Our yearly gift from The Ryans and The Muellers

Every year we receive a gift in loving memory of Robbie from family members. This year it was a Pinnochio. It's beautiful. As most of you know from being in our home in Florida, Nick and I collect Pinnochio's in Robbie's memory. When Robbie was little, one of his favorite movies was Pinnochio and he could never say his name so he called it "Miricowhee" For some reason, that has remained special between Nick and I and we have collected them in his memory ever since his death. When we go antiquing, we look for them. We have over 125 of them in all shapes and sizes. We will be putting up our collection in the game room like we had in our Florida home. When we see a Pinnochio, we think of Robbie and we SMILE!

CLEAR THE ROADWAY! AND DO IT NOW!

Well, there was no snow today like predicted so I went out and got on my motorcycle and practiced. Nick rode on the Harley long side of me to make sure I was gonna stay up and on it and not be kissing the pavement. I managed to put about 3 miles on it going up and down in the subdivision.

At one point I took it up the back field toward the back of the house and up the gravel driveway that leads to the main driveway, that's where Nick had to take over. He said - what were ya thinking, I can't even get the Harley up gravel like that. I just chuckled. I LOVE being FIESTY.

Anyway, we went out on the Harley to deliver a gift and when we got back in the subdivision I asked him if I could try driving THE HARLEY to the house. AND, I did it. Managed to keep it straight up all 750 lbs of metal and rubber. He said - oh wait, get the camera and post it on the blog so your friends can see it. Thats right buddy boy! I then proceeded to have an anxiety attack thinking- wow I drove all that metal. Time for a NAP and EGGNOG.

Two new pics of the Kelly girls

Emily just turned 7 on December 16th and Rowie is going to be 2 on December 31st. WOW, hard to believe it.

The Legend of the Fruit Cake

I can tell this story only now because my sisters would all laugh seeing mom is dead and gone and her infamous fruitcake will always be forever in our hearts. Christmas time is as you know, the time of year when it surfaces in every household whether it is needed or not.

My mom always made Grandma Uebelhoer's recipe for fruitcake. And I have to admit, I loved my mothers fruitcake - God rest her soul. It did not ever have that Citron in it like store made fruitcake has. It was actually quite expensive to make. Mom made it every year even in lean times when the candied fruits and nuts got to be very expensive to buy. When she would mail our gifts to us (seeing we were in the military and not local) there was always a fruitcake tucked in the box. My girls loved gramma's fruitcake. Even Nick who hates nuts, loved mom's fruitcake.

Well, my twin sister hated mom's fruitcake and never had the heart to tell mom this. Each year, mom would send her the infamous fruitcake (because she did not live local as well) and Yes, Barbie would pack that fruitcake up and ship it onto me because she didn't have the heart to tell mom she HATED the fruitcake. There were times when the we would wait till we saw each other while dropping off mom to each other in Valdosta, GA and we'd sneak "THE FRUITCAKE" into the trunk of the car while mom wasn't looking to get it out of her house. With the cost of fruit and nuts, she didn't have the heart to throw it out either. It became a tradition that I GOT her fruitcake every year. And mom never knew it.

I am attaching a picture of a pillow that comes out every year and sits in memory of "the fruitcake". I have the recipe, but now that I have built this beautiful home I probably will never be able to afford the fruits and nuts to make my own fruitcake like mom did. And you can bet your bottom dollar, IF I could, I would sure as shootin, wrap one up and send it to my twin sister, just so she could flush it!

I AM GONNA BRAVE THIS ONE FOR OLD TIME SAKE!

OK, I cannot believe I dressed up like this for Wakie Takie day at OCS way back 2 years ago. And I sat at my desk, yes ALL day looking like this. These are Skippy's shoes I have on, and the dress - OH MY WORD, you wouldn't catch me near it today. AND I am about 16 lbs heavier here! WHAT was I thinking? Is that not dedication to a job or what. NOT! NEVER AGAIN. Girls at OCS (and guys) STOP LAUGHING. I think I might just wear this dress to SKippy's wedding - what a "mother of the bride" dress this would make and a fashion statement at that!

WELL ITS ABOUT TIME

I drove 9.5 hours to Florida and at 10:00 a.m. this morning standing at the sonography place on, Friday, December 15th, while on three way with Sis and Nick (Skip couldn't be there) we found out we were having grandson # 1.

At 1:00 p.m. on three way with Sis and Nick with Natalie standing there in the room we found out we are having grandson # 2! We are so excited we can't stand it! Sunday, I will get in the car and drive 9.5 hours back!

