Room for one more

Sunday was an awesome day. Not only because we spent the afternoon at my moms with my sister, and my brothers, not only because we spent the afternoon talking, laughing and spending quality family time together, but because Sunday morning my nephew rededicated his life to Jesus. What comforting news this was to hear. There are still so many others who I pray will find their way to the Lord too.
Words cannot express the feeling I have had in my heart since both my children were saved a few weeks ago. A feeling of wholeness has swept over me. I have always been a believer in God. I have always loved God, acknowledged God and prayed to God, and in 1999 I gave my life to Him. In the year 2000, Stroker made the decision to be born again. Something within me has grown noticably closer to God since my children were saved.  I find tremendous comfort in knowing that I along with my husband and my children will spend eternity together with Jesus.
I hope I see you there. There is always room for one more.



Saturday Smores

It's amazing how a few hundred miles away, hurricane Irene can be pounding the east coast, yet we sit outside and enjoy the awesome weather that we had today. The Lord blessed us this weekend with plenty of free time on our hands to enjoy the sunny, blue skies and mild temperatures in the 80's. How else could we express our gratitude but to spend the day (and evening) outdoors. I took this photo with Brookelynn's camera around midday.

There were tons of sirens all day. Police sirens, ambulance sirens, firetruck sirens...you name it, we heard them constantly. It sure seemed like a lot more than usual, but then again, maybe we have just been indoors or gone and didn't notice them so much before.

Stroker and I also took on a project today to hang a spare tire mount in the enclosed trailer. Boy was that a challenge. Three things we know absolutely nothing about are building materials, power tools, and hardware. For someone that had a clue, the job would have taken about twenty minutes. As for us, we spent a good two and a half hours on it before we were finished. And to beat all, we still need to put bigger bolts in sometime in the future so it will be secure.

This evening, Brookelynn had Kelsey and Alyssa over while we roasted hot dogs and made smores over the fire. Kelsey and Alyssa said they had never done that before. We had a fun evening and Cletus kept the yard and patio clear of any fallen food.

We also played Uno and the girls played in the dark with glow sticks for a while.

What an awesome day. Thank you Lord for blessing us with such a wonderful day.

Our first fire in the new firepit.

Stroker poking around the flames 

Brookelynn and Kelsey preparing for Smore's

Brookelynn, Kelsey and Alyssa with their glow sticks

It Doesn't Matter Where You Go or What You Do...It's Whose Beside You That Counts

Fantastic Friday 2nd Edition

Brookelynn woke me up this morning for the 2nd round of Fantastic Friday. This time, she chose Cracker Barrell. We got the Uncle Hershel's Favorite.
For dinner, we met up with Stacia, Jett, Dash, Darlene, and Gary at Ruby Tuesday's. We had coupons for 25% off, but what good is a bargain when the food takes an hour to reach your table and then part of it is burnt?

Tuesday's Twelve

Although it is only Tuesday, this week has been packed with appointments and agenda's.

1. Yesterday, was my annual doctor visit. Everything went OK there,
2. I got his opinion on my achy left arm that has been annoying me the last few months.
3. He touched my left shoulder blade and I felt a sharp pain...just like that he said "go see a chiropractor, you may have a nerve that is pinched".  Hhhhmmmm, for months I have been thinking my circulation was bad. Here he has diagnosed me with one touch. I guess that is why I haven't received my PHD yet. LOL
4. I went to pick up Devin after school yesterday and spent 20 minutes in the car rider pick up space before he ever noticed I was there.  Uuuugggghhhh, so much for trying to get there early.
5. This morning, I got up early, got dressed and went to Sparta to pick up my mom at 7am.
6. I got back to C-ville, picked up Brooke and dropped her off at school.
7. Then I dropped mom off at the doctors office and headed back home to scoop up Devin.  It was about 8:15 when I got Devin to school.
8. I took a quick trip to Cracker Barrel this morning after I had everyone delivered to their destination.
9. Mom had a "stress test" and a nerve test ran on her legs today, which took four hours. When I got my mom back home,
10. I sprayed her driveway down with "Round Up" since the grass was taking over the gravel. On my way back home, I decided to stop at the grocery store and get all the ingredients for a home cooked meal.
11. Brookelynn's friend Treasure called this evening to see if Brooke could come to watch Journey's ball game with her. I said "sure, but you have to eat dinner first".
12. We had meatloaf, mashed potato's and corn. It must have been Cracker Barrel that got me in the mood for some country cookin'.

Early Weekend

Traditionally, we are either right on time for gatherings or we are "fashionably" late. This weekend, we broke the pattern and made it to every event on our agenda early.

It started Friday evening when Brookelynn and I made it Stacia's JEWEL KADE party twenty-five minutes early. Stroker, Devin, and Gary all went out on a "guys only" dinner at Bobby-Q's while us girls gathered and giggled.

Saturday rolled around and we managed to clear our agenda long enough to hang out at a church outreach event at Jere Whitson park. We didn't get to stay long. Saturday was a busy one.

