Cecile's Yummy Giveaway

My fellow scrappin' buddy and awesome friend, Cecile, is giving away these awesome scrappin' embellishments. I cheated and copied and pasted her words so I could post it on my blog. Here's the rules:

I will be giving away some blog candy this Friday May 1st the winner will be able to select 2 sets of "Posies" from my Etsy store Polka Dot Scraps and also the winner will receive a special"Surprise Pack"of scrappy goodies from me also. I will be adding new posies to my Etsy store this week I have several new styles coming out..Now just leave a comment on this post for a chance to win and if you want me to add your name to the hat 2 times just mention this blog candy giveaway on your blog and link it back to mine and I will add your name in again!!!
Thanks so much for playing and I hope that everybody has a GREAT week!!!!

You can find Cecile right here......CECILE or on my sidebar.

Big Monsters and Little Monsters (mostly little)

It was a busy Saturday this weekend. My nephew needed a babysitter for the day and of course Hut and I said we'd do it. Boy these little babies can wear you out. But we love spending time with them.Here is one of the Little Monsters with the BIG Monster. Hut had heard that the Grave Digger Monster Truck was going to be in our neighborhood on Saturday. I have loved the Grave Digger for, I know, 20 years or more. I just love monster trucks. So he made sure we got to see it. This is Skylee's first experience with monster trucks. Tyler was sleeping so he missed out on it. Hopefully Skylee will love monster trucks as much as Aunt Bon does.Most of you know that Hut and I go yard saleing on Saturdays, the babies didn't stop us from stopping at a few. We got Skylee a brand new baby doll at one of them. It was a little lamb dressed up for a Christening. She loved it and wouldn't share it with anyone.After a few yard sales, it was off to McD's for lunch and then a jaunt to the park for some swinging. Skylee had a great time in the swing.Hut thought Tyler might like to go down the slide. We didn't really put him down the slide, but thought this was a great photo op.After the park, we headed for home. We had bought this Step Two item at a yard sale last weekend. It's a front door with working door bell, mail box, shutters and doggy door. We have it in the backyard with a few other toys for the kids. Skylee had a grand time playing with it. Where my nephew lives, there is no yard for the kids to play in, so Skylee loves to come play in our yard.Here she is checking the mail.Hut is such a big help with the kids. He really enjoys having them around. I just love this picture of him with Tyler. Nap time for both of the guys. I just love all the pictures of my big ol' bear of a husband with the babies. I wanted to share a couple of pictures from my job. I work for security at State Farm Insurance in Winter Haven. They have the most beautiful work location and there is plenty of wild life here. I did a post probably a year ago with other pictures I had taken of the location. Well Thursday night I worked a double and was lucky enough to see Mr. Cardinal and his Mrs. I tried to get some close up pictures without scaring them and this was the best one I got. Isn't he gorgeous? And he stayed right with the Mrs.

And for those of you getting all the rain and snow... this is why I beg you to send some this way. This used to be a pretty big pond. Now it's nothing but a puddle. This was taken Thursday night too. It's probably gone now. We so desperately need some precipitation here.

I hope everyone had a great weekend. I did.

I got this sweet award from Cecile over at Scrappin' Cecile's Blog. and I am going to send it along to 10 of my top favorite blogs. Since I can't pass this award on to everyone (okay, I probably could), I am going to.....I'm going to.....I'm going to throw the rules out the window and award it to ALL my fellow bloggers.

This award has some rules....

1. The winner may put the logo onto their blog

2. Put a link to the person who sent you the award.

3. Nominate 10 blogs

4. Put links to their blogs

5. Leave a message for the nominees.

And the people I nominate~~ EVERY SINGLE ONE OF MY BLOGGING BUDDIES. Please feel free to grab the award. I left the rules on this blog so you could all play fair if you want to. But where's the fun in that, lol. You guys are all my favorite blogs. I enjoy you each and every day.

Thanks so much for playing along.

Thank you, Cecile, for making my day with this wonderful award.

Scrappers Take Note

My good friend and fellow blogger, Cecile, has turned me on to a brand new website for scrappers. Cecile is up on all the new scrappin' things that are going on. But you really should check this one out. It's called My Scrapbook Social. http://www.myscrapbooksocial.com/. You do have to join to check out all the wonderful things they offer, but it's ABSOLUTELY FREE! So go check out the homepage that explains all the great things they offer. You can also click on the link on my sidebar. Thanks, Cecile, for sharing some more great Scrappin' Stuff with us.

