay up late, had her nails done twice, her hair cut, and ate out every day. She didn't want to come home!




Me with two of my boys. And two silly girls!

Today is Mother's Day! I've been down in the dumps as they say this week thinking about my Mother and her Mother and celebrations of years past. When I was growing up we always went to South Carolina to celebrate together. Both of my grandma's lived in the same town. On Sunday we went to the home town church together. Along the way after we parked, we went by my father's brother's house and picked some red climbing roses that grew next to his garage. If your Mother is alive you wear red roses and if your Mother is dead you wear white roses. So, my dress always had a few fresh red roses on it. That afternoon any of the family that had come ate dinner together at my Granny's house and all the cousins played in the yard together. What a great time we had.

I'm not ready to wear that white rose yet. So, I don't go to Church on Mother's Day Sunday. Kind of stupid I guess but I'd just cry all through the service so I stay home.

But, I did get to enjoy my children today. That brought me out of the dumps quickly. Trainman greeted me with a card and hug first thing. A text from CBC in NC next followed by a phone call from Marine son. And the afternoon went on. I sat around looking through old letters and cards from Buddy's family, sorting them into boxes by year. Buddy came walking in and guess what!! MoRo and Dabby Do popped out from behind him. Fireman son and JHC came down and surprised me with the girls. We ate out at Cracker Barrel and later played a while in the front yard. The last one called a little while ago so I got to talk or see all my kids. It was nice.

Family Quilts

This mahogany bedroom suit belonged to one of my Mother's sisters. This quilt I believe is a newer one, possibly made by my husband's mother or grandmother for his room when he was a child. Each quilt square has 48 small red and white individual triangles surrounding the blue square in the middle. Each triangle and square are hand stitched around. A lot of love when into this quilt.

This church bench belonged to my Aunt and her husband. When I was growing up it always sat outside on their carport. We used it to sit on and take off work boots after gardening or as a place to relax and cool off. We enjoy it now inside along the wall filled with grandchildren pictures. The pretty red background quilt shows up nicely against the white bench.

This quilt hangs in our den and is one of my favorites. A family friend made the quilt rack for us. I love the way I can also display family photographs on top. The picture on the left is of my parents about the time they married. My Mother always HATED that picture. The picture was made by putting two separate shots of them together. The other pictures are of mother as a young woman and two of her brothers.

I love that the quilts have such bright colors. The bedroom suit here was the one my parents bought when they began "keeping house". It's mahagony and I'm thinking was probable bought in the early 1940's.

This quilt hangs on our sunporch. It's got a great design. Mom's Snow Village houses run along the shelf at the ceiling and stay up all year long.


Here are the pillows that I made from the old quilt top. It was nice to get something that turned out so pretty out of that old stained and ripped top.

I have always loved family history. I've always admired quilting although it's not anything that I've ever tried to do myself. We do have quite a few quilts from my husband's family and use them as bed coverings and wall hangings.

Recently I found several old quilt tops that had been pieced but never made into quilts. One was in particularly bad shape. I'd love to know the history of it...I can't imagine why anyone would go to the trouble of piecing it when the material was so stained and old. The fabric that they used was so thin that they even backed it with another layer of fabric. Some parts of it were done by machine and some by hand. Maybe the quilt top is older than I think. Anyway, I decided to make throw pillows from salvageable sections of the quilt top. I got 5 throw pillows that are finished at 18 inches square using muslin as a back. There are two other smaller pillows for the girls room...they had pink in them. I also added some buttons as decoration from a jar I found full of them at my husband's mom's house. There are several smaller sections that I cut out and saved to work on another day.

I think the pillows turned out beautiful and we'll enjoy them alot.

It's a Girl!!

I wore this to work today to let everyone know the exciting news. This "It's a Girl!" button has gotten a lot of use over the years. We got the call yesterday from our #1 Son that their new baby is going to be a girl. Since we already have 6 granddaughters, I guess it didn't come as any real surprise. Imagine!!! Seven granddaughters. Could it be a world record?? No, of course not! We're really happy for our son and his wife. Since they already have two sons, a precious little girl will be a new adventure. Won't she be lucky to have two big brothers to watch out for her!
Congratulations!! We can't wait to welcome her to our family.

Here is our last picture of the granddaughters and grandsons together. If you count carefully, you will see that we're missing one . Little Dragonfly was born 4 months later. This picture was made on Memorial Day weekend, 2007.

New Granddaughter, look at all the fun you're going to have with 6 big girl cousins to play with.
They were spending the night with me and Papa Buddy and were all snuggled into the bed that I slept in when I was a little girl.

We had so much fun that night.

There were 6 in the bed and the little one said,

"Hurry up, we can't wait to play!!"

