Greater Love...

My neighbor, Bob, passed away this week. Yesterday I attended his funeral. The boys and I would always see Bob and his friend Jim sitting out in the front yard whenever we were outside playing. Both men loved to laugh and joke with the boys. I never knew how Bob and Jim became friends, just that they seemed so close. I assumed that they had probably worked together when they both were employed and because they seemed such good friends, thought that they had been friends forever.
At Bob's funeral I had a chance to really talk with his friend Jim and got to hear a wonderfully touching story of true friendship. Its worth sharing...
Both Bob and Jim went to the JR Food/Gas station for coffee every morning. There were only two tables inside. Typically, Bob would sit at one table and Jim at the other. One day Jim came in for coffee and someone was sitting at one of the tables and Bob at the other. Jim decided to sit with Bob. They started talking and from that conversation came an amazing friendship that started that very day, seven years ago. Every day they would meet at the JR Food store, have coffee, and talk. Because they were there so often, they started to make the coffee on their own to keep the pot filled and the coffee fresh. After a while, the management said that because they did that for everyone, they could have as much free coffee as they wanted.
A few years ago, Jim's parents became ill. When Jim could no longer care for them on his own, Bob came every day for 18 months to assist him with their care. When Bob became ill, Jim came to his house every day and stayed with him so that his wife could go to work.
After Jim had finished telling me his story about their friendship, the staff at the funeral home asked us to make our way to the chapel for the funeral so that the family could have time by themselves for the last viewing. Jim was walking out with me when Bob's sister stopped him and said, "Jim, I think you should stay with us."
Life is difficult and I know our glorious God gives us people in our lives to walk with through all of the good and bad times. I have no doubt that meeting over coffee that day seven years ago was fully orchestrated by the Master.
Thank you Lord for the people you've put in my life, the people I call friends.

Parents of the Year- Right here!

I'm attaching this disclaimer to the beginning of my message. Be warned, the following is not pretty.


Both of my boys are not very good eaters. They will eat, just not a variety of things. Aidan is better than Avery- he will at least try new things and does have more of a variety in his diet including milk and some fruit. Last night I decided that I would start giving Aidan some vitamins (he's my three year old). Avery has been taking them for a while and he loves them. We never had a problem getting him to chew them up. And its just the Spiderman children's chewable vitamins- kind of like the flintstones vitamins I had growing up.


Aidan is VERY strong willed so I was working with him- had him sitting up on the kitchen counter(this would be my first mistake) talking to him about the vitamin. He watched Avery chew his vitamin. Here's our conversation...


Me "Aidan, you are going to take this vitamin. (this was after about 15 minutes of trying to "reason" with him :)
Aidan (not in an inside voice) "No! Its yucky. I'm not taking it!"
Me: (and I don't know why all of a sudden I got so determined with the vitamin)"You will sit here until you do."

Aidan "Why do I have to take it? Its yucky."

Me "Aidan, you have never had this before. You don't know if its yucky."
And on and on...

Then he tries to get off the counter ends up falling and scraping his back all the way down.

Reinforcements come in. Jim puts him back on the counter and I walk out of the room. As I'm sitting in the computer room I hear Aidan starts choking- I mean really choking. I jump up, run in just in time to see Jim putting Aidan over his knees and hitting him in the back. The vitamin comes flying out of his mouth and Aidan starts screaming. Apparently Jim had decided he'd just put it in his mouth and "assist" him by moving his jaws to help him chew it up. :)

Beaten down and defeated we put Aidan down. Aidan is now looking at us like someone has replaced his parents with aliens. He runs up stairs and we stand there looking at each other.

I start laughing thinking how this would look from the perspective of an onlooker just gazing into our house for the past 30 minutes. Then I start crying, blabbering to Jim that we are horrible parents- we almost choked our child just because we wanted him to take a vitamin.

