I Was Either Going To Have A Heart Attack or Throw Up

Moore, Oklahoma was hit by a devastating tornado today.

As of this moment, at least 51 are dead. 
Correction: The death toll was revised to 24. 

Again. 

The Husband and I have one adult nephew, wife and child + two adult nieces, husbands and children who live in Moore. In addition to all of their extended family and friends. As well as The Husband's cousin's son and family.

In Moore.

Where the tornado hit.

At the highway exit we take when we visit.

At almost the exact same time I heard about the tornado at work, my Mother turned on the TV and called The Husband. I was trying to phone him, as he was speaking to Mom.

I immediately started texting and calling relatives.

"Are you okay?"

"Have you heard from XXXX?"

"Call me!!!!"

My chest got so tight and I was in such a panic.

Fortunately, we began to receive reports that our family was okay.

There was a scary situation at a home day care center (which was destroyed) where our precious grand nieces stay. THEY are okay. All the children there are OKAY.

They are okay.

Other precious children, at a local school, are not okay.

Once The Husband and I knew that our immediate family was safe, we were relieved. Later, we found out their houses were intact.

And then we began to truly realize how the situation could have turned out so different.

At this point, we both thought we were going to throw up.

Hug your family. Tell them you love them. Kiss and cuddle the babies in your life. Hell, kiss and cuddle the adults in your life.

You never know what is going to happen tomorrow. Or, today.

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Please consider donating to the American Red Cross for Moore, OK relief.  Thank you.
People who wish to make a donation to support the Red Cross response can visitredcross.org, dial 1-800-REDCROSS, or text REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation.

Christmas is finally over!

We finished our last Christmas celebration on Saturday.

Several years ago, we switched to having The Husband's family Christmas get-together in January. This schedule allows the adult nieces and nephew to have celebrations in December with their immediate family, in-laws and friends.

The adults do not exchange gifts. But we had plenty of presents for the grand nieces and nephews to open!

It was somewhat of a free for all!

The youngest had some unwrapping help.

Creative use of a bow.

This is our newest grand nephew, Saylor, being entertained by Cousin Char.

And here is my sweet niece Tracy, enjoying my Mom's Macaroni Salad. She is teaching her sweet daughter, Lucye Jane, to love it also!

We had a great weekend with the family. What did you do this weekend?

Spider!

The Husband worked in the yard recently.

Mowing, weed-eating and edging.

While he was cleaning out the window wells for our basement,

he found a spider.

A big spider.

Our great-nephew, Nathan, would have been very exicited to see this guy.

We live in Oklahoma.

Anyone know what kind of spider this is?

How We Spent Our Anniversary, Part I

We traveled to OKC on our anniversary to celebrate our twin grand-nephews 5th birthday party. There were kids and presents. And cake! Can't forget the cake!

Our niece Tracy is kneeling by one of the twins (shirtless) and his brother is in the green & white shirt to their right. See the adult hands with cameras snapping away? You can never have too many pictures of a party!

It was another stinkin' hot day in Oklahoma, but this slide helped a lot.

I walked out to see the fun and took one of our baby grand-nieces, little Miss Ella Mac, with me. She's got the prettiest red hair!

It was a little too wild at the water slide, so Ella opted for the baby pool.

The Husband got some one on one time with our youngest grand-niece, Lucye Jayne.

Adorable. Both of them!

She's a little doll. And look, her dress has dinosaurs on it. Dinosaurs were the theme of the party.

She's quite the little attention getter. Here she is with momma and Uncle Bill.

After Ella Mac took a nap, she proceeded to show her daddy how to put together a puzzle. Again, with the cute red hair!

It's hard to believe the twins are five. There were playing so hard and were so busy with their friends and cousins, I didn't realize we didn't have a picture of the two of them together until today. Oh well, next year!

We had a great time with the family and friends at the party, but we had a party of our own to get to that evening! My next post will detail the anniversary dinner and the Bed & Breakfast where we stayed. 

A Special Easter Sunday

The Husband and I went to Oklahoma City today to witness the baptism of our newest grand niece, Lucye Jane. Here she is afterwards with Mom, Dad and older brothers Jesse and Charlie.

Lucye Jane was a good girl for her Great Uncle Steve.

Nothing makes me happier than feeding a sweet baby. 

Here are all our grand nephews. Left to right, Nathan, Jesse, Adam and Charlie. Aren't they adorable?

We had a great day with our family. I hope your Easter was as special as ours!

Our Musical Great Nephew, Jake

The Husband and I were privileged to attend this event last weekend.

Our great nephew, Jake, performed. He plays the euphonium and was selected as second chair at the state level.

Father Gary is very proud of him!

The Husband got his autograph on the program.

