We did it!

After a lot of hard work (see above) and hard play (see below), we have made a cool upgrade to Harrison's bedroom. Over Christmas I was looking at a magazine and saw a built-in bed that caught my eye because of all the storage that came with it. WELL, I just happen to be married to Mr. If-I-Don't-Know-How-To-Do-It-Right-Now-Then-I'll-Figure-It-Out-Pretty-Fast (Actually his name is Dan Gilbert) and he said to just give the word and he'd make it for me. Sigh. It is a charmed life I lead.
Anyway, I couldn't get a picture to truly do it justice. HUGE drawers underneath the bed, floor to ceiling bookshelves, and a beautiful built-in armoire. Now when y'all try to picture what I do with the boys all day, you can think of us all cuddled up there with a pile of books having a reading party. (I'd rather you picture that than some of the other not as sweet things we do every day.)

Thinking of you, Dot

My grandma, Dorothy Jean Patton, passed away this morning, and I can't help but feel the world is a little less of a nice place to be because of it. I know it's human nature to remember only the best of someone after they are gone, but I promise you that I esteem Grandma Dot as one of the best good women of the world.

One of my earliest memories of Grandma happened while she was taking care of my sister and me. We must have been just horribly rotten and given her quite a time because she got frustrated and told us that she was going to come down and swat us on our bottoms. We'd never been threatened with violence from her before, and we took this challenge seriously. I can just picture Michelle and I intensely discussing the problem before coming up with a solution. We scurried into the bathroom, stuffed as much toilet paper as our pants would hold into our underwear, and then went to face our punishments. We thought we'd outsmarted her for sure. And down she came (I can only imagine what she thought when she saw our bulging behinds). I turned around and bent over, only to be shocked and almost disappointed at the little tap she planted on my rear. It was certainly like no spanking I'd received before. And that's when I learned something wonderful about grandmas in general, and mine in particular. They love us.

As a grown woman, I've had the chance to learn lots of other things about Miss Dorothy Jean. She believed in people like I've never seen anyone else do. As she attended all sorts of plays, concerts, and performances by her grandchildren she would tell us all so earnestly that we should go professional in whatever endeavor it happened to be. She wasn't just saying it to be nice; she really saw talent in us and wanted us to shoot for the moon. She always made me feel like I could do anything, with a wholehearted support I haven't encountered many other places. She loved my husband's malts and if I wasn't in love with him before she met him, you can bet she would have convinced me to be. I think she had a special soft spot for him--they were kind of kindred spirits in a lot of ways.

Grandma loved to blare her all-Elvis radio channel and I think she only turned it off when she was watching Fox News. I love that she loved Greta. Grandma could take in stride Harrison's "No way, Dot! No way!" first thing in the morning and still be ready and willing to bribe him with M&M's all the live long day. She watched an entire season of 24 in a three-day period with Dan and me. It'd be verging on midnight and us youngin's would be ready to turn in after three episodes in a row, but she'd have that gleam in her eye and say, "Are you ready for one more?"

Grandma used to come to church with us on General Conference Sundays. There was always a bit of strategery going on because we all wanted to sit by her. Not just when we were little, either. Sitting by Grandma at church meant that you'd be treated to one of those drowsiness-inducing hand massages that she had a special knack for. Heaven-on-Earth. But not to worry, even when you were beat out for the coveted seat, all was not lost. You could always count on a little blue roll of Certs, or a box of Tic Tacs to make its way down to you during the meeting. Not too long ago, I got to go to church with Gram and Michelle and her family. During the service I happened to glance down and saw that the tradition was being continued with Luke. I'm so glad he had the chance to get a Grandma Patton hand massage. Nothing like it.

I know I'm rambling. I had envisioned being able to sit down and write an eloquent, fabulous tribute to one of this blog's most ardent supporters and biggest fans. I'm failing at that, but I do want to at least express this. I love you, Grandma. I'm so glad I've had all the chances I've had to be with you, learn from you, love you, and be loved by you. I'm so happy that you've moved on to a place of greater peace and joy. I'm just sad for the rest of us that have been so spoiled by your attention and affection and are now at a loss. You are missed.

Things on my mind tonight

I'm back, trying to stay afloat in the blogging world. It can be tough, getting back here often enough to keep your readership feeling satiated and not wanting to roam to greener pastures where the text is not only more frequent but much wittier. So here's a sampling of what's running through my mind tonight:

Here's a glimpse of the boys hanging out this past Saturday morning. I don't know why I love these kind of shots so much. I think it's something about the tired "I just woke up" eyes and the sweet little jammies. My favorite pictures of myself as a kid are morning p.j. shots like this and I want to make sure I have good ones for the boys.

Not to change the subject, but Aldi rocks. I'm munching on a delicious orange I purchased from said store today and get this--the whole bag of oranges cost 99 cents. Nice. Once in a while I'm mocked for driving half an hour to get to an Aldi, but people just don't know how much money you can save. Not to mention it's a block away from the day old bread store. That alone is worth the gas to get there.

I was making soup today and found myself with no onions. If I had realized I was out of them when I was at Aldi, I assure you I could have picked some up for a handsome price, but alas, I thought I had just got a bag. So, in the kitchen, without onions. Then I remember--a couple years back I purchased a number 10 can of dehydrated chopped onions for food storage. I dug through my food storage, found it, and now I have a heck of a lot of dried onion to go through. I'm feeling up to the challenge.



I'm becoming more Southern or something. In the last few months I've been catching myself saying "fer" instead of "for" and I'm not joking. Horrifying. I don't know how to stop it because I'm not even cognisant of it until after the fact. Also, my use of "got" has been annoying me. I don't know if I'm using it differently, or if I'm just becoming aware of it. Hmmm.



Oh!! This really belongs at the top of the blog, not here, but I'm on a roll and not gonna stop. Tru rolled over on Monday! That'd be January 7th. Not even four months old. I realize that may not be remarkable to a lot of people, but I'm coming from the vantage point of the mother of Harrison (Baby Lardo). He didn't roll till he was sitting up at six months. You put on one of those sumo wrestling suits and then you'll see why he was a late bloomer in that regard. Anyway, I'll post a pic of Tru doing a little tummy time soon.



Lastly, I wanted you to check out H-man loving on his tool bench he got for Christmas (Santa found it at Goodwill for $6!)

Another little nibble...

Here's a couple more peeks into the Christmas vacation. Don't you love that wistful look on Tru's face when he's being held by Aunt April? I think he's thinking in his head how nice it would be to go home with her.... But he looks pretty happy with Aunt Jamie too. The kid loves his aunts! Almost as much as H-man loves his cousins. I'm finding that I didn't get hardly any pics of Mimi, Walker, and Lizzie. I'll try to search through what other people took, because they're just too cute to not show off.

You eat an elephant one bite at a time

I have so many things I want to report on and several musings I'd like to ramble on with for a while and I'm overwhelmed. I'm starting with just the snow fun Harrison had with his Daddy up in Michigan over Christmas. I knew he loved being outside here in Nashville, but I wasn't sure how he'd take the cold. Please. I should have known by now--the kid loves the outdoors. He took like a fish to water playing with his Alaska cousins Bradley and Clayton. They were his instant idols. Here are a few of the highlights from his snow fun.