Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve we went over to mama and daddy's to have dinner with daddy's side of the family.  Before everyone got there we gave mama and daddy their gift with Todd, Cindy, Lacy, and Robby.  We gave mama a painting of Dot and Nore's house and I think she liked it just a little.  The hardest part of her gift was keeping it a secret for as long as I did.  Garner cannot and will not smile normal for a picture.  It's a good thing he's so cute!

Memorial Day Weekend

To kick off our Memorial Day weekend we had the annual picnic and fireworks celebration over at the Cleft.  Blakely enjoyed her first fireworks!

On Monday morning we went to the parade and collected lots of candy.  The C-130 flyover was so neat this year.  Garner of course loved the tractors...especially the blue one!

To finish the day we cooked out, had homemade ice cream, and took a few family pictures out at Dot and Nore's house.  The kids didn't hang around long because they had to get back to playing ball in the yard.  Raleigh and Garner played out side all day long and were exhausted to say the least!

Memories!

A grandparents house is where everything is better.  Food tastes better and there are always lots of snacks...especially cokes and little debbie oatmeal cream pies!  You can sit and relax and you can never do anything wrong! Sometimes you might end up with a spanking because you run out to your grandmother when you get in trouble because she'll make everything better...not that I know from experience.  

Well, although the time has ended when we have had family gatherings, baseball games in the front yard, coca-cola breaks, swinging on the porch, counting the cars go by, cutting grass riding on Nore's lap, playing church in the den, playing with the old wood letter blocks, playing tic tac toe with Dot and her letting me win, watching Dot pack Nore's lunch in his black metal lunchbox, playing with everything in the kitchen, watching The Three Stooges before school, the delicious suppers (especially salmon patties and biscuits and gravy), Christmas lunch, and so much more, it is still bittersweet to know that I'll never go in this house again and it be Dot and Nore's house.  I know that it's just a house, but it is such a special place that represents so much of my childhood.  I'm thankful however that I have all the wonderful memories!

I wanted to take some fun pictures of Raleigh, Garner, and Blakely around the house before it was sold.  Thankfully the date kept getting pushed back so I was able to get more.

 Garner waved and waved to all the cars going by, but he only got one wave from someone.  Times have changed...everyone passing use to wave to Nore.