Three more sleeps till......

Oh hello Minnie! It's me!!! I will see you very soon. I have missed you!!!

Hugs,

Your friend Shann

5 more days till........

The most magical place on earth....and man am I ready for some magic. Can't wait hubby....can you? :)

Take Me Out To The Ballgame

My nephew went to his first major league base ball game on Saturday. It was a hit!! He told me he loved it and wanted to go again! Remember I told you it was a birthday present for my dad to go to the game.....but my husband and our worship minister and nephew went along for fun too.

Here they all are.....the two Cubs fans on the left and the two Cardinal fans on the right. The Cardinals won. Bad for Dad and Benji....good for Hubby and nephew. They told me that a good time was still had by all anyway. My husband took the camera and these are a few pictures he took of their day. I was impressed! So was my sissy. :) Oh...and a player threw a baseball at Colin, to keep, while practicing...he told me it was grass stained and dirty. Authentic!!! Yippee!!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

This is my dad. Sunday we celebrated his 69th birthday. He does not act like he is 69 years old. More like 29 years old. He is extremely active. He has coffee everyday at the coffee shop with all his buddies. I can only imagine the conversations that those men have. And they say women are the gossips. HA!

He loves to fish, as you can see from the photo. He also loves the Chicago Cubs. My husband has gotten him a ticket to the Cub/Cardinal game this weekend for his birthday. Our worship minister is also a Cubs fan. He will be going with them. My nephew will also be going with them. This is his first major league ball game. He is a Cardinal fan like my husband. So, the four of them will be leaving bright and early on Saturday morning for St. Louis to see the game in the afternoon. Can I just say all four of them are giddy with excitement????? I don't know who is the real kid in this scenario...the real kid (my 10 year old nephew) or the 69 year old man. You be the judge from this picture. Hee hee!

My dad is the type of person that if you needed a shirt, he would take his off and give it to you. My dad is a very hard worker. Everything he has he earned with his own two hands. He has had some hard knocks in his life. Oh how I wish he and my mother had not had hard times. But they are better people for them I believe. My daddy (and mama) have shown me how to work hard and be kind and have fun. Good things to teach your kids!

I wish I could have a hidden camera this weekend so I could see all the fun the boys will have at the ball game. Memories will be made for all of them. Good memories. I hope foul balls come their way and the peanuts are never ending and the sun is not in their eyes and the soda is cold and refreshing. :)

Oh how I love my daddy!!

A Time to Mourn

The memorial for our Uncle was this weekend. We had family come from California, Texas, Florida, Missouri and Colorado. One end of the country to the next! We had a great time being together and telling "remember when" stories. It was so nice to see cousins that we don't see often and some even brought their kids with them. We had people from one year of age on up! :)

It was a great time of visiting, eating, laughing, crying, eating, remembering, visiting, laughing, crying.....and so on and so on. I am a people watcher. I love to sit back and watch people. In doing so, I noticed how similar some of us really were. Our mannerisms and laughs and the way we held ourselves. After all, we are related I guess. But, it was fun to see how closly knit some of us are. Fun! :)

The time was short for all of us to be together. None of us are independently wealthy, so we all had to go back to work and our lives....darn it......but the time we did get to spend together was lovely. And after it was all over.....we felt like this little pumpkin.

Spring has Sprung (FINALLY!)

It is here at last! YIPPEE!! I am speaking of Spring. That lovely season where God awakens His earth and things begin to get beautiful again.

Like 7th graders dressed up for their Spring Band Contest.

And the tulips that I planted last fall....showing all just how beautiful they are! :)

And the two furry babies sitting at the screen door.... putting their heads together.....planning their great escape into the back yard. Hee hee.

My sisters toys

Remember that I have told you my sissy is a "paperholic?" She loves to play with scrapbook stuff and I love to play with fabric. While living with me this past week, she brought some of her toys over to my house. This is some of what I saw.....

Ribbons, Ribbons, Ribbons......

