4th of July 2010!!

I hope everyone had a safe and fun 4th of July! I had a wonderful day! After the miserable 4th of July I had last year it felt so good to smile and laugh again on the holiday I truly love. Sometimes I think that this process of grieving over a loss is so slow but then I see how far I have come over the past year and I also see God's hand in my life and how he has protected me and taken care of me and sent angels in the form of family and friends. So while it may seem slow moving to me sometimes, I believe God has me right where He wants me right now. So here's a few pics of my 4th! Hope everyone's was as wonderful!!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone!! I hope you all have a wonderful day with family! It looks like it's going to be a beautiful day here in Ohio. I am heading off to brunch with my Dad and family and the kids and grandkids are coming over later today for a grill out and Easter egg hunt. It should be fun. Last night I went to an early Easter service at our church and was so moved by the service. I love Easter and what it means! Have a great day!!

Christmas ~ 2009

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! I spent Christmas Eve and morning sick, it was a good time...hahaha....I think I might have eaten something bad or had a stomach bug. Not much fun but I am feeling better today and at least I know I didn't gain any weight over the holidays because I couldn't even keep anything in me for a few days. :-) So here's a few photos of my kids and grands. The grands were the best part of the holiday! Hope everyone had a great one and I for one am thinking positive thoughts for 2010!!

Merry Christmas!!

That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord's glory surrounded them. They were terrified, but the angel reassured them. "Do not be afraid!" he said. "I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior-yes the Messiah, the Lord-has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger!"
Have a Blessed and Merry Christmas friends!!

Halloween ~ 2009

Hi Everyone!! Hope you all had a wonderful Halloween! We had a fun evening with the two little girls(Madison and Sydney) coming over for pizza and trick or treat. It was a little chilly and we were all fighting whatever sickness that has been being passed around our family. I am just starting to feel better tonight. I am hoping that this is our one and only time we get that nasty stuff. Ha....what are the chances of that?? So here's a few photos of my girls in their Cincinnati Bearcats cheerleading outfits(can you tell what school their Mommy and Daddy went too??). I hope everyone has a great week, I am trying to work on painting some rooms this week. I started painting the master bedroom one color and decided I wasn't crazy about the color so I got a completely different color!! LOL I'll use the other paint for another room. Have a great week!

Happy Halloween!!

Just wanted to say Happy Halloween to everyone from my favorite little goblins and my photos go along with the Brenda Photo Challenge theme for Halloween too. I hope everyone has a fun and safe day. Maddie and Sydney are coming over for pizza and trick or treating later on today. We all have been fighting some sickness so hopefully everyone will be feeling better. Maddie had walking pneumonia and has been doing breathing treatments all week but she feels lots better now and is so excited about trick or treating! This bottom photo is from last year but has always been one of my favorites! So pizza and candy today, haha.......where's that pink stuff for stomach aches..........Have a great day and go over here and check out who's playing in Brenda's Photo Challenge today! I'm betting there will be some BOOtastic photos...........

Happy 4th of July

I hope everyone has a happy and safe 4th of July! Not doing much around here this year. Usually we have a party but with the backyard all torn apart because of the new patio being put in, there's no party here. The backyard project has been stalled because of all the rain we had, we need to have a big truckload of rocks delivered to our backyard but the only way to our back is through the front yard and with the ground being so wet it would make a mess. A big mess! So for now I am still using a step ladder to go in and out of my backdoor. My neighbors look at me funny when I go in and out the back. LOL I am also doing a painting project, my daughter and I are painting the bedrooms upstairs. It hasn't been done in years so it's been alot of fun picking out paint colors. We have picked out brown and blue for the first room. I'll try to post photos as we go along. It's amazing what a little paint can do!
Okay, why can't I catch up with my blog reading???? LOL Is anyone else having catch up problems? Maybe it's just this time of year......... Anyway have a wonderful 4th and stay safe!!

HE IS RISEN!!

Oh yes HE has...............Happy Easter Blogging Buddies!

Good Friday and Easter

I know I show this every year around Easter but I just can't help it, it's so cute. The gorillas at the Cincinnati Zoo always get a basket of hard boiled eggs for Easter, they seem to enjoy what the Easter bunny leaves for them. :-)

Busy weekend planned, today I am off to meet my Dad for lunch at Red Lobster(hope they have the parmesan tilapia on the lunch menu) and then a date night tonight with my sweet hubby and church tomorrow night and then my Dad takes us all out for brunch on Easter Sunday and then an Easter egg hunt at our house for the grandbabies(Maddie may be the only one able to participate). Woo, I'm already tired just thinking about it. LOL But I want to take time to remember how special Easter is and what our Lord has done for us and this crown of thorns has such meaning. This is actually a crown of thorns that you can hang in your house, they sell it at the Family Christian Bookstores and you can get one here. I've had my eye on it for awhile.
Hope everyone has a wonderful Easter weekend!

Decorating for Easter and Loving Spring!

