A New Appreciation

I “poke fun” at living in Mayberry all the time, but this week I grew a greater appreciation for my little town. Ford, Gran, and I went on a field trip to Jackson to visit my maternal grandparents and to see Puddin. Ford was a dream on the drive down. He watched his Baby Einstein dvds and took a 20 minute nap.



You may be wondering what this new appreciation is that I found while out of town. Well, it’s the fact that Mayberry has very little traffic and somewhat safe drivers. Ford and I almost got hit from the back on Lakeland (I do not miss that road) and I was constantly opening my mouth saying “Oh my gosh” when I saw how some people were driving. I must have come to Mayberry driving that same way because my first official day in this town I got flipped off! That was 3 years ago and I am over it now!

We got lots accomplished on our visit. We went to visit one of my teacher friends from Jackson, Pam Wilson, and she let Ford play in her water hose.

We lost the swimming suit. Check out that muddy diaper…

There is not one other little boy in the state of Mississippi that can say his grandmother is on the Mississippi Supreme Court other than Ford. Yes, we went down town to see Puddin’s office and let everyone see how much he had grown.

Ford and I went to Jackson to visit Puddin at work when he was 5 weeks old. We took a picture on her couch and decided to again on this visit. Oh how he has grown.

We ate lunch at River Hills Country Club with some family.  That evening we ate again at Majestic Burger and then went shopping at the Renaissance Mall in Ridgeland. I found Ford and Puddin catching up on their reading in Barnes and Noble.

Ford and I were up and ready to go visiting again early this morning. We went to visit a long time friend and one of my college roommates, Taylor Greenlee Kilgore, before 8:00 this morning. Since we were all in our jammies there are no pictures. Ford, Gran, my Grandmother, and myself had lunch at Primos and then went back to my Grandparent’s house to play before we had to come home.

I think my Grandmother looks amazing to be in her 80’s. She will probably kill me for posting pictures of her on here. I only hope I can look that good when I am older.

Ford’s first name is Jefferson and that is also my grandfather’s first name.  I think Ford was fascinated with my Granddaddy and his Great Granddaddy.

He enjoyed trying to get some keys out of a filing cabinet.

We left about 1:45 with high hopes that the little man would sleep on the way home. No such luck. He refused to take a nap; therefore, he went to bed at 6:30 tonight.

The End.

4 Nice Things

I am just now sitting down for the first time today. I have a sour cream coffee cake baking in the oven for Sunday school tomorrow and I thought I would blog while she cooked. Messing with my husband is one of my favorite things to do and licking the bowl after I finish mixing up something is one of his favorite things to do. I had some of the batter left in the bowl from the coffee cake and asked him if he wanted some. He responded with "yes, I have been waiting all night for that." I told him he had to say 4 nice/sweet things about me if he wanted it and until then I was going to lick the bowl. These are the 4 I got: #1 I like your pony tail. #2 I like your white “momma” shorts. #3 I like your pink shirt. And #4 I like your tan. I told him # 2 and #3 would not cut it and I started licking that bowl some more. He was about to come unglued and came up with you are the best wife and you are the best momma. He got the bowl.

Play date with Cooper..

Today was Molly Cate’s 4th birthday party. She is my niece and I remember being at the hospital waiting on her to come into this world 4 years ago! Ford was the only little boy invited to the “Baby Doll” party. He had the rights to come since he is her only cousin. My sister in-law, Ashley, who is also Sugar and Spice Mommy (blog) agreed that neither one of our children needed any toys for their birthdays and maybe next year we will put no gifts on the invites.

So yesterday I was very brave. I did something I have only done once before in my life. The last time I did such a thing I was a freshman in college and paid severely for my actions for days to come. I didn’t do anything bad as some of you may be thinking; no actually it was something rather productive and good for my body. I actually went to a “work-out class.” Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I am hurting today. Showering this morning was like being put in a Chinese torture chamber and we won’t even go into the pain of trying to get dressed. I am not the most coordinated person so I opted for the back of the room during the class. I tried real hard to pay attention and not make a fool of myself by going the wrong way or tripping over my feet. Thank goodness I didn’t fall down. And luckily, I didn’t know that many people in the class. I started off kind of rough and got tickled at myself for doing things wrong, but I think I ended on a good note and was rather pleased with my performance. Ford had a lovely time while I stretched and sweated. He played with Lucy, with sweet student from 2 years ago. Her mom is actually the one who caused me all of this bodily harm! Thanks for being a great babysitter, Lucy!!!!!!

Why is it that…….. When you try to do good and exercise and eat right that temptations are thrown right in your face? I ate Mexican TWICE on Friday, had cake today at Molly Cate’s party, tomorrow is breakfast day in Sunday school, and tomorrow afternoon is Trey’s family reunion. How can a woman get her body beach ready with all this FOOD??!!!!! And I love food.

Last thing and I promise, Mom and Ashley. I won’t write anymore to torture the two of you. Trey got a new truck!!!!!! He has been driving the same navy blue F150 since college. It was a fine truck to drive around Mayberry and to take hunting, but he couldn’t put a front facing car seat in there for some reason. I told him it was time to get a new ride. And that he did. We got his new hunter green and tan bottom Ford F150 King Ranch last night. It’s 4 door which is great for Ford and so nice. I am happy for Trey and he loves his new ride.

Wearing Me Out

No, my camera is not fixed just yet. I put my memory card in my old dinosaur camera and decided to use it while my other is being repaired.

It is only day 4 of summer break and Ford is already wearing me out. I “used to” think that stay at home moms should be able to get a lot done during the day whereas working moms are dealing with less time. Contrary to my belief, that is not the way it is at all. I am constantly running behind Ford cleaning up one mess while he is creating another disaster, or he has his arms in the air for me to hold him, or he slips and needs some TLC from his momma, or it’s time to eat, or he needs a new diaper, or it’s nap time and I must fix a bottle and rock him to sleep, or he wants to go outside and play in the water hose. As you can see there just isn’t a lot of time for household chores; therefore my house looks like it has been ransacked my robbers and quite frankly I just give up on trying to clean up. I think my darling husband accepted that long ago. He is more OCD than I “used to be” about having things organized and all of his ducks in a row. He really might be the cleanest and tidiest man that God put on this planet. Bless him!

Today I did manage to find time to make Ford and myself a little snack. I have many weaknesses in life when it comes to food. I have never really had to watch my weight that much; I guess I was just blessed with good genes. However, I can tell that time may be catching up with me and I better become more conscious of what I eat. One of those weaknesses is BREAD!!!!!!!!! Oh I could eat bread all day long and be as happy as a fat kid in a candy store. And bread is what we did have as our afternoon snack today.

CHEDDAR BISCUITS


1 cup biscuit and baking mix
½ cup (2 ounces) shredded sharp Cheddar cheese (all I had was regular cheddar)
1/3 cup milk


Combine biscuit mix and cheese; add milk, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened. (Dough will be very soft). Turn dough out onto a floured surface, and knead lightly 3 or 4 times.

Roll dough to ½ inch thickness, cut into rounds with a 2 inch biscuit cutter. (I didn’t have one of these). Place biscuits on a lightly greased baking sheet.

Bake at 450 for 10 minutes or until golden brown. Serve IMMEDIATELY. Yield: 8 biscuits.

MORE FORD....

We had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. We actually never left town and it was great! We spent most of the time around Puddin and Pops pool or planting flowers in our yard. Trey and I managed to plant 79 flowers during Ford’s hour nap he takes in the morning!!

If any of you moms out there have some fun ideas/projects that Ford and I could do this summer let me know!