Sunday morning, we woke to the sound of thunder and got up a bit earlier than normal for Sunday. We got up, got dressed and made it to church twenty minutes early.

Sunday afternoon, we hit the road and headed to Murfreesboro to Ansley's birthday party. She turns nine today. We stopped to eat on the way and still got to the party ten minutes before schedule.

The hit for the birthday party was the hurricane simulator with 78.5 mph winds.

Devin decided to give the spider crawl a try.

Size 12

Speaking of how summer has flown by this year, I stumbled across something today that really makes me stop and think about how father time seems to be  stuck in fast forward.
As I was searching the house for Brookelynn's "Jr. Titan's Cheerleader" uniform to try to squeeze in one last year, I ran across Devin's first pair of Air Jordans.  Of course I had to to compare them to the size 12 that he wears now.

Where has the past fifteen years gone?
 Is there a pause button anywhere that I can push?

Cool Down

The weather this weekend turned out to be sooo nice. Friday night, when we went to dinner with M&M, we sat out on the patio while we ate at Crawdaddy's. We had a fun time. Yesterday had storms in the forecast, but it turned out to be just a cloudy day with temperatures in the 80's. Today was sunny and temps. in the mid 80's. It felt like Fall weather is just around the corner. I am not a real big fan of Fall, Spring and Summer are my favorites, but the drop in the temperature sure feels welcome. I like days that are not so hot that it suffocates me to step outdoors. It's hard to believe that summer ends (Labor Day) in three weeks. I feel like I blinked and missed summer this year. We never got in our trip to Holiday World either, but I guess the beach made up for that.
As for today, I got the front door painted, scrubbed and sanitized the kitchen sink and counter, organized the consignment sale stuff and sat in the front yard swing with a tall glass of iced tea. The breeze felt so nice that I couldn't resist a quick lap around Cane Creek Park...so that is what I did.

The rest of the Hayes household just kind of hung around the house getting rested up for the week ahead.

How was your weekend?

Saturday Shuffle

Friday morning started off kind of sour when I arrived at Julian's Body Shop to drop off my car so he could finish fixing the damage from the crash in June. After scheduling the repair for Friday, he informed me that he had too much other work going on to guarantee that he could finish my car in one day. So, I called Amanda, who was on her way to pick me up, to cancel the ride. As luck would have it, she didn't get the call and drove to Julian's anyway.
For lunch, Stroker met me at O'Charley's. His plan was to leave work at 10 am since I wasn't supposed to have a car and we could run errands together.
Even though my car plans went south, Stroker left work anyway and we enjoyed a nice, peaceful lunch together. After school, Brookelynn went to spend the night with my sister. Jett was spending the night too, so I am sure they kept each other entertained.

 Stacia sent this picture of Jett after his t-ball game this week. I thought he might have slid into first base...turns out, he just likes the dirt...He cracks me up :)

My friend M and her husband M met us for dinner last night. We went to CrawDaddy's and listened to the music and enjoyed a good meal with some good company. It's obvious that we are getting older. We were yawning and back home by 11:30. We just can't hang out like we used to.

Today was a continuous road trip. We hit Jackson County, White County, Dekalb County and finally back to Putnam County. We spent 90% of the day in the truck. We also enjoyed dinner at El Tap with Gary, Darlene, Delano, Stacia, Jett and Dash.

Fun at the Fair

We took Brookelynn and Treasure for a night of spinning and twirling at the county fair tonight.  Devin decided that he would rather sit this adventure out, so he stayed home.

The girls had a fun time, but as the night wore on, their tummy's began to reach their limit. On our way out, we stood at the grand stands and watched a couple of trucks compete for the farthest distance of mud racing. Typical Tennessee redneck stuff.

 

 

It's turned out to be a late night getting in the bed, and to add to the late bedtime, we have to get up early tomorrow because it is "Fantastic Friday".

Tomorrow night is  double date night for us. Dinner at Crawl Daddy's and a movie.

Wordless Wednesday

Two for Tuesday

Cletus went for a grooming today. He looks so much better and I am sure he feels better too. Although, he wasn't feeling very photogenic this evening.

Devin had an orthodontist appointment today to check on his retainers. Everything seems to be just as they are supposed to be.

Dinner and Bathrooms

Saturday was our annual dinner at Golden Coral with my entire family.
Daddy treats us all to dinner each August to celebrate our birthdays.  The only downfall of meeting at Golden Coral is that we don't really get a chance to hang out and talk much. I am not sure what the final count was for all of us there on Saturday, but I would guesstimate it to be around 32. 
This is a photo of the those who were not at the buffet at the time of the snapshot. It's a little blurry, but it is all that I have.

 I think that Dash enjoyed dessert most of all...Who doesn't enjoy a chocolate ice cream cone ?!

