My new dog and some blooms!

Such a beautiful day out today - warm, but lower humidity. Cooper and I went out earlier and gave my plants some love and care. We also took a few pictures. These are one of my hydrangea plants...love the beautiful pink color - these are just some small blooms peaking out from under the leaves...I expect that will be very large.
This hydrangea is just covered in large and medium blooms. It is more of a purple color....see the difference in my two hydrangeas Judy?? One has very stiff leaves and tighter flowers.

This is my Crepe Myrtle tree....I love when it blooms. We planted this from a stick it seems...before Katrina, but it survived.

Some kind of Iris or Lily.....I'm not sure.

My Hibiscus....love hibiscus. I lost about 4 of them to a pink mealy bug that came from Home Depot....I actually had the Department of Agriculture come out to my house and they set some type of wasp loose in my yard to combat them...it was a real danger to Louisiana crops and they didn't want the mealy bugs to get to the Sugar Cane fields and destroy them. My Hibiscus was the furthest west that they could pinpoint with the bug. ..... Thanks Home Depot!! Now I get my plants at Lowes.

And, now to introduce you to my new baby....Cooper.

I already love him so much. He is adorable and smart...but a lot of work! He is such a baby, so much fun, afraid of everything and sticks to us like glue.

The Vet said he is about six months old and very healthy. He will be getting "fixed" this week.

I got him from a garage sale....can you believe it!! They had a sign that said free dog to good home...I was leery about taking him, but he seemed to fit my criteria. I wanted to rescue a dog, a small one, that didn't shed. This family had rescued him from his former home at about 12 weeks...but thy already had three other dogs and just couldn't keep him. I think he was meant for us. He was probably born about the time that Quincy passed.

Oh my goodness.

These pictures were his first day with us....before Jose groomed him for me. His name was Kippy - but I wasn't fond of that name and so I looked at "C" and "K" names with the same first letter sound, so he wouldn't be so confused. Cooper seems to work for him, he responds well.

Here we go again! Brittany's engaged!

Brittany called from Alabama a little while ago. Justin asked her to marry him! We knew that he was going to do it today, but she was totally surprised. This is the only picture I have so far, it is from Brittany's phone. He took her to the park for a picnic and then asked her. She is so excited and wanted to know right away, if we knew about it. She told me that she was so happy that we already knew - it made her feel so good.

So - no details on the date, etc.

Congratulations - Brittany and Justin!

The busy week is over.

I have several pictures to post, to tell the story of the last couple of days. On Wednesday, we had a crawfish boil together. It was to hard to get all six of us together to go out and eat because of timing, work, graduation, etc. So Brittany asked for a crawfish boil. Jose is the crawfish cook and I prepped the food, while Terry set up the yard. Justin came in from Alabama for a quick trip to be here for Brittany's graduation. They left this morning. There is a conference at Justin's church and he missed the first night, but has to be there for the remaining services. He is the worship leader at a church in Birmingham. As part of Brittany's graduation gift, we bought her a plane ticket to fly home next week. She rode back to Alabama with Justin and will spend a week with his family.

On Thursday, Terry and Justin went to breakfast, while Brittany packed and then Justin took Brittany to get her a manicure for Graduation. We went to Pancho's for an early dinner before Graduation...then on to the Lakefront Arena. I loved seeing Brittany achieve her honor, but it gets a little boring sitting and watching 600 other students that you do not know achieve theirs as well!

After the Ceremony we went to Cherryberry for a little celebration dessert.

It was a busy 48 hours. We are proud of Brittany, out of high school, she spent a year in Baltimore being trained and doing urban mission work, then she went to Kansas City to work for a while with a Music Ministry Team and all the while she was doing some sort of schooling, either through Lee University or taking Internet classes through Delgado. She came home, started working and taking full loads to complete her Associates Degree of Science in Business Administration. She plans on continuing her education.

I am looking forward to summer with the girls. Ashley is going to take the summer off before she starts her student teaching in August and Brittany will work full time, but she has a flexible schedule, so we can plan some fun things this summer.

Jose enjoying a little golf practice while waiting for the water to boil.

Crawfish races before the boil.....Ashley's crawfish (Ruby) won!Yum!Eating at Pancho's before the Graduation Ceremony.Brittany is the one waving in the middle!

My girls were amazing on Mother's Day. They planned a menu and cooked a wonderful meal for us. They filled the area with flowers that Brittany arranged and Ashley decorated the homemade red velvet cake that Brittany baked. They both worked together on preparing the meal. It was such a nice relaxing afternoon. I brought all the flowers home and I am enjoying them in every room. That was a great Idea Brittay, to make several arrangements in all sizes. Thanks!

Here are some of my flowers in my tiny little garden. These are Lilies of the Nile...oh, the real name is Agapanthus(I looked that up for Judy!)

I just love them, they grow so tall and keep blooming through June, they start in mid April. I have them in deep purple, lavender and white. Also, the hummingbirds love to visit these plants.

This is one of my hydrangeas. I just planted it last year and it has gotten so big and so many blooms..I keep cutting them off and putting them around the house. When I planted it last year, the blooms were bright blue, but I think it has something to do with the acid in the soil, as to what color they will be....I don't know.

We are looking forward to a busy week ahead. Brittany will graduate with her Associates in Business this Wednesday.. We are having a crawfish boil for her tomorrow night. Justin will be coming for her graduation tomorrow as well.

Please pray for my friend Kathy Isaacs, who has recently been diagnosed with Stage 4 Colon Cancer. I hate cancer...I have had so many friends and family that have had to battle that terrible disease. She will begin aggressive treatment soon and my prayer is that she will not have the bad side effects. We are believing the God will heal her.

My parents had a terrible storm come through Southern Illinois last week and they have been without electricity for several days. My nieces home has also suffered damage and they lost all of the trees in their yard, except one. Their trees were huge, so the clean up effort is extensive. They are still without electricity as well.

I am reading Elizabeth Edward's new book, Resilience...it is very good.

I was named Mother of the Year!

Check out this link. Terry nominated me for Mother of the Year! What a great guy!~

Happy Mother's Day!

A few weeks ago, we went through all of the book boxes we had in our attic. We kept some, sold some, gave a lot away and we also found some treasures.

I found a journal that I had written in early 1993. At that time my girls were 6 and 4. There are some very funny stories in that journal, some things I have no recollection of and many of the events I had totally forgotten until I read my writings. It makes me really sad that I have not kept more journals over the years.

I thought an excerpt from my entry on February 4, 1993 was appropriate for Mother's Day. Ashley would have been 6 years old and in 1st or 2nd grade. Brittany was probably at home with Terry and I was doing some substitute teaching at the time. On this day, I was subbing at a middle school. This is a portion of the entry:

"I love my kids so much. Sitting in this class and looking at all these kids, I realize that no one can love a child as much as their own parent. So as much as Ashley is liked by her teacher and friends, she must have a certain insecurity when she is not with me, and I realize that I have a certain insecurity when I am not with them."

I love that I wrote that. I love my girls and I still feel that same connection. Even now, 16 years later, they will text me while they are in class at their University...."About to take my final, pray for me"........"when I get home, I want to take a nap"......."let's watch a movie tonight"........"do you want to sit outside in the swing when I get home?" I love that we still need each other as much today as we did back then.

Happy Mother's Day!