Nap Time!!!

I am writing this as I listen to the music play as Kara takes a nap. First REAL nap she has had since she's been here. Yesterday she slept in the car, but I don't consider that a real nap, even though I think it helped her some! But she has been a very good girl even without the schedule that she is used to! It's too bad that it would totally mess up my sleeping tonight, or I would be in there with her! She wanted me to, but I told her she would sleep better by herself for her nap. She agreed, which I was happy to hear! :)

I have to say that after we called and talked to her mommy and daddy last night that she said, I want to go home, with a little tremor in her voice. I said, I know and you will be going back home in just a couple more days. She said OK and that was that! WHEW!!! So, just so mommy and daddy knows, if she doesn't mention calling you tonight, I'm not going to, OK? Hope you don't mind and understand why I don't want to. I don't want to push the I-want-to-go-home button too much! That is the only time she has ever mentioned it, and it may have been because she was tired, too, but I don't want to push it and have her be miserable her last day here!

Kara slept longer last night. I took my laptop into the bedroom cuz she wanted me to be in there with her. Of course, my being there with the bright screen of the laptop, did not help her go to sleep one little bit! The music CD played through twice before she finally fell asleep! That was about 10:00. She slept til 9 this morning! We sat on the couch while she drank her chocolate milk and watched a cute CD I got for the kids about counting to 20 called Cranium's Ark. It was created by and starred one of the guys who had gone to Haiti to film for Children's International, I think, and sadly was killed during the earthquake. He left behind 2 small boys ages 2 and 5 I believe, so please remember his wife and these 2 little boys having to go on without husband and daddy. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. BLESSED be the name of the LORD!

So, we decided since the sun was shining that we would go to the park. So after we ate a breakfast of toast with butter and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, then a banana, we got dressed and went to the park. We got there about 11. There were several kids there with their families.

Kara climbed the rock wall to make her way to the curly slide, which she spent most of her time on.




This was a different slide. She was just about as tall as the slide was long. She only went down it a couple of times.
After swinging for awhile she said she was ready to go to the car. I said you are ready to go to the car already? She said not that car, the other car and pointed to this metal car, lol! She got to be the driver for grandma and "pappy" LOL.She showed us she could balance on top of the tunnel.
We walked down by the lake to see if we could see some fish, but the water was too muddy from all the rain. But we did see this heron catching fish, til she saw us!
Then we saw a family with a whole loaf of bread feeding the geese and ducks. One of the little girls got bit by one of them on her leg, so that ended her feeding them any more! But that didn't deter Kara from wanting to get as close as possible to them. We told her to stay back because she might get bit, too. She didn't seem concerned and kept wanting to get closer and closer.

She decided that after we ate lunch we would go home and get some more bread to bring back to the park to feed them. We told her we wouldn't be doing that today. But the next time she came to visit we would try to remember to take some bread.

And what better way to end the outing except McDonalds! When I took this picture she was about done. But I thought half a hamburger and half a bag of fries and her drink was a good meal for her!

Some pictures of the activities of the last couple of days

When Kara and Jessica got to the restaurant where we were meeting yesterday, she ran to me and I gave her a big kiss and then noticed my lipstick on her cheek!



This morning we snuggled while watching a bit of TV while waking up.
I took Kara to Sci Works today. Not only did she touch this snake but she wanted to know later if she thought the lady would let her hold the snake! YIKES!
We went to the barn to see the animals outside. Kara held her nose the whole time we were in there!
She loved making music with this floor model piano!
She did very well getting the hook into the fish.
She sure is a brave little girl!
Well, kinda brave! She wouldn't go into the tunnel for the slide without a flashlight. She carried my cell phone in with her and lit up the screen as her flashlight.
Here she is holding the cell phone. Right after this picture was taken (about the 3rd or 4th time down the slide) she decided she didn't need the light anymore!
She had fun in this tooth display.

After we got home she wanted to do something crafty. This lasted longer than I thought! But the project is unfinished!
Watching TV.
She had a tape worm tonight. After spaghetti for supper, she wanted a WHOLE banana, then spoons of peanut butter with marshmallow fluff and then she had 1/2 of a fudgecicle. I think most of it was on her face! :)

This is how she lets me rinse her hair. She didn't like the water getting in her eyes.

