Monday, Monday!

My honey is 62 years old and he rides 30 miles EVERY day!  When you are driving somewhere, click the tripometer... that's a long bike ride!  He worked for 38 years and since he retired has exercised every day either running or biking!  I am so proud of him and the way he is enjoying NOT working!  I am surprised that he walked away from work and is now enjoying the "sunny side of life"!  He was a workaholic, working all hours, always had work in his mind even when he wasn't working!  I guess he got really tired of all that and now he mentions something about work occasionally but not often:)

Avery came for a morning visit!  We chased butterflies:)  She was tickled that we got so close to take pictures!  This one was beautiful and sat still on the driveway for a minute!

This sweetie wanted to pick her Mama some gardenias and that is exactly what we did!

This was the flower she wanted to pick but I told her it had thorns!  She told me to take them off:)

Tracy was assisting in Alex's computer class!  Look at this girl playing her computer game.  I bet she sure was proud to have her beautiful Mama there with her!

I didn't accomplish much at all yesterday!  A weekend trip wears me out and I just rested!   I cooked a really good chicken dish for dinner!  I buy the individually wrapped frozen chicken breast because fresh chicken grosses me out.  Sprayed pam in a baking dish, poured a can of drained petite diced tomatoes over the chicken and sprinkled a packet of ranch dressing!  Covered it and baked for about 40 minutes, took the foil off and sprinkled cheese over the top!  It was DE-licious and really easy!  Sliced tomatoes and cucumbers from our little garden:)  YUMMY!

Happy Tuesday my friends!  I pray your day is perfectly wonderful!

Four + two=six!

I have SIX grandchildren... FOUR that I see daily and TWO that I don't!  I LOVE them all!  The four live less than two miles away and the two live four hours away!  We spent the weekend with these two and had a wonderful time!  Richard and Pa in the back, Anna, Madison and Maybree in the stroller!

We spent the weekend in a lovely cabin in the mountains!   Large wrap-around porch... hot tub that we didn't use and lots of green beauty!

Saturday, we spent the day in Dollywood.  My first time there and it was SO much fun!  Madison was giving this patchwork horse a hug!

Hello, can you say CUTE?  Maybree was precious on the ROOSTER!

Me on the left, Maybree on the right and in the middle in the back... Madison:)

Pa and Maybree!

Pa, Maybree and Anna!

Richard and Madison!

This was Dolly Parton's childhood home! 

They rode and smiled and smiled and rode!

Dolly, thanks for having us!

Lots of pretties to photograph!

Mom rode with the girls!

And this is how we felt at the end of each day:)

Wonderful weekend!  Great time with family that we don't get to see too often!  Thanks Anna and Richard for sharing your family with us! 

We love you all!  Have a blessed Monday!

Happy Birthday Mama!

Today would be my Precious Mama's 85th Birthday!  She went to be with Jesus in 1988!  I miss her so much!  She loved her Birthday and would always enjoy getting cards with cash in them:)  We all knew it and would watch her open the cards holding them flat so the money wouldn't fall out!  I love you Mama, today and forever!  My Mama was the best cook ever.  There are so many people that still remember things she cooked and how good they tasted.

If you have a Mama, hug her, tell her you love her EVERY time you see her or talk to her!  Each day is precious with those we love!  I don't want to ever take one single moment for granted!

I love you Mama and miss your sweet smile but feel your spirit in all things!

I have been out of town seeing my Knoxville Grandbabies!  I will show you what fun we had in tomorrow's blog.  I have some catching up to do to see what you all have been up to!

Love you all, miss you!

Happy Birthday Sis!

Today is my Sister's Birthday!  My Dear Sister, Barbara (aka Nanny) is 68 years old today!  She is and always been so precious to me!  I am out of town today and can't give you a Birthday hug but I love you and you know it:)

Happy Happy Birthday!  This was made last year...

This is OUR favorite picture of us together!

I love you and hope you had a wonderful day!  I think you are pretty special to share your Birthday with a memory of our Sweet Uncle!  He loved you so much and so do I!

Birthday lunch and a shut-out!

First of all, my day started with a sleepy little girl!  Sweet Avery!  We picked out something for her to wear to Dear Nanny's Birthday lunch and she was looking way cute:)  We played a few games of Jumping Monkeys, she is really good at that game!

Off to lunch at our favorite Chinese buffet for my oldest Sister's birthday!  Her birthday is on Saturday but we celebrated yesterday!  She was so happy, got lots of great gifts but I think this cookbook from my Sister Brenda was one of her favorites!  She LOVES the Neelys!

Autumn had a 6PM game... it was a GREAT game!  She pitched the entire game and a shut-out!  Go Autumn:)

The older she gets, I have to sneak pictures of her:)  Especially when she is with her friends.  Fortunately I have a zoom lens!

Little girls looking cute and home for a good night's sleep and we'll be busy again today!

On the ride to and from school, the sunrise and sunsets have been breathtakingly beautiful!  This picture was last night!  The sun was a big bright orange ball before it dropped behind the trees!

It was a great day and a great night! Have a blessed day my friends! HUGS!

Thank you my friends!

I just wanted to say thank you for all of the sweet comments!  You are all soooo precious to me!  I took this picture on the way home from the ballfield Tuesday night!  The sun was going down, it was so beautiful.  As it went down a little further there were streams of light shining up from the sun!  It was gorgeous but those pictures didn't take because it was too dark!

Beauty is all around us!  Take time to see it!

Love you all, have a blessed day!

Together again in Heaven!

My Uncle Obie passed away on Tuesday morning!  He is with my Daddy again in Heaven, both healthy and happy just like in this picture:)  Thank you for your prayers, please keep my Aunt Dot and cousins in your prayers.  Their hearts are broken!

