The Sweetest Words

Today was the memorial service for my cousin, Ryan Barringer. He was 30 years old and died peacefully in his sleep after a 10 year struggle with physical disability following a terrible accident. I learned so much about him today. What I remember from our childhood is Ryan and his brothers calling me a magpie everytime I opened my mouth! LOL. It used to make me sooo mad! He had these huge brown eyes and the longest eyelashes. He was a beautiful person, inside and out. Today, I learned that Ryan had been a loving and devoted father to his 3 yr old son Dacota and had quit drinking after Dacota was born. They told a story that when the baby saw his daddy after he'd passed, he first said, "shhh, my daddy is sleeping". Then he blew him a kiss and waved goodbye. How sad that this baby will have few memories of the daddy that loved him so much.
My youngest son, Braden, sobbed for Ryan today even though he barley remembers him. He's such a beautiful boy. After the service, Braden signed the guestbook. I signed right after him, and noticed that in the Comment blank next to his name, he simply wrote, "have a great time". How precious are these words? My children restore my faith in a broken world everyday in some small way or another. What better to say to someone who has gone to spend eternity in a better place than "have a great time"? Wow. Sometimes I'm just speechless. . . .

Birthdays and Calculators

Okay, so two things today. The first is that Round 2 of Birthday Train on Sunday went smashingly well! Aside from the weather, it was very enjoyable. We had to nix the volleyball game due to the drizzly rain, but everything else went well. We stopped after church and picked up a bought and pre-decorated cake from Walmart. Yes, I said I bought the cake and didn't even order a special one!! We came home, warmed the pre-cooked butt in the oven for a couple hours, got out the pre-made potato salad and slaw and dumped some pre-cooked beans in a pot on the stove. Ahhhhhhhh, yes, it was great. No stress, no worries. We had a nice but not quite oversized group. Family and a couple little friends. This is what birthdays should be about! I just hope Hopie enjoyed it too. She and her little friend and I went to a "birhtday" movie Saturday night and after being completely disgusted by the first 10 mins of H2- I didn't realize it was Rob Zombie- we caught most of The Time Travelor's Wife which was good except the ending stank!

And the second thing involves a little math. An item at a local convienience/grocery store which will remain nameless, was on sale for 5 for $5. Of course, as I was leaving, I noticed that each item had wrung up $1.49. When I brought this to the cashier's attention, he attempted to fix it at which point he said, "You were actually better off the other way. This is going to cost you more." So with a puzzled look on my face, I said, "Noooooo, 5 x $1.49 = $7.45. There is no way that's better than $5!" So the guy points to the computer screen and tells me that that is what he had to go by since the computer said so. We went round and round with these same issues several times when I irritatedly asked for a new cashier to shed some light on the subject. Fortunately, she realized the problem so at least all hope was not loss. Unfortunately, to my frustration , she was unable to fix it. She finally tossed $2.50 my way and called it good, which was still not right but if they truly felt that that computer was smarter than they were, then they needed the 18 cents worse than I did! Did you know that kids are allowed to use calculators at all times in Math class! It's just going to get worse!

Birthdays!

Okay, so we are coming up on Round 2 of birthday train at my house. My precious and slightly obnoxious son was 13 just a few weeks ago and now my smarty pants, but oh so adorable daughter will be 11 on Wednesday. When did this happen, I ask you? I swore off birthday parties a few years ago, however, this is easier said than done. Landon's bday consisted of a simple ice cream cake at the house. I have even given up making their cakes. Well, except the adorable monkey cake with pink toenails I made for Hope last year! We also borrowed a water slide from a friend since we could not find the super cool slip n' slide from last year. This is where we messed up! When you have a large, colorful, kid-friendly object set up in your front yard, it is likey to attract KIDS! They were everywhere. LOL. Kids I've never seen since we moved into our new house in May. They came from streets over. We had 1 piece of cake left. So once again, we had another crazy, in and out, head spinning birthday party that when over, seemed as if I had not had a chance to socialize with anybody!
So Sunday afternoon is Hope's "party". Mainly family and a few friends and is intended to remain calm and relaxing at all times. HA! I intended to try to smoke a Boston butt tomorrow, in my new, still in the box, smoker that I have no idea how to use. However, the weather isn't planning on cooperating and since they canceled Celebrate Munford this weekend, the Munford police department cooked 40 butts Friday night that needed purchasing! So with that done, it dawned on me that I have yet to order or plan for a cake! Aghh! What was I thinking? Or not thinking apparantly. I think I'm in denial that my babies are growing up :-(! If we have at least a little time without rain on Sunday, we are hoping to set up the volleyball net and play a little. Sounds fun, right?
Braden's bday is 6 wks after Hope's and I haven't even begun to think about it. And then, on to Christmas! The end of the year stays busy at our house. But I guess I'd get pretty bored if it wasn't, right? Yes. I would. I love this life!

Update on the Small Kids

Well, some funny and some not so funny news. I don't think I've mentioned my big fat cat Leo yet. Leo was rescued from the Bartlett Animal Shelter through PetSmart Christmas before last. Justin and I went hunting for a new kitty for Hope for Christmas since her kitty Jack had to be put to sleep earlier that year. When they put him in the "visitng room" with us, Leo AKA Slice, walked straight up to us, flopped on his back, and demanded to have his belly rubbed. Since neither of us were big cat lovers, we figured the cat that acted like a dog was the cat for us! Hope loved him from the minute she saw him that morning. He was a healthy orange striped boy weighing in at 11 pounds. Fat and lazy. . . with a little energy once in a while. So the bad part. . . Leo is "missing". We happen to have a neighbor with a K-9 dog next door. His owner reported some suspicious activity last week and I guess I have been in denial. Unfortunately, Leo has not been home since. I don't have the heart to tell the kids and technically, I didn't see anything. He will be missed.
On a brighter, lighter note. Chloe, ohhh precious Chloe, is getting more mischevious by the day. My son brought home that well known animal cell project this week. He had to fill this little ziploc baggie with a blue substance that represented the nucleus or the vacuole or something. Heck, I don't know. That was years ago! He chose to mix flour and water and add blue food coloring since apparantly the water they tried to use in class kept leaking from the bag. Personally, I thought this idea was quite genious of him. That is of course until Chloe decided to snack on it. We have already caught her ON the already high dining room table twice this week. All 60 lbs of her! So why this possibility didn't occur to anyone, I don't know. So yes, she ATE the project. Mainly just the vacuole, or nucleus, or whatever it was. Right after having a bath and all over my very light colored carpet!!! Anyone have any tricks to get food coloring out of carpet????