Tomorrow we are going to try to go to the park!
I am worn out! :D Good night!

Here it is.......Friendship Company and a FREEBIE

Friendship Company - A beautiful kit to scrap those precious pictures and memories of a great friendship! Available in my store now. Click on image to be directed to the store. The second preview is a better view of the papers that are included in the kit.

I have also posted a couple of layouts I did with the kit (in case you missed them yesterday!). :)




The flower flourish in the following layout is from the mini kit that will be given away as a freebie for the blog train that starts on Wednesday, March 11, 2010.
FREE Quickpage. Click on the preview for the download link.

ANNOUNCING.........

..........a new kit! Here's a sneak peek! Think I'll go and create a quick page for ya to enjoy!

The name is "Friendship Company"

Look below the sneak peek for a couple of layouts I did using the kit. (Note: the flower in Sawyer's page is from the mini kit that will be free on my blog beginning on Thursday!)

A Great Find.....

Tim and I went out today to visit a man who visited the church last week, however we didn't find him home. We decided that since I kinda messed up our thrift store shopping on Thursday (remember our rather lengthy trip to Petersburg, VA for lunch.....yeah, that trip!) that we would hit a few today on our way back home from visitation. And our last stop was the new Goodwill that opened last summer. And look what I found for the girls (and boys) to play with when they come to visit! A Barbie Doll Hotel! Go ahead and guess how much it cost me! I have recently seen smaller houses in the thrift stores for $30 and $40! YIKES! There is NO way I would pay that much for it! NOT used! So, have you made your guess? Go ahead and think about it before I tell you........that I only paid $6! That is correct! $6! Now, granted it is not in perfect shape, there are a couple little breaks, but it still folds together nicely and has plenty of furniture to start out with! And as you can see in the second picture, I have plenty of dolls for both girls and boys to play with! I only have one of the 4 Barbies sitting on the bed and I was fortunate enough to find a Ken the last time. And also a super hero, Spiderman! Who happens to be sitting on the roof in the 2nd picture, lol! Yes, Ken is in the tub! I can't wait for the kids to get to play with me......I mean with the house and the dolls! :) If you click on the pictures you will get a bigger and better view of the toy! I set Spiderman up to look like he was talking to Barbie. I think she is trying to get him to come down off of the roof! :) What?!! I still have an imagination! :)

Can you say, "Senior Moment?"

Well, today has been one of those days! I'm certainly glad I don't have many like today! It wasn't a BAD day, it was just ALL wrong! And, here's the rest of the story...

We have had plans for our granddaughter, Kara Bear, to spend the weekend with us this month for a month or so now. So the plan was that Tim and I would meet Jessica and Kara half way. So earlier this week Jessica and I finalized the plans as to where we would meet and at what time.

Since it is a 3 hour trip to the meeting place, I worked for several hours last night printing out Photoshop tutorials so I could play on the laptop on the trip today. Yesterday I swept and mopped floors because I knew Kara and I would be playing in the floor.

Tim got up at 6 am, got his shower then I got up and took my shower and finished packing the cooler with drinks, including a sippy cup of milk for Kara. I packed some granola snacks for Tim and I and fixed some peanut butter crackers and chex mix snack and dried cranberries for Kara. I figured Jessica would have snacks for her, but packed them just in case. You know how moms are! (and I am still a mom, even if a bit older! :)

We left the house at 8:30. About 5 miles up the road when I started unpacking the laptop and accessories to play, I realized I had left ALL the tutorials on my computer desk! NOT a good way to start off the day! So, I messed around a little bit in Photoshop and quickly realized I needed the tutorials! So, I just packed up the laptop and accessories back in the computer bag and read my Sunday School lesson. At least I had not forgotten to bring the 3 new books and pocket note pad and crayons for Kara! After finishing the Sunday School lesson, I just enjoyed the beautiful day of sunshine! We made a potty stop about half way there.

