Closet cleaning

All you regular blog readers can get off of your high horse. I’m back in the posting business.
Thanks to assists from Polk and Kristi, who else?, I had a little closet cleaning partay on Sunday afternoon, with help from Ms. Hughes.
Whatever you naysayers might say, I do a general cleaning about once a year. This time, I got rid of four full trash bags that will be traveling to Goodwill this week. (The tax write off is $209. Hat tip to Pops).
Of course, we found several goodies from the hockey days. Among the “yellowed” T-shirts, with mostly cutoff sleeves so I could wear them under my hockey equipment, were these treasures. “Give blood, play hockey.” “Hockey is everything, nothing else matters.” And one of my favorites was a sweatshirt from a northern Kentucky tournament that had a chicken bucket full of pucks. “No chicken, just biscuits.”
As always, it was one of those moments that Clef, Ruthie and Polk would LOVE to have a hidden camera, or a sit-com director to document this “little brother” moment.
For your reading pleasure, here’s a run-down of the downsizing.
A trash bag full of plain “off-white” T-shirts.
12 button down collared shirts
9 short sleeve polo shirts
1 hat
6 pairs of pants
9 printed T-shirts
1 pair of shoes
8 sweat shirts/sweaters
7 pairs of shorts
1 fleece vest
1 hanging bag
1 answering machine
1 shoe bag
2 neck ties
And as the pictures suggest, yes, you can walk in the walk-in closet again. Kristi even mentioned getting wooden hangars to upgrade the closet even further.
Check back in the spring for a more traditional cleaning/organizing timeline.

Our Thanksgiving trip to Mississippi

We're home from a wonderful Mississippi Thanksgiving! Having made it home in great time, I decided to blog tonight. It will be a busy week!

On Thursday Gracie and I cooked off and on all day and the family enjoyed a meal that (we think) would make our grandmother, Dobbie, very proud. Turkey, mom's dressing, pies, corn pudding, sweet potatoes and of course, it included stuffed prunes. Trust me, they're good and they've now reached at least the 4th generation of Thanksgiving celebrants.

Friday and Saturday were full of fun, play and cousin bonding. Lots of love, lots of hugs and with three little girls, LOTS of baby dolls!

We visited a fish hatchery that is run by the state of Mississippi which the kids loved and we adults found it very interesting, too!

Here's the hostess with the mostest, accompanied by our frequent kitchen visitors. Hannah and Clara became really good buddies, even though Hannah pronounced Clara's name something like "Guy."

Good talks, uncle to nephew. Something about wrestling, football and take downs, I believe.

Lots of rest, just as vacation should be. This is Abigail (who rarely naps at home anymore) with Rosebush (who did NOT trust my kids, when they were awake). So cozy!

We considered the sweet Mississippi weather and it was tempting to stick around. The kids were riding bikes in the driveway, wearing only light jackets. On Saturday, it was 70 degrees! Andy and I soaked up the sunshine and the kids loved it, too.

Pure joy! We have so very much to be thankful for!

Nothing beats "Happy Thanksgiving, Charlie Brown!"

The Long Awaited Trip to Louisville

It has been a year and a half since our last trip to Louisville! Isn't that terrible? The thing is, since Mom and Dad bought their house in Franklin, they've been here so much that we've had less of a reason to go down to see them. But, at long last, we made the trip down on one of the weekends of the North American International Livestock Expo. We've gone to the expo since we were kids, Andy and I have been together several times, too and we knew the girls would love it.

The weather was beautiful and as you can see, the girls settled right in.


Abigail even convined Polk to check out www.barbie.com! All of the pink your heart desires.

Hannah's not smiling in this pic, but the girls had a great time with Annu (our friend, neighbor, childhood babysitter and practically a big sister). Big hugs all around!

Here are Andy and the girls at the Children's Barn Yard at the North American. The kids' exhibits were really nice and perfect for our kids' ages. Here, they're petting Australian Shepherd puppies. Nearby there were piglets, chicks hatching, a goat, a calf, a miniature horse and other livestock.

In these two pictures (Abigail above and Hannah below) they are playing in an area called Farmer for a Day and "shopping" grocery style on a farm. The concept is showing kids where their food comes from. Our kids are pretty well versed in this area due to our garden and many of our friends who have livestock. But, they still loved the shopping carts and had a great time playing after having been in the stroller for quite awhile.

Pops got his snuggles in and naturally asked me to take a picture.

I think Uncle Dane was the most popular "animal" we ran into all weekend, ride 'em horsey!

We had a fun weekend and while we were visiting, Andy and I tried to help a little bit with cleaning out and purging things. We looked through childhood possessions, Keith's many VHS recordings (Stanley Cup Playoffs 1999 anyone?), tried making decisions or suggestions about furniture and Andy got the shredder running again. 37 or so years in one house, with three kids has led to some, um, accumulation. However, things are in pretty good shape and they're making lots of progress on the mission to downsize eventually.

On our next definite visit...the neighborhood yard sale! But we may get there sooner, you just never know.

Our Girls and Their Kittens

We've already had so many nice November days that we've been playing outside a lot. I'll let the pictures show you just how much these girls love their kittens!


This afternoon Andy taught the girls how to get the cats to chase a long piece of grass.

These cats are just. so. patient. Really. Keep scrolling down for more examples of this.

Abigail and Biscuits, playing with the grass.

She's trying to feed Biscuits a piece of gravel here. See, this is a patient kitten.

What a sweet hug! Poor kitten just takes it.

"Hey! Kitty, Kitty, wait!!"

Hugs for Gravy, she's too quick for Hannah but Abigail can catch her.

Halloween Weekend in Pictures

On Friday, we went to the Children's Museum of Memphis

and the kids really enjoyed the dress-up area. Here they are on stage

pretending they're actually on Sesame Street!

We waited until the last minute (Saturday afternoon) to carve jack-o-lanterns...

And here are the trick-or-treaters...

Benjamin the shepherd, our friend, Abbi, as a chef and Clara as a sheep.

We made it all the way around two blocks and got some yummy treats!