Yep- that's my parent of the year story. I told you it wasn't pretty. :)

Ashley's Blog and The Bargain Shopper Lady

I was reading a friends blog this afternoon and got this site from it. I haven't figured out how to link words to sites. Maybe Ashley will show me that soon. (thanks Ashley!) But I really wanted to post this so that you could check out her blog if you don't already. Its her post from today, Sunday. I went to Victoria Secret just a little bit ago and got this! It's a great deal and great for Christmas presents.
You can get to Ashley's blog by clicking on this link
www.heinzfeet.blogspot.com
and for more bargains check out the website
www.bargainshopperlady.com
Thanks Ashley!

Our Christmas Cards

Every year I like to take pictures of the boys in their holiday best and make our own Christmas cards at snapfish. Here are three pictures that both Harve and I like. Would you help us out by leaving us a comment and telling us which one you like? I would LOVE to hear from you if you read my blog.

So, which one do you like best for a Christmas card?

This One's for You Papa and Memaw

How Much Do You Know?

How much do you know about Thanksgiving and the turkey? I was surprised at how little I knew. Leave me a comment if you take the quiz and let me know how you did. I got 9 out of 20.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
http://home.aristotle.net/Thanksgiving/trivia-index.asp

Just More Proof that Maybe My Doc is Right About Middle Age

This is my absolute favorite album- yes you heard me correctly- I said album. :) I had this record as a little girl and listened to it for what I'm sure seemed like eternity to my parents during the holidays. I am so excited because today I found it on ITunes. I downloaded the entire album and burned it to CD. I can't wait to play it for the boys. I am listening to it now and LOVING it!!! It brings back such wonderful memories. If you get a chance, check it out on ITunes. You want want to miss The Christmas Tree that Ran Away- its a tear jerker.LOL It really is a cute album for kids.

What are some things that bring back your childhood memories of Christmas?

This is Your Gall Bladder

Several ladies in my MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) group were sharing stories on Wednesday about aging. We have ladies of all different ages in our group and what brings us all together is that we are at the same stage in our lives. I am on the older end of the spectrum in our group so I loved hearing the funny stories several other ladies shared about getting older.

Little did I know that I was to have my own story to share with an experience that very afternoon. I had a doctor's appointment because I'd been having some issues lately and I was certain I'd pop right in, tell the Dr. (who has had numerous years of med school) that I had acid reflux and I need that purple pill, Nexium. Turns out it may not be acid reflux but my gall bladder. So here's the conversation

Me: "Don't problems with your gall bladder happen to older people?"
Doctor (looking at my chart to- I'm certain view my birthdate) "Well Susan, you are 36."

Ok- so since my doctors visit I have learned that gall bladder issues are not necessarily for the elderly. :) But the whole conversation with my Dr. got me thinking-- if I doubled my age right now that's 72. I am MIDDLE AGED!!!!

Or maybe I just need to get an older Dr.-- age is relative. :)

Our Day

Harve (Jim-if I haven't told you the story behind his two names, let me know) gets one holiday a year that Sumner County schools don't. Its Veterans Day. So, he was home today and both boys were in school. I can't even begin to tell you what a blessing this day has been. We don't get much time together just the two of us- most married couples with small children don't get a lot of that. We have struggled to find babysitters and with both of my parents being gone and Harve's parents living in North Carolina, its just hard. But, we had today.
We decided to take the opportunity to do Christmas shopping for the boys. We were able to hold hands and we didn't have to worry about finding a place to eat that served chicken nuggets or pizza. :) But most of all, we were able to talk- really talk with each other.
I've been feeling a bit down about the upcoming holidays without my mom around and I was able to sit at lunch with my husband and just talk about my mom, and cry, and remember. Not something I can really do with my boys around. I so needed that. And when the crying was over, we got to talk about us and our family and what we could do during the holidays to make it special for our boys and to help them and us through a tough time.
And we shopped-- and who doesn't get help from some retail therapy? :) We talked about how we used to get excited about buying us things but now we just LOVE getting the boys stuff. I get so excited just thinking about how excited they are going to be.
I am so thankful for this day. It was a much needed refresher.