Family Gathering

Relaxing outside. J'Re was trying out her new camera.

Looks like we're doing up a batch of witch's brew but it actually was gallons of brunswick stew.

Nana relaxing with Goldilocks.

Hey Daddy, We're ready for a ride.

Riding in the trailer or sitting with Daddy on the riding mower is something the girls love to do.
Crazy MoRo.

Dabby Do wasn't too sure at first but she soon got the hang of riding with Daddy.

Their little cousin, Goldilocks decided she didn't want to ride..

Supper time on the porch with MoRo, Dabby Do and Goldilocks. There was brunswick stew, barbeque pork, potato salad, baked beans, pickles, mac and cheese and good old sweet tea. We also had banana pudding for dessert.
Here is Goldilocks with her Mom.

We're ready to go home and you can see that Buddy is using a cane now. He's also having trouble keeping his thigh high hose up. :)

Here are some pictures from our adventure on Saturday. We had fun with our son, daughter in law, her parents, her brother and his family. It was great to get out of the house and being with family and friends made for a terrific day.

Labor Day- The big kids had fun too.

My favorite picture of the night....

JHC and Buddy's nephew's wife...serious about cards??
She looks like the cat that swallowed the canary.

More ice cream please.
Let's play poker...who ever heard of Phase 10?

Trainman and CBC....man, I've got to come up with some blog names for everybody.

Adult kids...you'd better think up something.
Aunt KK gets to come over often since her college is about 30 minutes from the lake.

The adults at our family gatherings eventually get in some fun time too. This was late one evening when the kids were finally in bed...or at least watching a movie upstairs in the "dorm" as we call the big bedroom upstairs. It's got 5 twin beds, a set of bunks and a double futon....and a tv with a DVD player. Great way to calm the troops down after a full day on the lake.

The daughters in law had made chicken enchiladas and Grammy made brownies and we'd whipped out a churn of homemade vanilla ice cream. The brownies were sort of gooie so just picture those hot, gooie brownies with homemade icecream scooped over them. Out of this world!

We were playing cards....Phase 10 I think. Trainman had returned from visiting his grandparents and Buddy's nephew and his wife had joined us from their house around the next cove. We listened to music, laughed a lot, acted a little silly, and made some more memories.

And then Trainman came down carrying MoRo who was having a croup/asthma attack and the party broke up quickly. We put her in the steam shower and eventually headed to the all night Walgreens in town... way too far it seemed when you need an inhalor refilled in a hurry. But it did the trick and she quickly felt better.

More Labor Day Lake Pictures-

Driving the boat is a very popular adventure for the girls. Princess Flower has had a few years practice so she did a great job.
Relaxing in the sun....I hope the cousins store up some great memories of these together times.

Here's our youngest one...little Dragonfly. She'll be one year old on Saturday. She wanted to drive the boat too. Not bad for a little squirt!

Dabby Do was a little unsure at first...but she'll do most anything for her Papa. Look at that death grip on the wheel.

What?? You want me to drive?? Well, OK!!

They're overboard. Some of the crew got too hot and jumped ship!!
MoRo takes a turn at driving. Wild woman at the wheel!!

The girls are ready for a ride...and so is Tug. He jumped in before we could stop him.

The water level was back up to normal after being so low at the 4th of July.

Getting the boat off the lift and back on wasn't a problem this time.
The weather was so much better this weekend. All the girls are loving being out on the water this year.
Papa Buddy and Butterfly learning to drive. She took it very seriously!

The girls this year were finally able to be out in the paddle boat---without us. How they cherished their newfound independence. Of course, we were right there on the dock watching and they were restricted to stay in front of the dock...but boy did they enjoy it.
Princess Flower and MoRo are our true water babies.
Dabby Do is just checking things out. The outside porch is a good place to be and not miss any of the action.

Hey, I decided that there were way too many cute Labor Day pictures to pass up posting some more.

As a side note, today was our "hip replacement class" for Buddy. Surgery is scheduled for Friday the 19th. Tomorrow will be a fun day of pre-op...at the doctor and hospital. Should be a long afternoon. We're working on getting things together here at the house so recovery will be a time to take it easy and relax. Hopefully, he will only be in overnight. Please add us to your prayer list for peace and healing. For Buddy he has had problems with his hip since he was six years old and developed Legg, Calve, Pertheses disease. He's been in pain with it for a long time although it has gotten progressively worse in the past few years...not that he'd let you know. I'm looking forward to him being pain free for the first time in a long time. Our God certainly has blessed us with his successful heart valve repair three years ago and now being able to have this opportunity to have his hip fixed. Please say a prayer for his Dr. Kress and the hospital staff too.