Mama Mia Look who is turning 50!

The normal thing for an older sister to do on her little brother and sister's 50th birthday would be to order 50 flamingos to be placed in their yards but I am not normal so these pictures will have to do! Happy Happy Birthday Ray and Barbs!
p.s.(Go see Mama Mia -you will really enjoy it!)

I scream You scream We All Scream For Ice Cream

Neighborhood Reputation

I have a reputation in the neighborhood. It's based on what kind of lollipops I have each week. All the kids think I am nice and all the parents think I am a spoiler. While we had the grandsons visiting, my neighbor, Susan, had her 4 grandchildren visiting also. My reputation is always pretty good when they are in town :) All the kids had fun outside together and my bowl of lollipops went fast :)

Placemats for which kids?

Just before the grandsons came, we spotted these placemats in K-Mart and Pops said he thought they would be pretty good to have on hand (history lover that he is). Usually I am trying to convince him why we should purchase something like these so I jumped at his enthusiasm to buy them. They don't exactly look "decorator correct" with my kitchen but they sure have been a good source of conversation. The real truth is Lolli and Pops have really enjoyed having placemats educating us on all the Presidents of the United States and the State Capitols of each State! I'm not sure which kids have appreciated the placemats more!

Table Talk with the grandsons

Harrison says the minute he walks through our doors "What's for supper, Lolli?"
I say "Lasagna!"
He says "I'm not eating that, I don't like it. Can I have macaroni n' cheese?"
I say "no, I don't have any and tonight we are having homemade lasagna and everyone is eating it"
He says "But I don't like it"
I say "Oh - I 'm sorry, You can just have the bread and salad"
... later at the table Chad eats at great speed 2 huge helpings of lasagna and Corey comments "Lolli, this is really good" while Harrison is staring at his plate.
3 seconds later after Corey's comment, Harrison eats everything on his plate, including a nice helping of lasagna!

Breakfast time : Harrison says "do you have grits? My mother always makes grits for me every morning."
I say "no, we are having pancakes and bacon"
He says nothing and eats everything on his plate.

On our Tiger Scavenger Hunt in the afternoon, Harrison asks, as we drive to Arby's where one of the statues is, "do they have hash browns at Arby's?" Pops starts laughing. Harrison says "I love hash browns" Then Corey starts laughing and says "can you believe a 5 year old is asking if Arby's has hash browns?!"

Lunch time : We drive towards Sonic to get burgers. Harrison says "I don't like Sonic. What is it?" Pops responds "how do you know if you do not like it if you don't know what it is?" Harrison says "I just already know I don't like it. I only like McDonald's". We pull up to Sonic and he sees the prize for the kiddy meal and he says "ok I want a hamburger and a cherry slushie". He eats everything.

Next night at supper, each boy talks about his sisters while we eat. We go around the table and each one wanted to tell something about their sisters!
Chad says "I love Alex" (she is 3)
Corey says "My sister is not always nice to me but she gave me an air hug over the phone before I left"
Harrison says "My sister Sydney(older)is mean to me but Alex (younger) is nice" Then he asks for a second helping of leftover lasagna again and eats every bite of it!

Kids will say the darndest things!... especially to the grandparents!

Boys Only Weekend -Part 3

I just had way too much fun myself this weekend with the guys so bare with me looking at all my pics. I think they are rather priceless. The Tiger Statue Scavenger Hunt needed a post all its own!
I must add that Corey's reaction to the fire department visit just makes me feel happy all over again as I recall the weekend. That 9 year old sweetheart told me as we walked up to the station, "I always wanted to see an orange and blue fire truck and this is the coolest thing ever. I could just hug that truck!" Then watching the boys receive hats and stickers and pencils and asking the fireman for his autograph on their Tiger clues sheet really gave me a lump in my throat.
This experience with the boys is worth noting one last thing. I am convinced you do not have to buy kids all the rage electronic toys to keep them happy. In fact we did not buy them anything but a pair of swimming goggles the whole time and they were living it up with all the fun we had. I am sure we will continue giving gifts for special occasions but I'll almost bet when they are 20 years old they will tell you more about what we did together than what gifts they received.

