Best Friends

Sometimes the things we remember from our childhood

are some of the silly things we did with our best friends.

Samantha and Andrea have been friends from about 3 years old.

They have the best time together....

Andrea moved this summer...Samantha will miss having her close but

the fun will be with her for the rest of her life....

Pictures taken by big sister Stephanie....

Sunflower

I took this pic in Gatlinburg. Love it!!

Happy 29th Anniversary

29 years...I guess he's stuck with me! Or the other way around.. Neither of us pushed the other off so I guess we are good for another year!!LOL I look so fat! Surgery was only 2 1/2 weeks before this pic....I still love it.....Not even surgery was keeping me from my condo in the Smokey's.. It was very painful walking and doing some of the stuff but I LIVED!! GOT THE PICTURES!!
This pic was taken as we were going to Cades Cove, near Gatlinburg, TN. We had a blast..I will post more pics later...

Be Still...

"Be still, and know that I am God" Psalm 46:10

I could have sat here for hours and listen to God speak to me.

Calm and peaceful with such breath taking beauty. With all that I have been through the last few weeks I felt this was God telling me to be refreshed. I am with you and I have always been there...

Praise God!

Dare Devil Luke

Love this pic of him. I called him over because he was acting like he could swim and do tricks...He was like what do you want, Nana..

This is what he was doing.. One, two, five. DIVE! He was not afraid and did it about 200 times!!!

Yard Man?

 I just cant make stuff like this up! This is his favorite thing in the world to do..

                                                         Water the yard...take a drink...

Clothes are optional...

Old Band Pictures

I bet you can not find me in this band pic!

I am in there! I played Saxophone...

On the left here too.... Funny always on the left!LOL

Mrs. Beasley

Do you remember a show in the late 60's early 70's called Family Affair? If you do then you know this dolls name is Mrs. Beasley. She was my best friend as a child. I really loved her! I still do. Memories are a powerful thing. Even 40 years later this doll gives me warm memories and a sweet feeling of protection that she seemed to give me as a child. Do you have something that make you all warm and fuzzy inside from your childhood?

My three dolls for now! My plans are that each of my daughters and grand daughters will have a doll to love one day. After being in bed from surgery..If you want to know about my surgery call me. I am not to that point to blog about it yet. Yes I do keep them by my bed and if I make my bed i do put them on it sometimes.

My poor footless and tattered friend. I will not repair her. No glasses no bib no apron. She shows the many years of being by my side as a child. I remember the day her talk box broke!! It was very very traumatic for me. I can still see my mom unsewing her and pulling out her seams to see if she could fix her talk box. It didn't happen... It was the lost voice of a friend...forever silent until...

My sweet sister Susan gave me the new Mrs. Beasley about 6 years ago. I cried at the site of her. I guess some of it was that my dear sister remembered how important this doll was to me as a child. She sounds the same as she did 40 years ago! What a sweet whisper of "If you were a little smaller I could rock you to sleep" OMG!!The sound of her voice brought tears! So here I am stuck in bed recovering. I spent 2 hours fixing her hair. Every once in a while I would pull her string to hear a sweet voice asking me "If you could have three wishes what would you wish for?" "Do you want to hear a secret? I know one!"

Now this one came to me the other day. I was in bed with my grand daughter Elisabeth playing and telling stories of my childhood and Mrs. Beasley to her. Well Kevin looked up online to see if we could find one for Elisabeth. We found this Vintage rag doll. So Paw Paw takes no time to order this and when it came in I was sleeping to find this sweet doll in bed with me. Sometimes we don't think our husbands are as tender hearted as we are but I guess I had been through a lot that week with surgery and he wanted to be sweet. Here again in tears I have a new friend and let me tell you Elisabeth and Lia thinks she is awesome and want to take her home. Oh not yet my dears. not until we have one for each of you. Maybe by Christmas I will have enough to all of them...I think I might get Kevin to do the same with what toy he loved as a child and give that to the grandsons. Mrs. Beasley says" You can try on my glasses if you wish" Lia couldn't wait to put them on. The girls do not know what makes her talk because I don't want her talk box to be broken by them being to rough so..when they are not looking i pull her string. They love it.

I am looking for the DVD's of Family affair so that we can sit and watch them together. Then maybe they will see what made her so special to me. In the meantime. Story's and letting them spend time with me seem to be working. Isn't that what children want most from us anyway. Our time, hugs and kisses. Let me tell you that today's TV and video games are not making memories that our children need. So pull out a story book or doll and start getting close to the little ones in your life. After my health scare this past week. Let me say we do not know the number of our days. So spend them wisely. Put the people who are important in your lives first!

This pic is just 1 1/2 weeks after surgery...If the smile looks painful it was..But worth the pic! Elisabeth asked if we could have our picture taken outside with our dolls. What a cute pic of us holding our friends....I am sure she was trying to get her out of the house to get her home.. Elisabeth makes up the cutest stories of us being little girls playing together with our dolls. She said we would have been really really good friends Nana...I said why, she said cause i am nice and share my dolls with her!! Oh I see a scrapbook page! I do have one old pic of the Christmas i got Mrs. Beasley. When I find it I will post... Did you have a Mrs Beasley? Or something else that was special to you tucked back in your childhood memories. I would love to hear about it.

How Big?

I always ask them "How big do you love Nana" This is how big!

Jail Monkey's

What do ya do when you can't get them to sit and be good! Put them in Jail! They loved it!!!

OMG!! The Pink Stamper

I love the blogger Robin, The pink Stamper. If you like scrapbooking or stamping you would too. She is fun and awesome to learn from or just to see all the cool stuff she does with five kids and a full life. What I am so excited about is she posted on my blog!!! I know to you no big deal but i am just about as excited as anyone can get. WWWWHHHHHOOOOO! You can go to her blog by clicking the button on the right.

The sugar jar

LOOK NANA!!
He thought what he had gotten into was awesome! And proud of it. I am recovering from surgery and I still took off to get the camera to get this in pictures. Andrew is a mess and loves to make one...

This took all of about 1 minute that he was not in view!

We should nickname him Mr. Mischief!