Is everyone ready for Easter? Here are my decorations for the upcoming holiday! This first photo is my dining room table centerpiece that I put together. I use this same base for every holiday and just change it around. The base came as a gift that was filled with goodies one Christmas and I decided to keep it and reuse it. At Christmas I put a bunch of shiny ornaments in silver and blue in it and this Easter I put the bunny with lots of Easter eggs, some are even sparkly. I like the way it turned out.
This is one of my pretend chocolate bunnies, he is suppose to hold candy but I am not even going there right now because if I filled him up with something like dark chocolate M & M's(the most evil candy known to mankind) it would be gone in a heartbeat and that heartbeat would probably be me. LOL That's my phone/digital photo frame next to my bunny, I heart that thing.

Here's some more fake chocolate bunnies. They are so cool because they look so real. The basket is filled with wooden sparkle eggs.

And this last one turned out so dark but these little bunnies are so cute, they look like they are covered with moss. It's just bad lighting and I have been too sick with a nasty cold to play around with it some more. LOL Everything I have for Easter decorations I got at either Michael's(the moss bunnies) or Hobby Lobby or Home Goods. They always have great prices! So do you decorate for Easter?

Okay on to lovin' Spring. I LOVE Spring. I don't love this Spring cold I have but I love this time of year so much. I put my closed toe shoes in the back of my closet and my sandals and flip flops are out for good and will be out till the end of October. My toes are freshly polished(pink,of course) and my capri's are ready to be put on. Yea!!! And this next photo has nothing to do with any of this except I took it at the Cincinnati Zoo a few weeks ago and thought it was so cute. This is a little red panda sound asleep in the tree. I just want to know how he sleeps like this. I have trouble sleeping in a nice warm bed sometimes. LOL

And these two last photos were also taken at the Cincinnati Zoo and if you take a drive around Cincinnati right now you will see the trees blooming like this all over. I am so happy that April is here and everything is alive and blooming even if I can't smell a dang gone thing right now and am coughing my head off. LOL Hope you all are enjoying wonderful weather where ever you may be!

Happy Valentine's Day (a day early)!

Happy Valentine's Day from my little sweethearts! That's Cameron on the left, then Maddie and then little Sydney. All three are my precious little love grandbabies! We went over to visit my son and Cameron the other day. They live on the other side of town here in Cincy so I don't get to see Cameron as much as I do the girls because the girls only live a few miles away. But it's so much fun when all three of the grandbabies get together. Maddie is the oldest and has become very protective of the two younger ones, she loves her sister and cousin and was very sad when we had to go home. She kept crying Camron(she drops the er from his name when she says it). And she calls my son Uncle Dimmy instead of Jimmy, it's so cute. So here's a few photos of all three of them together.

Cameron sees his chance for a graham cracker and goes in to get it.

Maddie is looking at Sas(Sydney) like don't you see this coming? Sas has eyes only for the graham cracker.

Cameron says "I got it!" and little Sas just is happy licking her fingers(that really is the way she rolls, so easy going and sweet).

Maddie thinks the whole thing was funny and I think Sas(Sydney) just realized that her cookie is gone. I love these three little guys and they keep me constantly entertained. They are the best Valentines ever!

Anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day. I am posting early because we have a busy weekend. We are having a little party at our house for my Dad's 84th birthday tomorrow. We never forget his birthday because it falls on Valentines Day. All his kids and most of his grandchildren and great grandchildren will be there so I know he is looking forward to it. Happy Birthday Dad!

Hope everyone has a great weekend! I am hopelessly behind in visiting everyone. It's just been one of those busy weeks but I hope to catch up with all of you within the next week. Oh and if any of my bloggy friends belong to Facebook, let me know or email me @ joansjourneys@yahoo.com because I would love to add you to my list of friends. Like I need something else to be addicted too. LOL Happy Valentines Day!

Downtown Train Display

When your alone and life is making you lonely
You can always go - downtown
When you got worries all the noise and the hurry
Seems to help I know -downtown

Okay, now that great old song by Petula Clark will be in your head for the rest of the day. Sorry. LOL
So my son, Jim and oldest daughter, Melissa and I took the grandbabies downtown to see the Christmas train display. Maddie and Cameron loved it. SAS(Sydney) didn't wake up the whole time we were there. Here's a few(maybe more then a few :-) photos of our time there. It is worth the visit and if you are ever in Cincy around the holidays, make sure you visit the train display. And it is free. :-)

Look at Maddie with her face pressed up against the glass. She loved this train display. Thomas the train is one of her very favorite shows and they had a Thomas the train going around the tracks. I love this area that is set up for little people to see the trains up close.

Doesn't this little town area look real?

Here's a view looking in from the outside. It is alot of work to put this together.

Look at the tracks, trains and train station.

I told you sweet SAS was sleeping the whole time. She was guarding my leopard print gloves. :-)

Mommy and Maddie.

Jim and Cameron

See this police car, it says Cincinnati Police on the side. The detail is great.

And one last photo of the choo-choos as Maddie likes to call them. They also pass out cookies to everyone when you go so Maddie was in heaven. Cookies and choo-choos, nothing beats that.

So go downtown

Maybe I'll see you there

We can forget all of our troubles, forget all our cares

Things will be great when you're - downtown

Don't wait a minute more - downtown

Everything waiting for you

Downtown

Downtown

Downtown

Is Petula in your head for the rest of the day? :-) And don't even tell me you don't remember Petula, you'll just make me feel old. If you want to do pay it forward with me, it's in the post below this. I signed up on Twitter today also, it's on my sidebar. Not quite sure what it's all about yet but thought I'd try it out. Have a good one!