Potpourri

Missy and Griffin dancing at the street party.

Well I've spent a wonderful, busy weekend with my wonderful SIL Missy. Of course, I don't take pictures like she does, so I really don't have any of us from the weekend. But I'm sure she'll blog about everything and share those pics. We had a wonderful time Friday night at the "Dance Party" in downtown Winter Haven. Griffin danced himself silly. He was making me tired. And then Saturday we got up early and spent almost 8 hours yardsaleing. Missy only spent $4. I spent close to $65 and I don't know how much Hut spent. But $20 of mine went to a really cool "North Pole" sign that lights up for Santa. And a Stage Two BIG toy for the kids to play with in the back yard. And actually I bought lunch and that was $20 so I really only spent $45 at the yard sales. Sunday we spent with some long lost cousins from Missy & Hut's Momma's side of the family. I had such a great time, making new friends and listening to family stories. I can't wait to get together with them again. It was great fun. I am exhausted from my busy weekend.

On Thursday, I spent the morning with Missy, Griffin and Hut. My doctor cancelled my appointment, so we went to Downtown Disney and hunting scrapbook stores. I had to work that afternoon so Missy dropped me off at work at 2:30. At 3:15 my son calls and he's on his way to the emergency room. He thought he had a hernia or something, his groin felt like someone kicked him, and he was just in aweful pain. So of course Mom is going to the emergency room with him. We spent the worst 5 hours at the hospital. Thank God he only had kidney stones. I know how painful those are, I've had them. But once they knew what was going on, they gave Wade a shot for the pain and he was out for the count. The worst part of the whole ordeal was waiting for the nurses to get the discharge papers to us. It took 1 1/2 hours after the doctor said we could go, for the nurses to actually release him. I am happy to say Wade's good as new. Oh and we got to see the hospital helicopter take off and land a few times. Don't know what they were doing.....no patients were ever on it.

Life Flight on the ground.

Life Flight taking off. Pictures were taken from the ER waiting area. The helipad was right outside the door.
Wade, finally able to get some rest after they gave him some pain meds. He's gonna kill me when he sees this picture on my post, lol.

And a belated Easter post. We were unable to get the grandbabies for Easter, like we had planned. We did get Skylee and Tyler, my great niece and nephew (or is it grand niece and nephew?). We took them the Saturday before Easter to an Easter party at a local shopping center. They were just too small to take egg hunting. Skylee met the Easter bunny for the first time. While she wasn't scared of him, she didn't want to stay near him. Next year will definitely be the fun year for her.Skylee checking out the Easter Bunny. Skylee being silly at Walmart. We went and bought Easter baskets for the kids and Hut had to have the Tow Mater Easter bucket that Skylee has on her head.

Here's Tyler with a happy face. He had no idea what was going on but he was having a gooooooood time.

Quick Update

Hey, just wanted everyone to know I'm alive and well. If you've been to Missy's blog recently you can see that I have taken some time for family. I had a fellow Security officer become ill and all of us here have been taking turns keeping his shifts covered. So I've been really busy with work and really tired when I get home, that I have been totally ignoring you guys. So, yes, I'm still here. I do read you guys from work, but don't always leave a comment. Hopefully now that today is Friday and the only plans I have for the weekend it running the roads with Missy, hopefully I can get some blogging done.

What a Giveaway!!!!!!!!

Melissa at Creating from the Heart is giving away this brand new Cuttlebug Die Cut Machine!! You have until Good Friday, the 10th to enter so hurry on over! She will announce a winner at 3 pm EST!!

Big Brother, Little Sister and Best Buddies

I wanted to share some pictures of Max, the "big" brother and Molly, the "little" sister. We live near a ball park that has lots of room to run. Actually Hut works there. It was the Spring Training facility for the Boston Red Sox from 1966 to 1992 and the for the Cleveland Indians from 1993 to 2008. So we take the dogs there frequently because they can run,run, run without leashes. And they love it. They think it's a treat. Plus they get to go for a ride to get there, so that, too, is a treat.

