A Pretty Day

Our Day At The Park!

Well since I had the kids for the day I decided we needed to do some fun things to keep them occupied. You will notice there is only one person in the pictures!!! I am pretty smart, I farmed the other kid out to hard manual labor! He spent the day helping Uncle Scott load and unload nearly 4 tons of gravel to fill in a drainage ditch that we are fixing into a creek like setting. I failed to take pictures of that endeavor. But little miss and I went to the park. This is after we went to the state beauty supply store ( I have a card to get in thank you very much !) and I was able to get my daughter her expensive shampoo at a much better price. Thank goodness for hairdressers in the family. But while we were there the tears started flowing again. As you might remember Monday the rabbit died. If that were to happen at my house I guarantee you there would be a flood of tears. but since this was at my sil's house and the rabbit was a real rabbit, baby rabbit, the tears flowed but for different reasons! So while we were at the store she started crying about the rabbit and that was hard to explain to the cashier.
But we also went to the post office. The man was nice, but good grief he talked more than any old woman at the beauty shop! I'll tell you what, men just can't say anything about us women! He went on for EVER about stamps that never go up in price, gave me a hard time and treated me like I was dumb and good thing he doesn't know what I used to do for a living, I would be tempted to arrest him for disturbing the peace....MINE. Oh, that's right, I am retired, thank goodness and lucky for him. So we got that done.
Then we went to the park and played for a while. I should have listened to her and gone sooner for it was starting to get pretty hot. And plus she had no one to play with. Boring for her, I had a blast taking about 100 pictures of her. She is a mess, one silly little rascal, and cute as she can be.
After we played at the park we decided it was high time to wash my nasty dirty car. It had bird poop on it and it was disgusting. We have a nest of barn swallows under the car port like thing. I can't spell the word that I am trying to say and it does not come up in spell check so that should tell you how far off I am or the word is not one recognized in this dictionary! Anyway, the birds flying in and out of the nest tend to leave me a little present that I do not like and it needed to be washed. I can not bear the thought of getting rid of the nest for the birds are nearly grown and will be gone soon. They are good birds to have for they eat tons of bug! I love those kinds of birds even if they do poop on my car. Oh, and the car wash had multi colored soap. It was very pretty and I am suppose to tell her momma where we washed the car so they can come and do it too. It was a rainbow of colors and it was super fun to watch the machine wash the car. You didn't think I was going to wash it myself did you? Are you crazy? I had a 5 1/2 year old in the car with me, no way.
Then we went to eat Mexican food. Oh yes, I knew I loved this girl for a reason. She LOVES Mexican food and so do I. We called Uncle Scott and asked if the guys wanted to join us and he said YES. He loves Mexican food too. But somebody else does not like it. Oh well, he can order something else, the vote is 3 to1 and plus...I am paying for it, so there. Mexican it is. And boy was it good.
When we got home from all of our adventures I was informed there were tons of shells in all the gravel they brought in. So we spent the next hour digging in the river rock gravel for all the little sea shells? I don't know what kind of shells they were, but she had to have them, all of them, well at least she tried to get all of them. The kids had a great time. Their dad had called earlier in the day and said they could come home if they wanted to for he was there and was working outside in the yard. I asked them if they wanted to go and they both said NO WAY. Fine with me, the labor was pretty cheap and the company was great fun.

There were no more tears until mom came to pick them up and then the rabbit issue came up once again. I told them they could not cry at my house about the rabbit (because it makes me cry too) so that was off limits. I confessed to their momma I allowed them to stay up late, and eat cookies after 10:00. We will see if I am ever asked to watch the kids again, I bet I am. The kids love me!

Kids Keep Us Young

Just hanging around!

We took the niece and nephew for the night since their momma had to get up early to be at work. Their daddy is a paramedic firefighter and their mom is a teacher who only subs right now. So I volunteered to keep the kids all night and the next day. (oh they are home schooled by their teacher mom so don't think they were skipping school today, trust me, she will make it up with them and then some.) Since we have just moved back "home" are am trying to do things with family that I have missed out on in the past years. This set of niece and nephew are younger than the others so I try to do things with and for them that I did not get to do with the older ones. And man can they wear you out. Plus yesterday we had our first tragedy at the house and I was going to be used as a distraction. My niece had her baby, baby bunny out and the dog got it. The bunny was only about 12/13 days old and the dog killed it. The kids have just cried and cried, hate the dog, mad at each other, blame blame blame everywhere and the fact is, it is nature. But that does not mend the heart any faster or easier. Oh how I feel so sorry for them and seeing the cruel side of this world. So they both decided to come and stay with Aunt Lisa. So we decided to distract them the best we could. And the kids were so good to me. They said I could take them to the little lake by our house and take their pictures. I even told them they could get in the water just a little. And we would go to the park and play on the toys. So they were starting to feel a little better and the tears dried up for a while.