Jake needs to practice autographing items with a big flourish, for when he is famous. :-)

We are all terribly proud of Jake and look forward to seeing him perform in many more concerts in the future!

Vintage Travel Bars

As I explained in this post, we don't exchange Christmas gifts with the adults in our family. However, an occasional exception is made to the rule.

Because our nephew-in-laws have always admired The Husband's vintage travel bar, we gifted one of them with a bar for his birthday last year. The giving of this gift sparked a lot of good natured whining from the other two N-i-Ls about how they were jealous and wanted one of their own. So, The Husband and I put it on the "wish list" and hunted away at estate sales, flea markets and antique malls.

Lo and behold, we found two during our travels last year.

 They are the key to your traveling pleasure:

They have a 1002 uses:

And we have two more happy nephew-in-laws:

OU Graduation Party

Our youngest adult niece in OKC and her husband both graduated from OU on Friday. We went to their home that evening for a party to celebrate the event.

Our niece and her husband opening their graduation presents:

We, of course, wanted pictures with her sisters. Our middle niece was the only one who was "ready for her close-up!"

A few snaps later their uncle, my husband, got in the act.

And then there was some comparing of The Husband's belly to our neice's current pregnant belly! I leave it to you to figure out whose is bigger.

We are proud of our graduates and love our nieces and their families. It was a great evening.

P.S. A bonus was seeing our twins:

They are growing up so fast.

Our Weekend

We had a great weekend.

The Husband's cousin, Charlene, came in Thursday evening from Denver. We went to Oklahoma City to visit two of our nieces and their families. We ate, drank, talked and laughed.

We also went to the twins Halloween school party. They were Woody and Buzz:

Sunday morning, we drove from Oklahoma City to Tulsa on old Route 66. One of the sights we saw was a motorcyle pulling a coffin:

We had a lazy Sunday afternoon at home and a lovely Sunday night dinner at McGill's on 21st.

How was your weekend?

A Spoonful of Peanut Butter and A Glass of Milk

I don't need no stinkin' piece of bread!

Our 4 year old, twin grand nephews, Jesse and Charlie.

A Gender Reveal Party!

Do you know what a gender reveal party is?

It's a party where everyone, at the same time, finds out the sex of a baby on the way. People wear pink or blue to indicate what they hope the baby will be. Of course, there are lots of pink and blue decorations, food and drink.

Not only had I never been to a gender reveal party, I'd never heard of them either. That all changed this week, when I attended a gender party for my niece, Tracy.

Tracy wore pink and blue, to indicate she'd be happy with either sex. But note, the pink is the dominant color because she is already Mom to our sweet, twin grand nephews, Charlie and Jesse:

Everyone bit into their cupcakes at the same time, with all eyes on Tracy, who could not believe she saw PINK!

Through her tears of joy, she checked the ultrasound picture to be sure. It's a GIRL!

As we all took a look at the ultrasound picture there were more tears, as well as big hugs amid much laughter.

We had great food. Grand nephew Nathan is overseeing the cupcakes for us:

I made the Palmiers (savory puff pastry appetizers). They were easy to make, tasted great and will certainly make a return appearance when I'm asked to provide an appetizer. 

Kudos to niece Mary, who was the hostess of the party and kept the sex of the baby secret for 24 hours. Good job!

We are all looking forward to welcoming "Timothena" into the family. Joke. :-)

Babysitting Two of the Grand Nephews

We kept the 5 year old and 3 1/2 year old grand nephews last Friday night through Sunday morning.

There was lots of 'rassling (wrestling), both on Friday night and Saturday morning.

There was a walk to the local park Saturday morning with Uncle Steve. Saturday afternoon consisted of a visit to Uncle Bill's house and 'rassling with Cousin Kevin. Plus, cake!

There was pizza making on Saturday night with the girl cousins ("kissing cousins"). *

After the pizza making, there was a little contest to see who is the tallest:

After the height contest, there was a play extravaganza with toys, dogs and a bit of movie watching.

The oldest boy was asleep in the car before we even left the driveway. The younger boy was asleep after a couple of blocks. They were not happy when we woke them to get them into our house, but they rallied and climbed the stairs to the bedroom under their own steam!

On Sunday morning, Uncle Steve made his famous pancakes. The boys got pancakes of their initials.

A for Adam:

N for Nathan:

There was playtime with the neighbors grandchildren, plus another walk to the park with Uncle Steve, in addition to cartoons!

Uncle Steve and Aunt Cindy had fun with the grand nephews this past weekend, the little stinkers. :-)

* Thanks to the sister and brother-in-law for hosting us on Saturday evening and providing a fun dinner for the boys.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

This is why I married The Husband sixteen years ago: