Mr. Mom

With Stephenie in Georgia, that means that I am playing "Mr. Mom" with an interesting twist.

On Saturday night, Mollie started complaining of a stomach ache. She threw up early Sunday morning. I've never been in this situation before but that meant that I couldn't go to church on Sunday. There have been plenty of times when I've had others call me to let me know that they wouldn't be able to sing, teach Sunday school, play the piano, etc. but I've never been the one to have to "call in."

We have a wonderful church family that "covered" for me by leading the choir, leading the congregational singing, and teaching my Sunday school class. Some of our church family also came to pick up Jeremiah and Titus so that they could go to church. I was proud of them. They both wanted to go to church.

The next interesting twist is the fact that now (Sunday evening) Titus has a fever. What's going to happen on Monday morning?!

Reminder of Logan

This past Thursday morning (11/29), we received a phone call from one of Stephenie's best friends, Sherry. Sherry's sister (Heather) and brother-in-law (Jarrod) were blessed with twin girls about 7 weeks ago. Unfortunately, on Thursday morning, Heather found one of the twins, Hannah, dead in her crib. This was almost identical to what happened with Logan. When Logan passed away, Sherry came to be with Stephenie. Hearing this brought back memories of Logan. Needless to say, Stephenie immediately wanted to go to be with the family. Having been through this same situation, Stephenie knew exactly what Heather was going through and what she would go through in the days, weeks, and months ahead. Stephenie flew out on Saturday and the funeral was this afternoon (Sunday). From what Stephenie told me, the family is doing well. Jarrod's father (the grandfather) is also their pastor. We got to know these folks when we lived in Georgia.

For those of you who read this, please keep the Scarborough Family and the Sellars Family.

Thanksgiving Day

Once again we had the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with Stephenie's family in Virginia. We're thankful that we were able to also spend it with Grandma Henry. Stephenie's grandmother is now living in a nursing home. On Friday night, the entire family was able to go to the nursing home where we were able to participate in a service that is led by Mr. Ben, a wonderful man that goes to Stephenie's home church. We sang for awhile. The kids and I sang a couple of Christmas carols. Stephenie's brother-in-law, Ronnie, preached to end the evening. We had a great time.

Black Friday Eve!

Yes, I lost my sanity for a brief moment! Normally the ladies go shopping on Black Friday Eve. This year, I came up with the idea for the guys to go out on Thanksgiving night. I found out that CompUSA was going to open up at 9:00 PM on Thanksgiving night. I didn't think it was going to be a big deal. How many people would actually want to shop at CompUSA on Thanksgiving night?! As we (My father-in-law, brother-in-law, nephew-in-law, and myself) found out that a lot of people wanted to go shopping. The line was all the way down the front of the shopping center. We waited in line, just to get in the store, for about 45 minutes. Once you got inside there was absolutely no room to turn around. It took us over an hour to check out! The check out lines went all the way from the front to the back of the store. It was long night and one that I don't want to repeat any time soon! My mother-in-law and the other ladies were excited to get all the men out of the house for a few hours!

Chewy's Christmas Present

As you can see, Chewy is pretty comfortable. Last month, we broke down and finally got rid of the recliner that we have had for almost 10 years. When we moved to Charlotte, Chewy claimed the coach as hers. When we purchased a new coach last year, Chewy was not allowed to get on the coach. Chewy ended up kicking me out of the recliner and took ownership. When we got rid of the recliner she was suddenly homeless. As you can see from the picture, we purchased her a "doggy bed." She absolutely loves it! Literally, the only time she gets out of the bed is to go outside once or twice and that's it!

Kitchen Project

One of the things that we "dislike" about our house is the "popcorn" ceilings. Well, a week ago, I go ambitious and started scraping the popcorn off of the kitchen ceiling. That was on a Tuesday night. I was just going to do a little bit at a time until I got it done. Stephenie "encouraged" me to just go ahead and do it all. Well, it only took a couple of hours to scrape it off. The clean up took a little longer. I hadn't really planned to do it all that night so I did not prep the room properly.

Stephenie was a little suprised but I wanted to get it done, so on Friday, I sanded the entire kitchen ceiling to prep it for paint. Clean was easier this time because I put up plastic and also purchased a sanding attachment for my Shop Vac which collected the drywall dust.

After I sanded, I painted - one coat of primer and then one coat of white ceiling paint. I was finished on Friday night. I have one touch up spot which I will fix when I put up the crown molding.

All in all I was rather pleased with my accomplishment. (So was Stephenie!)

Mollie's Last Soccer Game

Mollie played in her last soccer game just a couple of weeks ago. Silas had a cold so Jeremiah and I were the ones that accompanied Mollie to the game while Stephenie stayed at home with Titus and Silas. Also, it was really cold that Saturday morning and Mollie's game started at 8:00 AM. It was the first day that we could really say that fall was here! After the game, Mollie got her trophy. (Just as a note - Everyone, and that included all the other teams, got trophies. This particular league at the YMCA does not keep score. It's just for the kids to have fun and learn the sport.)