This first batch of pictures were actually taken last, I just did not want to take the time to rearrange the order of pictures right now. But the kids were playing and having so much fun. And yes we have suckers in our mouths which is dangerous, but we are living on the edge at the moment.
We are testing the limits to see if we can hang up side down, go down a very slick slide, and what ever we can, because mom and dad are not here telling us we can't! I sure hope I get them home safe with out any injuries or I will never get to keep them again.
I like the picture above. I put it on the night time mode, and let me tell you, it was pretty dark out, so I thought the picture turned out cool. I love the clouds and my nephew on the monkey bar thing.
Then of course we talked Uncle Scott into swinging on the swings with us. Notice he has a jacket on, and everyone else is either in shorts or sleeveless shirt/dress. She wanted to wear a dress but I made her put on the sweatpants, but they are still in sandals. I may not win Aunt of the Year Award!!
Here is the night shot at the lake. It was so peaceful and beautiful there. Except for the kids trying to kill each other, time to get them home!

These pictures were taken earlier. The kids by the bridge, and it was scarier than I thought it would be. I am scared of heights and this did not help.
And his momma would probably kill me if she knew I had her son on the ledge of this waterfall taking his picture. But he thought it was really cool. And of course he had his shoes off and loved playing in the water!
Now she was not as excited being close to any edge of anything. But I think it was a lot of show for attention. For she really isn't scared of anything!
They even agreed to have a picture taken together, what is up with all this cooperation? And the other mouth dropping comment....this is fun, we need to get daddy to come here to take his picture too. Yeah, will YOU talk him into that kids? Please?

Here is the little tiny, no big deal waterfall that the kids were having their pictures taken by. I had already figured if they fell in, I would have to drop the camera and jump in with them. Sure glad that didn't happen! They forgot about sad moments for a while!

After we got home the kids played and played. We had to take our baths, and I declined to taking a bath with my niece, no thank you, that's not going to happen. But she is so sweet when she asks and it is hard to resist those beautiful brown innocent eyes. But it only lasted a second. then will you come in the bathroom with me while I take a bath? Ok I can do that. She is so funny. Modest she is not, yet she thought it was so funny when I was more embarrassed then she was. But Rudy CAN NOT COME IN WHILE SHE IS BATHING....HE IS A BOY!!! Ok, I agree with that. (Rudy, my boxer dog!)

Bedtime came (again I will not win that award, because we ate Oreo cookies and milk after 10:00 and stayed up till almost 11:00) where did all that time go???? I could have sworn you just got here. Niece went to bed but wanted Zoe (momma Boxer dog) to sleep with her. So she did. Nephew slept on the sofa, (he was NOT going to sleep with his sister!) and Rudy slept with him and Callie slept on the love seat. Seems everyone is happy here. And I got to sleep with Scott..oh, that is allowed, we are married you know!

Kids will keep you young, but they sure can wear you out pretty fast too. Tomorrow?? Tea party is planned, trips to the gravel plant to get gravel for the drainage ditch, a trip to the post office, beauty supply store and the Big Park! We better get some sleep, I have a feeling it is going to be a long day. (now of course I am posting this after the day has already happened, and I know how it turned out. But I am not going to tell you right now about it. You will have to wait till tomorrow morning to find out what all we did today, besides, I am tired and need to go to bed early!)

Our American Solider

God Bless America !!!

Please.

Our American Hero and Family

Will, his mother Kim and dad Mike (Mike is my brother)

Our Solider

At the airport waiting for him to arrive home.

A mothers love
Pride, Joy and Tears.
He is home safe....for now.

My younger brother Rob, and my mom and nephew Trent

all waiting for the luggage with Will.

A nice picture of him in full uniform
The welcome home party. Some of Kim's kids and parents came to welcome Will home.We just got word this morning he was in Dallas and would be home in a couple hours.Kim had been waiting since Wednesday for word as to when he would be home. Don't you know that was a LONG four days for her?Plus she got hurt at school Friday with a severe sprained ankle.

