Little White Lies

Case of the Open Bag of Fritos
Last night I started gathering all of the ingredients to make chili. I pulled out the Fritos and noticed that the bag had been opened. I called out from the kitchen to find out who had gotten into the Fritos. Jonathan was the first to answer. Very confidently he announces “It wasn’t me.” Then he adds in his 8 year old voice, I think it was Princess. She got up on the counter (which I’ve never seen her do) and knocked the bag off onto the floor. Then Mollie came in the kitchen and found the Fritos on the floor. She grabbed the Fritos and ripped the bag open. Hmmm… could our cat and puppy really be working together to steal our Fritos? I guess after they got their fill of Fritos they placed them back on the counter.

Done
This morning Jonathan was standing at my bathroom sink brushing his teeth. I was around the corner in the closet hanging clothes. Shortly after he started brushing his teeth, I hear him spitting into the sink. I asked him if he was done. He replied “Done.” He is supposed to watch the clock while he brushes. I asked him how long he had brushed. He knew that he had been caught. He grabbed his tooth brush and told me that he wasn’t done. He said “what I meant by done was are you done hanging those clothes yet. I did not mean that I was done brushing my teeth.”

Hmmm… could he have inherited the “little white lie” gene from his Uncle Jeffrey.

An Early Thanksgiving

Yesterday we went to my parents' house for dinner. (From this point forward my parents will be referred to as MaMaw & Grady.) We haven't seen much of them lately and we were hoping to finally celebrate MaMaw's birthday. Since we will be spending Thanksgiving with Fred's side of the family, MaMaw decided to fix an early Thanksgiving dinner for us. It was delicious!

While we were getting the table set Jonathan and Grady sat down to a hot game of Sequence for Kids. This is Jonathan's favorite game and he will challenge anyone to a game. It is really intended for younger kids but Jonathan has never grown out of his favorite game. Notice the lovely green hat that he is wearing. He asked MaMaw to make him this hat. Of course, she happily made the hat. I say happily because she knew that it would drive me crazy! Last year, she let him pick out some really ugly orange fleece with green flames. I have never seen a print that ugly. She made him a nice little hoodie out of it! I'm not sure what I did as a child to deserve this. All I know is that she gets a lot of enjoyment out of Jonathan's requests.

MaMaw and Grady are always good about finding fun activities for the kids. They decided that we would build a fire and make S'mores. While we were waiting for the fire to get just right, we told scary stories. Only I think our stories were more silly than scary.

Fred stayed inside on the couch and slept. He accused MaMaw of drugging him. It seems that he always has to lay down on her couch and go to sleep after he eats one of her meals. He did make it outside just in time to roast marshmallows. Jonathan just liked burning his marshmallows. He wasn't really interested in eating them... just roasting them.


Jonathan, once again, proved his ability to fall asleep anywhere. He fell asleep in Grady's lap shortly after we finished up our S'mores. We all came home smelling like a campfire, but we had a great time!

Thanks for the great time, MaMaw and Grady!

Our Other Kids

Gracie - 11 years

Mollie - 7 monthsPrincess - 6 years

Friday Feature: Sweet, Sweet Judy

Judy & Jessie on 8/31/96 - just 3 days after she came home from the hospital.


I have an aunt that has the most wonderful attitude. She is currently fighting cancer and doing it bravely. If faced with the same challenges, I wonder if I would react so courageously.

Many years ago, I had to give a talk in church about being thankful for all things daily. I referenced Judy because she spends every day being thankful for the things that the rest of us take for granted. You can just see it in her countenance. She is always smiling and she is so caring. Many people stopped me afterwards to tell me that her story had touched their lives. I received an email from a friend that simply stated, “Just want to say that I enjoyed your talk thoroughly! We have had several occasions to discuss your aunt and how thankful she is for the little things.”

The doctor says that the chemo has definitely had an effect on the cancer. She will be taking a break from chemo so that she can have surgery on Monday. After she has time to heal from the surgery, she will resume chemo again. It stinks that she has to have surgery the week of Thanksgiving.

Our family was so sad when we received the news that she had cancer. Judy has taught us all so much. As we approach Thanksgiving, I hope we can all remember to be thankful for all things daily.

We love you, Judy.

Finally!

I have finally created a blog.

I actually created one in July of 2007, and never sent out the link to anyone. I ended up deleting it because I didn't think that our family was "blogworthy." After much thought, I am finally trying again. (Side note: everything I do takes much thought. I'm not one to jump in quickly.) Also, after much thought (what did I tell you), I have decided to make our blog private. My kids are old enough that they would like some privacy.

My main goal is to use this as a means to share family stories and as a way to post pictures. I love to share pictures with my family, but always have trouble with the files being too large. Due to our busy/crazy schedules, I am hoping to post at least once a week. Wish me luck with that one!