I confess....

...this year I convinced MomMom to get me fake flowers to put in my pots!!!!!!! I am so sorry --- but no matter how hard I try - I haven't yet acquired her ability to care for plants and flowers. She has some magical touch given to her by my grandparents to just be so good with plants -- her presence alone perks them up --- whereas, if my plants had legs - they would run away from me as fast as possible, my presence seems to bring them closer to their fatal destiny. I try so hard but I can't keep them alive and healthy like she can..... SOOooo until she is down here more often and can teach me her magic -- I went fake!!!!!!! I absolutely have NOT given up on having my own garden - I am determined to have a green thumb some day - but it won't be this year.

BUT I am proud to say that I mixed and matched these flowers together and arranged them all myself! We bought bunches of the same colors and then I used wire cutters and cut them all apart and arranged them in my pots with real dirt! :)

Say what you will -- I LOVE the way they look!! I am so so so excited about them! :)

one on each side of the front door -- oops I guess I should have sweeped the rug :) I really want a new front door rug -- a plain black one - eventually.

back porch:

Thursday 13 - # 3

Thirteen Pictures from our visit with MomMom (so far): 1. Raymond wearing sandals for the first time! On our way to the beach! :) 2. MomMom & Raymond 3. We had the whole beach and ocean to ourselves all morning!! 4. Raymond laying down ...pondering life 5. Talking about shells, birds, bubbles, and snacks 6. not a great picture....but here it is--- Randi in her element: sunglasses, polka dot suit with blue dress over it, hair everywhere, sunshine on her face! :) happy happy joy joy! 7. with Lion hat from Papa so it's not so bright! 8. give me that apple lady 9. on our way back home from the beach - I love how that right leg is thrown over the side, sprawled out hehe with that cute littel sandal - that cracks me up for some reason 10. MomMom came bearing gifts as awlays -- this time it was a slide ! Look at all those smiles!!! Raymond keeps saying, "park" He has his own park in his room now hehehe 11. MomMom even taught Raymond how to clean! :) 12. Look at that belly! 13. greasy & sandy head...sitting with MomMom chilling out after a wonderful couple of days together! :)

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Speaking of immigrants...part of our Ghana family is FINALLY together in America!!!!!!!!!!!

Speaking of immigrants - I think this family should be on the front page of the New York Times or L.A. ____ whatever you call it... THIS is what should be making front page news ---- not all the chicken little sky is falling negative news.

Patience on the left in the picture, was grandma's first nurse in her home....she allowed grandma to be able to stay home during her battle with Alzheimers. She is our family. She is a sister in Christ. She had planned to come to America for a LONG time. Talk about delayed gratification....she learned English the way we spoke it and read it.... for years to be able to adapt to our culture. The next step was to get over here - she finally 'won' her visa to come over, left her family and came. She came over and found WHATEVER jobs she could doing WHATEVER to save up money to go to school. She went to school to be a nurse and then that's when we found her. Through the home health agency, she came to take care of grandma....and as she took care of grandma she studied hours on end at night, through the night, whenever grandma was sleeping...and then finally passed the boards!!!!! Next, she worked the graveyard shift in hospitals in the Bronx....saving saving saving and working working working overtime, triple time.... and next she was able to buy her first home!!!!! Alll she did was save save save and send the rest back to her family in Ghana.......

and Praise God!!!! This month - her husband David and her 3 children and her were reunited for good!!! This is the picture mom sent to me when she went to see them!!! They are in America!!!! A dream that has taken YEARS in the making!!!!!!!!!! God was able to use grandma even throughout her sickness to be a blessing to others. A huge part of why Patience 'made it' in this country was because of the financial blessings from mom and grandma for taking care of grandma. God is so good.

Talk about delayed gratification, the American dream, having faith, working hard, being thankful for the freedom to work your tail off and then be rewarded for it!!!!!!!!!! Wow!

WHy aren't stories like THIS in the news!?

We need to stop feeling sorry for ourselves, and stop being pink panty wearing wusses!!! We are in the free-est country in the world - we have to learn to take care of ourselves (allow God to take care of us through the Biblical principles He has laid out), stop blaming others for our situations, stop griping about rising prices... and instead start being thankful for what we have - and do what we can, with what we have, where we are, right now --- so we can be a blessing to others! Geesh! :)

I LOVE days like this! - Thursday Photo Recap

Simple 'quiet' days at home are the best sometimes.... Today I just almost cried thinking how blessed I am. I am so thankful for Raymond and our little home and the time to be with him. After breakfast we set up our blanket and played farm. As I looked at the perfectly blue cloudless skies and felt the bright warm sunshine on my face I almost cried... I just love weather like this. I am such a naturalist - I just love nature so much and feel God's presence in it.

