Susie

Today was the funeral of my Great grandmother Susie. We called her Susie even though her name was really Nealy - not sure where the name Susie came from.....that's just what we've always called her. Here is the cover of the program from her service today which was really nice by the way.




Here's my dad looking at all the
dozens of plants and flowers in
my grandparent's garage after
the funeral.


I was going through some old pictures
tonight and found a few of Susie........
This is one of her at her 93rd
birthday party.


Here is a picture of Susie with me on my
college graduation day in December 1998.
I still remember her trying to climb up all
those steps in the coliseum. She was a
trooper for sure!


One of the nice things about today is that we got to see family that we haven't see in a really long time. I have 8 cousins on my dad's side of the family (Susie's great grandkids) and it's very rare for us to all be in the same place at the same time. Here is a picture of us several years ago (not exactly sure what year though). I'm pretty sure this is one of a few pictures we have of all of us together.

So, we decided today that we needed to take another picture. My dad had us line up in order starting with the oldest great grandchild (yours truly). After me is Greg, my brother Jason, Brent (just recently released from prison back in May), Michael, Brandon, Matthew, Steven, Jeffrey, and Megan.

Speaking of my cousin Brent, today was the first time he had ever seen the girls and Logan, and the first time I've seen him in about 6 years. He missed alot while in prison, but he really seems to have turned his life around for the better. He played with the girls all afternoon at my grandmother's house after the funeral. He is really good with kids and the girls enjoyed getting to know him - although they weren't too sure about his pluthera of tattoos. Brent is a very interesting character - I have many memories of him as a child having a strong fascination with animals. I will never forget the time that he caught a buzzard and put this bright red t-shirt on it and then set it free. Months passed by and you would still see that ole buzzard flying around Jewett in his red t-shirt. And people would say, "Look....there goes Brent's buzzard!" You may think I am joking - I. am. not. :)

Here is a video of him "racing" the girls today

at my grandmother's house. And yes, that is

my dad trying to keep up still dressed in his

nice clothes from the funeral. Give it up

Papaw!!!

The day ended with us trying to get back in time for me to vote by 7:00 p.m. I made it to our polling location at 6:15 p.m. and was done at 6:20 p.m. People thought I was crazy for not voting early - well, I've never voted early and I never plan to! Why should I go and vote early and stand in line for an hour???? I've always waited to vote until Election Day and I go about 30 minutes before the polls close. I've done that every time and have never had to wait at all - right in and out BABY!!!

Updates . . .

I don't even know where to start . . .

How about . . .

So much has happened in the last week or so. Stephen left last Friday evening to go to Colorado on business. My mom came down on Friday as well as Stephen's parents to help me with the kiddos for Halloween. We had a really good time perusing the neighborhood, but it just wasn't the same without Daddy. Logan rode along in his wagon as the girls led the way to each house. Lauren had no fear, but Leah was a bit more hesitant to go up to the door. Some people down the street had set up this really cool haunted house. We went down to check it out and I asked the girls if they wanted to go through it. Leah, of course, said no. Lauren, however wanted to try it. I went through it with her and couldn't believe how she just waltzed right through there like it was no big deal! Later that night on the phone, I heard her telling Stephen that she went through this haunted house and there were people with "bleed" all over them - it was too cute! My mom ended up spending the night and helped me do grocery shopping with the kids Saturday morning - something I never do alone unless I am absolutely desperate. She had planned to stay all day and help, but we received a call from my brother that said my great grandmother, Susie, was not doing very well and was not expected to live through the day. She was 98 years old and had been in the hospital over in Bryan/College Station for about a week. My mom left to meet up with my dad and head over there and it's a good thing because they were only there for about 25 minutes and then she died. The funeral is going to be tomorrow in Jewett so Stephen took an early flight home tonight from Colorado so that he could go with me and the kids tomorrow. I'm so glad to have him home!

I've also begun planning Logan's first birthday party which will be exactly one week after we get back from Disney. And, of course, the theme will be Mickey Mouse! I found some really cute Mickey stuff online last night and couldn't resist ordering it. I can't believe he is about to turn one - where has the time gone? He looked at me on Sunday morning as I was feeding him his cereal and said, "Uh-oh", as I dropped some on his tray. I couldn't believe it! He's also very close to walking - I'm hoping he'll be walking when we go to Disney - I would love to get a picture of him running to Mickey! Wouldn't that be priceless?

Changing gears to school . . . . last week was Red Ribbon Week (Drug-free week) and each day had a theme. Here are some of the pictures of my awesome team! They really are the best!

This is a picture of my class dressed as scarecrows on Fall Fun Day - we had a blast!

Meet our Jack-o-lantern

Check out our cool pumpkin, "Jack", that the girls carved with Stephen this evening. Stephen ended up staying home today to take care of Logan. He has had an upset tummy since last Friday. It got worse over the weekend so we didn't want to send him to Ms. Cheryl's today so Stephen stayed home with him. He said he didn't have any diarrhea until this afternoon. We've been having to change him, give him a bath, change sheets/clothes, about every 30 minutes or so. It has not been fun - I feel so bad for him. It doesn't seem to bother him much though. He's not throwing up and he's still eating and taking his bottles like normal. I am thinking he may have a touch of the rotavirus which is like stomach flu for infants (so I've heard). The research I've read on the internet says they can have it anywhere from 3 to 7 days. I'm hoping we've seen the worst of it. Changing dirty sheets and giving him a bath at 3 a.m. last night was torture. Stephen is leaving on Friday to Colorado for a week on business. Thank God this didn't happen while he was gone and I was here by myself.