Gas - $80.00
Hotel - $106
Seeing the look on their faces, priceless

Lincoln helps set up the tree

This is Lincoln Folger. He's my other Ragdoll. He was "helping with the tree trimming. I have one ornament that makes a bell sound and I always know when the "boys" are under the tree messing around with it. Dead giveaway! BY THE WAY - I fixed the camera. So much for rechargeable batteries.

THE CLUMPING OF THE ORNAMENTS

I am so disappointed and I need help! I was all set to take pictures of the tree having ALL of it's branches on it and the lights on it and guess what? The digital camera won't work and I am mad!

Now all you tech/camera people, tell me what I am doing wrong. It's blinking when I try and turn it on and I put fresh batteries in it and it's a fine time for it to STOP! There are pictures to be made and stories to be told. Send me help - please!

Anyway. As I began putting up the tree ornaments, I thought about how Rebecca used to help with decorating last year and she would put all the ornaments in one spot - yes CLUMPING. It was so cute. I laughed at how she was so proud of her beautiful creation. When she left of course, I would un-clump them but it was so cool. Now, mind you I can hear my girls saying - my mom would never have let me put those ornaments in a clump! Girls, thats a GRANNY'S perogative! It's so different when you are a gramma! You let them get away with murder.















In all seriousness, we have the tradition of putting a new ornament on our tree every year in memory of Robbie. As I hang the ones we have picked out for him each year, it brings tears to my eyes as they were chosen special because of the different moments/memories he brought to our life. We have, sneakers, a cowboy hat, trucks, pinnochio... Wow, hard to believe this is our 18th year without him.

MAYBE IF I WATER IT, IT WILL FINISH ITSELF

OK, I am not believing I have to put up a Christmas tree along with everything else I have done this year. I went from selling a house, packing a house, moving a house, living in who knows how many homes, living in a rental, packing up a rental, moving out of a rental, moving into a house, settling a house, and NOW I have to put a tree up! Their joking right?

Don't they have tree fairies for this kinda stuff? Now I know why Erma Bombeck was a famous author and wrote hysterical stories about the silly things in life that make you crazy. I just missed out on her wealth somewhere along the line.

I started putting this tree up and realized, this house, has ceiling tall enough to accomodate ALL levels of the tree. WOW. We can put the star back on the top now. Boy and I complained about the design of this house and too many windows, little did I know that I was secretly designing tall enough ceilings to accomodate my tree all along and I didn't know it. The Lord works in mysterious ways.

Now if it would just put it's own lights on itself, I would be even happier!

ONLY THE BEGINNING

OK, here you have it. This is my new goal in life. Yes, I am going to learn to play the drums. STOP laughing, it's not polite.

Richard and Diane came over tonight and Richard says I have good potential. He's excellent at playing the drums and he is loaning me his set till I decide if this is what I want to do. I have been practicing in the car driving down the highway for weeks now and wondering why people keep staring at me. Nick says if I get good enough, he'll buy me my own set.

All I can say is, it's a good thing we live on a acre of land and we have a basement and two levels separating it from the bedroom where we sleep. MOVE OVER THREE DOG NIGHT and PINK PHLOYD!

HIS FAVORITE SPOT

This is my Renniger! He's now the oldest of our cats and he is one of my Ragdoll cats (I have 2). Nick gave him to me when he was a kitty. He is a purebred and this is his favorite spot in our new house. He sits at the top of the stairs leading to our bedroom. He is one handsome man - that's what I call him - my handsome man! He weighs about 18lbs and he's huge. But when he meows, you can hardly hear him. His nickname is Mr. Yielding!

Honey, WE DON'T NEED STUDS, WE AIN'T HANGING A DEER HEAD!

This one I had to laugh at. We went round and round on it till I thought I would spit. He did not want to hang these shelves that we had in our Florida house on this new wall because there were NO Studs where the hook gadgets were and he was determined they were NOT gonna stay up there. Well, Nick suggests these honker of huge sinker type holders that would have held six deer heads to the wall (mind you, 2 for each shelf) and I laid down the law that those anchors were NOT going into those new walls.

We discussed it some more, tossed over putting it off till he could get to Mountain Building Supply the next day (where he works) and get something that would "do the trick" and I said - HONEY, we aren't gonna put anything heavier than a picture frame on them, lets just go with a nail and put the stinking things up.

As you can see, They are now up. Yes they will fall off I am sure - as they did in the Florida house many a times. But mamma's happy and we are moving onto the next project!

BY the way, GUS, we used a high tech laser level gadget that would have made you a very happy man. He had this beam going every which way and it would have leveled the world! Thank goodness he borrowed it, didn't buy it!

