A selfie Thanksgiving .....

just a bunch of silly selfies from

family Thanksgiving......

later.....

Current favorite things ....

Some current favorite things right now......

this is def one of my favorite things .... 50% off of everything

at GAP....yes!! On Friday when the sale started, I put in my order 

which took care of shopping for my grandchildren and my daughter

huge savings!!

I always buy the big role of wrapping paper at Costco

I love using all of the same paper

and I LOVE that it has the lines on the reverse side

so that I can cut straight lines.....yes, it's the little things!!

I don't use dryer sheets....they are bad for your clothes and 

your dryer. Just way too many chemicals and they cause your dryer screen

to not work as well. So I always just dealt with the static. But now, these

little dryer hedgehogs work a miracle. They not only get rid of

all static cling but they make your clothes softer as they are

fluffing your clothes the whole time they are drying.

LOVE them!!

My Grandma Pendleton always had Christmas cactus'

she loved them so much and would just be so happy when they

bloomed at Christmas. Every time I see one, I'm reminded of

my sweet grandma. Johnny and I were in Home Depot the other day

and they had so many beautiful ones.

this one now sits on my kitchen counter 

I have been wanting some short brown boots

They opened a LL Bean in one of our local shopping centers

Found these casual ones......LOVE them!

I also discovered Zulily.com and wow, they have some great deals on there

but it's really like taking a gamble buying from them as they do no returns

So when I saw these boots on there, the price was so good that I figured

even if they didn't fit, I could find someone who could use them

Lucky for me they fit perfect

I LOVE the bling on them too

oh boy....the Olive Oil shop is a very addictive place to go

they have the most yummy olive oils and vinegars

my current favorite is the basil olive oil and the 

tomato vinegar.....on a salad, wow! So good

later......

Sister's new home .....

My youngest sister Kandi and her husband Xel

just recently moved from way out in the country

to downtown city of Richmond

It was always a dream for them to move to the city

and in August, their dream came true

they moved to a very old section of the city

some of the homes date back to the late 1800's

the home they purchased was built in 1895 and is listed
on the historic register in Richmond
It is in one of the most beautiful sections of our 
wonderful city

They love so many things about it.....no real yard work,
walking to great restaurants, bars, the bakery
the park, meeting new neighbors

I told my sister it's like you are "living on vacation"
she said yes, and even though they have been there 
a couple of months now, she said it's still like
living a dream! I couldn't be happier and so proud for
two such great people!

here's their front porch decorated for the fall

Their new home has been totaled renovated
so really a move in ready home.

later....

Halloween ....

Two of our grandchildren came over on Halloween

for dinner and trick or treating

Declan was a banana and Avery Grace was a cute little strawberry

Declan sure had a good time going door to door

he was sweet and thanked each person for the candy

and for some houses, he even told them he

liked their decorations...haha

Avery Grace was in her stroller and she slept almost

the entire time. It was a fun Halloween

Jake and Kayce did not come over but they

did send me a picture of them ready to go to

a Halloween party

Kayce did a great job on their makeup

later.....

Random stuff ...

here's some random stuff

I love fresh flowers and wish

I could have them every week in all of my rooms but I can't

that would get pretty expensive

but I do love splurging and keeping fresh flowers in the 

kitchen / dining room

When we re-modeled our kitchen 4 years ago I looked

for a long time for the perfect table and chairs

I wanted solid wood and that's just hard to find nowadays

but I did and we were able to design it, picking out the legs,

the backs to the chairs and even the finish on the wood

I keep the table covered most times with a protective cover

and a tablecloth

4 years and no scratches.....until now

I forgot to push the chairs in when we went out and 

Pippa Lou got on the table

and I guess in her excitement of seeing other dogs

outside, she put quite a few scratches in my table :(

We came home to this.....

I'm working on upholstering a pair of wing back chairs

I just really wasn't sure this was going to turn out to be

a project I could handle but now as I'm removing each

section of fabric, I'm feeling pretty confident that I 

will be able to cover them

here is the fabric I have picked out

Here's the fall wreath we have on our door right now

and here's Johnny prepping the yard for the fall grass seed

and here's my flower still holding on.....and new blooms every 

few days

later....

Apraxia Walk ...

I have shared on my blog before that our first grandson, Maddox

has Apraxia. He is non-verbal

he tries, oh he makes some sounds and he really tries

but his speech is not there

his brain just cannot make that connection to give him a voice

We had never met anyone who had a family member with this

then I met someone at work and her daughter has Apraxia

it felt good to just make one connection with someone else

who understood

And this is what our daughter was missing.....someone else who understood

She tried to come up with ways to form an Apraxia community

but with privacy restrictions with doctors and teachers, how 

could you ever meet anyone.

Then she had the idea to have a walk to raise awareness and through

that would be able to meet people

She got in touch with CASANA and they told her that a couple of 

people had tried in the past to get a walk together for Richmond

but it lost steam and never came about.

But she was determined and with social media, it was easy

to get the word out. They told her do not be discouraged

if you have a small number of registered walkers and you only

raise a small amount

So imagine her surprise and delight in ending up with 175 registered

walkers and raising $11,847

this money goes directly to help children with Apraxia with speech therapy

iPads equipped with speech apps, grants for helping speech therapist

and families and research

but even more than that, she met families that are here in

Richmond who have children with Apraxia

she has made a great connection and plans to next year start

parent support groups and children play dates

We are very proud of our daughter for pulling this together

She did an amazing job. She made each child there feel special

She re-enforced to each of them that this walk and all of these 

people, it was all for them. She handed each one a medal

and spoke such kind words to them.

Johnny and I were very proud

and she also had Tyler, Gabe, Maddox and even little John

who have helped her and supported her through all of the months

of planning and the day of the event

here's a pile of pictures from the event that was held on Oct 17th

The morning started with doughnuts, coffee and hot chocolate

there was face painting, brochures and literature about services

that can help families with special needs children, 

a city fire truck came and a state policeman so that the children

could enjoy seeing those

everything started getting busy with registration and giving

out t-shirts for the walkers

here's my sister-in-law Susan and my niece Mallory ready to walk

here's Tyler, Nicole's partner in life

here's the part that Nicole was most nervous about but

she did a great job....the CASANA folks gave her lots of advice and tips

and she really just spoke from her heart so it was great

Maddox receiving his medal

the top fun raising team was given the honor of starting 

the walk and carrying the banner

my sister Vickie with Susan and Mallory

Tyler, Nicole and their 3 boys

Maddox showing off his medal

already looking forward to next year

it will be even bigger and better

later.....