Boys Only Weekend - Part 2

Our past 3 days with Chad, Corey,and Harrison were packed with activites as well as some downes time too. The only pictures I think I did not capture was eating meals (I don't multi task well during meals with grandkids...hmmmmm), playing Uno cards on the porch and going to see Space Chimps (we thought it was a pretty good movie for kids). Summertime is just a wonderful time to do things with grandchildren. I love having a neighborhood pool to take them :) swimming and living in a college town also provides for some extras too. We also love having Benjamin live close to us and the boys liked having him join us for some of our activities. Having horses live around the corner is a real bonus for us too.
One afternoon we had a Tiger Statue Scavenger Hunt! There are plenty here in town (we found 9 on our hunt) and I made up some clues to make it a little interesting for the guys. I am pretty sure they would tell you that the last clue was their favorite when I blindfolded them to that destination. Then again, they might tell you the fire station visit was the best since they were given the royal treatment by a fireman. Corey is a huge AU fan so sitting on an orange and blue firetruck was a sweet treat for him!
Chad never played his x-box games while here which is rare for him and we were so pleased to watch him enjoy building with the lincoln logs and look through photo books we had on hand. Those lincoln logs have to be the favorite in our house with the older grandchildren.
All 3 boys loved watching Facing The Giants football movie I got from our church library. We highly recommend it if you are looking for something inspiring and wholesome to watch.
Pops favorite time with the guys was playing basketball around the corner at our local elementary school and (since he loves reading) having Harrison curl up in his lap at bedtime with the library book Harrison picked out while on our scavenger hunt(there is a tiger statue in our library as well as a tiger fish tank and lots of books about Tigers). Each boy picked out a book which was not on the orignal plan during the hunt but when I saw their interest in it, the extra 30 minutes there was time well spent. (you teachers and librarians are smiling at me about that :),huh!) Chad naturally picked one about Auburn and Alabama football, Corey naturally about Baseball, and Harrison naturally about Race Cars! What fun we had with 3 different ages & 3 different personalities! But they all had the same interests this weekend = FUN times with Lolli and Pops!

Boys Only Weekend

We are having a great Boys Only weekend with the 3 oldest grandsons! Let me just say that living on a golf course has it's perks and walking the edges with these guys after 7 pm was as good as it gets with them! Corey found 24 golf balls total in 2 nights. Chad was beside himself looking for them and both he and Harrison were just as pleased with their total finds too. We saw a blue herron and my friendly bunny rabbit that we call "Petunia" while walking the course and we thought we might see a snake but I am happy to report we did NOT!
I have some other good times to share from this weekend but for now they are all asleep and I need to catch a few zzzzz myself before one last day with these energized boys!

A "Barbara Breeze"

My little sister breezed through to spend the night so we could have a "sister's night" and we had such a nice time catching up and eating our favorite cheesy broccoli dip and fritos while sipping on pina coladas together. Barbs and I have always loved that dip and we claim that as one of our traditions together!

She has been a little busy lately with her daughter getting married last April, a son to be married in November and selling a house,and my times with her have been way too few for my taste. And speaking of taste, we also love to eat wings together (Jack's least favorite meal) so I prepared his favorite meatloaf TV dinner(ha ha) and off Barbs and I went to eat wings and talk like maniacs who love to cover everything under the sun! And we managed to breeze our way through most every subject! There is such a special connection between sisters to be able to relate to all the areas of your life and reminisce of childhood together (missed our older sister, Amy, though!)

Sounds like we ate our way through this visit but really we spent many hours just sitting on the porch enjoying our chats and watching the great outdoors along with all my little critters and feathered friends. There was even what I will now call a "Barbara Breeze" about us and we were so happy sitting there listening to wind chimes with her breeze blowing about us in July 90 degree weather.

Oh yeah, I did squeeze in a game of Quiddler with Barbs and I beat her but that was not my highlight of the visit contrary to popular belief! The highlight was listening to her share with Jack her new knowledge of lawn mowers and lawn maintenance and taking care of all the plants and trees in her yard. I could not share much in all this talk since the yard upkeep is his territory. I had to smile when she asked Jack how many inches do you mow your yard at?... Hellooooo, my baby sister is questioning the measurement of the lawnmower blade to the grass? When did she change into Mrs. Green Thumb? She now loves yard work ...and hard work at that. (I love yard work that you can point a finger towards a hole to put something in and arrange the colors and then I am done.) What a pleasant surprise to discover my sister now can cook like a chef, run an office to a T, and lower her mower to an inch! Barbs, I am so proud of you! You are a breeeze of fresh air...
Come back soon my little "Barbara Breeze"!

Favorite Recent Grandbaby Pics

Since I don't have any pics of Lily Kate and Beckett holding a lollipop yet, here are my most recent favorite ones of them! God love em, aren't they precious?!

Some of My Favorite Lollipop Pictures :)