Thursday, November 24, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving!! 2011

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!! This year has ended bittersweet.  First (the bitter) we lost my precious Mother-In-Law but  (on the sweet end) we have received 2 new precious grandbabies and my MIL is in heaven singing with the angels!!

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and of course I will be missing my family in Florida today!

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Wednesday, November 23, 2011

It’s Gotcha Day For Sophie and Greer

 

and I have to say, it went “better” than expected I think anyway!! They did cry when the got into the cab and Greer had a rough 2 hours but since we have such an awesome God things have calmed down.  Thanks to technology for Sophie, she is lovin the I pad!! Ha! 

I got to Skype with them all this morning and Sophie was waving at us and kinda dancing around for us.  April says she likes the bows and shoes!! I told Brandon he was in real trouble!! Greer was hanging out and chillin and seemed to be content!! We are all so excited and can’t wait for them to get home!!

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Gotcha Day!!

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Ipad making Sophie smile!!

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Greer taking a little snoozer!!

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Having a little supper!

Monday, November 21, 2011

So Excited and Thankful

We are all so excited to meet our 2 new additions to our family.  Sophie and Greer will be united with their mommy and daddy tomorrow (will be Wednesday in Korea, I think?) and then on Friday, they will be coming home to join Harrison and finally be a family of 5.  This will make 6 grandbabies for MeMe and Papa!! Wow!! Our family surely is growing by leaps and bounds.   While April and Brandon and Brandon’s parents are over in Korea, Harrison has been being taken care of by a close friend (thank you Pam!!) of the family! I picked Harrison up on Saturday morning and he spent the night with us and then I took him back to church and then he went back with Pam since they had dinner and then his Thanksgiving musical that night.  We went back into town for his musical and I have to say I have one Rockin grandson!!! He is such a little energizer bunny and he did such a great job!!! He absolutely loves loves to dance!!! We are so proud of our little man. 

Harrison is on the right!! I think he was pretty excited to be an Indian and to sing too!!!

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This is a picture that April put up this morning of their first meeting with the twins!! I just love the look on April’s face! So happy and proud of our daughter and her family!

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and she says that Sophie loves to light a candle on a cake and sing happy birthday!! how sweet is that?!?!

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and from the looks of it, Greer likes to snuggle!!

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I just want to say that I am so Thankful for our daughter, April and our son in law, Brandon for their love for orphans!! This whole experience has really been an eye opener for all of us!! It’s so exciting but it has also shown us all that no matter what, a child without a family deserves to be loved just as much as a child that has one.  We love them all, red, green, black and white they are precious in His sight!!

Friday, November 18, 2011

Grief

I don’t know much about grief.  I wonder how it feels?  I lost my Granny Mae in 1996 right at Christmastime.  She was 82 and had Alzheimer's and I knew she was ready for heaven. 

Somehow losing my mother-in-law seems harder.  I think maybe it’s because it was sudden and she was only 68 years old.  I find myself okay one minute and the next I have this feeling of emptiness.  I have known her for 28 years this month.  I have feelings of guilt for not seeing her as much as I should have.  I know she wouldn’t want that.  She realized that we all have busy lives with work and grandbabies.  But this grief I’m feeling makes me feel like I could have done more, visited more, loved more.  She taught my husband how to love.  He has passed that gift down to our children.  He has loved me for a long time with no conditions.  What a wonderful gift she gave her children.  I can’t say enough about what a great, inspirational lady she was.  I know she wasn’t scared.  I know she was ready.  I know she loved our Lord.  But this grief, I don’t know how long it will be around. 

My daughter April and her husband, Brandon are on a plane right now on their way to Korea to bring home our 5th and 6th grandbabies!  I can’t stop thinking about them not ever being able to meet their Nana.  It’s heartbreaking!  My heart is broken because I won’t get to play scrabble or canasta or go on a road trip with her ever again.  I am trying to be strong.  I feel like I could just break down at any moment.  And then I have times where I feel like I am doing just fine.  I am guessing this is all a part of grieving.  Well, I don’t like it. 

We have been cleaning out her apartment this week and this task seems harder than planning her memorial.  I went to get her dirty clothes hamper and looked in it and all it had in it was her complete outfit from that morning.  Bra, panties, pants and shirt.  That was hard!! I find so many pictures that proves how much she loved her family.  There are A LOT of pictures.  She loved pictures and she loved taking pictures.  She loved to read and she taught me to love reading.  My very first and very favorite book to this day is, Carolina Moon by Nora Roberts.  I remember she gave me the book when we had went to visit her when she lived in Georgia.  I haven’t read a book since that I love more. 

I am just rambling along but I thought if I wrote down how I was feeling it would help.  It hasn’t yet but of course tonight in 35 minutes it will be one week that she has been gone from us.  I loved her and she was loved by many!! I miss her and she will be missed by many!

Monday, November 14, 2011

We Never Know

A week ago on Saturday November 5, 2011, my daughter, Ashley picked me up for a day of shopping.  We were going to get outfits for Tuff and Gunner for family pictures to be taken this past weekend.  We walked into the consignment store and my phone rang.  I have to say that I almost always wonder if something is wrong when one of my family members call.  I am just paranoid like that.  Well, it was the hubby telling me to call his mom and check on her because his brother had called and said she was in an accident.  Well, I thought, ok it was probably just a fender bender and I need to go pick her up.  Well it turns out it wasn’t a fender bender.  It ended up being a tragic accident in which we spent 7 days in the Trauma Unit at Vanderbilt Hospital. 

After a long 7 days on life support and a lot of pleading with her to breath she let us know that she was ready for heaven.  On November 11, 2011 at 9:45 pm my sweet Mother-In-Law, Carol went to be be with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  She had all of her family surrounding her and her grand daughter singing Amazing Grace when she went home to Jesus.  She was loved by many and will be missed terribly.  But we all know that she is in a better place!!

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I took this picture in November 2009 when we were so blessed to be able to take a cruise together.  We weren’t a big fan of being on a cruise ship for 7 days but we made the best of it and ended up having a great time.  I am so thankful for those 7 days that we had to laugh, play games, go to shows, and eat eat eat!!!

I love you mom and my life will never be the same without you!!! I hope you are having a blast in heaven and give grandpa lots of love from all of us!!

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Dove Body Wash

I was so so excited to get a package in the mail and opened to find a free sample of Dove Body wash from Blogher.

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I happen to really love Dove Body wash!! It has such a clean light fresh scent to it and it also does a great job of moisturizing!! Anyone love Dove products or what is your favorite?