Humbling Hair

Wow!  My 3 year old has just learned how to fix her hair!!!  

She is so proud of herself and insist that I no longer help her.

The Lord humbles me everyday!

Hamster Heaven

September 22 was a sad night in the Fish House.

I ran to the store with Liddy to grab some ice cream for a special treat.

Just as I pulled into the garage, My Man called me in desperation to come home....FAST.

I was "greeted" by wailing little girls (literally wailing).

"DALLAS IS DEAD!"  (That would be Caleb's hamster, not our favorite NFL team although My Man might tell you they played their 2nd game as if they were dead.)

Yes, poor Dallas, may she rest in peace.  The night before, she was making racket running on her wheel all night, snuggling with Caleb in bed and chewing on her cage just like she has done every day of her life in the Fish Family.  But then out of nowhere with no warning, lifeless.

Caleb loved Dallas and I will have to admit, she was really cute.  So cute, I purchased hamster #2 for the other kiddos.

I was shocked that tears were not just from the owner of Dallas but from 5 other children who were actually forbidden to hold Dallas.  How sweet that they cared so much....well, sweet for a while.  Then my ears needed a break and it was time for the mourning to be over.

Poor little Dallas.  She brought us joy for a time (one year to the week).  Her life was short (although Google says this is an average life span of a teddy bear hamster) and she will be missed.....until we buy the next $5 rodent.

My Days Have Changed

 My days from 7:30 to 2:30 look real different this year.  I send off 4 school kids to school and then it's just my 2 little Fish Sticks and me.  Homeschool is real easy.  Kindergarten!!  Letter of the Week, workbook pages, reading stories, playing games, hands-on activities.  Lots of fun.  Even though Liddy is 3, she's right there alongside of Josiah learning letters and sounds.

 What's more fun than writing letters in shaving cream on the table and cleaning the table all at the same time.  I'm all about multi-tasking!

 And as soon as fall weather appeared, we headed out to the back porch for school.

(I think sometimes we make the other 4 jealous.)

And sometimes Mama is really cool and let's them have self-declared "Pajama Day."

Homeschool is fun - especially in Kindergarten.

A Visitor

 We don't get many stragglers around in these parts...

But this hobo showed up wanting hand outs.

I think I'll help him out.

MY Phone

And this is why I should NOT let my 9 year old use the camera on my phone.

Happy Anniversary

17 years ago today I walked down the aisle with butterflies in my stomach, shaking like a leaf with pure excitement as I became a Fish and married My Man.  He's more than I could have ever hoped or asked for and I am one blessed woman.  Happy Anniversary, Babe!!  I love you with all my heart and look forward to growing old with you.

I Smell Football

 We had our first game!  It was over an hour away, up in my sister's neck of the woods, so we were so excited that her entire family showed up to support Caleb.  It was a challenging game and although we didn't win, I know the boys are glad to have their first game under their belts and ready to learn and improve for the next game.

My mom teased me this morning about remembering me from high school football games.  I made a bee line for the end zone and visited with my friends the entire game.  At the end, I would try to catch a glimpse of the score board or ask a knowledgeable person who won the game.  Yep - shameful, I know.  Little did I know my future husband was on the same field, busting his tail to win, score and break records while I was chatting away.  Ahh - the pain of regret.  If I could go back, I would be in those stands, wearing my school colors, waving my pom-pom and screaming for 22!

So here we sit stand, as parents, screaming for 23.  Yes, I'm chatting a little - especially when my sister came - but I'm much more alert, playing the role of Mama Bear that I have been given.  So far it's a great feeling!  I smell football and it smells good.  Now I'm ready to smell victory.

The Otter Day We Saw....

 One morning My Man called me on the phone from the back yard as he was leaving to go to work.  He had spotted some critters playing in our pond - ones we had never seen before.  Badgers?  Beavers?  Groundhogs?  The minute I caught eye of them, I knew right away what they were.  They are one of my favorite things to watch playing at the zoo.  OTTERS!  There were about 6 of them flipping, swimming and playing right by the tunnel that goes under the levee.  I grabbed my camera, called my 2 little ones out of the school room and zoomed in to get a few shots of them.