Here is a picture of me pretending to be a artistic photographer. I laid on my blanket getting sun on my hair and ghostly legs and watched Raymond play in the dirt. Here is what the world looked like from my perspective as I lay watching my little baby...a scene I know I will miss terribly and yearn for some day as he is an old boy in school or out running around with neighborhood boys or scarier yet ...running around chasing neighborhood girls! ahhhh!
Then we came inside and watered the plants. I LOVE that Raymond LOVES to help. I mean he REALLY REALLY REALLY likes to do "big people" things. He always wants to do everything that mommy and daddy to - and that makes me feel good - that he wants to be like us and wants to help mommy. Maybe he will be a good big brother some day?!! If nothing else - a great big cousin :) How cool
and just today in one day he learned how to get water for himself out of the fridge and drink out of a big boy cup (with spilling of course) WOW a fast learner !:)

and then around 10 am it was so so warm we took off our jackets. It was about high of 76 today which is like my favorite weather! I can't stand being even a little cold so I love temperatures above 75! :)

After lunch it was hot enough for our first ice pop of the year!!!!!!!! This one is frozen cranberry juice - we make our own ice pops.

What a day! :) and now I get to snuggle with my man. Today is just an awesome day!

Could it have been better?

(well yes actually --- I could have not had to go to work; we could have eaten dinner together; I could have seen MomMom, Papa, RyRy, Roxie and the boys, etc. etc. etc. in real life and not on the camera video)....

but today was a very special day nonetheless!!!!!! :)

Thursday 13 - # 2

Thirteen Things I do every single day of my life with NO exceptions:(to sort of play off Melanie's Thursday 13 from last week) ....sort of in chronological order but not really 1. Talk to God the first moment I wake up 2. Have 1 cup of coffee 3. Sing songs (with Raymond I sing "This is the day" and the "good morning to you" MomMom song....also "Head Shoulders Knees and Toes" and "ABC's").....right now the songs I've been singing just me to God are"Because He Lives"....lots of KLove songs.... "How great thou art" and "Blessed Assurance" 4. Call MomMom (numerous times a day) 5. Make sure to go outside every single day at least for a few minutes (cuz MomMom says to) 6. Shower 7. Pray 8. Read (Bible, blogs, books, just SOMETHING) 9. Drink Water 10. Eat 11. Snuggle with Brandon at night (if we're not together - we snuggle in our imagination!) 12. Talk to Brandon about our days 13. put on pajamas and go night night :) *** it's actually kind of hard to think of 13 things I absolutely do every single day without exception! Because I had to take into account vacation, trips, days I'm sick, weekends, etc.....so this is the list of things I do without ANY exceptions*** HAHAHAH and I just had to update this in response to Karen's comments -- you crack me up CareBear.......Yes I guess I DO do more than these 13 things listed -- I just didn't want to write down some things hehehe I'm sure ther eare others things I do every day also -- like brush my teeth!!!!

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Hoods (just for Elizabeth) :)

This post is just for Elizabeth. hehehe She is the only human being I've found that understands the extreme dislike of having my hood tied (my dad was the the tie - r but in her family it was her mama). These are pictures I found that I have in my house of me with my various hoods/hat. But there is probably about 1,000 more at my parents.... these are just some random ones I had around here. Hopefully you can enlarge them so you can get the full affect of how squished my poor face is because of them hehehehe

my least favorite hood of all these is picture # 3 in the snow. Snow suits hoods were the worst --- ugh. I just get chills and even gag thinking of that noise and the feel ahhhh!!!! hehe

Elizabeth described it best in our last email about it:

I got my hoodie tied and it was the weirdest feeling in the whole world. It's been 20 years since I had my hood tied. But it gives me the shivers still. The sound, the feeling, it hasn't changed at all. She pulled my hood up and it made the same swoosh as it passed over my ears. She began pulling the strings and it made the same sound and that same funny feeling as it tightened around my face. Tickling around the edge of my face until it got tight under my chin and then it hurt. She tied the bow and admired her work. I think she said "There! Much better, now Mommy will stay warm too." except through the hood it sounded like the teacher in the Peanuts how she speaks mwa-mwa-mwa-maaaahhhh. It gives me the shivers, it really does. It's the most awkward feeling in the world, and you're the only person that has any idea what I'm talking about.

Back to the shallow end - recap of weekend

I like the way the blog is flowing now --- deep posts and then a shallow post or two. So I'm back to posting a shallow keepsake post...

