I hope you all have a happy wonderful fourth!

We did a small amount of fireworks with our kids. (Haden wrote his name in the air - kinda)

I held the sweet, tired, Tristan throughout the show and we enjoyed a few sparklers of our own.

We were doing swell.

And then someone got hurt. A spark jumped off of the sparkler onto Tristan’s arm (see it hit there in the crease of his elbow? Dennis snapped the photo at just the right moment.). I brushed it away as he hollered and I ripped that sparkler out of his hand and threw it on the ground. His mom, daddy and I doctored him up and he’s fine, it didn’t blister but poor baby.

All the photos in this post were taken by my hubby as I was busy with the grandbaby.

Have a happy and safe holiday!

At 15 months, Tristan seems to think just about everything is a phone. I think maybe he was trying to call his great-grandpa when he picked up this tape measure.

Unfortunately, I’m a little slow in mailing my dad’s gift. Actually, I had one thought in mind and it grew, if you know what I mean. So it’s not quite done, but I’ll get it out in the next few days and in the mean time I thought I would share a few of the photos he will get to enjoy once he gets it.

I think this image and the following ones will really touch my dad’s heart. We are training up the little booger to help his Grandpa pick up sticks. My parents have several acres and I swear that every time I call they are out, or have been out, picking up sticks.

See the snow in the background there? Tristan was helping us pick up sticks in April, when we was only 13 months old. Such a big little man!

He’s concentrating so hard!

But he looks happy, doesn’t he? At the moment I took these I knew I would be using them for my dad’s Father’s Day. Perfect!

Maybe he’ll be happy to know we’re keeping him in practice.

He even walks the dog willingly.

And takes him down to check on the stick pile.

And even though we moved away from Missouri, we’re still raising him to be a barefooted hillbilly of the Ozarks. Grandpa will be proud for sure.

This last one is special just for Dennis. Tristan and PaPaw always “snort” at each other and I caught his snort face. It’s their little bonding thing, and I don’t interfere.

Happy Father’s Day Dad and Dennis!

I think he missed me too.

Would you believe that at 15 months old he easily climbs the steps on the slide, sits down and scoots himself to the edge and pulls himself until he slides down. Now I on the other hand, walk up the steps with him, fearful he will fall, and after he sits, I yell, “wait, wait,wait. . .” while I run back down the steps to be at the bottom to catch him.

Then he placed a new geocache.

And after it was all done he fell asleep in the car on his way home. Seems we always wear him out as much as he does us.

UPDATE: I forgot to tell you that Tristan's mom had an ultrasound a few days ago and they changed her due date.  So Tristan's baby brother or sister is no longer due December 11th, but instead has the due date Holly will really hate of December 24th.  We may be spending Christmas in the hospital.  Poor baby.

This past weekend we watched our son’s girlfriend graduate. Mikal and Amy are celebrating 4 years being together this coming Saturday as we are celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary. She can now do something architectural (sounds like I need more schooling).

I got distracted momentarily by this precious baby setting a few aisles ahead. Isn’t he precious?! Since he was sitting with grandma and grandpa I assume his mommy was graduating.

Congratulations Amy!

You may remember seeing this cake (DQ of course) a few days ago. We had thought we would take Haden camping for his birthday but with the weather we keep having we wussed out. We did however take him to the Archery Range to sight his new bow.

Dennis needed to sight his too. I guess this is when they adjust the little dealybobber to where they can hit the bull’s-eye.

Looks like they need a little more adjusting.

I quickly got bored and went in search of critters.

I found a singing sparrow.

Boring.

But then a tiny frog came hopping by. He stopped long enough to say hello!

And as Haden was doing this, I looked up and. . .

. . . a hawk soared above.

I’m not so sure Haden noticed.

While the ants busily built their home,

Haden practiced on. In fact we left him there, maybe we’ll pick him up next year.

We finally went out geocaching last weekend. We hibernated most of the winter but there was a really nice day (It’s raining and snowing again now!) and we couldn’t resist. We were walking through a marsh when we discovered the little snake I showed you a couple of days ago.

