Harley versus John Deere

It all started with Darwin mowing the grass - but it turned into a contest......

Water Day!

Water Day!!!

Today was water day at pre-school!! The kids were to wear their swimsuits under their clothes to school. Then they get to play in all kinds of water things on the play ground!! The kids look forward to it all year!!
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No exception at our house!! We've been hearing about, "Amie wear my suit" for at least a week!!



Problem this morning was that she didn't want to put any clothes over the suit!!! Took quite a bit of arguing with her to convince her that they would not let her on the bus without clothes over her suit!!
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I was able to sneak out for a few minutes to get a chance to check out the activities at pre-school today! When I got there Amie was playing the memory game with friends!


Shawn is one of Amie's special friends! He loves to be silly & thinks that Amie's pretty cool!



Kiandra is another of Amie's friends. They play well together also!


Jada likes to be the mother hen! She's adorable! Very articulate!


After some silly time, it was time to sing songs. Amie is still not singing with the gang -but she is sitting and listening much better! Look how serious she is - you would never know they were singing the song about "Brown Bear, Brown Bear; What do you see?"


Now it was time for "Going surfin' in my imagination"!! They were practicing the poses they would do outside at the picture station!


Yeah! We're finally outside!!! Amie looked a little overwhelmed at first! But it didn't take long!

Here is the purple room hanging their towels up!


Miss German - checking to make sure everyone was following over to the picture station!

Mrs. Alvarado

Here we are at the picture station - Ok everybody - Let's go surfin' in our imagination!!! See the little shark & turtle??!! How cute!
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Amie did a great job of trying to balance on one foot ~~ surfin' dude!!


Now time to get wet!!! Amie waited patiently for her turn on the slide~~~~


Heading down the slide~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Ut Oh~~~~~~~~~~~



All of a sudden she had second thoughts about getting wet~~~~~~~she spread her feet out & came to an almost complete stop!!



Then just stepped out into the water!! How funny it was!!!




But - she was ready for another go at it!!!

Then I had to run!! She had a great time!!

Memorial Day

Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May (May 25 in 2009).
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Formerly known as Decoration Day, it commemorates U.S. men and women who died while in the military service.
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First enacted to honor Union soldiers of the American Civil War (it is celebrated near the day of reunification after the civil war), it was expanded after World War I to include American casualties of any war or military action.
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Thank you to every service person that has made sacrifices big and small & especially to those that made the ultimate sacrifice!

I am not real happy with this blog - evidently blogger has made some changes & I haven't figured out how to do what I want!! It will not let me move the pictures to the order I want them in.
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So....here goes anyway! The following are several of the kids that were at Ashley's graduation party. All of these kids, except Amie are babysat at T's house on a regular to semi-regular basis!! I know that I would be a WRECK with this many & the activity level that was none stop!!
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Here's Reese, Frankie, Carly & Amie.

The little girl in pink is Isabelle. Carly and Isabelle are both about a year younger than Amie - but they both out-weigh & out-talk her BIG time!



Here's Darrien - notice that both Reese and Darrien are wearing "dew-rags"?? That's cause Uncle Darwin took them to the "motorcycle shop" while they were here last weekend & let them pick out the dew rag of their choice!


Where Carly went.....Amie did follow!

Foot

The foot is healing....slower than I'd prefer!! LOL!! Not that I'm impatient!

Although, it looks like the fracture is wider (which it is) - I guess that's the normal pattern of healing. First the fracture widens as the damaged cells are absorbed. Then the osteoblasts (new word for the day!!) form new bone.

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When the radiologist zoomed the picture from the 15th up, you could see little "bridging" of calcification (osteoblasts)!!

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Just wish it would hurry up a bit!!!

Ashley goes to State finals!

For whatever reason - I couldn't get this to load onto the blog with Ashley's graduation....so I guess it gets it's own blog!! Although it certainly is big enough to get it's own blog!!


Mz. Ashley made it to the state qualifying finals in Shot Put!! Ashley didn't make it to the finals - but I am WAY proud of her just making it to the qualifiers!!
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You ROCK Ashley!!
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You're futures so bright.....you better wear shades!!
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:)

Congratulations Mz. Ashley "Nay" - Love You!

{Sniff Sniff} - our little Ashley has graduated!!






Where does the time go? Weren't you just a little bitty girl afraid of Uncle Darwin's beard? Getting all excited about a rock (oh wait, that hasn't changed!)? Loving rollin' down your hill with your trike, big wheel, wagon or whatever you could get?
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Time is a thief if we let it! Don't let life pass you by! Enjoy Ashford, Enjoy whatever life brings your way!!