Gary and Tent came over to our house Saturday evening to cap off some plumbing in our old bathroom that we decided to remodel. Little did we know, five hours later, we would have the entire bathroom gutted (except for the toilet). We even removed the old cast iron bath tub (which was quite a task). 
After having everything out of the room and exposing the floor, we thought that the floor was going to have to come up too due to old water leaks.
Sunday, my brother came over to access the situation and helped us determine that we were going to have to tear out the floor all the way down to the floor joists.
Monday, Kevin and Mike (my brothers) showed up and spent the day tearing out the floor, bracing the floor joists and placing a whole new sub floor. They took out the last fixture in the bathroom too (the toilet). It sat in the front yard all day. Check out the upcoming post on Wednesday. 
Whew, we sure had no idea we would be this far along today. We thought we were just closing off some water pipes this weekend.
I am so grateful and blessed to have people in my family that know what the heck their doing when it comes to saws, tape measures and PVC pipe.

Oh yeah...I almost forgot...Cookeville City Public Works showed up today to clear some ditch line for the storm water runoff. My email last week must have made a difference.



Fantastic Friday

Brookelynn came to me last night with the idea that we should have "Fantastic Fridays". Just what is "Fantastic Friday's" you ask. Well, that's when we get up extra early and go out for breakfast before school. We were at IHOP at 6 am this morning. Devin even jumped out of bed and joined us. Breakfast was good and everybody got to school early for a change. I don't know if this new trend that Brooke has started will last or not, but I sure felt the "fantastic" results of jumping up early most of the day. I have been draggin' around since noon.
Although we were tired, we set out on a mission to get the family room repainted yesterday. Today, we applied the second coat and put the room back together. The color I chose this time is "polished silver'. I think it was a nice change from the tan color it has been for years. It's kind of hard to tell anything about the color in my photos. The lighting and the hardwood floor and ceiling always make the pictures look too warm.

before

 our new wall quote

Tonight, Brookelynn has a friend over for a sleepover. Tomorrow, we meet my daddy and twenty five other family members for dinner at Golden Corral.

Sunday, we plan to visit my mom for a while.

Gonna be another busy weekend.  Oh yeah, Titan's cheer leading is getting ready to gear up. Brookelynn has decided to join them again this year. We will be getting her paperwork sent in this weekend.

Blogiversary

 So, here I am, two years and 282 blogs later. Looking back on events in the past two years, I see so many changes in everything...in our home, in our children, in our state of mind.  I spent a while today just looking back through some of our "happenings". There were several that I particularly enjoyed looking back on.  You can view a few of them HERE, HERE and HERE.

We are growing here at the Hayes House, mentally, physically and spiritually.

Wednesday Wrap Up

Wow! It's August already. Where did June and July go?

We finished up last weekend with a really good family reunion dinner at Mildred's. I got a group photo of the ones that were there at the time. Some people drifted in and out all weekend, making their rounds and visiting other family members around town. Some didn't stop by at all, but that is ok, there was a time when I didn't attend the reunions either. The first few years that I dated Stroker, I didn't know very many family members and didn't feel all that comfortable in a crowd of strangers. By the time we were married, we were attending all the family events. I am thankful that we do so much together as a family and I am glad to be a part of this family. When I married Stroker, I knew exactly what I was getting myself into.  It's important to spend time with loved ones every chance you get. You just never know when it might be your last time.

That's me in the back with the cataract sunglasses (as Stroker calls them)



I also got a lot of mosquito bites this past weekend. I have clawed my legs and ankles to the point that I almost need a skin graft.

Monday, Stroker finally got around to mowing the grass. He mentioned it all weekend, but we were just too busy to get anything done around our house. I rearranged some of the photos in the family room to make room for a vinyl wall quote that I ordered to commemorate the kids being saved.

Of course, nothing is as easy as I originally plan. After moving the photos, I filled in the nail holes with some putty and searched a dozen cans of paint that we have stored looking for the leftover paint that matches the walls. As luck would have it, we have none. So, I looked for the swatch so that I could go by Lowe's to buy enough to touch up the walls...I have no swatch either. Looks like I will have to repaint the whole room. Ugh.

We trimmed a couple of tree limbs and trimmed the hedge that has taken a growing spell on Tuesday. We spent the evening at home that day. Highly unusual.
Today kicked off the annual "Smart Card" Sale. If you need one, let us know. We have sold a couple already, but Brooke hopes to sell more.
Tonight at church, we had a fellowship dinner before class. The theme was breakfast. I took a cheese danish...again.
At the end of our class, Debi had us play a couple of games to close the night. For the last game, we had to number off...1,2...1,2...1,2...around the room. I was number "2", then Debi handed us a roll of toilet paper. at that point, I made it clear that I wanted no part of a game that involved toilet paper and me being number 2...LOL
Speaking of LOL. When did "LOL" evolve from "lots of love" to "laugh out loud"?
Did that just emerge in the texting era? Should I feel old for remembering  "LOL in the age of "lots of love"? Ok, so now I'm just being random. Time for bed.