Saturday Playtime

Our two oldest boys, Brian and Doug, were here Saturday with Brian's three children and Doug's oldest daughter, Amber. Of course, Doug lives here at the present time and Amber comes almost every weekend. After lunch and Brian's one year old, Rebecca took a nap in the PAC-N-PLAY and Elijah, the three year old found some of the old Fisher Price toys to play with, Doug and Amber and Brian and his oldest, David decided to play a game of tag football. I'm not sure who one the game or if it really matters to any of them.

It was so nice to see our oldest boys 'at play' again with their own children that I feel as if I may have been the one to win! There was a long time of Doug not coming around when his brothers and sisters were here and I think it was all because of the gal he was with for so long. He's no longer with that gal and we are all happy about it. Our Doug, as we knew him before her, is back with us. And we can now enjoy him more than ever.



We weren't sure we would ever see the 'old' Doug return but a lot of prayers (and a mom never gives up hope) God has answered our prayers and showed Doug the way back to us. GOD IS GOOD!!!

What Are The Chances?

This is so strange! Remember last week when my older sisters daughters both had surgery? Well, last night I get a call from my sister. She is in the ER and she wanted to tell me that they are taking her to an operating room for an emergency appendectomy! Can you believe that? I don't know what the odds of three woman from the same family having surgery in less than a week are, but I'm thinking it can't be that great!

Thankfully both her daughters are on the way to recovery and she is being released from the hospital today. It is certainly amazing how fast they kick you out. She was out of surgery at 11:00 PM last night and within a 24 hour period she was sent home. Good thing her hubby will be there to help her out!

BTW, my niece's tumor WAS BENIGN!!! Thank you, GOD!!!

The Mommy Test

I received this as an e-mail today from my cousin......I don't know if this was something her daughter said or if she found it somewhere, but I think it says it all!



I was out walking with my 4- year- old daughter. She picked up something off
the ground and started to put it in her mouth. I took the item away from her
and I asked her not to do that. "Why?" my daughter asked.
"Because it's been on the ground, you don't know where it's been, it's dirty
and probably has germs" I replied.
At this point, my daughter looked at me with total admiration and asked,
"Mommy, how do you know all this stuff? You are so smart."
I was thinking quickly. "All moms know this stuff. It's on the Mommy Test.
You have to know it, or they don't let you be a Mommy."
We walked along in silence for 2 or 3 minutes, but she was evidently
pondering this new information. "OH...I get it!" she beamed, "So if you
don't pass the test you have to be the daddy."
"Exactly" I replied!

Happy/Sad weekend!

Well, the weekend is over and it was lovely! The sun shone and the temperatures were summer like without the high humidity, and.....hubby and I spent almost the whole weekend together! Saturday was our 17th Wedding Anniversary....yep I'm now a Saint! Okay, just joking. Living with him isn't at all bad. Oh he has his moments....but I probably have more of them; being female and all, just ask slick!!!!

We hopped in the car and headed out for a ride with no particular destination in mind other than eventually finding a nice restaurant for a steak dinner and some hand holding! We stopped whenever and where ever we wanted. One of those stops was at a WalMart store to check out the grills on sale. While there we found some stools for the snack counter in our kitchen and purchased them.

We then decided to take a couple two-track roads through the Allegan forest. Remember those, Rachel? The ones where you had to bury your head so you wouldn't see the drop offs close to the road and you cried! Yep, some of those same ones. It's been a long time since we've been 4-wheeling like that and I found, much to my surprise, that I had indeed missed it!

We found an "Outback" and decided since we were now famished to eat there. We had a great meal of steak and baked potato and crisp tossed salad. And for the appetizer we had what they call a "bloomin' onion" and managed to get in plenty of 'hand holding' between courses. They also serve fresh baked bread and honey butter before the appetizer shows up.

After arriving back home, I noticed that my voice mail message light was blinking so I played the message. It was from my baby sister in Colorado telling me that our older sisters oldest daughter who had been scheduled for surgery that day to repair a hernia and check on her gall bladder had the surgery but there was no hernia and her gall bladder was fine. They found a tumor and removed it and think it is benign but won't know for sure for a couple days ! Then while in route to pick up her daughters girls to keep for the weekend, she received a call on her cell telling her that her youngest daughter has just been taken into emergency surgery at a different hospital for what the thought was a hot gall bladder.....it was, and both girls are now home and recovering...such a mess for older sis! I'm going to call and see if she or they need any help. Please keep all of them in your prayers for speedy recoveries!

CAUTION: Lack of sleep may cause memory loss!

After having said that, let me fill you in on what happened!

I was speaking on the phone with someone and they needed my address. After they asked me for it, my mind went blank. I mean totally blank....I could not remember my own address. I had to look at a piece of mail to tell them my address! How absolutely ridiculous is that !?! I was pretty frightened and felt that there was something REALLY wrong with me. That has never happened to me before. I was certain that some form of dementia was setting in!