Ice Cream Social

It is so hard to believe that another school year is coming to an end! Last week the year end ice cream family night was held at Amie's school! It was a beautiful evening!
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Mr. Lyons (the Principal) dressed up like a gorilla and danced to the song Vanilla Gorilla (I think that's what it was) - the kids thought that was hysterical!


Amie's not really too much into music. She is dancing - but still not singing. Her teacher Miss German is to her left there. This is Amie's last year with Miss German. Because she started mid-year last year it counts as if she's been in preschool for two years, and there is a rule that kids can only be with the same teacher for two years.
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Amie got to meet her new teacher for next year; Miss Leary. She seems very similar to Miss German, lots of activities, gentle, yet firm with the kids!


This kind of sums up a 4 year old and her joys....just hangin' out doing her own thing!!

Thank You John & Thank You Kyle!

If you don't know who John Edward is (not Edwards - the politician), he is a medium that "talks to dead people".
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I first started watching him when his show "Crossing Over" was on cable. My Aunt Jan & I talked about him & how real he seemed.
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Today was the third time I've been to one of his "shows" - where you sit in the audience & he talks to a few select people in the audience about what he sees around them.
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The previous two times I was not one of the lucky few to get a reading! Today was different!

Tiara & I bought tickets 8 months ago for the 2pm show this afternoon! No one else was interested at the time (it was a long way in the future to think about something like that!).

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We drove to Chicago & got settled in our seats. John came out & answered about 4 questions from the audience & then he looked over in our direction & said, "I'm coming over here. I have a young male that died in a heroic way." No one said a word. He repeated what he said a few more times. The "young male" threw me. After about the third time - I leaned over to T & said, "think it could be Kyle"? I sheepishly raised my hand at about the same time he said, "get them the microphone".

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The heart was pounding, the hands were shaking, I could barely talk. I said, "we have a younger brother-in-law that was killed in Iraq." He said, "I'm here" (meaning he felt that is what he was referring to).

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I'll try to remember as much as possible - but it was so incredible!!!

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"I've got an older male with him. Is that your dad or his?"

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"Mine"

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"Where does the number 43 come in?"

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Tiara said, "I'm going to be 43"

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"Happy Birthday." "Where does the Robert come in?"

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"My father in law is Robert."

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"passed over?"

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"yes"

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"he wants me to acknowlege Tommy or Timmy"

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"there's a Texas connection" (this is the one thing we couldn't validate - still not sure, could have been Oklahoma, since Darwin drove his dad to Oklahoma to visit his brother years ago)

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"Your brother in law wants me to acknowledge an older female figure that was very helpful to your sister through all of this and is still there for her. Is this his mom or her mom?"

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"her mom"

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"i've got an older female figure to him that passed over a year and a half ago or so."

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"that's his grandmother"

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"she's there"

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"was he in two places? like iraq and afghanistan?"

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"no just iraq."

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"he's clearly showing two places, two different places, two countries, two something."

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"when they first go over, they are in Quatar, which is a separate country to Iraq."

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"that's it"

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"was it two days from the last time he spoke to your sister to when she found out he was gone."

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"yes i think so"

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"did he have a baby that maybe he didn't get to see?"

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"he had a daughter that was young when he died"

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"was he not a part of her life"

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"he was until he died"

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"no that's not it, there's another baby. does your sister have another baby? Is she going to have a baby?"

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"no"

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"are you sure, he keeps showing me a baby that he didn't get to be a part of her life"

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"could it be a baby that was adopted into the family about the time he passed away that is very close to his daughter."

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"yes that would make sense"

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"i know you hoped to connect with your father today, but it is important to take these messages back to your sister" "are you one of 4?"

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"yes"

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"please let your sister know that he wants her to know it's ok about the dog"
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Tiara and I bawled through the entire thing!

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Kyle always did have a strong personality in life.....guess it's just as strong in death.

Missing you All!

Oh I almost forgot - another exchange that took place:

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"Robert and the young male were both in the service, the same but different. They jib each other on which was the better branch."

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Pretty intense and incredible! Even though I would have loved to have gotten a message from my Dad (although the birthday for T & Tim for me were probably both from him) & I would have loved to have heard from my Aunt Jan. And especially, I would have really loved to have heard one of them tell me my angel boys were with them & OK! But all in all - really incredible experience!

Fun at Miller lake

It has certainly rained quite a bit lately! Thursday evening was a very nice evening. We got home around 4:30-5:00 & Amie wanted to play outside. First she drove her truck to the back of the yard & unbeknownst to any of us.......Miller Lake had already started to fill up!!

Amie certainly enjoyed Miller Lake!!! Glad she had the rain boots on!