It's finally starting to look like it's lived in

Everytime I turn around, there's another box. I am slowly getting things put up. With all the windows in this house, I am very limited on wall space so I am rearranging where pictures go and having to relocate all the stuff that was hung in rooms that had walls in Florida BUT they now have windows and NO walls.
Here are a few shots of rooms getting settled in.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

It is hard to believe that it will be almost one year since we put our Briarwood Court house on the market back in December 2005. We did it just prior to going to Texas for Christmas to be with Sarah and Mike and the girls to celebrate Rowan's one year birthday. NOW Rowie will be 2 the end of December, and we are finally in our new house here in GA. Alot has happened since this blog came under construction the beginning of January when Sarah helped Dad set this up so we could begin showing the process of building our home.

And to think, now we have 4 granddaughters and two more grandbabies on the way and JJ & Lizzy will become our step grandchildren next year and with Katie being our step graddaughter we will have - 9 grandchildren come 2007! Boy am I feeling old. But I am not getting my cane out yet and Grampa and I are hoping to trade up that Harley Sportster for a RoadKing some day and well then we might just look like Gramma and Grampa as we ride into their prospective towns to see all those grandbabies. Grampa says Granny still looks good in her chaps no matter how many grandbabies she has!

As of next Friday, December 15th we will happily post what the sex of those new babies will be and then Granny can begin shopping for those "hopefully" boy things (maybe - maybe not). We will keep you POSTED!

Here's Rowie

Here's our little Rowie! Sis did get a picture of her.

Remember Family & Friends

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Do we have to go in and wash up for supper???

This is Emzgirl and Lizzy and they weren't posing for this one. Another day of sitting on Grampa's truck. Bonding

Rebecca Rae Weeks

This is my sweet Pete Pete. She has hair that could win an award for the curliest in the county! She has a sweet smile and sometimes she get this puzzled look on her face like she is in deep thought working on getting the question to pop out from under all that hair. She too has big brown eyes. What a girl. Pete's in in Kindergarten this year.

Howdy Partners

Ok, I saw these hats at the local (I mean local right down the street Dollar General) and had to buy 11 of them for a Photo Op. I knew Sis could pull it off with her camera. Just getting them all to sit still was a major task in itself.

You have to take note of RAYAH LEE front and center with her Black satin dress, black velvet coat and patton leather shoes - & of course NO socks or stockings. It was the best 11 dollars I have ever spent!

Emily wins the prize though for sitting like a true Cowgirl in her dress!

This is Katie & Amanda. Katie is my step grandaughter. Michael is our son-in-law married to Sarah and she is his daughter by his first marriage. She is 10 years old. She lives with her biological mom in Mississippi. She came for Thanksgiving. Amanda is my sisters daughter and she is 11.

The Cooks in the kitchen

This is my niece Rachel (my oldest sister Charlene's) daughter and my twin sister Barbie. This was their Kodak moment. Rachel is 4 years younger than us. She lives in Charlotte, NC. Barbie lives in Roswell.

Hail Hail the gangs all here.

It is hard to imagine all of us in one place at one time! Oh JJ was there, he was in his room in time out. Just a few feet away!

Three Peas in a pod

The kids hung out in the front of the yard most of the time. They loved climbing up on Grampa's truck and this is another one of Sissy's great shots. What would we do without her talent! Rebecca(right) Emily, Lizzy(left)

Rayah Lee - "I'm A Princess"

This is my Rayah. Her middle name is Lee. Just like her Granny Langdon! She could not remember to call me Honey which is what Rebecca has called me instead of Granny. So she chose to call me Sissy. She would say to Grampa - "pepa" - pointing at me - there's your Sissy.

She talked non stop while she was here, busy as a beaver and said she was a princess all the time. Then once she said she was a princess and then superman in the next breath. I looked at her and said "girl, you are all over the place." She has the most addicting little smile and big brown eyes that melt you. While all the kids had pants and sneakers on, she had a black satin dress with a black fur jacket on and black patten leather shoes - and NO socks or stocking mind you. What a girl. She was the bell of the ball the whole week.

She is a hoot

This is Rowan in her leopard dress. We didn't get alot of pics of Rowan at Thanksgiving so I stole this off of the Sissy's blog.

Our First Big Gathering at Our New Home

WOW. We Did IT. We had 27 people for Thanksgiving Day 2006. We cooked a 24 lb Turkey and had a Honey Baked ham and all the fixins and WE survived it. Lined the kids in the family room with card tables with the legs folded up on buckets turned upside down and made them eat oriental style. The adults ate at two different table which eventually were titled the AARP table and the "young adults" table. Nick and I are now at the AARP table and I am NOT liking it.

