Sum Sum Summertime

Despite all the terribly hot weather that seems to be hotter each year, there is at least one really fabulous thing about summertime - playing outside in the sprinklers and enjoying a good old messy popsicle without caring where it drips! We recently had a great time down at Gran's playing in the sprinkler.

How handy...if you drop your lillipop in the grass, you just wash it off in the sprinkler!

Tasty!

Lollipop and sprinkler kisses for Gran!

Sprinklers make Blake smile!

What to do about popsicle juice running down your arm and everywhere else? What a bother!

No problem when there is a sprinkler around - what an easy way to clean up!

Modesty is always the right thing!

Hope you and yours are staying cool in the sprinklers this year. They make the day so much more fun!

Critters, Idaho, and Cheeky Monkeys

We love the Fort Worth Zoo - it is fabulous! Blake is really taken with birds, so this is one of our favorite stops at the zoo. Blake always wants a bird to come and sit on his head. I'm afraid of what else the bird will do besides sitting on his head.

Waiting for more birdies to come get a yummy bite. (And I'm sure Blake's mother hanging over into the bird's area didn't keep them away at all!)

Fascinated with fascinating animals.

Blake was eating his "breakfast bar" the other day and after a few bites he called me in to look at his Idaho that he had carved out! This kid makes me laugh.

At least I have a picture of him in his Thomas Undies...in case he never does decide to wear them for good! This picture makes me either want to pinch his little hiney or kiss it...I'm not sure which!

Beg Some More!

Man....do you guys ever know what I want to hear? Begging for pictures of the Blakester? You couldn't ask for anything that a mother would rather hear!

I'm so far behind on my blogging...I don't know what has gotten into me. Actually, I think I do. Back in May and June - I was really feeling rotten. I am better now. I will have to blog about it sometime. It was a terrible, terrible time....but the good thing is that I survived it all. More on that happy topic some other day. June was crazy with VBS - but that was the one thing that helped me feel better - so it was perfect timing. I loved ALMOST every minute of staying up at the church late. One night, the Gambills (no kids), the Isons (kids running around), and the Morrisons (kid running around) stayed about an hour after practice talking about such lovely things as husbands who expel gas in bed and the like. The OLDER and WISER married couple - Brian and Jennifer, advised the younger couples of their struggles and triumphs in this area - and in other areas of a similar nature. Very informative. I remember thinking to myself - are we really staying up here until 10:30 to discuss tooting and other issues? I'm not sure why we all stayed - but it was quite entertaining. I'm not sure what happened to July but August has been all about my JBF sale coming up. It's almost a full-time job right now....but it will ease up again before it gets crazy again.

Anyway, here are a few of my favorite Blake pictures from the past few months.

I know wagons are good for girls too...but there's something about a little boy and a red wagon that is just irresistable. Here he is getting ready to go out on the road for an adventure!

Ahhh the innocence of it all!

This picture cracks me up. We get to Gran's house with the wagon and Blake wants to be pulled around her back yard in the wagon. But....he wants to be more comfortable. So he gets an old pillow from her house and reclines in the wagon while his Gran-Servant pulls him around. I wish you could see Gran's hat - it's a killer! Of course, she could pull him around her yard for hours without getting tired!

Blake calls himself "The Chef" and this is the birthday cake that he was fairly involved in making for his Gran. He helped mostly with mixing the cake and not much at all on the icing and totally on the decorations of bugs. Nice job. He is the one that picked out the bug design at the grocery store - he just knew that's just what his grandmother would want!

I'm not sure this is what most of you want to see...but the spaghetti face is a classic picture.

There was an Easter Bunny sighting at our house. I think he knew when we cracked up every time he put those on that there was something different about them. And of course, our laughter made him not want to wear them. Bummer....he was quite the looker in them!

Hunting eggs in Gran's backyard. Man I love that kiddo!

So now I'm caught up through Easter. Maybe I can catch up soon! Thanks to all of you for caring about and loving my kid. I had no idea before I was a mommy how much it meant to a parent for others to love your child!

What Is Happening to Our World?

In the midst of the incredible unrest in the Middle-East and the down-right frightening discoveries in London this week, I've run across a story of astrogronomical proportions that should make us all thankful to be lying safely in our bed at night. Here is the link. Be sure to take a deep breath and maybe say a quick silent prayer before reading this story - it really cuts deep into the heart.

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20060812/D8JEK0JO0.html

Don't Forget to Hug Your Kids, Monty and Dean

I have a bad habit of staying up waaaaaaay too late. I do have the luxury of sleeping in later than most mommies do, so that is part of the problem. The problem I have been having recently is that my head hits the pillow at 1:30 or so and I lie there for an hour or more before I can fall asleep. It is maddening. Then I'm so sleepy at 4:00 p.m., I don't think I can keep my eyes open, but I force myself too - telling myself I will go to bed early. Somewhere around 11:30 p.m., I usually get my second wind. Strange schedule I'm having these days.

