As I was looking around on Facebook a few minutes ago, I saw where Hillary had become a fan of Whitney Caroline Designs. I have to be honest, I had never heard of it. I went to their website and immediately became a fan myself! They are having a giveaway that you might be interested in. They seem to have a variety of products including bags, stationary, invitations, etc. Check it out!
I hope everyone has had a great weekend. Mine has been! It was a 3 day weekend, which is always nice. I took Friday off and spent it with Taylor. We didn't even have Grace with us! We had planned a trip to Tulsa earlier in the week. We got away from Fayetteville about 12:30 after shopping for some treats for Kelly and Harper. We didn't have any trouble finding the hospital at all. Finding Kelly and family in the hospital was another story! We did eventually find them, though, and had a good visit with them. She looks absolutely amazing to have just had an almost 10 lb. baby. They were having a good day and seemed very pleased that we had made the trip to see them. What a special family!
After our visit with them, we found the Cheesecake Factory!! It was fantastic. It's a good thing there is not one any closer! After that we just looked around in a party store for invitations for Grace's 2nd birthday that is coming up sooner than I want it to. No luck there so we headed for Fayetteville. I made it back to the house right at 8:00, just in time to watch Monk. We had a great day together! I am already looking forward to another one some time in the future and I hope Taylor is, too!
On Saturday, I was able to sleep until about 10:30. That was nice, too. Mike had been up for a while doing a little light cleaning. I started laundry and did a little more cleaning before we sat down and finished watching A Few Good Men on TV. When it was over, Mike went out to get some firewood brought in and I continued to pick up and straighten up the living room. As he was splitting the wood in the front, I started carrying it in to fill up the rack. We got it filled up and the floor vacuumed and he got a fire started. He had bought steaks earlier in the week and had them marinating in the refrigerator. He had also gotten baking potatoes and the stuff for green bean casserole to have with our steaks. He got the potatoes ready and put in the oven and mixed up the casserole and then we settled in to watch a movie. As you can see from the picture below, we have quite a collection of DVDs. We play a game to choose what we will watch. I will call out numbers from each row and then we choose from only 3 or 4 instead of the whole bunch. We actually did that 3 times yesterday. It was great! We watched a variety of movies. My Fellow Americans, The Italian Job, part of The Titannic on TV and The Sum of all Fears.
While we were watching these movies, of course, Mike kept the fire going. It was so nice to be sitting in front of the fire just relaxing for the whole day. (I did get the laundry finished, too.)
I couldn't get a very good picture of the fire with the screen on so I snapped one while he was working on building it up. We also discovered that we were out of charcoal when he got ready to cook the steaks! Never fear, though, he just cooked them over the open fire in the fireplace!! They were some of the best steaks I have had in a while. We may cook them that way more often. We love to cook hotdogs in the fireplace, too!!
Grace was finally back at the house!! We usually have her on Monday nights, but last Monday Taylor had to work until 2:00am so we didn't. We had both really been missing her, so Mike texted Taylor on Thursday evening and told her he was going to kidnap her if we didn't see her soon. She sent me a text right after that and asked if we wanted her on Friday night. Of course I said yes!! Taylor had a shift meeting at 3:00 on Friday, so when school was out, I met her at the police department to get Grace. After a quick trip to our new Neighborhood Market, we were in for the evening. She asked about her papa and her Uncle T on the way home. I think she was ready to see all of us, too!
As soon as we got home and put the groceries away she was asking to watch "mommy mommy". She has become a big fan of "Mamma Mia". (She comes by that honestly enough, her mother and I both love it.) I put in the movie and she crawled up in the recliner and watched for quite a while when I was on the computer. I haven't seen her sit that still in a long time. When I finished on the computer I went in and sat with her. She was even trying to sing along with some of the songs! She also got down and danced with them during part of it. She is so much fun to watch!
She was probably asleep by 8:00. We sat in the recliner and I watched Monk and then pretty much slept through Psych before I got up and took us to bed. We were back up about 8:00 this morning. After she helped Papa eat his breakfast, they came into the living room where I was on the computer. Mike was planning to read his newspaper, but as you can see in the following picture, Grace had other plans for him. I just had to get a picture!
As the day progressed, we watched "Mamma Mia" yet again. At about 11:00, I guess, I took Grace in to wake up her Uncle T! She sat up in the bed with him for a little while until he decided to go ahead and get up. He laid back down on the couch until the movie was over. By that time the temperature was warmer outside than inside so we headed out. Grace played on the deck and I hung her swing back up. She stayed in it longer today than she has the whole time we have had it. She played on her little four wheeler while Tanner was splitting wood and Mike was cleaning the fireplace area up. She had a blast running around in the yard enjoying the sunshine and the freedom.
After Tanner got ready to go to work, he came around to the back of the house to find us. The next thing I knew he was climbing the pecan tree in the back yard! I don't know if I have ever seen him climb a tree before, but if I have it was a long time ago. I had to have some pictures. Grace didn't quite know what to think.
When he decided it was time to get down, he also decided that he should have thought about how he was going to get down before he ever got up!
Here he is testing that branch on the right to see if he can swing from it. He did end up swinging from it to get down. All branches and bones are still intact!
He really wanted Grace to have an experience in the tree as well. She was not at all sure she wanted to be up in that tree, at this point anyway!
However, when he said he would get up there with her it was a different story! He climbed back up and I handed her up to him. He got her onto that branch without any trouble.
She seemed to really enjoy being there with him, not at all scared of being so high up. Hence the post title, Big Monkey/Little Monkey!!I just read on Kelly's blog that things are looking better for her precious new arrival. I have been amazed at the number of comments left on her blog as well as every other blog that I have looked at this morning where this family has been lifted up. The blogworld is truly amazing and reaches so many people so quickly. As my heading says, Praise God for His goodness!
