Alice in Wonderland

We are working up to the last week of Alice in Wonderland rehearsals. The performances start on Thursday. Whitney had to sing in two church services today. They were cute. The kids did a good job. I look forward to the technical practices this week as they work with the microphones and lighting and get everything performance ready! Whitney is having so much fun. She is so passionate about being on stage...it is really neat to see her so dedicated and serious about it.

Here is a slideshow from their warm-ups from today. Whitney absolutely loves the teenager that plays the Queen of Hearts!

Scrapbooking with Relatives

John's mother hosted her Fourth Annual Fabulous Female Scrapbooking weekend this weekend. I got 63 pages done and that was after spending most of Friday afternoon at Memaw's house working. I did stay up until 2AM both nights, so that might have helped me get the work done. (and boy am I feeling my age today....I am tired!!!) I enjoyed seeing the family and especially the relatives that live far away that I don't see often. (two of John's cousins and his Aunt Rosie) We laughed and enjoyed our time together. We also enjoyed watching the Olympics together.

Memaw

My Memaw is not doing well. It is amazing how fast someone can start to deteriorate! She is continuing with a positive attitude, she is not in pain and she is not scared, and for all of that, I am grateful!

Friday, I got a babysitter and I went to her house and helped my Aunt Judy clean out a bunch of books. One of my Memaw's passions is reading, so she has THOUSANDS of books (no lie!) in her tiny house! I bet I removed 500 books on Friday for donation. We were laughing at some of the titles. She must have been bored and purchased books at the checkout at the grocery store or something. All of her western/cowboy books are being given to John's grandfather. He loves to read as do a lot of his "friends" at the nursing home, so there will be plenty to share!

I talked to my Aunt today and it seems my Memaw is just continuing to decline. She is very weak. They go to the doctor again tomorrow....we will see.

I took several pictures of our cleaning out attempts. The one really bad thing about my new camera is if I delete the pictures, they are gone. I just don't know what I was doing but I accidentally deleted all of the picture of the clean up except for this one! This is the picture of what the house looked like when I walked in on Friday. This is the kitchen!!!! So, you can see the job that my Aunt Judy has ahead of her....I hope to go back this week and lend a helping hand. There is a lot to be done. We were making room for a hospital bed on Friday. I had great pictures of the man bringing the bed and setting it up and realizing that he FORGOT the mattress!!!!!! Ah, just another part of this journey!

Six Flags in August

The girls earned free tickets to Six Flags through a reading program at school. It is a tradition that John takes them, so yesterday was the day. I was feeling really bad for him because I knew it was gonna be HOT!!!! Well, yesterday was unseasonably a nice day with temperatures less than 100 and a bit of a breeze and there were no lines at the park!!!!! They had a BLAST!!!!!! He was even sweet enough to take pictures with his cell phone to show me. Mason went along with them since Gracie couldn't make it to Six Flags this week. (the tickets expire on Sunday) John said that it was great having an even number for the rides. I am so glad that they had a great time. It was afer 11 PM when they got home and Whitney had "Alice in Wonderland" practice this morning!!!!

Beach Vacation Pictures....FINALLY!

WARNING!!!! This slide show is long, but I had a thousand pictures to pick from! We had such a great vacation. The kids traveled so well. One thing that helped was boxes that were packed by my friend, Gracie, for the trip. She had a box for each kid and there were gifts to be opened as we crossed each state line....VERY creative. We took our old BIG van instead of the mini-van, and boy and I glad that thing had not sold, yet....we needed every inch of space. Our beach house was great. It was a wonderful floor plan that met all of our needs. Blayne was thrilled because he had a tv in his room! He was the envy of the girls. We enjoyed relaxing in the house, and going to the pool. The beach was so much fun. The kids loved catching sand crabs at night. John caught a real crab one night! We had a fun experience eating at Lambert's (known as the home of the thrown roll!) It was a great dinner until Whitney THREW UP at the table!!!! We also took the kids to see Wall-E and enjoyed eating a local beach front restaurant. Reagan really missed watching Telletubbies, so she was thrilled when we stopped at my parents house on the way home and she got to see HER show! This was a fun time away and we enjoyed our time together as a family! Well, enjoy....don't fall asleep!

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Nephew Sleepover

My nephews are spending the night tonight. After an afternoon of swimming and fun, they came home WIRED and ready to play. John had the kids play in the backyard while he mowed and I got Reagan all settled for bed. The kids were laughing and having a great time. Savannah has gone to spend the night with Nana because we didn't have room for everyone to ride in our van. She is enjoying some peace and quiet as an only child at her grandparents' house and we are in a mad house over here! Whitney took charge of being the oldest and read the boys a bedtime story tonight. It was The Legend of the Candy Cane. It was so sweet to hear them talking about Jesus being our shepherd and that this man wanted to make candy canes so that he could tell others about Jesus. My nephews were real impressed that the little girl in the story is named "Katie" the same as their sister! After baths, I couldn't resist a little "beauty shop" again. If you remember the pictures of Katie Beth with her vicious looking spikes for pigtails a couple of weeks ago, you will understand how much fun it was to play with Charlie's thick, beautiful head of hair....and he let me! Well, everyone is in bed and asleep (I think!). I am headed to bed soon, too. My new little guy was up MORE than once last night! I am so tired. And, I am expecting the pitter-patter of little boy feet EARLY in the morning. Blayne is so thrilled to have the boys here. He gets so tired of always being outnumbered by GIRLS!

Swimming

Today we had a party at my sister-in-law's sister-in-law's house (you have to think a minute about that one!) The kids had a great time swimming and we tried out Luke's swimming skills too!