Pictures

You have seen these before. They were both in the Student Competitive at UALR. Kaitlin's friend, Sara took both of them. I bought both of them and now they hang in my dining room.

what is your summer going to look like?

Standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon

Having a baby

Standing in your garden at twilight and smelling the honeysuckle

I am sure there are a million things that give us a 'high', that move us to tears, that give us a glimpse of heaven. Things that we do or see and want to lock in our memory forever. Would that we could bottle up the feeling for later.

I have another to add to my list.

A house full of laughter

I would love to slow down time this summer. Kaitlin, John, Marisa, Robert and soon Cara are at home with me this summer. They love to help, tease, laugh, joke, watch movies, visit with each other and me, eat out, read, laugh, sleep, watch Sports Center and generally have a good time, did I mention that we laugh a lot.

We hope to: watch The World Cup June 11- July 11, The National Spelling Bee June 2-4, The College World June 19- June30, play Five Crowns, welcome Kym for a week, work at VBS, get some scrapbooking done, swim at the pool and they want to sleep some more. Some will work, some will work some, and some will go to school some.

I want this summer to go slow so I can enjoy every bit of it but I know it can't so I plan to cook more so we can fellowship around the table, I plan to stop what I am doing when they ask me to play a game or jump in the car to get an snow cone. I plan to breath deeply often and just savor.

I had this same feeling the summer before Andrew went to AUBURN and then again the Christmas holiday before he graduated from AUBURN.

This combination of children will not be with me for this amount of time ever again. It would be perfect if Andrew and Taylor lived closer and could join us more often

I want to 'name' this summer, to mark the importance and significance of it.

The summer of fellowship

The summer of laughter

The summer of growth

The summer we made room

The summer of sharing yes, I think that is what it will be

The Summer of Sharing. I am so blest to have all these children sharing their lives with me.

You are going to be jealous

Here is a picture of Hannah the Amazing! She has organized my scrapbooking and is now working on our books! Here she is getting ready to tackle a few more hours and a few more shelves.
Here she is in the wreck room with her computer. She started with the children's section. She is not only organizing but writing down every book we have! I can't wait!
Today we made a few stacks in the Living Room for her. My categories now are Fiction, Poetry, Biblical, Usborne, History, Homeschool and Children's books.
Here are a few of Hannah's stacks.
Here are some of the bookcases she has ahead of her...




I'll keep you posted on the progress. I am so excited!

May has lots of birthdays for us!

Andrew's birthday is May 17th. For his birthday, he wanted a glove worn by one of his favorite football players. Carl found it on ebay. I forgot to take a picture of it but just picture a glove any ole football player would wear and it was sent in a ziplock bag. I decided that maybe Andrew needed some wrist bands NOT worn by Big Papi.

So we went Sports Authority and got red ones. Uncle John signed them.

Here is the card declaring that said football glove was worn by said football player.
Here is our paperwork saying that our wrist bands were NOT worn by Big Papi. Andrew called me when he got his gift and he just laughed!
Marisa's birthday is also May 17th! She got her car on the 17th of April so we celebrated her day by eating at a few of her favorite restaurants. Here we are at a wonderful Italian one. We ate supper with Bob and Kim. Bob ordered a bottle of wine. The wine bottle shape is very cool. Some years ago there was a fire in the winery and the bottles were all mis-shapened. Now the winery makes all their bottles that way.


One her birthday we ate at Purple Cow.
Marisa's favorite dessert is cheesecake. She thinks the best is at Copeland's. Kaitlin remembered that and we got her some from there for her birthday dinner.

Kaitlin's birthday is May 22. We had some folks over to celebrate with us. I took her camera for the night to record the events. Here is what a photographer looks like when they are in front of the camera.


I just picked out a few of my favorites. Most are hilarious.
Roanna took some pictures of the whole family. A lady at church commented that she thinks Robert looks more like John than Marisa. I think that is neat. A shout out to Taylor who also has a May birthday. Hers is the 13th. We got her some hiking stuff when she was here and we mailed her a yellow shirt for her special day. She didn't want it signed by anybody famous, but if she had....mmmm maybe next year!

Library Books

I am loving my library! All the books that I request now are out in the library instead of behind the desk of the librarians. All the books have a chip in them and I just put the books, a few at a time, on this special pad and like magic their names appear on the computer screen that is in front of me. It is very cool. I have made everyone that I can get in the car with me and go in with me as I check out my books. I feel like Ella Mae Clampett every time I do this- why, this is cooler than the cement pond!!

Here's what I have been reading.

In Search of Eden by Linda Nichols. very good, it is about family and forgiveness

The Girls from Ames by Jeffrey Zaslow. I enjoyed this book. It is well written. This is the story of a group of friends from childhood to now and how their friendship has endured.

Celia's House by D E Stevenson. wonderful, heartwarming, even just seeing the name of the book makes me give a contented sign. It stands alone but read the Listening Valley afterward to continue the story.

