Breaking out the pool

This weekend was so sunny and so warm.  It made me long for summertime in a big way.  It was so warm that I hauled out the old baby pool.  And by old, I mean o-l-d.  I bought this thing for Erica's second birthday 25 years ago!!!  I paid 20.00 for it then and it has been worth every single penny.  Best Little Tykes investment ever.  I still have Megan's Little Tykes Johns Deere tractor and wagon set plus I have Erica's Little Tykes motorcycle.  You really cannot wear their stuff out.  It is so good and lasts forever.  Piper and Savannah both love the water so I hauled about four 5 gallon buckets of hot water out of the house and cooled it off with the water hose and they were all set to swim and play.  I am so happy my grand girls are the outside types.  I am not a fan of little house-mouses.  Kids need to go and play outside.  To get filthy dirty in creeks, to roll down hills, to stare up at clouds and make shapes, to run, to catch lightning bugs and just observe the wonderful world that God gave us to care for and to enjoy!  At one point a little leopard frog hopped past us and I picked him up a let him swim a little bit with the girls.  They are not froggy fans.  But by the end of summer I will see that particular idea fades away.  Frogs are our friends I told them and swimming with them is so much fun.  When Erica, Megan and Brittany were all little they used to put bullfrogs on their heads and see who could swim the farthest before their frog hopped off.  Plus they would fill their bathing suits up with frogs so they could hear them peep!  Maybe my girls were a little weird??  But they did have fun!

On Saturday I got the pool out and as you can see Piper was jumping with excitement!

I did manage to get one shot of them both looking at me.  It was a miracle I tell ya!

 

Savannah is such a little sweetie!

Piper spent the majority of both days jumping instead of swimming!!

More jumping and sliding.  Such a fun day!

Hi Mimi...you are the best Mimi ever....  At least this is what I say she is saying in this picture!!!

Cowabunga dudes!!!  Do they still say that???

Projects

Right now I have about four million projects.  I am not kidding.  Seriously, I'm not.  I have something going on in every single room of my house.  It is either a cleaning out project, painting project, photo project, redecorating project and let's not forget outside projects!!!  Pinterest is killing me, people!  The only problem is, I cannot for the life of me complete a single one.  I am losing all ability to manage my time.  I am busy all the time but I get nothing done.  I am hardly ever home which puts a huge damper on home bound projects.  I am also not independently wealthy so that puts an even bigger damper on most projects.  I am a big diy kind of gal but you still need supplies.  My goals for the summer are to get my bathroom/Megan's old room/formal dining room all repainted.  Actually, I am a really good painter.  I have a steady hand and am pretty quick once I get started.  My struggle areas are paint color selection.  I mean you keep paint colors for years and years.  Or at least I do.  My current color of my dining room is a pale gold and I think it has been on my walls for about 15 years.  Change does not become me.  I have several things on my plate for the summer too.  My niece, Brittany, is having her first baby later this summer so there is a baby shower to plan and give.  Erica is having her third sweet baby this fall so I am sure I will help her out tremendously this summer with her two toddlers.  Megan has several projects she is working on for her still "new" home.  She is very, very crafty and has done some great things around her home and has made it quite beautiful.  I am very proud of her!  I do like projects and I like to keep busy.  I just need to learn to tackle things one at a time instead of this flitting around and bouncing from one thing to the next like a butterfly.  The older i get the more and more A.D.D. I get.  I mean seriously.  I cannot keep my mind set on one dadgum thing for more than ten minutes.  So frustrating.  I am sure this is all part of the fabulous world of menopause.  Because as we all know ladies it is the gift that keeps on giving.  Starting tomorrow I am going to sit down and map out all the household jobs I want to accomplish in the next four months.  If I set some real and attainable goals just maybe I can get a few of these projects finished.