Haden loves any creature and is not afraid of any of them. He has been bringing me all kinds of things for years. One morning, when he was two and woke up before me, he went into the backyard with his older sister. It wasn’t long before he was at my bedside and I was waking up to a scratching noise. He had a tiny mole in a cardboard box and was tipping it towards me to ask what it was.

Another morning he woke me up to tell me (around his pacifier) that a baby kangaroo is a joey (He watches the Discovery Channel). When he was four the whole family went to White Water in Branson and as we were leaving we lost him. We all split up looking for him, in a panic and he had no clue he had even been lost. He was too busy pointing at the ants he was hunched over, watching on the sidewalk.

We have had our share of frogs, snakes, bees, lizards, etc brought into the house in some sort of container. So you would think I would be used to it by now. But still, when the snake was doing things like this:

And this:

His tongue is out, and he looks perturbed pissed! I happily handed the camera over to Dennis.

Even though he was very well contained by my gentle-handed son.

Waiver: No snakes were harmed in the taking of these photos and while said snake slithered happily away when released, I quickly dashed the other way. Thanx for all those crunches guys, I think they helped me run faster.

Now on to more pleasant things. Anyone venture a guess as to what this is?

Our son is a little disgusted that we didn't let him get a photo of one such deer but what he said was so clever, I'm still giggling.

"But he had his orange vest on!!"

I took a few photos and will work on getting them up in the next few days. :)

I know I have said it before, but I’ll say it again because I want you to feel sorry for me. I was an only child. I hated being an only child. It wasn’t just about always being alone, it was also being blamed for everything. If there was a mess in the living room, I was the guilty party. I mean, no one else played with my hot wheels so yep, I left them there. If there were dirty dishes in the sink, they must have been mine. Mom would never have left them there.

The other day, I was talking to my mom and I told her I was in the middle of house cleaning and had to get my messes cleaned up before Dennis got home. Seems that I always make a bigger mess before the room sparkles. I had pieces here and there. She said she finds herself doing that. She starts cleaning one room, then goes off in another room, when she comes back to the first room she wonders who made the mess. Since she’s alone (Dad‘s gone at work), she knows that she must have not have done that portion yet and that she left the mess.

Here’s where it gets interesting and I have to get this in writing and out there for the entire world to see because it was absolutely unbelievingly awesome to hear (and extremely rare). I wish I could have recorded it to play over and over.

My mother admitted that not everything is my fault, or was anyway. Can you believe it? Mom said she was wrong, not possibly wrong but probably wrong. In momspeak you know the difference between the two. Since she now finds messes she doesn’t remember leaving but knows she did leave, and she admits this happened a lot right after I moved out too, she thinks that I may have been wrongly accused many times. Imagine that! Sometimes, when I said, “I didn’t do it.” I really didn’t. I always knew that but it’s so cool to see that mom knows it too. Yay Mom!

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Winters cause us to wear multiple layers of clothes. Hubby found it time-consuming to try to make a tinkle (he’ll love that wording).

It’s like trying to find the lost city of Atlantis.

It’s not that small.

Neither was Atlantis.

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While watching Poseidon.

Finally, I’m glad he died, he reminded me of Matt Dillion.

That was Matt Dillion.

Happy Easter!

I will be popping over to see what the Easter Bunny left for Tristan this morning. But thought I would leave you with a few photos from Tristan’s first Easter egg hunt. It went through my mind how monotonous it would be to fill 16,000 plastic eggs. And I wondered about the hiding of them. But, due to the snow, the “hunt” was more of a grab. It appeared the eggs were just dumped in the mall parking lot. Three separate areas for different age groups.

Doesn’t he look like he’s ready to take off running to grab eggs?

Do you think it’s because I shared some of my Mocha Frappuccino with him?

After his initial taste he kept wanting more and more and more. Until his mama said, “No more.” and tried to distract him with the eggs.   Then the grab hunt was on.

His Daddy helped him gather eggs and protected him from getting stepped on by the other parents.

*Dennis took the two photos of Tristan drinking the Starbucks, I was busy holding the straw.

