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.

Blogging once again.....

Dabby Do
Ok...maybe not. It's way too slow loading pictures and I have so many pictures I'd like to share.
Here is Ladybug up at the spring wading last summer.

Fourth of July Weekend

Our family was able to get together for the Fourth of July at our lake place. It's been a long time since all of our "boys" have been there at the same time. But there were some missing members too. Lt. J's wife and four daughters had to stay in VA to begin the moving process as they get ready to relocate to their new duty station in NC. And the only two grandsons were visiting their Dad and his family for the holiday and couldn't make it either. Wish you were here!
Here are the grandkids that celebrated with us......sure was a small number this time.
L-R are Dabby Do, GO and MoRo.
Dan, Son #3....
KiKi (wife of #1)
Jen, Wife of #3 and GO
Son #2, Lt. J.
Son #1, Mayo (his name for himself as a toddler)
Trainman, Son #4
Granny T. and GO
Two cooks getting breakfast ready.
GO had so many cute patriotic outfits to wear to celebrate the holiday.

Trainman, GO and Mayo enjoying the the water.


GO was not impressed with the life jacket she had to wear on the boat. The main problem is that she couldn't get her thumb into her mouth.....and she LOVES to suck her thumb. Several of her cousins also love their thumbs....as did an Uncle....and maybe even a Granny T. So, to save our sanity and hers....we did a little alteration and pulled her arms in. Peace!!
GO took to the lake like she was born to it. She enjoyed being in the water with her Daddy. She is our youngest granddaughter born in January of this year to our oldest son and his wife.

Summer Time Fun

Here is Tadpole using a stick to try to poke our Siberian Husky, Tug, who is laying on the porch just out of reach.
He's ready to throw a cup of water on me!
He had a great weekend.
I loved the fact that you can see our flag in this picture with Tadpole. Serve well, Jacob. We're all praying for your safety and counting the days till you come home. This little fellow especially.
Semper Fi!


I know....I'm way behind on blogging. But it's summertime and I've been having some fun. Thought I'd try to catch up a little.

Here are a few pictures of Tadpole. This was a weekend in May?? I think it was the weekend after Memorial Day so it was the last weekend in May.

His Daddy left for Afghanistan about 6 days earlier. He's living with his grandparents who are dear friends of ours. Please remember Tadpole and his family in the next few months as his Daddy serves our country.
(And no, we had not been beating him....he fell off the bed and ran into something. Being so fair skinned makes the marks look worse than they really are. Honest!!)

Granddaughter GO and Granny T.

Ok, she looks scared to death for her Granny T. to be holding her. But she warms up in a little while!

See what I mean! What a sweet smile!

I'll answer that question. Yes, I'm precious!!

Mommy with GO who looks like she's already doing Patty Cakes!

Daddy with GO.

See you later!!

This evening I got to visit with my oldest son and his family. I was introduced to two lizards and got to hold one named Joshua. I believe the other one named Moses likes to bite. Joshua is a most unusual looking thing...his tail looks exactly like his head which according to B-10 offers him some sort of protection should something try to grab him by the head...hopefully they will grab his tail by mistake and it will fall off and he'll escape.

I realized when I was looking at all of the pictures we made that the boys were showering and cleaning their room during the photo shoot and basically their baby sister was the main attraction. The baby always gets all the attention. I'll have to come back and get some pictures of B-10 with his lizard and CW too. Good excuse for another visit.

A Morning with a Granddaughter-Priceless!

This morning I was able to spend some time with MoRo, our 3rd granddaughter. She will be 5 in July and attends a Pre-K program at her Mom's school. The Pre-K kids met with their 4th grade buddies in the cafeteria to make their Bunny Baskets.

Because of the storms and rain today, the egg hunt couldn't be outside. The older kids hid the eggs in the gym and the Pre-K kids had a blast looking for them.

MoRo was so excited that at first she just ran around the gym. But it didn't take long until she figured out what to do.

She started getting her Bunny Basket full of eggs.And ended up with a full basket!

Here I am with the MoRo and some of her classmates during center time. Molly picked the Beauty Shop and I was the victim....I mean customer.

How do I look?? Be kind please!

Dreaming again!

Trainman might give up being an engineer to drive a tractor!

The sun finally gave us a chance to do some of what we'd planned to work on all week.

Dumping a load of logs from a dead tree they cut down.

Dabby Do spent the night with us (Sister was in school.) and came over to the property to explore with us. She made up her own fun...playing with the gallon jugs of water from the hometown spring. Her aim isn't great and she ended up pouring it down her shirt....but the day ended up warm so we hung it up to dry. She was a little shy at first to go without it!

Son #3, his daughter, Dabby Do and I did some exploring during the afternoon. We managed to find our way back to the old homesite we found on our last visit.

There is a pretty little stream running through part of the property. This part is next to the old homeplace we found. Their house was no more than 30 feet from the bank. There isn't much left of the house but some old bricks, a few bottles, old metal cans, rusted sections of fence, the well and another hole we suspect was where the outhouse was. This was our second visit and the daffodils which helped us find it the first time had quit blooming. I hope to be able to move some of them up to our house after we build.

Looking down into the hole that we think might have once been their outhouse. It was close to where the house stood and downhill from the well.

That round thing is the well at the homeplace. It stands about waist high. The brick square in the front must have been part of the chimney. The well is open. I wonder if it originally had a wooden cover over the top. There is water down in it...I can't imagine getting my drinking water or any water from it....check out the next picture.

Maybe the water looked better back then??? I'm SO thankful mine comes out the faucet!!

Dabby Do resting in the wagon after a busy day playing. Isn't she adorable??

And she's really faking! Her Daddy carried her all the way back to our cars but when we put her down she was wide awake again!

To end up the evening....we all ate together. Believe it or not, the complete bottom of Chucky's glass fell off when he picked it up.....and a whole glass of tea ended up in his lap and his plate of spaghetti! No, I had NOTHING to do with it.