I'm A Fur, Furry Squirrel

Wearing Your Heart On Your Sleeve

I've read several quotations from the author C.S. Lewis- not quotations from his books but just personal things he has said. As I was just jumping from blog to blog (I've already admitted I'm a blogoholic-ha!), I came across this quotation from C.S. Lewis. I copied it so I could paste it on this post.

I know that sometimes I feel like feeling so deeply can be a curse, especially in this cruel world. This world we live in does not reward the meek and the compassionate but then we as Christians are not to "be" of this world. I think this quotation from C.S. Lewis was a wonderful reminder to me. I just wanted to share it.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal … Lock it up safe in the coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket … it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable … The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”

C.S.Lewis

Drivin' Me Crazy!

I have to admit that I don't have much in the area of patience. Every day God uses things in my life to teach me more and more the importance of patience. I also want to say that I am by no means the best driver but what I do strive to do every single time I step in my car is to drive respectfully, responsibly, and defensively. So why do I feel like I'm about to lose my religion (I know I'm praying about it) every time I drive some where? Could it be because those of us who choose to drive in this manner are in a dwindling minority?

Here are a few things that get my goat (ok-I'm using something my daddy used to say a little further down so I felt I needed to incorporate something my mom said- and that's about all I could come up with relative to the subject at hand).

• People who are in the right lane on the interstate but refuse to either get over, slow down, or speed up so that those coming on the interstate from the on ramp can merge over. (Where else are they gonna go people?)
• In conjunction with that, people on the on ramp to the interstate who SLOW down to merge on the interstate. (The on ramp is an acceleration ramp for a reason.)
• People who could very obviously change lanes but choose to ride down the lane (after seeing three or four signs-some flashing -LANE CLOSED) and screech over in front of someone else right before they themselves slam into the the orange and white construction barrels.
• People who pull out in front of you when there is no other traffic for miles behind you.
• Chronic speeders (and I really do mean people who go WAY above the speed limit). Every time I see someone passing me like the wind (while I'm doing 75 on the bypass), it makes me think of my daddy and what he used to say, "If you were in that big of a hurry you should have left sooner!"
• People who do not stop and pull over for a funeral procession. I know that sometimes its impossible to do this so I don't mean those times.

Man, I feel a lot better. :) So what gets your goat when it comes to driving? Or if you are one of those people who doesn't get stressed at other people's driving, tell me how you do that. :)

Rockin' and Rollin'

The boys had a blast at Sumner Skate Zone. We are always trying to think of fun (energy consuming) activities to do during the Winter with the boys. This was our first time at this skating rink but we think this might be a good family activity during the winter. Their favorite thing was to play the "Wipeout" game.

Friday Afternoon Fun With Our Neighbors

We played with our neighbors the Walkers Friday afternoon. The kids were goofing around. It was pretty funny so I had to grab my camera. Darryan had a Belle (from Beauty and the Beast) wig and everyone had to try it on. My boys looked crazy! :) Darryl brought out some lion costumes and he and Aidan had fun running around in them.

I'm glad we played that afternoon because as I sit here now typing, I'm thinking by the time Avery gets out of school today and home it will be 4:20pm. The news said sunset is at 4:48pm. So, I guess we won't have much time outside after school until the Spring.

Happy Halloween

My boys love Halloween. I think they really just love dressing up in costumes. They had fun going around in our neighborhood and got way too much candy (which we'll send a good portion of with my husband to his office) but just enjoyed themsleves.

Here are a few pictures from the evening. Avery is the Human Torch from the Fantastic Four and Aidan is a skeleton (shhh... he thinks he's Skeletor from the 80's He-Man series). Don't get me wrong, I think they are cuties but I miss the younger days for Avery when he picked out cute costumes like Barney or Woody from Toy Story. And because Aidan wants to be like his brother, I feel like we never had the cute little costumes with him- he just went straight to the big boy stuff. :)

Oh well... they are the cutest Human Torch and Skeleton!! :) Our sweet neighbor down the street was dressed like Mrs. Potts from Beauty and the Beast.