3 Years Ago Today....

I lost my mom, my best friend! and Heaven gained an Angel! Pray for me today that I can be strong. I have a lot in life to be thankful for, and I am very thankful every day for my many blessings. This morning, as I was headed to take Kaden to school, the song "I Can Only Imagine" by MercyMe was playing on the radio. My cousin Tim sang this song at my mama's funeral. I have only heard the song maybe twice since then (and I turn it without listening to it every time). So, this morning, I felt like that was her way of saying "I'm still here!" Needless to say, I can't type this without tearing up, and I can't listen to that song without crying, but I know she's in a better place. A far better place than we are in. I want to live the longest life I can, but I am so thrilled that I will be able to see my mama again one day! Praise God!

Just Catching Up.....

I haven't blogged in a while, so it's time to catch up. Granny's home and doing great. She started her first round of chemotherapy yesterday. She's very optimistic, which is half of the battle. The boys finished up basketball for this season. They played with Covenant United Methodist Church. Of course, the team consisted of mostly friends, i.e. Troy and Trey.





This weekend was jam-packed with birthday parties. We went to one Friday night, two Saturday, and one Sunday. One was for Troy, but we went out to eat with him on Monday night to acknowledge his "actual" birthday. Here are the wild boys at Logan's:

And these are their silly faces:

Notice the wood slats behind them? This is known as the "cow pen" to me, Tracy H, and Melissa. This is the table we prefer to get at Logan's so we can trap the boys!

Oh, and I colored my hair brown this weekend. I haven't decided if I like it or not. But, I think I do.

But why is it that if you have a gray hair, it is gonna stick straight up?!

And, this is just a cute picture of Kaden this morning, on the way to school, wearing the glasses his daddy wore as Magnum P.I. at Halloween.

I hope all is well with all of you!!

Granny's Back Home

Granny got out of the hospital Tuesday, January 13th. She was so happy to be home. She is a little weak, but she is resting well. Of course we had to go to her house that night so that Kaden could make her "comfty". He tucked her in to bed and made sure she was o.k. before we left. Then he told her if she needed anything, just call him. Rylan told me that if Granny said she felt better it was because he prayed for her. He said that after their pledge at school they have quiet time, and he uses this time to pray for people. What wonderful boys I have!!

Slumber Party

My sweet friend Tracy had her tonsils removed before Christmas. To help her out one night, her son Troy, which is one of my boys' best friends, spent the night with us and I took them all to school the next day. Well, you can imagine what a chore it was to get 3 little boys to go to sleep at the same time. I let them veg-out in the living room and watch a movie thinking they would get sleepy. Well, they did, so I turned off the lights and left the room. Then I hear Troy calling me to tell me that he is afraid of the dark. After turning on several lights in the house to find one that was not too bright, I finally settled on turning back on the t.v. I turned it to a music channel that was playing some really boring Christmas music, which put them right to sleep. As you see in the picture, Kaden slept on the couch, Troy slept on the chair and ottoman, and Rylan got his pallet just as close to Troy as he could while sleeping on the floor. This was a fun night! Boys are great!!

CANcer

The week before Christmas my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer. She has been having pain in her stomach for about 2 years, but never had a colonoscopy. Well, she finally had one and it revealed a mass that had to be removed. So, yesterday, Monday Jan. 5th, she went in for surgery. They removed the mass from her colon and the tissue surrounding the colon. Previous tests had indicated a spot on the liver, but the doctor did not find one on further inspection. So, now she's in the hospital waiting to recover from surgery, go home, and wait for tubes to be put in for chemotherapy, probably at the end of the month. I am hopeful that she will come through this with flying colors and I am relying on God to pull her through.

Scaredy-Cat

or Chicken Little! whatever you want to call me! The shoe fits, trust me!!!

Robert, Rylan, Kaden and PaPaw (Robert's dad) left Saturday morning going to North Carolina to visit Robert's grandfather. My first thought of course was Woohoo!! I'm gonna get some rest....Eat when I want to....Sleep as long as I want to....Do whatever I want, when I want!! Yea, that lasted until about 11:00 PM Saturday night. I then realized that I was petrified to stay alone!!! I had already watched one movie and another movie came on TV so I stayed up and watched it too. Finally, around 2:00 AM I decided that I had to go to sleep. So, I pushed chairs up against all 3 of my exterior doors. Then I went in my boys' room, pushed their desk against the door with a chair in front of the desk, and slept in Rylan's bed with a can of mace beside me.

Well, I woke up Sunday morning and of course, I was still alive and no one had tried to break in, so I was stoked. Then, I went back to sleep. Why can I sleep in the daytime at home alone and not at night? That night I went to dinner with Tracy H, Melissa, and Trey. Afterwards, I decided to spend the night with my granny. So, Melissa and Trey went with me to my house to get some clothes and my puppy, Bear. Bear and I proceeded to go to granny's to try to get a good night's sleep. That didn't happen. Granny lives on a busy highway and all I could hear were the cars passing by, and the occassional whine from Bear who had to sleep in the master bathroom so he wouldn't potty on granny's floor. I woke up, drove home, exhausted, and went to work!

Monday night (last night) I was in desperate need of a good night's sleep, and I mean DESPERATE! I went to Melissa's and had dinner with her and her family, watched a movie, and headed home. When I got there, I was scared to death! I put chairs in front of the doors again, locked myself in my bedroom and pushed my chest of drawers up against the door. OK, if someone wanted to break in that bad, I should just let them get me, right?! I finally called my granny at about 10:30. I was almost in tears. She said to put Bear in the bed with me and he'd bark if he heard anything. Well, this frightened me b/c all I could think of was him barking in the middle of the night and me panicking, locking myself in my closet, trying feverishly to call 911. But, I took her advice and put him in the bed with me. We talked for a few minutes, then I heard a noise, I looked for my fearless companion to see if he was going to protect me. There he laid, on the foot of my bed, flat on his back with his paws in the air, snoozing! Great! Then granny made a mistake. She offered to come stay with me and I told her to come ONLY if she felt like it! Inside I just wanted to scream, "PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!" When she got to the house I was thrilled. Now, what did I think a 79 year old woman could do if a burglar broke in? Doesn't matter. I slept like a baby!!

Tis the Season to be JOLLEY

This Christmas has come and gone, and I am so thankful! I am thankful for our Lord and Savior; let's don't forget the reason for the season. I am thankful for my wonderful family. I am also thankful that I didn't get that awful virus like Jen and Melody got. I was so afraid I was going to wake up Christmas morning with that yucky stuff. But, I didn't, I woke up happy and healthy and ready to watch my boys open all of their gifts. They had a blast and each gift they opened they would say, "This is what I always wanted!!"

We had Robert's side of the family over for lunch. His mom brought a ham and turkey and I was responsible for all of the side dishes. I did pretty good, if I do say so myself. Afterwards we opened gifts and had a blast playing a boxing video game Mike and Wendy got for the boys. Rylan beat everyone in the house! At one point he even closed his eyes and was still beating us! Kaden has had the most fun with his Nintendo DS and his spy kit. He has booby trapped the entire house! I can't leave my room without a motion detector going off!

Granny came over later in the afternoon and we were all so happy to see her. She felt pretty good that day so she decided to venture out!

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and I hope you all have a Happy New Year!!