At about 11:40, we reached our exit. "Monica" took us to an address that was NOT Ruby Tuesday! The direction she took us was different that what I had pictured on the little google map I had with me. So, we headed back in the opposite direction from where Monica had taken us and just kept driving and looking until we ended up what seemed to be several miles down the road. Anyway, we finally found Ruby Tuesday and it was about 4 minutes til 12, which was our scheduled meeting time with Jessica. We knew she would have the same trouble, so we waited in the parking lot for her.....and we waited.....and we waited.....and we waited. We knew it would be unlike Jessica to travel without a phone so she could call, so she must be in trouble! We called Jessica's house, why, I don't know. We called Michael's cell, but he wouldn't see the message until he got out of work at 2. So we didn't have any other numbers. We waited some more. At 12:30 we decided to go on in and eat lunch and hoped she would soon show up. We finished eating around 1:10. Still no Jessica and Kara. We are really starting to get worried now! We sat in the parking lot for a bit longer. Then I suggested we drive back up towards the exit and look around in the gas stations to see if we see them waiting on us. Nothing. We parked the car and I called Michael the 2nd time and told him we had not heard from Jessica and we were afraid something was wrong. Then I called Liz to see if she possibly had Jessica's cell phone number. The first think she said was, "You are doing that today?" I didn't think anything about the comment. Liz did not have a cell phone number for Jessica. Liz suggested I call Jessica (our dd) as she might have the number since she had just made a trip to MD in November. She did not have it. Jessica also said that Jessica D had not mentioned on her facebook about coming to meet us today. I said she was just probably busy getting Kara ready to leave. So she said she would do some more searching and see what she could find and call me back. In the meantime, Tim and I sat and waited some more. Then Tim said, we really should wait at Ruby Tuesday in case she shows up there. So we went back to Ruby Tuesday and waited some more!

I don't remember what time it was, but finally we got a phone call from Jessica. First words out of her mouth were, "I'm fine, but I'm so sorry you are there waiting! It's not til next week that you are to pick up Kara! I hope you aren't mad at me!" I just had to LAUGHOUTLOUD! I was just so relieved to hear that she was OK that I didn't care about anything else! But I told her there was nothing for her to be sorry about since it was my fault! I told her to call Michael before he got my second message and immediately began to panic!

What can I say?! We asked Monica for directions to 2 Goodwill stores on the way home, both turned up zero, so we gave up and decided today was just one of those days and headed for home!

While I was talking to Jessica I told her one thing about all of this was that it made me realize that I needed her cell phone number and I wanted to know what car she would be driving next week. They also provided Michael's work number. And we will all be laughing about it years from now!

Now you know THE REST OF THE STORY! And tomorrow is a new day! Blessings of the day.....Jessica and Kara are safe, we made it back home safe, God is Good!

Oh, and Tim says he isn't making the trip with me next week! Imagine that! :)

"Lucky" to be in Heaven.....

Today marks the 7th anniversary of my dear daddy going to heaven. I miss him bunches but would not wish him to be back in this rotten world in a million years! I am soooo blessed to have been placed in his watch-care as a child! While I didn't always feel that way while growing up, I have become a bit wiser in my old age, lol! Why is it while growing up in a Christian home you just don't always feel like you are blessed? Sometimes I felt like it was a curse. But that's only because I was a rebellious Christian! After I got married and started raising a family of my own, I quickly realized how important my Christian upbringing had been! So, really, the credit for my children turning into decent, God-fearing/serving/honoring children all began with my dear parents! And I know they are "listening" so I just want to say THANKS to them from the bottom of my heart! I will always love and miss them! I Love You, Daddy!

My sweet, thoughtful daughter-in-law, Jessica, had this sweet e-mail for me this morning (I asked her permission to post it here) which brought BIG tears:

Hi Mom,

Well, every March 3rd I think of you. I know you miss your sweet Daddy every single day, but there's something different about the anniversary. I only got to meet him once, it was July 4th weekend 2002 when Michael and I were just dating, and I remember he never stopped smiling (the exact same smile you have that never goes away). His family was all around and you could tell he was never happier. He had never-ending hugs for each one of them. He talked all about the tracts (or whatever they were called) that he made to constantly get the word out to the world about his sweet Savior. What an amazing man! He is truly missed, but I am so happy I will see him again in heaven! You know that's where he wants to be!

I love you, Mom.
Jessica

Thanks, Sweetie!