I called the doctors office and explained what had happened and asked for the earliest appointment they had. The nurse, who happens to be a friend of mine, calmed me down and asked if I had been getting enough sleep. I responded "no" and told her approximately how much sleep I had been averaging a night. And then she laughed.....she LAUGHED! I'm scared out of my mind and she is laughing? She said it sounded normal to her, but asked if I could hold and she would speak with the doctor. When she came back, she told me the doctor said that if that was all I couldn't remember on the little bit of sleep I was getting, I should consider myself fortunate. And she told me that the doctor was going to order some prescription sleep aid for me. He did, and I picked it up at the pharmacy yesterday and.....I slept last night. ALL.NIGHT! Wow, what a difference sleep can make!

It's called Ambien and boy does it work fast. The information leaflet states that you should go directly to bed after taking it as it doesn't take long to work. Understatement! I took it and barely made it up the stairs before I felt the effects of it. I'm supposed to take it for 7 nights in a row, making sure that I am able to get at least 8 hours sleep each night before I have to be awake and active. The doctor said that 7 nights should be enough to re-establish a sleep pattern and then try and sleep without the pill. If I have trouble after 2 nights to resume taking it again for 5 nights and try going without it again. Hope it works the way it's supposed to. I don't want to have to take pills forever in order to be able to sleep.

So, I'm gonna take my pill and see if I need to count sheep.....ZZZzzzzz

Three Things Meme/As long as I can't sleep!

I'm still up and since I was tagged I thought I would do this meme from
Southern Livin'. I've had one (1) alcoholic beverage to help me sleep (I hope) tonight, but am not feeling the least bit sleepy as of yet. So here goes:


Three Things That Scare Me

1. Spiders, but anything creepy crawly.
2. Having sick grand children.
3. Taking my annual stress test because I don't usually pass them and then the doctor wants to do a heart catheterization.

Three People Who Make Me Laugh

1. My hubby.
2. All of my grand children.
3. My favorite sis-in-law, Tammy.

Three Things I Love

1. Smell of Coffee first thing in the morning.
2. Rainbows.
3. Listening to waves hit the beach.

Three Things I Hate

1. Running out of toilet paper!
2. Anyone who abuses a child.
3. Snow in April.

Three Things I Don’t Understand

1. Why my dog seems to prefer hubby most of the time.
2. How someone can deliberately hurt a child emotionally, physically or sexually.
3. Why employers don't want to hire anyone over 50.

Three Things On My Desk

1. Unpaid bills that aren't quite due yet.
2. Sticky note pad.
3. A pen/pencil holder full of pens/pencils.

Three Things I Want To Do Before I Die

1. Learn Spanish so I can understand my daughter-in-law when she's trying to tell
my son something she doesn't want to say in front of the rest of us.
2. Go for a hot air balloon ride.
3. Go to Hawaii.

Three Things I Can Do

1. Sew things on the sewing machine.
2. Make holiday meals.
3. Feed an infant a bottle and cook dinner at the same time.

Three Things I Can’t Do

1. Sit or lie quietly for more than 15 minutes (probably why I have so much trouble
sleeping).
2. Make good pie crust from scratch.
3. Mow the grass in a straight line.

Three Things I Think You Should Listen To

1. Your inner voice.
2. The wind.
3. A baby sighing.

Three Things You Should Never Listen To

1. A drunk.
2. A know-it-all.
3. My advice

Three Things I’d Like To Learn

1. How to knit and/or crochet.
2. See "Three things I want to do before I die", #1.
3. To play the guitar.

Three Favorite Foods

1. Salads.
2. Steak medium rare, cooked by hubby on the grill.
3. Pecan Pie.

Three Things I Regret

1. Not being able to finish college.
2. My parents dieing before I married and had children.
3. That my children grew up without their dad.

I'm not going to tag anyone, but if you want to play, feel free and be sure and let me know!

Insomnia X 2

Okay, this is the second night in a row that I can't seem to fall asleep. I hate when this happens. It use to happen all the time and then stopped for a brief period of time and has started back up again. The rest of the house is sound asleep....except for me. Oh yeah, and that dang hamster, Jelly. He seems to be nocturnal also. The only difference between him and me is that he sleeps all day and I don't!

I could call and ask the Doctor for some meds to help me sleep, but our insurance probably won't cover it and I don't have an extra $80. - $100. laying around to spend on such frivolous nonsense as a sleep aid. I have tried the stuff pictured above, but that doesn't really do anything for me. Nor does Tylenol PM! Maybe I am just doomed to being sleep deprived like when I was a new mom with infants!