 As soon as they spotted us, two by two they swam under the tunnel and ran out across the field to the creek at the back of our property.

The last little otter making his get away.

We thought it was such a fun experience to see the cute little things playing in our pond.....

Until we googled them and saw that they each eat 2.5 lbs. of fish per day.

Maybe not as cute as we thought.

Van Full and Back

 Want an explanation to these "Samford & Sons" photos? 

Read about it at our adoption blog here.www.findingallourfishsticks.blogspot.com

Paper on Papa

AB had to write a paper on a grandparent for school.  She chose, her great grandfather, Papa Blair (whom she was named after).  I loved taking notes while she interviewed him because I learned things about my Papa that I had never known.  Her paper was sweet and interesting and I wanted to share it with you.  What a blessing to have Papa here to love on.

My great grandfather, Thomas Jefferson Blair, was born in 1920 when Warren Harding was President of the United States.  He has lived through many important historical events in our country.  When he was a small child, he went to church and Sunday School.  At the age of 12, he received Christ as his personal Savior.  The church that he went to burned down.  They rebuilt a brick one that is still standing to this day in Georgia.  His dad was Baptist.  His mom was Methodist.  Because the Baptist only met two times a month, his family would attend the Methodist church on the other Sundays.  Papa’s church was very similar to the small, country church he attends now in Leiper’s Fork.  One of the differences was that growing up, his church hosted two revivals a year, and the pastor had the Sunbeams youth group Bible study and activities at his own home.

When Papa was a young boy, he loved the taste of castor oil.  His mom kept both castor oil and iodine in black bottles on the top shelf.  Being a naughty, little boy, while his momma was out on the porch washing clothes, he climbed the shelf and accidentally grabbed the iodine.  He drank the entire bottle and had to have his stomach pumped by the doctor.  It was a near death experience.  The first President of the USA that Papa remembers was Herbert Hoover, who came to office when Papa was nine.  Papa’s middle-class family owned a Model T car when he was young.  His best childhood memory was when he got his first bicycle, a Roll Fast.  He loved riding his bike.  He would ride it 4 miles to town regularly.

His first job was working at a gas station in town for his uncle when he was twelve or thirteen years old.  All the gas had to be pumped by turning a crank by hand.  He worked all summer and earned enough to purchase one set of clothes.  When he was 13, his family got their first radio.  Telephones had been invented, but his first telephone was when he went into the army in Tampa when he was 22 years old.  The Great Depression lasted while he was 9-19 years old.  The Depression did not affect his family much because his dad worked for the railroad.  They still had to make some changes like gardening, canning, purchasing cows for milk and butter, and raising chickens for meat and eggs.

One of his hardships was that his family did not have enough money for him to go to college.  He really wanted to attend the University of Georgia, but had to go to an agricultural, local school.  He joined the army and was a radar operator foreman in WWII and received his training in New York City.  After he was out of the army, he got married and went to Southern School of Printing in Nashville, TN.  When asked if Papa had a near death experience, he said there were many.  Once he was driving home from work in the middle of the night and was hit by a drunk driver who they later found at a local bar carrying a weapon.  He had another automobile accident that put him in the hospital for 30 days.  He hit a tree head on and was not wearing a seatbelt.  Papa said if he could go back to any memory of his 92 years on earth and relive it, he would say he would go back to his childhood before he had any responsibilities.  He grinned and thought and finally said, “And ride my bike a lot.”

A New Kind of Hoarder

 We've watched the show Hoarders - the show where folks have problems collecting things they don't need or can't use until they literally can not even live a normal life among their over-collection.

Caleb's hamster, Dallas, is a different kind of hoarder.  

She's the type that shoves her cheeks so full of nuts that the top part of her body doubles in size...

 making her look like she has 3 rear ends when you see her from the back view.

Or maybe we just misunderstand her.

Maybe she just wanted to carry her meal from point A to point B and forgot her handbag.

Fish Sticks Show Their Stuff