Easter 2014

What a glorious Easter Sunday today was!!  The sun was bright and shiny all day.  It was a little windy but a beautiful day.  Church was wonderful this morning.  My daughter, Erica, was in the Easter drama and she did so great.  She always did have a flair for acting and she really loves it.  Megan was in the outdoor Passion Play at her church and I saw her Thursday night.  It was so great and so moving to watch the last week of Christ's life on earth.  Megan was really great too.  I am super proud of my girls and their walks with the Lord.  They both love Him and serve Him to the best of their abilities.  They are just so precious to me.  When we got home from church the whole family got together at my mama's for Easter lunch.  Oh my stars..can we ever cook!!1  Not to brag but, my family is so blessed with really good home cooks.  We had the traditional Easter fare.  Ham, potato salad, deviled eggs, broccoli casserole and the like.  For dessert we had cheesecake, banana pudding and this great strawberry cake with fresh strawberries.  Yummy!  We had an Easter egg hunt for the grand babies.  Piper and Savannah had a blast finding eggs full of candy.  After all this my sweet niece, Brittany and her husband Aaron did a "A Baby Reveal" with an Easter egg with a chocolate kiss inside.  It was so fun.  Can you guess what it is????  It is a girl!!  This family just seems to not be able to have any boys but we make beautiful little girls.  And nothing is sweeter than a baby girl.  So soft and pink and precious.  I love little girls.  Love them to pieces.  I took a bunch of photos of the whole day and some were really good.  Easter is my second favorite holiday.  Not because of baskets or eggs or candy or dinner with family.  All of that is nice and fun.  I love Easter because it is about the Risen Savior of the world.  I am so glad my God is not dead....He is ALIVE!


Piper was so excited to find eggs all over my yard!

Savannah was just as thrilled.  They were so cute!

Piper tended to carry her basket like an old lady carries her purse!

Sweet Savannah.  I just love her!!!

The sweet new parents-to-be!  Pink eggs for their precious baby girl to come!

Can I open it and eat the candy Mimi????

Savannah loves to smell flowers.  I could just eat her up.

Uncle Thad and Aunt Megan were great bubble blowers.  They will make awesome parents some day.

Piper running after just one more egg that was hiding.

He's Alive

On this Easter Morning

                                                                       He is ALIVE

Cousins.....

This past Sunday was Palm Sunday.  At our church we have the Tiny Tots perform a ten minute set of songs that is beyond precious.  They sing the same songs every year and I know them all by heart.  I am sure when Jesus comes back a herd of toddlers will be waving Palm Branches and singing, "Hosanna" to the top of their lungs.  So sweet.  Piper and Savannah were both in the performance and bless Savannah's heart...she lasted all of 45 seconds.  She is really just too young yet to be up on the stage with all these goofy parents and grandparents smiling like morons at them while they sing.  I might start squalling too!  After church all my kids and their spouses came to my house for a big Sunday lunch.  Blake's mom and sister were in for the weekend so they could see the girls and so of course they came too.  I love lots of people over for anything!  They enjoyed the church service and were excited to see the girls sing.  Blake's sister, Kayla, has a new baby herself.  His name is Levi and he is just six months old.  Little, he is not.  This boy is a chunker!  So sweet though.  He really is such a cutie-pie!  Piper and Savannah just loved all over him and Savannah was obsessed with giving him a naptime bottle.  Before we ate lunch everyone was gathered around the table for the blessing and my son in law Blake spoke up and said, "I have a quick question?"  I looked at him and said, "Sure, what do you need?"  Then...he asked Robin (his mom) and I how we felt about being Grandmothers again...WHAT!  I started screeching and Robin started hollering.  How would we feel????  We felt thrilled and excited and over the moon.  That's how we felt!  I am so excited that I cannot stand it.  So come November 24th or so we will have yet another little cousin to add to the mix.  My sweet niece, Brittany and her husband Aaron are going to reveal their baby's gender Easter Sunday to all of us after lunch and to say I am excited is to say the least.  There is another little cousin to add!!  So this Christmas we will have two more sweet babies to hold and coo over under the Christmas tree.  I adore babies and I cannot wait to get my hands on these two.  Being a grandmother is the best thing in the whole wide world!!  I love these babies so much and I am just so blessed beyond measure to have the Lord trust them to our family.  The small part I play in their lives is so precious to me and such an honor.  What an amazing blessing.


I tried to get a good photo of all three babies but needless to say....

Baby wrangling is a very underpaid job

Little Levi.  Such a sweetie.

Pretty Piper.  I did manage to get one of her where she was smiling and looking up and still.

Savannah?  I cannot seem to get her to even look towards me in a general direction.  But she too is as pretty as she can be.  I am so glad they love babies!!