Love you all and have a blessed day!  HUGS!

Never a dull moment:)

Monday morning I stayed with Avery while Tracy took the other 3 to school!  We enjoyed our time together and I helped her clean her room.  It kept me busy until 10:30 or so and then home to work on some projects at my house.  Over the weekend, I worked on some crafting which made a huge mess.  I spent the rest of the day cleaning and organizing until the phone rang and Alex wanted to come for a visit!  She has been going to school and hasn't got to spend much time with me.  So while Autumn had softball practice, the other 3 came for a visit!  Of course they wanted to play this game! 

I can't remember where I bought the game but they have really enjoyed playing it!  While they were playing, I was snapping pictures!  Alex looked at me and said "stop taking pictures"!  And so I did:)

 

Avery turned around and said, you can take a picture of me, Ganky!  And so I did:)

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I had several questions about the Muscadines that I mentioned in my blog yesterday and my Niece Kelly Kelly commented about scuppernongs!  Someone asked about those too, so here is a description from Wikipedia! 

Muscadine

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is a picture of mine, it grows wild! 

This is a picture from Wikipedia... ripe!

Muscadines are a grapevine species native to the present-day southeastern United States that has been extensively cultivated since the 16th Century. Its recognized range in the United States extends from New York south to Florida, and west to Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas. They are well adapted to their native warm and humid climate; they need fewer chilling hours than better known varieties and they thrive on summer heat.

Muscadine berries range from bronze to dark purple to black in color when ripe. However, many wild varieties stay green through maturity. They have skin sufficiently tough that eating the raw fruit often involves biting a small hole in the skin to suck out the pulp inside. Muscadines are not only eaten fresh, but also are used in making wine, juice, and jelly.

Scuppernong

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The scuppernong is a large variety of muscadine , a species of grape native to the southeastern United States. It is usually a greenish or bronze color and is similar in appearance and texture to a white grape, but rounder and larger and first known as the 'big white grape

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I hope you had a wonderful Monday!  Julie's Justin should be finishing up in Afghanistan soon!  Please keep him in your prayers!  Our Justin is back at base but still needs our prayers:)  Love you all and have a blessed Tuesday!

Mortisha and August Beauty!

I was up Sunday morning getting ready to go to Church, took my FAVORITE black skirt out of the dry cleaning bag, and put it on at the very last minute!  Started to walk down the stairs and felt like Morticia Addams!  Did you watch that show, the Addams Family?  This is how my skirt felt!  I thought perhaps they had shrunk it at the dry cleaners, perhaps my pizza/ice cream/cake at the birthday party had filled up my skirt?  Hmmmmm was I gonna have to change skirts, no problem I have several:)  Well on my way back up the steps I feel the back of the skirt at the pleat:)

AND the dry cleaner had stitched the pleat together to keep it straight!  Never had them do that before:)  Oh well, clipped it and off to  Church:)  Hard to see but this was the pleat:)  Live and learn!

My Sundays have started reminding me of Sundays as a child!  We always went to Church and home to eat lunch and either sit around until time to go back to church or laying around resting!  I have been laying around resting!  I ate lunch and watched the Braves!  Later in the afternoon after it cooled off a little to about 100 degrees:) I took a walk around the yard to see what beauty I was missing out on because I hate to stick my nose out of the air conditioning!  Here are a few of my findings...

Gardenias blooming, they are called August Beauty!

My sweet little birdie house showing some character aka rust:)

My little wooden swing filled with leaves!

What is it about ivy?  That stuff can go anywhere!  Look at it climbing this tree!

And wild muscadines:)  Yum, how 'bout some jelly?

Justin is back at base and my Sister is healing nicely!  She is having a little trouble sleeping with her arm in that contraption but otherwise doing pretty good!  My Uncle is about the same and my Cousin said they will just take what they can get at this point!  He is drinking some protein shakes and saying a word every now and then!  Please keep them all in your prayers!  Hugs to you all and have a blessed Monday!

Everybody loves Justin and a 1st Birthday party!

Justin is leaving this morning to go back to base because his post deployment leave is over:(  We have enjoyed our time with him and Cindy has done an excellent job at letting us all spend time with him!  So... Saturday morning, she cooked up her special HOMEMADE biscuits, grits, gravy, salmon patties, red hots, sausage, scrambled eggs and KARO syrup for ME:)  Thanks Sis for the DELICIOUS breakfast and wonderful laughs with family!  I have enjoyed Justin's time with us and hate to see him go back!  BUT... at least he will be close enough for us to get to him or him to us when possible!  Drive safely Justin, we love you and are thankful you came home safely!

Justin and his baby cousins!  Oh how they love him and that love is mutual!

Autumn loves Justin!  Cousins having fun!

Love that smile!

One, two, one, two!

Justin tickling Alex!

Britani behind the Angel pillow on the left and

Autumn behind the pillow on the right:) 

Handsome and Wally in the middle!

He is Proud to be an American and SO AM I!

AND then in the afternoon, I went to my GREAT-GREAT-Niece's First Birthday Party!  She is toooo precious!  Her Mama, Jessica is precious too!  This is the GREAT-GREAT Granddaughter of my Sister Barbara!  Jessica, her Mama and Sister lived with me for a while when she was a little older that Kendall!  I enjoyed watching her grow!  She has grown into a WONDERFUL Mother!  She puts her girls first and I admire that in young Mothers!  Here are some of the pictures from the party!

Look at this cutiepie in her tutu that her Mama made:)

Kendall and her gorgeous Mama!

Kendall having some pizza!

When we sang Happy Birthday, she danced and danced!

And then the cake... 

And it was all over her face:)  I bet this was her favorite part!

Happy 1st Birthday Kendall!

Love you all and I hope you have a blessed day!