FRIDAY FEAST # 139

Appetizer
When you were a child, which crayon color was your favorite? Turquoise

Soup
On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being highest), how likely would you be to change jobs if it required you to move? Using that scale it would be a 1....I could not possibly move away from my children and grand children!!

Salad
Take all the numbers in your birthday and your phone number and add them up, one by one. What’s the total? Total - 1994

Main Course
Have you ever “re-gifted” anything? If so, what was it and who did you pass it on to?
I have never re-gifted anything...my thought being that if someone was kind enough to give me a gift I should keep it.


Dessert
Name something you need from the store. Hersey's Chocolate Syrup to make chocolate milk for Drew.

Spring ? Where ?

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!!!

Pictures from Kentucky

This picture of "Sleeping Beauty", aka, Amber is the morning after arriving. Needles to say, she was tired and didn't want to get up! I don't know why she was tired, she slept all night and hogged the whole queen size bed so I couldn't sleep!



Here is a picture of all the kids at my daughters home. They are (from left to right) Darian wearing his Halloween costume, KeAira, Telyse, Kameron, Amber, holding Cayden.



Rachel and Cayden at the park.




KeAira at the park. This is the same park where the "Kentucky Incident" happened!



Amber & Telyse




Darian




Kameron



And this one shows what the covering of the playground looks like. It is re-cycled tires and is a lot better than wood chips but still pretty hard for an old lady to fall on. I had red speckles on my back for days!

Happy Easter !

Easter Blessings, everyone !

Easter has moved to winter!

This is what I woke up to this morning! Didn't spring arrive on March 20th? That's what I thought! So did someone forget to tell Mother Nature or is she just late in playing her April Fool's Joke on us? I'm worried that my daffodils that have bloomed and were so pretty the day I returned from Kentucky will now be dead. I'm not sure how the forsythia bush will fare. I'm not liking this weather after the 80º weather we had in Kentucky. This is just too cold for Spring! We are actually under a snow and blowing snow advisory until midnight tonight! The county I live in has asked the news media to request that people stay home if they don't have to go anywhere as the roads are icy and it could take up to 5 hours for the state police to respond to an accident. I guess today is not the day I will take the disposable camera in to have a picture CD made. Nor is it a day to go grocery shopping for the Easter meal! I'm running out of time. And I have to get Easter basket goodies as Amber will be with us and probably so will Hunter and Harley. The rest of the kids and grand kids (except for Rachel and family and Brian and family) will all be here at some point on Easter and the little kids will all be expecting something wonderful at Mema and Bumpa's house.
Maybe the snow will all melt by tomorrow.....yeah right! I can always hope. Why didn't I stay in Kentucky longer?

News from Kentucky

Hi! I'm back. And I have no pictures to show you yet. You see, I forgot my digital camera. My sis-in-law got here early and wanted to get an earlier start than originally planned, so in my haste to get all Amber's and my stuff together to load into the truck that was one of the things that got left behind. So I purchased a cheap disposable camera out there and have to get the camera in to get a Picture CD made before I can post any pictures. What can I say.....chalk it up to a senior moment, okay?!

The weather was wonderful. The temperatures were in the upper 70's to low 80's with high humidity. We made great time in getting there.....it only took us 8 hours so we were there by 3:20 PM on the 1st. Still plenty of daylight left but the kids were a little antsy from being cooped up in a vehicle for that long so we took them swimming in the motel pool. My daughter Rachel and her hubby Trenton and the three kids came too join in the fun and boy was it bedlam for a while! The oldest boy is 6 and some of his words are not real plain and with his Kentucky accent and so many baby teeth that have recently fallen out it isn't always easy to understand what he is saying. He was pretty excited to be able to swim and as he was telling me how excited he was his pronunciation of swimming pool came out 'women pool'! Heck, I want to know where the 'men pool' is!!!

We didn't make it to Cumberland Falls to see the moonbow either. My sis-in-law wasn't comfortable driving through the mountain roads after dark so I will have to see the moonbow another time.

We did have a great time though. My sis-in-law and I get along really good and there was a lot of talking and laughing going on between us. So much in fact that Amber and Telyse thought we were nuts! Kameron, our little knight in shining armor came to our defense and told the girls it was 'very naughty to make fun of us.'

The last night there we took all the kids to a park to let them play and while there I had a small happening. My sil and Telyse and Amber are now referring to this as the "Kentucky Incidence". This is how it played out: Time to leave and I held Amber's hand to step over a knee high balance beam and caught the toe of my shoe on said beam, lost my balance and tried to regain balance by doing a quick hop on opposite foot, continued to be off balance and fell on my toushie and back with a large thud and jarring! My words, 'holy shit!' All I could do was lay there and laugh! Daughter came running over to help me up and I still was laughing too hard to be able to get up.....now she thinks I am crazy too along with everyone else in the park! I have a strong suspicion that they won't let me forget this anytime soon!