My dad played chauffeur for Will and Kim. After getting him from the airport we wanted to take him to lunch. More for us than him probably for he had been on a plane for 16 hours from Germany. But he wanted to go and said he wanted to go to Mazzio's Pizza (?) Maybe because it is my dad's favorite place.

We sat around eating lunch and just talking,talking, talking. Bless his heart, he was so tired but just took it all in stride. The sad part is my brother (his dad) could not be there. He was at work a couple hours away on a job that he just could not get out of. Since we had no idea when Will would be coming home Mike could not make any other arrangements. Will understood but we all missed him being there with us.

I could not get enough pictures of Will. This is one of him with his aunt Steph and Trent as we were leaving Mazzio's.

The flag on his uniform is inferred and when night vision is used it glows (?) and shows he is one of the "good guys".
Our American Solider, Our Hero, Our son, brother, grandson, nephew, cousin and friend...

William Michael McAllister

Home for two weeks leave.

**Please keep him and all the others in your prayers.

We want him to come home again safe to us in late fall.

Hello Old Friend

After soccer today I wanted to go get some pictures of the river and dam. I laughed at myself thinking I was going to get a picture of the dam about seven miles away, it may be big, but not that big. So I wanted to go look and see what I could see. We parked at the low water dam, got out and this is what I saw. A dog swimming in the water. Now mind you we have had tons of rain and the current is pretty swift in the river. It scared me to see this dog just swimming around. I saw a man sitting on a rock by the river edge talking on his cell phone so I just watched the dog. Shortly the dog swam to his owner and gave out a bark. I am sure he was saying, Boss, someone is up there watching us, just wanted to let you know. The man got off his phone and just sat there. I hollered down to him, hey, can I take some pictures of your dog? Sure he says, that would be fine.

This dog, a black lab, comes out of the water as if to meet/greet me, but he was also between me and the man. He was told to watch and the dog turned to strike me a pose of him watching what could be in the river. I said something to the man and he replied, I don't remember the conversation really.
My son has a black lab and we talked for just a minute when I turned to my husband and said quietly, man he sounds just like Rob (my brother). As I turned back around, I have walked closer to the man and dog when he looks up at me and says....LISA??????
I looked again, and it is a cousin from my previous marriage whom I have not seen in YEARS. Todd I yell, and ran and gave him one big hug. My husband is just standing there with his mouth opened. I can not believe after being gone for 30 years, divorced for 15 years, I run into one of my favorite cousins from my ex-husbands side of the family. Todd's mother passed away on Christmas Eve many years ago, his dad remarried and Todd, divorced raising three children alone moved into his parents old house. He himself never remarried, made his children his life and spends his spare time at the river with Reno, man's best friend.
Sure is good to see you again my friend. Take good care of yourself and that dog! By the way, Happy Birthday, hope it was a good one.

Soccer Saturday

Soccer Saturday!

I don't know if you can see it but the facial expressions are what I like most about the soccer pictures. Enlarge them and see if you can see the tongue sticking out or a surprised look on a face.
This is my nephew kicking the ball (picture below). He stayed the night with me last night so I could take him to the game. His daddy is a fire fighter and was not sure he would be home in time. Momma was at a Bible School Meeting and could not be there. I was going any way.
Doesn't he look good on the field? He plays goalie for most the game and then switches out so he can get some run time in. Plus he gets paid by grandma for points scored. I don't believe in doing that, but if she wants to then power to her. It is my mom doing it so I can say that!
He is becoming a much better player. Did not used to get in there and try to get the ball. He did not want to hurt anyone, I can understand that, but he is learning how to be more of a leader and I love seeing him grow into that position.
Here he is kicking the ball out while playing goalie.
Other team members are good as well. I love taking their pictures to give them at the end of the season.
I am the unofficial team photographer, but they love getting a disk at the end of the season filled with action shots of all the players.
We don't have very many kids so it is pretty easy to get shots of them all. Anyway I hope I did!


Next Saturday we will do a team picture and individuals then on Sunday afternoon is their last game of the season. Plus the Kentucky Derby is Saturday, busy weekend ahead!

This May Make You Cry!