I don't know if anyone remembers or not, but several weeks before Christmas I stripped the walls in my living room. I donated the things I had in there to the Springdale Police Department for their garage sale. Anyway, I began the search for new things. I found and purchased several things but never got them hung before I started decorating for Christmas. Once I got all my Christmas decorations down I had bare walls again. Slowly, I began moving the picture, mirror and sconces back into the living room to remind Mike that I needed him to help me get them hung. I had also found a table that I wanted to put under the picture but hadn't gotten it since I was buying Christmas presents. Well, I got it on Monday! Stephanie and Mom helped me get the table. With gift cards from them, a small discount because it has some scratches on it and a $10 coupon, it only cost me $29. I was very excited! Thank you Mom and Stephanie!!
What do you think? I don't have any candles for the sconces yet and I need to get something to put on the table but I am on my way. There is a shelf on the bottom of the table, too.
I have wanted a mirror to put over the piano for a long time and now I have one. I couldn't get a very good picture, but you get the idea. I am very proud of the way it all looks and can't wait to finish. I still need something to put on the wall over the computer, but I don't have any doubts that Taylor and I can find something that will look good.Well, the holidays are over and it is back to work tomorrow! I wish I could say I was ready to go back, but I can't. Ready or not, though, here we go!
As I was reading blogs this afternoon I noticed that several had changed their backgrounds again, so of course I had to change mine as well. I only looked for about an hour before I decided on this one. I wrote down the names of some others that I may use at a later date. Do you like it?
While this holiday vacation was not a restful one, it was a fun one. My sister stayed with Mom until today, so I tried to spend as much time as possible with them. Last week I went down on Tuesday for the day and we had a great time. We picked up Granny Ima, met up with Johnny and Pat (my cousin and his wife) and went to Pizza Parlour in Alma for their buffet lunch. They have the best pizza around! We have pizza from there almost every time we are in Alma. After lunch, we loaded up and went sight-seeing. Johnny took us down memory lane. The weather was perfect and we saw things we hadn't seen in a long time. It was great! He took us to see Lake Fort Smith since it has reopened. As kids, we picnicked at that park and swam a lot. It looks nothing like it did then! The changes were amazing. It is a beautiful park, but kind of sad that we didn't recognize anything from our childhoods. I guess that's called progress!!
On Thursday, Cathy, Mom and Granny Ima traveled up the mountain to meet Taylor, Grace and me at Mimi's Cafe for lunch. It has become a favorite place of ours to eat. After we finished eating, Taylor, Grace and I did a little shopping and they went back to Alma.
Friday, I took Grace to Alma to spend one more night with Aunt Cathy. Cathy had made lasagne for lunch that day. (We did a lot of eating during this break.) She went and brought Granny Ima up for lunch with us. After we ate we just let Grace entertain us. She loves to be the center of attention!!
On Saturday, Cathy and I took Grace home and then went to a wedding. The wedding was one of the reasons Cathy stayed until today. Her best friend's youngest son was the one getting married. I decided at the last minute to attend the wedding with her. Am I ever glad that I did? It was a reunion with friends that I had not seen in many, many years. The wedding was beautiful and the fellowship was wonderful. What a great afternoon! Thanks Cathy for letting me go with you!
This morning, we left Granny's house about 7:30 and drove Cathy to Little Rock to catch her plane. Mom and I were back in Alma just before 2:00 and I left about 3:00 to come home. The trip down and back didn't seem like it took very long at all. By now, everyone should be home where they belong. Thanks Greg for letting Cathy stay in Arkansas for so long!!!
This should have us pretty well caught up for now. It was really a great holiday vacation! I hope everyone is looking forward to a wonderful 2009!!!
Finally I can get online again! Our computer has been down for about a week and before that, things were just crazy, but now things are getting back to normal. I was told yesterday that I needed to update my blog, so here goes.
Christmas was fun as always. It's great to be with family that we don't get to spend much time with throughout the year. On Christmas Day we went to my mom's in Alma. Taylor and her family also traveled to Alma. My sister and her family were in from Atlanta and the Russell's and the Bazyk's were in from Little Rock. Granny Ima, mom's sister, was also there. We had our traditional Christmas dinner and everyone seemed to have plenty of it!
After lunch, Grace opened presents from the Russell's, Bazyk's and Granny Ima. Then they headed back to Little Rock. As they were leaving, Rick, Marcia, Amanda and Alex came in. Everyone was visiting and watching the clock at the same time. Taylor had to be at work at 6:00 and we still had not opened presents. We all drifted toward the living room then to have our Christmas. We have started the tradition of opening presents from youngest to oldest, after Granny opens hers. Of course, with Christmas being all about the kids, Grace got the most presents. She seemed to enjoy tearing off the paper. She didn't hesitate to ask for help if she couldn't quite get it started. She was really funny to watch!!
It isn't often that the three of us are together in the same picture! I loved being able to be with both my kids for Christmas!
Grace always had someone close by to help when she got in a bind. Aunt Cathy lent a willing hand on this one, which happened to be from her family.
On Friday after Christmas, Mike, Tanner and I met Stephanie over at Taylor and Gene's for our Christmas. Stephanie always gets me some sort of snowman to add my my collection. This year, she gave me four and each one had a letter on it spelling out NOEL. They are adorable! Thanks Steph!!
This was the best present of the whole season!! When Stephanie took her blanket out of the bag, Grace wanted in! She and Steph played with this bag until they finally tore it up! So much for presents for the little one.
We got a little four wheeler for Grace to have at our house. Her Uncle T was very excited about putting it together for her. He is extremely fond of his precious neice!!!
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