We had such a great weekend! The weather was just absolutely breathtaking. I LOVE weather like this. Beautiful blue skies, high 70's, breezy, just gorgeous. The Azalea Festival was this weekend --- this is the biggest festival of the year for Wilmington, but it's the festival we never seem to make it to! We really didn't make it again this year. Raymond and I still are a little under the weather so we only went to watch the parade - and we were so late we never got close enough - so instead we just walked along the streets (and streets and streets) of vendors at the street fair. We had to park so far away and while walking we came along the neatest little street that we had not seen before. I loved the houses on this street so took some pictures to post. I was so upset I didn't have my regular camera, so I had to use my camera phone! I absolutely just love porches - can you tell!? :) and flowers -- and I love history! Most of the houses I took pictures of have those black plaques on the front from the historical foundation stating when they were built and their historical significance - really cool stuff!!! :) Sorry again the pictures aren't great - it's hard to push a stroller, take pictures and try to get good images on a dinky shakey camera phone! :)


Other than that we just hung at the beach cottage with Brandon's side of the family. Then had a great service at church as usual. I love Sundays. I will write another deeper post tomorrow or sometime this week about my thoughts after church today.

and as far as other things that went on this weekend..... a special Raymond thing is that tonight, while daddy and him were reading before bed, they were just doing the usual point and say game. Raymond loves books and just loves to point at the pictures and say bear, truck, red, dog, etc. etc. etc. I have been working on letters in the past week with him --- for right now only M for mama D for dada and R for Raymond....but tonight Brandon said that Raymond out of nowhere pointed to the big A on one of the pages and said "A!" Brandon was so excited. He wanted to make sure he heard him right and had him do it again and again. And then he called me in there and did it for mama and I was just so so excited! It's like he never ceases to amaze me. I really think he knows so so so much more than we realize! I don't even remember teaching him A.

I said well let's do more and I got the D, M and R blocks - and he just looked at me and laughed. I could tell he knew what each was, but he was going to play on his own time. He didn't want to work on demand like that haha. It was just such an awesome thing to see him shout the A though.... because of the ear problems he had, I am always worried that he will be a later talker or have speech problems - I got a lot of info from this speech therapist I met at a party and I just don't want him to have to play catch up and it to cause problems later. but he is so far above and beyond what I guess! He always surprises me with his sense of humor, knowledge, physical ability --- I am just so proud of him in so many ways. What a joy he is in our lives!

also this weekend, I finished doing a lot of the purging of "stuff" in the house. So here's the new closet with a TON of clothes throw away. I had to give so many clothes away that just didn't fit anymore...which is a GREAT feeling -- but now my choices in clothes are so much more limited! haha but I am so thankful to have finally overcome my battle with gluttony ---- yeap you heard it here, I was just plain overweight for too long and praise God He has helped me break away those chains too.... I know my friends and family are chiming in saying "no you weren't....you were just not skinny.... you always looked pretty to me.... you were just athletic...you were always healthy...etc. etc." and I say bla bla bla....hehe :) I don't care what the BMI says - I *felt* overweight! Since about 2001 I have learned to love myself, all parts of me.... and accept myself, weaknesses and all... BUT I have felt so convicted in this area of my life recently....and quite frankly it was just time to stop bending my elbow as my great aunt says HAHHA! :) I was not trying my best or even trying at all to eat healthy or control my portions and it was starting to hinder my love for me therefore my relationship with God, others, etc. Maybe I'll write more on this on the next deep post, maybe not. Depends on what else God lays on my heart. So, I gave away a lot of clothes ---- so here's the newly organized closet. Those hangers were a Christmas present and I LOVE them!! Thank you MomMom! All my photo albums and scrapbooks are at the top. I want a piece of furniture maybe even like a buffett style thing that I can put all those in easily accessible and all........ but that will have to wait until the next house. For now, it's okay...I can still see what's up there and get them when I need to! :)

There's Lennox and Raymond and yellow truck. and that picture from the park was from last week - but wanted to post it anyway.

The last 2 things we did this weekend was hang up this picture of Raymond's room finally! hehe A year later, we finally got anchors, this picture was just a lot heavier than any other so couldn't use regular nails. So YAY! It feels good to cross that off the list.
and here's the one that we hung up right away that sort of "goes with it" on the other side of the window:
and we cleaned out his toys/clothes again. I love baskets and have them everywhere in the house. I like these ones we use on his shelf and the big one full of stuffed animals in the closet.
So that's a little bit of what my weekend looked like!!! :)