Tristan has been exposed to cameras since, well since before he was born really, I took photos of his mom's belly all through her pregnancy.  He is totally at ease in front of the camera.  Looks like it won't be long and I'll be able to take him out on photo shoots too. Won't that be fun!  I wonder what he will show us of the world.

My little one year old grandson gave me a fun present for my birthday.  Yeah, I'm slow but I still want to show you the cute little hand he made me and the card he scribbled on for me with his mama's help.  Isn't he precious!

Fwd: There’s a lot of people who walk in ur life but very few leave footprints! Send to all who have left footprints!

Spam on my phone now? Is it still spam when someone you love sends it to you? What do you even call that? Is it too much to want the text messages I receive to be original words?  And are all of my fingernails going to fall off if I don't forward it on?

My son got the same message, at the same time and he texted back, “Sorry for my muddy feet” - Why can’t I have that wit when I get woke up by a ringing phone?

And why did my mom get spammed a few days before I did? Does she have better contacts than I do?  Is she more popular?  She’s supposed to be kissed by someone cute on Valentine’s Day. Get your pucker ready, Dad!

*kiss, kiss*

I wanted to call this post Tasteless Texting but it just didn't feel right.  And did you know the thesaurus considers 'Vanilla' to be a synonym?  And the photos are mine, not sent on my phone.

Haden is staying at their house tonight so that he, hopefully, doesn't get us sick.  My grandson, Tristan, is feeling better and is able to keep some food down, now his mama is sick. 

It seems some of you weren't aware I had a grandson.  He was my 40th birthday present.  Well, almost.  My birthday is February 8th and his is the 24th.  I have a blog written for him over here.  I always kept spiral notebooks for my kids, journals of their lives and decided to move with progress and give my grandchild a blog.  I just wish I could get him mama to help me keep it current.

Now that I will be getting a second grandchild I may move to posting in Tristan's once a month.  I'm not sure if I should just add the other grandchild into that same blog or open up another one for him or her.  Originally, I thought I would talk to all of my grandchildren there but now I just don't know.  Any thoughts?

I wonder how Marissa's tatoo will look after being pregnant. . .

I wish I could type, actually type, like x number of words per minutes.  It sure would cut down the time I spend posting and commenting.  Can you believe for every 20 keys I hit forward, I have to hit at lease 3 backspaces to correct my errors and I think I average 2 words per minute on a good day. 

I promise I'll be posting about my new lens on thursday, just trying to play a little catch-up here.  And I have some surprise photos for you tomorrow, Wordless Wednesday.

A little history here, I’m special (not that kind of special you meanies), I have a knack, weirdness, whatever, and can sometimes predict pregnancy and the sex of the baby. I don’t always get the person correct but, I know when someone in my life is pregnant.

Before I ever knew I was pregnant with Mikal, I had a dream that a friend of mine was in labor, gave birth to a boy and named him Michael. I kept waiting for her to tell me she was pregnant and she never did but, a few weeks after the dream I found out I was pregnant.

When I was pregnant with Haden, I had a dream that a different friend was pregnant. In my dream, she and I were in labor at the same time, I had a boy and she had a girl. I told her about my dream and she laughed at the thought of her being pregnant. A few weeks later she told me she was indeed pregnant. We’ll never know what she would have had as she had a miscarriage.

They whole time my daughter was pregnant I dreamed boy and she had a boy. Ok, enough history.

Now about a month ago I had a dream that Amy (my son’s girlfriend) was in labor and had a boy. I told Dennis about the dream and we decided to ask the kids at Christmas dinner, “Ok, who’s pregnant?” We did, and everyone said, no insisted, that it wasn’t them. A few jokes were made that it was probably Marissa (my step-daughter). But all I could do was wait until someone told me they were pregnant.

Now the blogosphere has been busy and a number of pregnancies have been announced but I knew none of them were the one I had dreamed of. I’ve known for a few days but had to wait to tell you guys, ~drum roll~ I’m going to be a grandma again. Marissa is pregnant and if my roll continues I will have another grandson towards the end of July or beginning of August.

My daughter, fiancé, and grandson are visiting family in Missouri and will be bringing Haden home when they return. They took my grandson to the ER yesterday morning because the poor little guy spent most of the night puking. The doctor told them it is most likely a virus and, as is the norm nowadays, babies don’t get any medications, just watch him.

