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!!!

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!

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

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

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!!

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!

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!!

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!!

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.

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?

Trunk or Treat

A local church held a great Trunk or Treat for the community last night and we decided to take the kids!  This is my first time going and I have to say that it was awesome!! People had their cars decorated around the parking lot so the kids could go around and trick or treat just like going through a neighborhood.  It was really neat!! The kids really enjoyed themselves and were eager to get their buckets filled with goodies!!

 

We had a ladybug (Ada), a lion (Harrison), a sock monkey (Tuff), a UPS man (Jace) and a clown (Gunner, who slept the whole time)

 

Not all of the kids liked their costumes….

It didn’t take long for them to perk up and enjoy the dress up…

 

Harrison wasn’t a fan of his lion hood….

 

Tuff on the other hand was ok with is sock monkey…

But this MeMe sure did enjoy watching the joy in their eyes as they went around to gather their goodies…

and just a few extras..

 

Hope everyone has a happy and safe Trick or Treating!!

It’s That Pumpkin Patch Kinda Time Of Year

 

Last Saturday we decided to head out to a Pumpkin Patch that we haven’t been to before.  April said it was really nice and has a lot of free things for the kids to enjoy.

We ended up having a great time, except the kids were not in the best of moods.  But I think they made the best of it and enjoyed it for the most part.

Harrison feeding the goats.  Speaking of goats, poor little Ada got her finger bitten and she just had a tad of a melt down.  It didn’t really bite her hard or break the skin but she was just tore up! Poor little thing

 

Ada and mama riding the pumpkin train

Tuff sliding in the toddler play area….

Harrison and Aunt Tori riding the pumpkin train

Playing on the giant hay bales…Harrison decides he is hot and pulls his shirt open! Ha!

Gunner loved laying in the grass!! He was just hanging out all day

Best we could do for a picture of the 3 older kids

and of course they didn’t want to cooperate for a picture with MeMe and Papa.  But these will be such sweet memories when they get older.

Only smile we could get out of our Harrison…

and Gunner again just chillin out with the pumpkins

 

Ada and mama having fun on the tunnel slide

Long Time No Blog

So sorry for my absent!  It’s been a little crazy here and I have just been so tired and trying to get back into the swing of things being a Meme!  So just a little (long) catching up……

I know I failed miserably at the 30 day photo challenge (note to self: never commit to a 30 day challenge).  I feel terrible about that but I just kept forgetting about.  Sorry, hope you don’t hate me!!

Anyway, this past week has been a bit crazy!! Ashley went back to work so Tuff and Gunner was back at Meme’s and Gunner has a virus the week before so he has a rash that is left over from that and poor Tuff has been trying to fight off a Sinus Infection that as of Thursday had obviously won the fight! Poor thing.  Ashley took him to the Dr. on Friday and of course he has a terrible Sinus Infection which comes with an antibiotic that causes diarrhea and a rash so it will be a battle for him the next 5 days.   Ada has a runny nose also but so far we think its’ just a cold but I’m sure she will end up in the DR’s office with a Sinus Infection!!! So I have wiping noses constantly all week.  And also, Victoria has been having some pretty bad headaches (in the back of her head) in the last month so we thought we would just go ahead and have her checked out!! I was thinking “Oh My Goodness!! My kid has a brain tumor!!”  Anyway, no brain tumor!! She has the beginning of a Sinus Infection (shown on X-Ray)!! Go figure!!!  So she is also on antibiotics, nasal spray and an over the counter sinus medication.   So all the grandbabies and the 13 year old are sick!! I ‘m sure this Meme will end up being sick when all the kiddos get better!!

So I have a new little man that comes to see me everyday!! Love him to pieces!!

We went to Grandparents Day celebration at Tuff’s Day School!!

These pictures are a little overdue.  That’s what happens when Meme goes on a blog Hiatus!!!! I have got to get it together!!

So last Friday was Homecoming at our local high school so me and Ashley too the babies to the Homecoming Parade!!

So I haven’t had Harrison in a few weeks and I have sure missed him!! He is growing and talking so much and such a busy little man!!  His mama has been keeping him busy and learning new things everyday!!

So into learning about Noah’s Ark!!

 

Love this picture of Harrison and Brandon at Sam’s waiting on Mama to finish her shopping!!

Having a little fun with Mama!!

We are also, so excited about April, Brandon and Harrison getting one step closer to bringing home Sophie and Greer!!! They finally got their EP submitted!! and we think that little miss Sophie had something to do with this……

Is she not the cutest thing you’ve ever seen????  Yeah I think so too!!!

On another happy note!!! My niece Christy had her new baby boy, Kirby Dewayne on Friday!!!  Sure wish I could have been there with her and my family to welcome him into the world!! He weighed 7 pounds 1 ounce and he is absolutely adorable!!!

This is my favorite picture!! Love his sweet little finger on his cheek!!  He’s thinking “hmmmm don’t know if I like this or not” haha

Mama and baby!! So sweet!!

Congratulations to you Christy!!!