Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Gracie's Grand-parents

Today Percy and Linda brought Gracie over because she had something to give Tanek. Percy is helping Tanek on the slide. Gracie is to the right of the slide.
Tanek loves Mrs. Linda. She is a good Grand-ma and he gives her a hug to prove it. He likes for Gracie to come over with her Grannie.
Here he is with Mrs. Linda. He thinks she is a very good Grannie. She brings him toys and brings Gracie over with her.

Sweet Neighbor Girl

Our sweet neighbor Gracie brought this toy over for Tanek since she has outgrown it. He loves it.
Tanek telling Gracie thank you for bringing him this toy to climb on.
Wheee!
This is the slide that Gracie's Grandma brought over before for Tanek. Such good friends and neighbors.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Playing "Cars" with his "hat" on!

After Tanek's nap it was raining, so we played in the den with his cars. We put his cars PJ bottoms on his head and he played until dinner with them on his head. We took them off to eat.
As you can see he is decked out with everything cars. He never tires of them. He has 8 matchbox cars. 4 of them are "Mines". He has Sally, Mator, The King and #28.
He even keeps the back of the packages they come in so he can look at all the different cars.

The "mine" obsession (cars) continues

Tanek is eating his lunch with all his "cars" lined up. He also has his PJ bottoms hanging off the chair. (He sleeps with those on his head) and he has his cars placemat and his cars cup. What we need is a cars bib. I am sure I can fine one somewhere. Food just goes better with cars around. One day I hope he will be this in love with Jesus. But for right now, cars is his thing.
He has a new thing he does. When he wants you to follow him he will take your hand and say "Nana coming" or Mommy or Daddy coming. Whoever he wants to follow him. He will say your name, take your hand and say your coming. It is very sweet.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Papa's Garden Grows!

As you can see Papa's garden is growing. He has been working in it everyday and it is looking good. This is rows of peas, and butter beans and okra (yuk). He will enjoy the okra and he will even learn how to cook the yuky stuff. I don't touch it. It is very yuky. Everything else in the garden is "good".
I think this may be a close up of the peas. I forgot what I took and I can't tell what they are unless I see where he planted them. I am not the gardener. I grow flowers.

Papa's Garden Continued

Tomatoes, "Better Boys". Hope they live up to their name.
These are the pumpkins. Don't know if we'll have a pumpkin patch, but we should have
some pumpkins anyway.

A little corn on the cob. Perfect for summer cook-outs. Yum!
Here we have watermelons. Lots of watermelon plants. Can't have to many of these guys.
Papa working the garden. It is coming along nicely.

Friday, April 25, 2008

Reflecting on Life with Thanksgiving!

Today was one of those Chamber of Commerce days. The ones that they like to advertise for Florida. The ones you are glad you live in Florida. Warm, sunny with a nice breeze. Just an ordinary day. Grocery shopping, working in the yard, eating dinner on the back patio and a nice leisurely walk in the evening with my daughter and grand-son.
You have to just soak in the blessings. Nothing major, just God's goodness. The love of family and friends. Just being content in living. Watching birds build their nest. Catching caterpillars (before they eat up your plants) getting in the dirt to plant flowers. Watching as the flowers start to bloom and say I am alive and it is Spring. What a wonderful time of the year. Everywhere you look there is new life. It makes you just thankful to be alive, well and healthy. Even though the years are adding up and the body says "this is hard to do", you just keep doing it because you still can and you are thankful that you still can. This may be a little sappy, but it is a good thing to just reflect on life and see how good it really is. Our Pastor teaches us to live in the square of today on the calendar. What good advice. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? But today, it is good. So I live in the square for today. I will face whatever the square of tomorrow brings when it gets here. For today I am thankful I have 4 healthy adult children, (2 by birth, 2 by marriage) and 4 happy healthy wonderful grand-children. A wonderful church with so many wonderful people in it that we are meeting and learning to love. God has brought so many wonderful people into our lives and we are thankful for the friendships. God is Good and He has Blessed us greatly. We are Thankful!

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

3 Beautiful Grand-daughters

These pictures were taken by Heather while they were here at Easter. You can tell I didn't take them as they are too good. I "borrowed" them from the pictures she put on my computer. They were just too cute to not share. I am very proud of these 3 sweet girls. Each one is very different in personality, but all are wonderful smart beautiful girls. Spoken like a true Nana huh?

