Then there was the summer...

"A" celebrated birthday number 12. Is that possible???? We had a mystery party. None of the guests nor the birthday girl herself knew what we were going to do. We even blindfolded "A" at first so that she would really be surprised by our first stop on the mystery tour. It was a sweet group of girls and a very happy day for our oldest child!

We met Gaggle, Mimi and Big Daddy in Dahlonega for a fund raiser for Gaggle's fraternity at NGU. The men played golf while the rest of us enjoyed the quaint little town. The day ended with the kids getting to meet a few of the Falcon's cheerleaders who had come to the golf tournament.

What have we been doing?

Since I decided to hit the highlights of the past 7 months....yes, it still pains me that I am that much of a slacker... I am going to post a lot of pictures and few words.

So here are some of the highlights...


We got to keep a precious daughter of precious friends...Spoiled her rotten and totally ruined the "burrito" routine. Word from the parents is that with some serious retraining all returned to normal!! In the mean time we had a blast with her.

Some of our most favorite friends moved away to Texas. They really deserve a separate post because they are so awesome and so missed.

"A" tried out volleyball. We all thought she was great. She did it with her frequent "partner in crime" K (who did great too). Lala was looking through pictures the other day and commented on how much K and "A" have done together. They have been buddies since they were 4 (maybe earlier with play group) and I am so thankful that they have had each other to grow up with!

J3 turned 8 years old. We just celebrated as a family and kept it very simple this year. Turns out he and J2 are going to go on a big father/son trip to Dallas to see the Cowboys play...so that is his belated big birthday celebration. J3 shares the same birthday with two of his good friends (hence the picture of him with the two girls)...which I think is just really neat!

The kids had an international meal during their home school history class. Yummy and educational. Is there a better combination???

My AMAZING, AWESOME, LOVING, GENEROUS, INCREDIBLE parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. And in the world of blog posts, this definitely deserves a tribute of its own. However, I am sticking to the highlights theme for the moment and will go back and do more if I can. We tried to get a family picture during our time together. However, it didn't work out. The photographer was nice, but just didn't get the quality we were looking for. So we had a fun and memorable day, but no portrait.

The day after the anniversary celebration, we had the opportunity to celebrate one of my nephews birthday. This is especially fun because he lives in Ohio and it is a rare opportunity to get to celebrate birthdays together. My sister-in-law and my brother's sons were with us too. It really was a ton of fun. We went to an arcade with games and laser tag (yes, I played too. What fun!). One of the highlights was when "A" and TC hit the ticket jackpot on one machine. They won 938 tickets, but the machine ran out somewhere in the 400s. That is a lot of tickets!! And you know what that means...fake, flashing teeth all around!

More to come.........................

Excuses, Excuses!!!

When I started this blog, I was concerned that it would be similar to my scrapbook experience.

You see for many years, I was on top of the scrapbook thing. I had a Christmas book, a book for the current year and then "A" had a baby book that was complete and full of stories, pictures and memories, all the way through her first 18 months of life.

Then J3 came along and scrapbooking became less of a priority. I decided to just keep up with the Christmas book and to work on J3's baby book. And now, here it is 8 years later and J3 just has a stack of loose pages with some pictures instead of a baby book. The last year I finished in the Christmas book was 2003. And I have a very large stack of boxes filled with pictures stuffed underneath a round table in my living room (it is covered by a table cloth...if that is any consolation).

If any one is still even checking the blog to see if there are any entries, they will see that the last time I posted anything it was in April and it was all about what happened this past December.

Is it fair to say that I am a little behind????

So, what do I do? Even try to catch up. Or should I just start with more recent info and just let December thru August be a mystery to the 2 people that might happen to read this blog???

Stay tuned for the answer. I just hope that it will be posted before then end of this decade!!

Gaggle

Gaggle, J3, "A" and Lala...

The last post was the story of the new kitchen counter tops and my nephew, Gaggle. I thought I would take a moment to share with you how he received the name Gaggle, because if I were you I would be thinking "What kind of self respecting, young man would be walking around with the nickname Gaggle?"

Well, it came about like this...

When J3 was just a little fellow, he loved his big cousins (still does, quite frankly!). And as I have mentioned before, two of his big cousins were around us quite a bit back in the day.

I miss "the day" by the way.

Well, anyways...J3 was just learning how to talk and was trying with all his might to not take a nap one day because LaLa and Gaggle were at the house. As I was rocking him, he picked his head up and looked at me, pointing to the door, hoping that I would get the clue that playtime with the cousins seemed a whole lot better than a nap. Somehow during this process, the name of his cousins came up.

As he and I were having this "heart to heart" in the rocking chair, he was trying to pronounce Kyle's name (I try not to use real names here, but I think in this instance it is okay!!.)

I would slowly say Kyle's name, dragging out the sounds of this one syllable word.

"Kyyyyyy ull" I said.

J3 looked satisfied and responded with a heartfelt "moo". It wasn't just any old moo, it was as long and drawn out as my attempt at Kyle. "MOOOOOOOOOOOO"

Okay, that totally cracked me up.

He thought I was saying cow.

So I tried again. "Kyyyyy ull" Adding more emphasis on the "ull" this time.

J3 was ready. With a look of shear determination he rattled off his best pronunciation of his beloved cousin's name, but alas what came out wasn't Kyle, but instead was Gaggle.

Side note - Wonder why my kids were never good nappers?

Well, any how, he no longer calls him Gaggle...another sign that my kids are growing up.

And sadly, we also no longer have visits from Katchtika and Hippapotopoo. But that is another story for another day!

More Christmas "Slackness" and an Amazing Surprise

We spent Christmas with our family in Tennessee and had a great time. It is so wonderful to all be together. The kids have a lot of fun hanging out together...they don't get to do it enough!

I continue along in my theme of not doing the things that I should and/or want to do by not taking any pictures while we were at their house...I mean really! What kind of mom doesn't get pictures of their kids on Christmas morning! UGH!!!

One thing that we did get pictures of though (thanks to "A" and her new camera) was the amazing surprise by my more than amazing nephew.

For years, sweet "Gaggle"(the name is another story for another time), one of my sister's sons, has been very bothered by the fact that I have had to live with ugly laminate (or faux wood, as I always liked to refer to them.Trying to make the best of it, you know!) counter tops. So in all of his preciousness and thoughtfulness, he decided that he was going to install new granite tile counter tops as a surprise while we were away. J2 was concerned about me not knowing anything about it and at least having a chance to have input on what would be installed, so they told me ahead of time what was going on.

My sister, who has wonderful taste and the ability to make things look like a million bucks on a dollar-fifty budget, picked out the tile, which was black granite and beautiful. Then while we were away, Gaggle and his dad worked to install the counter tops, a new sink and a new faucet.

When we got back into town, Gaggle met us at the door with a blindfold in hand, making sure that things would be a surprise to the end. It was so cute! He walked me in and took off the blind fold to revealing a kitchen that went from this....









to this!!!!!










It looked amazing!! Absolutely beautiful!!

I am still enjoying the new counter tops. It has made a big difference in the appearance of my kitchen.

But the best part, in all honesty, is the fact that Gaggle cared enough about me to do something so special. How many 21 year old guys would give up days of their Christmas break to work on their aunt's kitchen, with not one thing in it for him. It just means so much...really more than words can say.

There hasn't been a day that has gone by when I haven't thought about him and prayed for him while keeping those counter tops clean and shiny! He is a blessing...an amazing young man.

And a shout out to his dad too for being there and working with him. I know that his knowledge and expertise really helped make it such a quality job!!