But as of next year, we will receive the magazine FREE and we were informed that we will get a discount off hotel rooms and we will need that when we take the Harley south for Thanksgiving next year cause we ain't making this a "tradition" like Rachel Basile (my niece-one of the 27) suggested.

I have done 8 loads of wash and my dishwasher is now broken in well, the vaccum knows it's way around very well and the 3 extra dogs we had here christened the new carpets in one way shape or form. AND our poor cats have come out of hiding since everyone left.

Hopefully tomorrow, I will get the rest of the pics SIS is sending me(some great ones) and I will upload more.

More Helton Creek Falls

Nick and I took the girls to Helton Creek Falls. It was breathtaking and long overdue. We all had a great time!!
Our first Family photo since Olan Mills in 1992!! Seeing this picture after Sis had posted it brought tears to my eyes. A lot of joy yet sorrow in knowing that Robbie would have been in this picture standing with us as an adult. Holidays are very difficult for me at times. Some sorrow, some joy. Very mixed emotions. I am just so thankful to have all my girls with me at the same time.

Sis and I were partying it up their first night here. Cook a little, drink a little, cook a little, drink a little. Notice the rosey cheeks and everything!
Kids getting clean after a long day of playing in the GA clay!
This picture is a shack that was near our rental. When Sarah was here in July the road leading to it was closed for construction. I had to take her back there this time around so she could take a picture of it. I LOVE it. What character. She is gonna print it for me so we can frame it and I can hang it in one of my many bathrooms!
Of course I had to sit on it's front porch - well side porch I mean!

Thanksgiving 2006 - Helton Creek Falls

When talking with our 6 year old granddaughter Emily I asked her if she knew what Granny and Grampa were doing, and she said no, and I told her we were moving into our new house. She immediately exclaimed - did you find the toy box! She was so worried about the toybox being found in amongst all the stuff in the basement of the rental. WELL Emily - look what we found!

Nick had to try out his hand at leveling dirt in the yard. This is a Kubota. He told me he wanted one for Christmas. When I asked him how much they cost, he said just $10,000. I told him - SURE honey - how about 2! He had the best time - it has since been returned to it's rightful owner.

Our first offical visitors from Florida were Ulyses and Laurie Cardona. We did not get a picture of them standing on our front porch (our bad).

Our second official visitors from Florida were the Potters. We DID get their picture. They had some real CAT adventures while staying with us. We have decided that everyone that comes to visit MUST go home with at least one story to tell. Our feline friends sure will make that happen.

Saturday, October 14th marked history for us. Nick and I moved out of the rental and he officially carried me over the threshold of 260 Knox Leila! That was a thrill for me! My sister snapped the picture. After 8 months of building - we finally did it!

This shows the house pretty well complete prior to CO being issued.
Driveway in too!

This was the day after they did the fireplace.

It's hard to believe it's been almost 3 weeks since I posted last. I missed several pics being posted prior to our CO being issued. Here's a couple important ones. Eddie - my sisters dog was helping pick the colors for moms room downstairs, and another important outside room that was needing a picture taken of it was "the out house". We avoided using this room at allllll cost but there were days and evenings when we were over there painting that we COULDN'T avoid it. And yes, we gagged as we were coming out from going in there. I just had to take a picture of it for the scrapbook. It would not have been complete! Whoops, forgot to flip picture before I uploaded it to stick, sorry, but I think you get the idea.

CO

WE HAVE OUR CERTIFICATE OF OCCUPANCY AS OF TODAY

No pics today

Ok, No pics with this update but here's the latest. Carpets are going in I think Monday. I have been on a mission this week in Atlanta finding fabric for curtains. I have driven my twin sister crazy with making decisions BUT she still loves me.

The dreaded dust ruffle came in that was on back order so now we can pick our master suite room color and we will be painting all weekend. We have to get this done BEFORE that carpet goes in as this woman is a terrible painter and I am noted for spilling things on things where Nick - he's spotless and never has to have a drop cloth.

So as I type this, I will be gearing up for the 2 hour drive home to the Mountains and then off to Home Depot to get more paint. We will turn on the flood lights and paint till the cows come home tonight and gear up for more tomorrow.

Friends from Florida are coming into town next week and they will be the first official Floridians to see the house - semi finished. We are waiting for the rest of you to show up any time. Hopefully we will get our COO and a closing date. We CAN'T wait. Been a rough 2 months. Pressures on, but we will survive!