Baskets of goodies......chipboard, sparkly things, sharp things, buttons. (Now I do loooove buttons!)

Ink stamp pads, markers, baskets with miscellaneous toys inside.

And, lastly.....I miss seeing these every morning in my bedroom. :(

Strange things....

My sister and nephew were living with me last week. I think I told you that in the last post I did. I wanted to show you some "strange things" I saw this week in my house that I don't normally see in a house with all girls. Here are just a few.....

1. Cow in my bed.

2. Camo underwear in my laundry hamper.

3. Paper airplanes on the kitchen floor.

4. Fireman dudes around the house looking at me.

5. Yellow Corvette in my house. (I think I could get used to this one!)

Just to name a few....... It was so much fun having my nephew here with me this past week. He was sick (and so was I) but we still had a lot of laughs together and fun times that we will remember hopefully for a long time. Boys....who knew they were soooo cool!! ;)

Boyz in the house

My sister is renovating her only bathroom at her house. So, she and my nephew have moved in with me for a few days. My nephew brought over a few of his toys to play with while he was here with us. GI Joe's is what he brought. While playing with them yesterday, Joe's snap fell off his Army jacket. So, he asked his Auntie to sew it back on. Since he knows that I love to do that stuff.

Here is his jacket all repaired.

This mama is not used to having camo stuff in the house. :) I walked into the bedroom where my youngest daughter and nephew were playing. And this is some of what I saw.....

1. Getting all the kids dressed and Joe's lady friend, Barbie.

2. Barbie's super kitchen with her stack able washer and dryer in a fun color!

3. Joe leaving his pants, shoes, liter of pop and pistol laying on the floor. Typical! (Wink!)

4. Lastly, the happy couple themselves! They were dressed up "to go out" or so I was told. And, when I left the room.....I overheard my nephew tell my daughter that Joe was going to propose tonight to Barbie. Ahhhh how sweet!

Mom's Birthday

The 3rd was my mom's birthday. Her sister and husband were coming in from Colorado for a visit. So, she wanted to wait and have her party when they were here. Last night was the night. We had a nice time! For dinner, we had lasagna, garlic bread, spinach salad with homemade poppy seed dressing and for dessert....homemade vanilla cuppy cakes with butter cream chocolate frosting. YUMMO! I think we were all stuffed after dinner. ;) She got a lot of nice gifts from all of us. I think she was pleased with everything. But mostly, I think she enjoyed the company. She does not get to spend much time with her big sister because she lives so far away. They will be here visiting for almost the whole month. We will be celebrating my Uncle Delmar's life at his memorial service on the 18th and we also have my Uncle Franks birthday to celebrate while he is here on the 11th and my daddy's birthday is the 19th. Can I just say there will be a lot of partying going on this month in our family?!?!?!?! We will have family coming in from Colorado, Texas, California and Florida for the memorial service. All ends of this country! It will be bittersweet due to the reason....but we will enjoy each other, this is for sure.

So happy birthday Mama-O-Mine! Hope your special day was as special as you are to all of us!!

Go to jail....go directly to jail

I have been away for awhile. Not because I wanted to but because I was a sick girl! Although I just realized that by the title of this post, it may appear that I was in jail. That was NOT the case! HA! While sick, my youngest daughter wanted me to play a game with her. She was bored! Her older sister was at a band contest at school so she only had me to play with. I told her in my over-the-counter drugged state of Tylenol cold/flu medicine stupor, to pick out a game that was easy to play. This is what she came back with.

Sponge Bob Monopoly. Does this look like an easy game to you? I think not. But, it was fun after we got started. We were buying up pineapples and Crusty Crab's like you would not believe! HA! This is who I chose to be.....

Sandy the squirrel. And, Taylor chose him......

Sponge Bob! The man himself. Or whatever the heck he is. :)

It was a good game. She let me stop for awhile and take a nap. Which was much needed. Then back to playing. She won the game because I had to pay the barnacle tax about 10,000 times!