Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Yard work ...

Every spring Johnny and I work out in the yard
cleaning up winter, pulling weeds, raking and raking
filling so many trash bags with leaves and branches
and didn't I mention pulling weeds!

So this year we decided to hire a landscaper to come
out and clean out all of the flower beds and
mulch areas
they did all of this work in one day
it would have taken Johnny and I several days!

here's some before pictures




look at those 2 naughty dogs that snuck out of the front 
door to follow me



you can see all of the piles of weeds and leaves that they
raked out of the mulch areas 




and after......








later.....

Monday, April 11, 2016

Easter 2016 ....

We celebrated Easter at our house this year
was hoping for a big Easter egg hunt outside with the kids
but we had so much rain that the yard was
just a muddy mess
so we decided to just do it inside!!

First holiday celebration with both of our parents 
not here......so that was sad
But thankful that we have each other
such a big family here
there are 30 of us!
So that makes for some fun family gatherings

We were missing my niece Abby who is still working
out of state and missing another niece Alison, who is
away at college.

Here's a big collection of pictures...
we had so many eggs filled with candy and it would
have been plenty for outside but inside, you just start running
out of place to hide them....so turned out to be
pretty funny all of the places we were coming up with!




Johnny and Lorraine


Lynne and Tyler


Lynne, Declan, Vickie and Jacquelyn
Jacquelyn is always my sous chef! She always makes
sure everything is just right for me :)
I did the ham, bread, sweet tea and an orzo salad
and then everyone else brought a dish
and everything was so yummy!!



Tom, Lynne and John Thomas


Aimee, Kayce and a great photo bomb by Nicole


My brother Tracy and Jake


My sister Kandi


Tyler and Lorraine


Maddox


and with his mommy Nicole


Jake and Kayce


Jacquelyn and Bucky
Declan Liam and Avery Grace


awww, here I am with 3 of my grandchildren


with Jacquelyn and Avery


Declan finding eggs in Uncle Jake's pocket


Avery makes the funniest faces for us now
so cute



later.....

Sunday, April 10, 2016

Someone turned 3 ....

Our grandson Declan Liam turned 3 on March 8th
Our daughter and son-in-law hosted a birthday
party for him at our home on March 5th

and with my camera still broken, the only pictures
I have are some iPhone photos shared with me
our sweet, sweet Declan had so much fun on his big day
can't believe how fast the time goes by

It was a good time for everyone
He had a Paw Patrol party....
check out his awesome cake!!










his other grandmother gave him a doctor set
he said "Just call me Dr Declan"....haha


later.....

Thursday, April 7, 2016

A birthday party ....

I know it's been forever since I blogged....
life is busy!

I had a birthday....it was one of the big ones
I turned 60, oh my!
And it kind of feels weird but I'll tell ya
it makes me work harder exercising and harder
eating right. I want to see my grandchildren 
grow up so really need to take care of myself.

And here's what happened 2 days before
my birthday....
Johnny and I went to Maggianos for dinner
he had made reservations and Jacquelyn and her crew
were going to meet us there

we get there and the hostess starts taking us down the
hallway where I know the private banquet rooms are
and I made a comment to Johnny.....
"this is weird, the private rooms are down here"
and without missing a beat, the hostess turned around
and said "Oh we are packed and using the private rooms
for overflow". Well, that made sense to me
but then we get there, they open the door and
there is all of my family, my siblings, 3 of my best friends
and everyone yells surprise!! wow, I was shocked
totally 100% surprised!!
and my sweetheart grandson Maddox (he is non-verbal) comes
running up to me, gives me a hug and runs back...haha.

Well it was just the most wonderful thing that has ever been
done for me on my birthday....except I did have a surprise a few years
ago when Jake and Jacquelyn
 surprised me by cooking dinner for us.

I couldn't believe Johnny could do all of this but he told
me he was just paying for it all, that Jacquelyn our middle daughter
had planned it all, invitations, ordering the dinner, getting the cake
and even had some sweet flowers 
and she did an excellent job!!

It was wonderful and I loved it

here are some pictures......




























later.....