Happy Birthday Dad - In Our Memories Forever!

This picture is how I remember my Dad. He loved that porch!

In June 2000 we all learned that Dad had cancer. Lung, with mets to liver & other areas in the lung. Dad was bound and determined to beat it. He wore the "peach fuzz" as a crown of victory.

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"I'm tellin' ya Doc, this peach fuzz is a sure sign that we're winnin'. I'm gonna be that 1% survival" Dad told his oncologist. He always was stubborn & if anyone could have beat it - it surely could be Dad, with in attitude & gonna kick it spirit!

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But that is not what God had planned for him.

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The last grandchild that Dad met was Kylee. She was the only grandchild that lived in Galesburg & got to see her Grandma and Grandpa all the time. He was quite smitten with her!

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This is one of the last great pictures of Dad on Kylee's first birthday (September 2000, 3 months into his cancer journey).

Here's how others will surely remember him - although I do remember this look (somewhat) from when I was young.

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This was the picture that many of his peers and family thought made him look like Elvis! [ya ain't nothin' but a hound dog]

Lucky for us - both Aunt Jani & Uncle Joe let me scan pictures of their of our family (from the old days).
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Here's my Dad on his first birthday!

Not sure his exact age here - but this resembles Mike & Donavan.

Here is Dad with his siblings - he was only 16 years younger than his oldest sister & 14 years younger then the twins!! Nothing like startin' over!! Oh wait - we did that too!!

Here's Dad and a neice Cheri & nephew Raymond (I think)....

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Mr. Teenager with attitude with older brother!! I think this pictures is "cool" - 50's attitude!!

This picture was around the time I was born.

We all know that our parents most likely will go before us. But, it doesn't make it any easier. My Dad was entirely too young to have lost his battle with cancer. I miss him always.

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Two songs mean so much to me:

The first is Butterfly Kisses. He danced with Janet at her wedding to that song. It reminds me of what he must have thought when us girls were growing up! And the way we feel now that we are raising a littl girl!

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There's two things I know for sure:

She was sent here from heaven and she'sdaddy's little girl.

As I drop to my knees by her bed at night

She talks to Jesus and I close my eyes

andI thank god for all the joy in my life

Oh, but most of all

For butterfly kisses after bedtime prayer;

sticking little white flowers all up in herhair;

"Walk beside the pony, Daddy, it's my first ride."

"I know the cake looks funny, Daddy, but I sure tried.

"In all that I've done wrong

I know I musthave done something right

to deserve a hugevery morning

and butterfly kisses at night.
Sweet 16 today

She's looking like her mama a little more everyday

One part woman, the other part girl.

To perfume and make-up from ribbons and curls

Trying her wings out in a great big world.
But I rememberButterfly kisses after bedtime prayer;

stickinglittle white flowers all up in her hair.

"You know how much I love you, Daddy,

But if youdon't mind I'm only gonna kiss you on the cheek this time.

"With all that I've done wrong

I must have donesomething right

to deserve her love every morningand butterfly kisses at night.
All the precious timeLike the wind, the years go by.

Precious butterfly.Spread your wings and fly.
She'll change her name today.

She'll make a promise and I'll give her away.

Standing in the bride-room just staring at her.

She asked me what I'm thinking and I said

"I'm notsure-I just feel like I'm losing my baby girl."

She leaned over...gave me butterfly kisses with her mama there,

Sticking little white flowers all up in her hair

"Walk my down the aisle, Daddy-it's just about time."

"Does my wedding gown look pretty, Daddy? Daddy, don't cry!"
Oh, with all that I've done wrong

I must havedone something right.

To deserve your love every morning and butterflykisses-

I couldn't ask God for more, man this is what love is.
I know I gotta let her go,

but I'll always rememberevery hug in the morning and butterfly kisses

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The other song is One More Day by Diamond Rio.

This song became popular just before my Dad passed away, because of the Dale Earnhardt tragedy. One of the sports channels did a tribute using that song. My Tim was really into that & said one day that he'd like to dedicate that song to me on the radio, because he knows how much I missed my Dad - made me CRY!

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Last night I had a crazy dream

A wish was granted just for me

It could be for anything

I didnt ask for money

Or a mansion in malibu

I simply wished,

for one more day with you

One more day

One more time

One more sunset,

maybe Id be satisfied

But then again

I know what it would do

Leave me wishing still,

for one more day with you

First thing I'd do,

is pray for time to crawl

Then Id unplug the telephone

And keep the tv off

Id hold you every second

Say a million I love yous

Thats what Id do,

with one more day with you

Leave me wishing still,

for one more day

Leave me wishing still,

for one more day

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Dad I miss you & I love you!