Tag Archives: grandchildren

children, Dancing, Family, grandchildren, Grandparents, Hope, inspiration, Jesus, Laughter, life, music, story, Time

A Graceful Dance

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It was a Daddy Daughter Dance.  Unfortunately for my son, he had to work out of town.  Fortunately for me, I was the second-string back up for Grace, who is 6 years old, and in first grade.

The school dance was for elementary girls, grades one through six, at our local university Grand Ballroom. My only concern was that it was from 6 to 9 PM.  Having two left feet and the coordination of a one-legged giraffe, how in the world could I fake dancing that long?!  In the end, it didn’t matter.

What did matter was that my granddaughter had a good time. She was dressed in a light blue dress covered with tulle. (For the ladies, aren’t you impressed I know what “tulle” is, and for us guys, it’s said “tool”, but not spelled that way, so it’s not a skirt covered in crescent wrenches like I thought.)

Continue reading A Graceful Dance →
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Family, ghost, ghost story, grandchildren, Grandparents, Humor, indians, story, tall tales, totem pole

Chief Katura

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The little boogers were back in the woods behind our house.   7, 8 and 9 year old grandsons would never admit it, but their expressions said they almost got lost. 

To implant a little raise the eyebrow caution in them, I whipped up a story of half-truth, half-lie, fabricated, made up, tall tale, umm, creative license story.

“Did y’all see any signs of Chief Katura in the woods?”

Like fishing for hungry perch with a worm, they snapped at the bait! 

 “Who’s that?”

“Chief Katura?”

I paused to look them in the eye for emphasis.

“Now, I’m not saying I believe it, but folks around here say Chief Katura was the bravest Caddo Indian to ever live! Even braver than Chief Nacogdoches, who the oldest town in Texas (where we live), is named after.  A lot of folks around here say the spirit of Chief Katura still roams these woods looking for his bow and arrow.”

They didn’t just take the bait.  They swallowed the hook! 

I robbed some local fore from ghost stories from the town I grew up in and went on.  

Continue reading Chief Katura →
children, Faith, Family, grace, grandchildren, Grandparents, Hope, inspiration, Jesus, life, Truth

Dear Addie K,

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Dear Addie K,

You burst into life a year and half ago!  At first, we loved you solely on whose you were, but now we love you because of who you are.  Your first 1 1/2 years of life have gone by way too fast!

Life is like that. Before you know it, you’ll be looking back and remembering in sepia toned colors.

Seek wisdom, Addie.  When you look back, you’ll smile at the vibrant, bright memories that wisdom can bring!

Continue reading Dear Addie K, →
Babies, Babysitting, children, coffee, Family, grandchildren, Grandparents, Humor, Insomnia, life, parenting

Fun Never Sleeps

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It’s every grandparent’s dream!

“Would y’all mind keeping the boys for the weekend while we go out of town?”

YES!

And so it came to be that two male fledglings stayed with PawPaw and JJ last weekend.  

Easton ages in for the Terrible Twos at 2 years 9 months, and Asher times in as a Light Weight at only 3 1/2 months old.

Janet likes babies, but they intimidate me like I was a lost kitten in the dog pound.  I like it when they can say what’s wrong, like Easton, so it was perfect! 

When my daughter and son-in-law dropped them off, they were semi-apologetic.  

“Hey! We’re no rookies! Besides, they’re both as laid back of kids that there are.” 

My son-in-law shook his head.  My daughter raised an eye brow with a smile, “Well, wait till nighttime”.

Psft! We got this!

Nighttime came.  

Easton laid down on a pallet in our room and was out like a light!    

Asher was in a pack-n-play.  He fell asleep right on que after his 8:30 PM bottle. 

Good grief! How much easier can it get? 

However, we should’ve gone to bed then, right then!  Instead, we laid down about 10:00ish.  

Continue reading Fun Never Sleeps →

children, Family, grandchildren, Grandparents, Humor, life, Soccer

Little Rascal Soccer

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Anticipation was high. All the mother’s anxiety was higher.

Water bottles? Check.  Halftime orange slices? Check.  After game snacks and juice boxes? Check.

