May always brings very pleasant weather for us. It is rare that we need to run the heat at this time of the year. This May is an exception to that rule. Since everyone around here is commenting on the coolness of the season I figured I’d mention it for the record.
MOM’S BIRTHDAY. Mom celebrated her birthday this past Friday. We took her out to eat at the Catfish House Tuesday evening and the boys and I went out with her to Cracker Barrel Friday evening.
I’m sort of patting myself on the back for the present I gave Mom as she seems genuinely happy to get it. Mom has lots of pictures that she took during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The bad thing is that most of them are slides (we’re talking hundreds of slides). I have been on the lookout for a scanner that does a decent job with slides and acquired one a few months ago. Since then I snuck Mom’s slides to my house and started to work. I managed to get about 400 shots scanned in and create a DVD with simple slideshows. Now she can pop in the disc and see pictures from about 1965 forward. Around 1956 Mom got a once in a lifetime chance to spend a month in Europe visiting Aunt Linda and Uncle Bob while the Army had Uncle Bob stationed there. These slides are next on the list.
MOTHER’S DAY. I had to push Aunt Mar in church yesterday! During the service Bro. Bill asked everyone who is not a mother to stand. Aunt Mar was sitting behind me and out of the corner of my eye I saw her start to rise. I turned around and put my hand on her shoulder to make her sit back down and told her she had been a mom to too many people in the family for her to stand. After church we all went to Pauline’s for lunch and enjoyed spending part of the afternoon together.
The kids got Vicki some perfume she’s been wanting and I got her a hummingbird feeder. Nate, who has slightly misunderstood the name of the bird, thinks I filled the feeder with honey. Ben keeps checking the window every day to see if we have any new customers. I keep telling him it will take a week or two for the birds to discover the feeder (and at these temperatures it will be longer) but he keeps a watch none the less.
BEN: SOCCER AND SCHOOL. This Saturday the soccer games were so spread out Vicki and I divided the duty. I didn’t see Jenna’s game but I hear they were slaughtered. Ben’s team did really well and he is becoming a great defensive man. I have never before seen him as focused on his game as he was Saturday. He did let a few balls get by him but he was paying attention and right in there playing his position. I was really proud of him.
One thing that slipped my mind about Ben last week was kindergarten registration. Our school system began the registration process for next year’s kindergarten students a week ago Friday and Vicki went to school to fill out the paperwork. Ben has Mom’s Day Out on Friday and was very concerned that Vicki was not taking him. He finally consented to go to MDO as long as Vicki made sure she told them at school that he couldn’t be there because he was at another school.
Looking at things now we are so glad we didn’t send Ben to kindergarten last year even though he was just barely old enough. He simply wasn’t ready last year and this time to mature has made all the difference. Ben seems to be a lot like me in his attitudes about things and I hope this will help him to have a better experience throughout school than I did. Yesterday Lori Swann asked Ben if he was ready for school. For the first time I’ve seen, he answered yes.
SLEEP OVER. Jenna’s GA group had a sleep over Friday night. (In a Baptist church Girls In Action or GAs is a missions organization for elementary age girls. The equivalent organization for boys are the Royal Ambassadors or RAs.) They went swimming at the YMCA, ate at Pizza Hut and came back to church to play games and have fun. In spite of all the fun, lights went out at 1:00 am and not a minute too soon. Vicki went as one of the chaperones and reported that everyone, including Jenna, had a blast.
FAN CLUB. So Jenna is playing a game on the computer and Ben is watching her. He really gets into the action when Jenna plays, telling her to go in a particular direction or watch out for for some danger. Jenna must have done something really impressive because we hear Ben exclaim, “Oh baby, I like your style!”
PRAYER MONOPOLY. One night this week when we were having our family devotion Nate was asked if he wanted to pray first. He usually turns this down but this time he agreed. In his prayer he covered “flamily,” friends, toys, school, etc. When he got done Vicki asked him to pick who would pray next. He said “me” and repeated his prayer. We finally stopped him after about the fourth time as we all had a case of the giggles.
Joe