Tristan spent all day yesterday turning his nose up at food, puking and sleeping. They thought he was feeling a little better towards evening, and he slept all night last night. Their plan was to start home this evening but as they were packing the car this morning the rain changed to sleet and they decided to go ahead and leave right then.

They’ve been on the road for nearly eleven hours now, the roads were clear through St. Louis and even through Springfield, IL but now they’re about 60 miles south of Rockford and the roads are bad. They are getting into the snow that has been falling on us all day. I wish they would pull over for the night so they don’t end up in a ditch but, well you know kids. Never mind that I told them about the two cars we saw in the ditch earlier (and Khris just got home from work and he saw a couple of cars in the ditch now). They want to get home tonight with their sick baby; I imagine he’ll be seeing his regular doctor tomorrow.

And, to top it all off, somewhere around St Louis, Haden started puking. So picture this, a little red Ford Focus sliding down up (they are coming north) the Interstate and darting over occasionally to allow a kid to puke. Too bad the baby and the teen can’t time it to happen during one pullover. Then, additional stops are needed to let the little dog poo. I don’t think I’ll want to ride in their car anytime soon.

Because I love you so much I am subjecting you to more meeces today.

I’m happy to baby-sit the mice, even if my daughter doesn’t think they’ll all still be living when she returns. It wasn’t until I had them in my custody that I thought, “Hey, I can take photos of them!”

It was a lot of fun. Can you believe I even touched one? I was squealing the whole time but I did touch her. They are all girls and they all have names I just don’t know what they are. The one below is so inquisitive and she’s my favorite, but don’t tell the others.

Photographing mice presented more of a challenge than I originally thought. I figured they would be constantly moving. I did not predict that they would also be constantly pooping. I went through a number of tissues during the shoot and a fair amount of disinfecting spray afterwards.

I’m happy to say, all the mice are still alive. They are however begging to model again.

Which one is your favorite? I am "babysitting" my daughter's 5 mice while she is in Missouri. Are they my grandmice?

Three (non) Blind Mice

Ying and Yang

We were on our way home from the cities when my cell phone rang. It was Khris but I ignored it because it was close to dieing and we would be home in about 30 minutes. About 10 minutes later the cell rang again. It was Khris.  I quickly answered.

me -Hey my phone’s going to die but we’re almost home.

Khris - What? Oh, where’s Lake DuBay?

me (thinking, 'Can't this wait until I'm home') - It’s in between our house and Mikal’s. We’ll be home in just a little bit. Are you needing directions so you can go fishing?  We'll be home in a few minutes

Khris - Uh, no. . . I’m lost and I wanna come home.

me *laughing* - Wha. . .

*phone dies*

I grab Dennis’ phone and call Khris back.

me (amoungst giggles) - You’re lost? Ok, what do you see around you?

Khris - Well I just passed Lake Dubay.

*laughing*

Khris - It’s not funny. I’m lost and I wanna come home.

me (Trying to suppress my giggles) - So what do you see around you?

Khris - Well, I’m on the highway and went passed Lake DuBay.

me - You’re on the Interstate? (This is going to be easier than I thought)

Khris - Yeah, I see a sign that says 'Locker Road'.

me - I know exactly where you are. Just take the next exit and turn around and go the other way on the Interstate until you get to exit . . .

After we were all home together Khris told us that he had taken a coworker home and was puzzled when he was driving for 20 minutes. And how sure he was that we could help, since we’re geocachers. It’s true we knew the area he was lost in very well because of caching the area. Tristan went with us to one of his first caches there when he was 2 months old, and it’s a day I’ll never forget.

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•  
  • Cost of getting your driving license: $33
  • Full tank of gas: $40
  • Getting lost your first day on the road: priceless

Today my son, Mikal turns 20 years old. It’s hard when you’ve kept a blog for almost three years, to come up with something new to say on his special day so how about I point you to the post from last year. It’s worth digging up again. And tell you that in addition to all of that he’s a great Uncle to his first nephew.