So last night is no different than most of my nights. Yesterday was a good day - a typical day mostly. At one point I read Danny's blog about the 2996 Tribute where you could write a tribute to on of the 9/11 victims on your blog, so I signed up and got a man's name, a New Yorker, that died in the World Trade Center. He was 39 when he died. So as I lay in bed trying to fall asleep, it dawns on me that if this man were still alive, he'd be about one year older than me. From there, my mind wanders to someone I think is about one year older than me. The two names I came up with are Monty Shaw and Dean Fry. I'm pretty sure Monty is a year older than me...not as sure about Dean...he may even be a year younger than me - I just can't remember. So as I lay there, I begin thinking about writing a tribute to someone I don't know - but imagining that this man was as important to his family and friends as Monty and Dean are to their families. Somehow, that made it so much more real. It was almost as if I was mourning Monty and Dean. It was crazy! I should have called both of them today just to make sure they were OK, but I feel pretty certain they are. So I began to grieve for this unknown man - and began to think if there would be some way to contact his family and find out more about him before I do my tribute to him. All this to say....why do I have to come up with such thought provoking topics so late at night.

I hope Monty and Dean had a good day today. Be sure to hug your kids and tell your wife you love her - and stay out of New York City if at all possible. I'll let you know if I get any more weird vibes about your demise.

I really hope Dean is older than me. Surely with all of those kids, he is!

He Just Outsmarted His Daddy!

Blake was fussing about something just now...not even sure what it was. His Daddy said "Blake, you need to stop crying because that's not how big boys cry." Blake's response "How do big boys cry, Daddy?" Don't ya love trying to keep a serious face when you are about to bust out laughing!

Karen Barker, Andrew Jackson, and the Pearly Gates

No...that's not the title of my latest novel about a brainiac and her obsession with a certain former president....

Yesterday at church, Karen B. brought two treasures to Blake. They sort of look like placemats - one of them had solar system pictures and facts and the other was about money - what it looks like and two of these add up to this, etc. I'm guessing these are two treasures that surfaced an their recent move into their new mansion. Anyway, she told me, referring to one of my previous posts, that even though it wasn't the Periodic Table of Elements, Blake might be interested in these. Well...THAT is an understatement. I've talked more about planets and money in the past 24 hours than I ever have before. Blake keeps saying "I need to learn more about money" or "Let's talk about the solar system". That boy is wearing me out!

So on one side of the money poster, is an enlarged $20 bill. I was going over all of the details of the bill with Blake and I told him the picture was of Andrew Jackson who used to be one of our presidents. He asked me if he would be president again some day and a whole new world opened up...one I've sort of been avoiding talking about until he is a little bit older.

So telling a 2 year old about death is not necessarily one of my favorite things to do. I've always gotten away without saying much. We have talked about Granddaddy (what my Dad probably would have been called if he had lived to see his granchildren) living in heaven with God many times. My mom and I like to tell Blake about Granddaddy. One time I was telling Blake that if his Granddaddy had ever met him, he would have loved him SOOOOOO much - maybe even more than Gran. Blake's answer to that: Granddaddy is loving me from heaven. Oh man....does that ever get ya!

So back to Andrew Jackson....

Blake is wanting to know if A. J. will ever be president again. Being caught a little off-guard and not having thought thru this, I said "no" with a long hesitation. I didn't want to say "he is dead" but instead, I say "he's in heaven." I cracked myself up when I said this. I just went ahead and judged and promoted this guy right up to heaven. I just figure if he made it on the $20, he can't be all bad, right?!? I hope A. J. does make it to heaven, incidentally, because I want to talk to him about that wild haircut.

After I mention Pres. Jackson being in heaven, Blake says "well where is the door to heaven so he can leave?" Then we go all into the why-you'd-never-want-to-leave-heaven discussion. I put it in 2 year old boy terms. I told Blake that we will all be together in heaven someday, that some of us will get there before the others and will be waiting for the others to join us. We will play with trains all day long and never have to take naps and we can eat snacks all day long. To that, he said "oooooooooooooooooo, I want to go there". Now I'm sure some of you would have gone into the whole Jesus is the Door thing - but Blake wasn't concerned with how to GET there, but how to LEAVE! It was a funny conversation. We talked about Granddaddy being there getting things ready for us....I know...another missed opportunity...and Blake thought it all sounded like a pretty good deal.

So as this conversation ended, I'm thinking of all the things I shouldn't have said or should have said and just laughed at myself...thinking it was all over.

Wrong!

This morning, Blake was lying in bed by me...actually, there wasn't much lying going on. Blake likes to gather up all the pillows (they usually are bubbles - whether they are bathtub bubbles or bubbles on the ocean) and my blanket and usually he becomes a fish diving in the sea to catch "fish and bugs" to eat. As he was flailing around in the pillows and covers, I heard him say "I'm sitting here in this little hole - it is heaven". So now he is pretending to be in heaven. I'm not quire sure what to do with that. He said something about "there are no animals here" and I reassured him that there is a heaven for animals...because the only way I personally can survive the loss of one of my dogs is to convince myself there is a doggy heaven. So he started back into the leaving heaven and I just told him that I would explain heaven more to him when he got a little bit older and he was cool with that.

All I know is this...next time this comes up, I'm putting Blake on the phone with Karen B. because I figure she is somehow responsible for all of this!