When I asked Piper if she wanted a baby sister or a baby brother she said, "I don't."  I asked her again and she said, "I just want to keep Savannah."  So sweet!  They just love each other to pieces and so I know they will just adore whatever they get.

Oh No...He Didn't...

For two weeks I have gotten an automated call from Walgreens Pharmacy about a prescription being ready.  First off I take only one prescription.  It is a combo of progesterone and estrogen.  Two bottles.  Two pills per day.  Easy peasy.  They are on a 90 auto refill.  Easy peasy.  Well, it should not have been refilled until this week so I don't know about all that two weeks of calling stuff.  I mean I still have four pills in each bottle.  Well I got a call that said, "If you do not come pick up your prescription we will return the medication."  What??  Really??  What if it is a life-saving drug that I have to have??  Like estrogen and progesterone?  Isn't that life saving???  Like his life????  So I pull in the drive thru.  Mistake number one.  Me and drive thru as friends...not so much.  I stated that I was there to pick up my prescription and Zach the pharmacy tech went to go get it from the bins.  He was 14.  Zach-a-roo comes back and says, "That will be 33.00 ma'am."  I look at him and sweetly.  Sweetly, now.  "Honey, there should be two prescriptions there."  Well little ole Zach says, "It's a 90 day supply."  Once again I sweetly say, "I know but there should be two prescriptions."  Then....oh my heavens, get this...Zach says as he is leaning into the microphone really loud and really slow, "It Is A Ninety Day Supply Ma'am."  Oh no he didn't.  So of course all sweetness went out the window.  I looked at Mr. Zach and said, " There should be two bottles with one prescription in each and since I was on auto fill he should know that and since the prescription was for estrogen and I was obviously out and he better go fill the other bottle...right now."  I wasn't real sweet either.  He looked at my prescription on his computer and agreed with me (imagine that) that one bottle was not included and he would put it on auto fill right away ma'am and could I come back in fifteen minutes...please???    Sure, no problem.  I had to go by groceries anyway.  So instead of going to the Food Lion right across the road or the Lowes Food right up the road or the third realm of you know where about a mile up the road, I drove 20 miles into the next town to Harris Teeter in Bermuda Run.  I strolled through the aisles smiling at strangers and not seeing one familiar face.  That was so nice.  There was no stock boys putting anything up anywhere.  No screaming children running up and down the different sections tearing the store apart and eating marshmallows from bags that they have yet to pay for.  Strangers.  I didn't know if they were strange and I didn't have a clue.  They didn't know me either.  No one there knew I was low on estrogen.  I went back towards my home and ran back through the drive thru and got my prescriptions.  Zach didn't hardly crack a smile...oh no, he didn't.  But I did...

Saturday In The Park

Once again I have been MIA in blogland.  I honestly do not know where the time goes.  I am just way too busy and I need to just slow down and take a deep breath and stop being so busy.  Today I met Erica, Megan, Piper and Savannah at the park at a lake below our house.  It was a typical spring day in North Carolina.  Deceivingly warmish....lots of sunshine but the breeze was cool and the ground was cold.  Spring is just not my favorite season.  It is a trickster.  The girls were dressed for a warm spring day so I was glad the sun was shining!  Their Mimi on the other hand wore a jacket the whole time because I suppose I have no blood.  Or I am old.  The latter is probably the best choice.  We played on all the swings and slides and fished in the lake.  I baited their hooks since neither one will touch a worm.  Oh, we will be most definitely de-sissifying some little girls this summer.  We did not catch a fish nor even a nibble but we did have a lot of fun.  School will be out soon and I can't wait for lazy days.  Laying on quilts and watching the clouds.  Swimming.  Lightning bugs.  Tadpoles and baby frogs.  Summer is my time.  Spring just started and I am wishing my life away by calling on summer but these cool breezes just get me.  I did manage to take some pictures while the girls were swinging and sliding and fishing.  It was a fun day.

Savannah loves to swing.  She smiles the whole time.

Piper loves climbing the rock wall.  She does a good job too!

Savannah and mommy going down the big curvy slide!

Pipe is a "big girl" and can go all by herself with her hands in the air.

Piper singing and swinging!  Singing, "Let It Go" from Frozen for 127945 time.

Sweet Savannah.  I love those little chubby legs.  She is getting too big too fast.

Piper fishing for a little fish.

Savannah just wants to hold the pole.