Waiting for Daybreak by Kathryn Cushman. A story about two pharmacists and how their lives intersect.

The Chili Queen by Sandra Dallas. I don't know what I think about this book. I wish you would read it and let's talk about it! I may need to read it again to understand it.

Though Waters Roar by Lynn Austin. Outstanding! It is the story of 3 generation of women and God in their lives. It spans the Civil War to WWI. As soon as I finished it I got on my library web site and requested more of her books. This will be added to my list of books that I give to folks. I really liked this book, can you tell?

Her Mother's Hope by Francine Rivers. This book was good overall. It started great but it got really slow in the middle so I skimmed until it picked back up and I knew that story. There is a sequel coming soon called Her Daughters Dream. I plan to read it.

I have also been requesting children's books from the library. I love Gail Gibbons. I have 4 of her books now, Tornadoes!, Elephants of Africa, Corn and Hurricanes! I enjoyed them all.

A special shout out to Laurie for reading my blog and asking for more book reviews. I hope you find some from this list that you enjoy as much as Miss Buncle's Book.

Happy Birthday Kaitlin!

Twenty Five years ago today, God blest us with this doll. She is my favorite daughter! Here she is wearing a diaper shirt that was mine when I was a baby.

7 months til the wedding

Last week we went to Bed, Bath and Beyond to register.

we had the nicest person helping us, Michelle.
Here is Marisa with the dishes and silverware she has picked out.

What has at least 14 letters...

You may need to check your passwords . I did and some needed changing. It was very fun. Too bad we can't share our results, that would somewhat defeat the whole idea.

A bitter pill to swallow

I struggle with bitterness. I was very convicted when I read this from Peace Makers.

In its most common NT usage, bitterness can be likened to a man who has been stabbed by a knife (i.e, wronged by another person), who then pulls the knife out and stabs himself with it over and over. In other words, bitterness is often triggered by an initial wrong or disappointment that we refuse to forgive and then keep reliving and re-experiencing over and over.

To put it more simply, bitterness is a punishment we inflict on ourselves when we refuse to forgive another person for an actual or perceived wrong.

Here is the rest of the article

Photos and Family and lots of Family Photos!

Kaitlin entered 3 pieces of art in the 31st Mini Works at Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville Alabama. 2 got in! The exhibition is up from May 4-28. We knew we wanted to go and see them so we planned a road trip and we invited family and friends along.

First stop was Cooter Brown's Rib Shack. This place is listed in the 100 places to eat in Alabama. I, personally, would have driven right on by if it had not be on the list and we were not meeting folks here. I am glad we stopped and I highly recommend it.

My cousin, Bonnie and her husband, joined us. What a treat! I have reconnected with Bonnie on facebook and we have had so much fun. They drove 3 hours one way to eat and visit with us.
The ribs were delicious.
A wonderful gathering of family
Any way you look at it we took up almost the whole restaurant, it was tiny.
My side of the family that was there

Carl's side of the family that joined us
Here is the gallery. All the works had to be not bigger than a dollar bill and not smaller than a dollar bill folded in half.
This is my favorite piece that she got in.

Here is the second piece.

I have two cousins just my age. Bonnie was born in November, Gary in January and me in April. I have always enjoyed having cousins my very same age. It really meant so much to me that they came to support Kaitlin.
I really must like this picture to include it twice. My tech support is asleep so I am not sure how to delete it. Oh well, another lesson to add to her to-do list!

Here is the very nice curator that opened the gallery just for us. The regular hours are Monday - Friday.
We ate supper that night in Gadsden at Pas'ghettis. Kaitlin found it with a new app on her phone. When you are on this app, you enter the city you need to find a restaurant in, you shake your phone and up pops different choices. This one had high recommendations! We could add ours to it. It was a Mom and Pop joint and the food was outstanding.

Robert loved the candles! I love the look on Marisa's face. She loves that brother.

One Sunday we went to Arab to meet Ellie. She is the youngest daughter of one of Andrew's college roommates.
Kaitlin is coloring with Emma, Ellie's big sister.It was a quick trip over to AL. We left on Friday afternoon and came back Sunday evening. We got to see lots of folks in a short amount of time. It was great weekend.

Goggle Google Googllee

Google searches can be quite fun.

Here are some recent searches that led folks to my blog...

David and Barbara Tigertt (who are they)

Huge bubble Gum

tree worship in Lithuania (excuse me)

fill bubbles for money

is swimming with manatees good in the rain (so you are wet anyway)

pictures of smiley faces that have a speech bubble saying manatees are cute

faceless portraits

but my all time favorite is

Can you scuba dive the day before you have a colonoscopy

Ha, Ha

If you have ever had a colonoscopy or been around someone who has you know that you do NOT want to go scuba diving the day before!

Go Georgia Southern!

I can't decide it I would want Georgia Southern to beat alabama or rough them up and then AUBURN beat the tar out of them the next week. War Eagle