Cute Emily. She keeps us all laughing with her antics. She is precious. She
completed this family and added so much to it.
Sweet Hannah. She is so senistive and sweet. She is the middle girl and is wonderful. We got to celebrate her 8th birthday while she was here.
And here is Kirsten. The girl that made me a Nana. How we have loved her for the past almost 13 (oh my goodness) years. She is smart, and beautiful. We are so blessed to have all 3 of these girls and one grand-son. It just doesn't get much better than that. Thank you God for these 4 blessings. This is something no amount of money could buy. How blessed we are!

"Cars" Pasta

Yesterday evening when I walked out the door to take Tanek home there were 2 boxes of "mine" pasta on my front porch in a bag. We came in and took a look at them. When Tanek saw that "mine" was on the box also known as Lightning McQueen he had to have a box to take home with him. This is the box I have left at my house. He wanted to have it at the table while he ate lunch. Wondering who had left us this little surprise. We found out that Pam had her son leave it on our front porch. Thanks Pam. You made a little boy very Happy.
He is checking it out. As you can see he has quite a few car items around him. Even his shirt has "mine" on it. I think Disney it really making a fortune off these cute little race cars.
He is really studying the box to see what all is on there. I wonder how he will like "mine" mac & Cheese. We shall see.
He is eating his grilled cheese sandwhich with all the "mine" items around him.
Here he is playing with his Papa after Papa came in from mowing the grass. He likes Papa's moustache.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Childhood Friends

Heather and Pam grew up together. We just got to know Pam because she also goes to Trinity. Through Heather we became friends. They have known each other most of their lives. Now Pam is a part of our lives. It is so neat the way God brings people together.
Here is a picture of our Grand-daughters. Hannah, Kirsten and Emily and Pams daughter Brooke. It was really neat that they (Pam and Heather) were able to reconnect after so many years and get to know each others family. Real friendships last a lifetime. Here is proof of that.

Tanek & his "cars"!

We spend a lot of time on the back porch playing with "cars". He has seen the movie so many times he knows all the parts and makes all the sounds. "New Mator" is about to hit the ground.
He likes to race them around the table and see who wins.
One of his favorite parts in the movie is the big crash and he loves crashing his cars. All these cars have been crashed so many times and he makes all the car sounds in the crash.

Tanek & Papa viewing Tanek's blog site.

Papa showing Tanek his picture of himself on "Tanek's Tales" his blog page.
Tanek finds his pictures quite interesting. He loves for his Papa to show him family pictures on the computer. He knows who all his cousins are by name and his Uncle Richard and Aunt Heather.

Our Babies

Here is Stanley looking for whatever he can find to do. He loves to bug Daisey.
Daisey is napping trying to ignore Stanley. It won't last long.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Another Sunday Night!

Here are 4 of "Trinity's" best? waiting for our room in the back. We always get our own private dinning room as there are usually 20 or more of us.
Betty Kaye and Anita chatting while we are waiting for our room.
What will we all eat tonight? SO many choices to choose from.
It is Bob's birthday today. He is the one with the yummy Ice Cream Sundae in front of him.
Here is the crew from I-hop singing happy birthday. They treat us very good in there. It is a great spot for a big group.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

A sweet story

I have had this Angel statue by our front door for a long time. Tuesday Tanek walked over to it and looked at it and said "Mommy". Now everytime he looks at it he points to it and says "Mommy." I think it is so sweet that he looks at a beautiful Angel and sees his Mommy. She does kinda look like his Mommy.
Isn't this sweet the way he is looking at it? He really thinks it is a replica of his Mommy.
Pointing to the Angel that looks like his Mommy and a baby. I wonder who he thinks the baby is?

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Papa & Tanek

One of Tanek's fav things to do is put on Papa's big hat. I guess he thinks he is as big as Papa when he wears it.

Daisey & Tanek

Tanek gets down to have a face to face encounter with Daisey. I think he got a unexpected kiss.
I think he decided it was better from up here and not quite so close.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Some of the Sunday Night Crowd from Trinity Baptist

As usual after church on Sunday night we find a place to go eat. Tonight it was at ihop. We had great food and good service.
Waiting for our food. Someone must have said something funny. Looks like Ester is reading a fortune cookie or something.
There were 17 at this table and we got real good service from our two waitresses.
Paul is trying to hide from the camera. It is a pretty big menu, but I still managed to get part of him in the picture.
A good time was had by all. Nothing was left over, because all left over pancakes came down to Gary and he took care of them.