I got this email today from a very dear friend in Georgia and thought it was so sweet. It made me cry. But even with the tears I thought I was going to post it. The other day one of my readers posted about hitting a cat and the sadness with that incident. I have several readers that are very strong in Christian faith, and readers that are just awesome people. So I thought we would all enjoy this tender side. I will warn you, do not read right before leaving the house or after applying makeup. Eyes will be red and makeup may smear. I am such a softy. Kids and dogs, this is what life is all about. I will feel silly if every one has already read this one but me!!! But if that is so, I hope you enjoy it again.

Our 14 year old dog, Abbey, died last month. The day after she died, my 4 year old daughter Meredith was crying and talking about how much she missed Abbey. She asked if we could write a letter to God so that when Abbey got to heaven, God would recognize her. I told her that I thought we could so she dictated these words:

Dear God,

Will you please take care of my dog? She died yesterday and is with you in heaven. I miss her very much. I am happy that you let me have her as my dog even though she got sick.I hope you will play with her. She likes to play with balls and to swim. I am sending a picture of her so when you see her You will know that she is my dog. I really miss her.

Love,

Meredith.

We put the letter in an envelope with a picture of Abbey and Meredith and addressed it to God/Heaven. We put our return address on it. Then Meredith pasted several stamps on the front of the envelope because she said it would take lots of stamps to get the letter all the way to heaven. That afternoon she dropped it into the letter box at the post office. A few days later, she asked if God had gotten the letter yet. I told her that I thought He had.

Yesterday, there was a package wrapped in gold paper on our front porch addressed, 'To Meredith, 'in unfamiliar hand writing. Meredith opened it. Inside was a book by Mr. Rogers called, 'When a Pet Dies.' Taped to the inside front cover was the letter we had written to God in its opened envelope. On the opposite page was the picture of Abbey & Meredith and this note:

Dear Meredith,

Abbey arrived safely in heaven.Having the picture was a big help. I recognized Abbey right away.Abbey isn't sick anymore. Her spirit is here with me just like it stays in your heart. Abbey loved being your dog. Since we don't need our bodies in heaven, I don't have any pockets to keep your picture in, so I am sending it back to you in this little book for you to keep and have something to remember Abbey by.Thank you for the beautiful letter and thank your mother for helping you write it and sending it to me.
What a wonderful mother you have. I picked her especially for you.I send my blessings every day and remember that I love you very much.By the way, I'm easy to find, I am wherever there is love.

Love,

God

Have a great weekend

Lisa

My Brothers Wife (& Kids)

I love these kids! This is my niece and nephew ages 5 and 9.

(almost 6 and 10!)

They were allowing me to take their pictures for two hours this day.

They never fussed at me, did everything I asked and I love them for it.

These first pictures were taken at the very end and I have to tell you the story behind it.

"Ok kids, walk away from me so I can get a shot of you holding hands."

Not too bad, one tall, one short, one walks fast, one walks slow, uh oh, I see a problem.

Slow down, no you speed up!

And then the arm jerk!

Stop it and slow down now! (Stomp!)

Uh, did anyone see me do that?

I wonder if mom or Aunt Lisa was watching. I stomped on your foot, ha ha ha! And I didn't get in trou...

Mom yells," you two stop it, no fighting! "
And keep your hands off of each other!
Ok, not a problem!

Head butting works!

Oh we are silly aren't we?
I love these kids!!!!

I am looking for volunteers to let me take their family pictures.

I need the practice and would love the chance. Leave me a comment if you would be willing to let me photograph your family (at no charge, if you pay for the prints)

Tulsa area ONLY!

The rest of these pictures are of the kids and Steph. I am not going to write about all of them I just hope you will look at them and enjoy them. I think you can click on them to enlarge them. Maybe, hopefully, if you want or need to. I really had a good time. Please tell me some of your favorites, I just like to know what people think about them. Of course I have my favorites, Steph has hers and the kids have theirs. Knowing their personalities help to like certain ones over the others, but just looking I would like to know what you like! Thanks and enjoy.

* I did not pose his hand on his sisters arm. I thought this was sure sweet. *









This shot explains how Trent and most men feel about taking pictures...ewe gag me!

He got sick of all the mushy shots I made him take. (But he never complained!)

If you are interested in letting me take your family photo we need to do it fairly quickly if we go to this site. Before the flowers start fading. I would be happy to go to other sites if they are not too far away. Think of some neat places and suggest them to me. I would be delighted to have this opportunity.