High School Musical 3 ROCKS!!!

This weekend we took the girls to see the newly released and HIGHLY anticipated High School Musical 3! I must say it was awesome! My personal opinion is that this one is the best of the three. The girls absolutely loved it. We bought the tickets online late Friday night and surprised them on Saturday morning. We went early and there was a line, but it wasn't too bad. I'm sure it got worse as the day went on. We also got the girl's High School Musical Halloween costumes in the mail this week so we thought we would try them on for fun!

May I introduce Ms. Gabriella Montez . . .

And, Ms. Sharpay Evans . . .

And last, but certainly not least . . .

The one and only.................POOH BEAR!!!!

Here's "happy" Pooh . . .

"Frustrated with this silly hat" Pooh . . .

And "Pooh on the prowl!"

Donuts with Dad

Today the girls got to attend "Donuts with Dad" at school. They have been looking forward to it all week. All dads are invited to come and have breakfast with their kiddos before school starts. It was the highlight of their day. Later this year they will have "Muffins with Mom" so then it will be my turn!

Reunion weekend . . .

We had a great time seeing and visiting with family and old friends at my home church in Huntsville yesterday. They had a nice service followed by a delicious catered lunch and then a special celebration program after that. We went to my parents house afterwards to hang out with them and my brother and his family. MawMaw's pumpkin cookies were a hit as always!!!

Here is a picture of the program from yesterday . . . they also had really neat pictures and murals on the walls of past church members and pastors.











This is my friend Nicole - she was my roommate when I graduated college and while I started my first "real" teaching job at Huntsville Elementary.










Speaking of Huntsville Elementary, we usually drive by there on the way to my parent's house so I took a quick photo of it as we were driving by. I taught there for 2 years before we moved here in 2001.






And here are the kids (big and little) enjoying MawMaw's pumpkin cookies!

Stephen made it home safely on Friday after being in Georgia for a week. We survived without him, but are soooooo glad he's home. The girls were really good while he was gone which made things so much easier for me. It occurred to me today that I hadn't even discussed with the girls what they wanted to be for Halloween this year. I started searching costumes online and was looking for a Mickey Mouse costume for Logan, but had a hard time finding one. We are doing a Mickey Mouse theme for his first birthday so I thought it would be fitting for him to be Mickey for Halloween. However, the majority of Mickey costumes I found were those really furry, hot looking costumes. So I thought......well......if I can't get Mickey, we'll get the next best thing - Pooh Bear! I did find one at Costumes Express that is very cute, reasonably priced and doesn't look like it will be too stuffy for him. We shall see. I had the girls in here earlier tonight looking at costumes online - I didn't think they would ever make a decision. We probably looked at costumes for over an hour. Finally, Lauren decided she wanted to be Gabriella from High School Musical and Leah wants to be Sharpay. I told them it should be the other way around due to their hair colors, but couldn't convince them. So, looks like we're buying wigs too! That should be interesting. They sure have got some strange things that you can be for Halloween these days. We saw everything online from a lifesize whoopie cushion to an infant's Billy Ray Cyrus costume complete with brown mullet hair. What the heck is up with that????
On another note, we are heading to Huntsville tomorrow to attend a special reunion celebration at the church I grew up in. It is the 75 year reunion at University Heights Baptist Church. They are having a catered lunch and special services tomorrow to honor the occasion. I'm looking forward to seeing old friends and faces. I attended this church from birth up until we moved here in 2001. I was baptized in this church as a child, met my childhood best friends there, was part of the youth group and then later the college ministry, was married there in March 2000 and had the girls dedicated there in 2003. So, obviously it holds many special memories. We go up to visit whenever we can, and have tried to find another church like it here in the area. However, I've come to realize that there will never be another UHBC. We attended Gateway Baptist here in the area for 7 years, but it didn't even come close to being like my church home back in Huntsville. The church leadership is going through some serious issues there right now and we believe God has called us to move on and worship somewhere else. We have recently started attending Fellowship of the Woodlands.....one of our very good friends is now a worship leader there. They offer two services on Saturday night and two on Sunday morning. We have tried all 4 services several times and like different things about all of them. We have several friends from Gateway that have visited with us as well. Never thought I would like attending church on a Saturday night, but we love attending the service they offer called Emerge. Alot of people say it's too big....why would you want to go to a church that's so big? Well, I'm going to worship God and I'm not worried about how many people are there. I think there are alot of misconceptions about Fellowship and now that we've been going there for about 3 months I can say that I feel they believe in what we believe ---the Bible is truth. The girls love the children's program there which is great! They have a Bible story each week, they learn scripture and have alot of fun! They had gotten to the point where they didn't even want to go to church at Gateway - that is NOT a good sign! Gateway is currently without a Children's minister and a Youth minister so this was another reason we felt it was time to move on. And let's just say that the nursery at Fellowship is on LOCK DOWN! That has always been one of my biggest "fears". I know it may sound silly, but I have issues with leaving my babies in church nurseries - especially ones that have no security systems and any Joe Blow from the street could walk in and take your child! Logan loves his little room at church and let's just say there ain't no way anybody's getting out of there with him! I'm tellin' ya - LOCKDOWN baby!!!
Anyway, we're excited about it....even though I know it could never replace the memories and the people of UHBC......I'm excited to make new memories there if that's what God continues to call us to do. I'll post some pics after tomorrow's reunion. TTFN....