Molly following Max like most little sisters do.

Molly trying to catch Max, because she wants to play.

Max taking a break.

Molly taking a break, too. They had alot of fun running around.

Most of you know that back in September I "adopted" two kittens I had gotten at a yard sale......Oscar and Mayer. Well a couple months back, Oscar turned up missing and we haven't seen her since. We haven't been able to find her anywhere. We still have Mayer, though. And he has since had a name change....his new name is BOOTY BARKER. Without his sister as a playmate, he thinks he's one of the dogs. And he LOVES our new puppy, Molly. They play together all the time. They are "Best Buddies". So I thought I'd share some pictures of one of their many "wrestling matches."

Here's Booty......playing in a box.



Molly and Booty wrestling.


Getting a little rough....notice Booty's fangs.

Taking a break.

BIKERS

Hut and I have become "bikers". No not the motorcycle kind, but the bicycle kind. You know how much we love yard sales and buy just about everything at them. Well we came across a great deal on 2 mountain bikes. So I talked Hut into buying them, hoping he would go riding. These bikes were modified with handle bars so that you sit up straight instead of leaning over, much better for us "older" people. Well we pumped up the tires, Hut got a bigger seat and a bike horn and off to the nature walk we went. Yes you can ride bikes on the nature walk. I have not mastered the art of taking pictures while riding so I only have a couple of still shots to show you. I have to say that on Sunday morning we rode 3 miles and yesterday we rode 2, but it was really windy and hard to pedal into the wind(yes, we're whimps,lol). We are taking tonight off and tomorrow we will be trying out another bike path.

Getting the bikes ready for the trip to the nature walk.

Our "new" bikes.

Hut with his "new" bike.

Breaking News......

I just wanted everyone to know that Hut finally finished his fountain......YES....it is finished. So please go check out his blog to see the finished product. Just click here: http://simpleman58.blogspot.com/ or click on Simple Man on my side bar. I am very impressed with this lovely fountain that is now gracing the back yard.

John Deere Imposter

You really do see some unusual things when you are driving down the roads here in Polk County. I had to make Hut turn around so I could take a couple of quick pictures of this imposter.......
Is this not the coolest "Bug" you've ever seen? I can't believe Hut didn't see it and that's another reason we turned around. If you're in Polk County and looking for a "small" John Deere pickup, it is for sale.

She was lost, but now she's found....

Just a quick blurb for those of you who didn't know what happened to Brenda's Country Romance from the Heart blog. She had issues with recieving email from her blog so she had to switch. I was concerned whenI went to check her blog yesterday and it wasn't there. I sent her an email, she emailed me back assuring me everything was okay. And I got her new blog address. It's . http://www.countryromancefromtheheart.blogspot.com/. You can also click on Brenda's name on my sidebar.

And her daughter, April, also has a new blog address: http://aprilbrussell.blogspot.com/. She is also on my sidebar. So please stop by and visit them.

Passing of a Dear Friend

On Saturday, March 28, a dear friend of ours passed away. I knew Wayne Youngblood years ago when I worked at a nightclub called Lil' Darlin's. I didn't see Wayne for many years and had basically forgotten about him. Then lo and behold he becomes the organist for the Spring Training games at Chain of Lakes Ballpark where Hut works. Wayne and Hut become good friends and one day as they are talking, Wayne mentions working at Lil' Darlin's and Hut told him that's where I had worked. Wayne remembered me, but I sure didn't remember him. Irregardless we became friends once again. Unfortunately Wayne got cancer. It started in his tongue. It spread to his throat. Wayne's lively hood was his voice. He didn't let this get him down. He was an amazing man. If you get a chance, check out his website:

http://www.wayneyoungbloodministries.com/ .

Ronald Wayne Youngblood

September 21, 1948 - March 28, 2009

Wayne lost his valiant war with cancer at 9:38 Saturday morning March 28, 2009. He battled almost to the end but finally was ready to be with his God, family and many dear friends that have gone on before him. He is now at peace.
Wayne is survived by his companion and soul mate, Terri Sandefer of The Villages, Florida, daughter, Michelle Nicole Youngblood of Jacksonville Florida, brother, James Ralph Youngblood of Lady Lake Florida and sister, Elizabeth Joann Durham of Orange Park, Florida.