Spectators set up lawn chairs battling for the best open places on the sidelines. This would be an epic contest, one replayed on family home movies for years to come.

Coaches were nervous. After all, their reputations were on the line. If their teams didn’t perform, well it would be obvious to everyone, and most importantly themselves, that they were failures as coaches, maybe even failures at life, like, forever!

The referee wanted to take control of the game of four-year olds in 4 vs. 4 game that doesn’t require World Cup refs.  It didn’t matter.  His nervous habit of rubbing his acne took the air out of his mystique. Plus, he was only thirteen, 5 feet tall and maybe 97 pounds.

The players weren’t stressed a bit.  Although two players had to go potty before the game. Probably just nervous energy.

Continue reading Little Rascal Soccer →

Babysitting, children, Family, grandchildren, Grandparents, Humor, Insomnia, Laughter, Sleep

Nightmare on Tahoe Street 😂

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We jumped at the chance to help take care of three grandkids while their mom and dad did duties at a church camp retreat! It’s what grandparents do.

We jump in and help, you know? All for one, and one for all! Do it for the team!

Oh, did I mention it was at Lake Tahoe? In a cabin setting? Second story waterfront view? Alright. Well, SURE!  Happy, happy, happy to fly from Texas to help!!

Our job was to help entertain the three munchkins, ages 6, 4, and 2, even though they all answer “and a half” when asked their age.

Life is odd like that. By the time you’re my age, you round down. In fact, birthdays are now Pretend To Have Ten Fewer Candles on the Cake Day!  Besides, it saves the environment from candle pollution and the smoke detector doesn’t go off!

Anyway, at the retreat center, Janet and I discovered there was no adjoining door between the rooms. In fact, there were three queen size beds in our room….with only one bed in Mommy and Daddy’s room.

Uh, huh! That’s just stinkin’ parental brilliance right there! Why didn’t I think of that as a young parent?!
Continue reading Nightmare on Tahoe Street 😂 →

Babysitting, Cats, children, Family, grace, grandchildren, Grandparents, Humor, life, story

Carl, The Species Confused Cat!

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Carl knows better. I don’t know how he knows, but he knows.  Carl and I have a working relationship, but most of the work’s on my part.  Even how Carl got here was an arm-twisting escapade (read here.)  He does nothing, absolutely nothing!!

Really, the worthless feline folly should be dragging up mice, gophers or little dead snakes.  He doesn’t.  Half the time the flea bag is asleep flat on his back by the garage door. The other half he sits under a shade tree near the barbed wire fence watching the neighbor’s horses.

It’s a one-sided relationship! He can be totally out of sight, but if he hears his stainless steel feed bowl slide on the floor or the crinkle of the cat food bag, he comes running like he’s Lion King and I’m two days late.

I could live with it if every once in a while if he would do something for us, his “people”, as Carl likes to think, that would justify his meager existence.  As it is, I’m going to have to renegotiate a month to month deal, maybe charge him cat rent, something.

Trouble is, Carl doesn’t know his place!  In his messed up wheel of fortune mind, he’s Cat Sajack and I’m Vanna White! Continue reading Carl, The Species Confused Cat! →

Faith, Family, Firetrucks, grandchildren, Grandparents, Hope, Playground

Fires of Life

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Janet and I have eleven children between the two of us, and the count’s at 9 on grandchildren. We’re thinking there’s plenty more to come, especially since 5 of the kids aren’t married yet.

We bought a place last year that was right for family and grandchildren.  I built a standard wooden swing set from a hardware kit.  Easy peasy. But it needed more!

We looked at playground ideas and my imagination ran as wild as an East Texas roadrunner.

Then a blast from the past popped up on Pinterest, a firetruck.  I grew up around that!  My dad was a volunteer fireman for years, and two of those years I was the official “mascot” of the fire department. That’s pretty cool for an elementary age kid!

I knew about an old fire truck which had been sitting in a field rusting the last 22 years. I got permission and scavenged pieces and parts.  Continue reading Fires of Life →

Babysitting, children, Family, grandchildren, Grandparents, Humor, story

Nightmare at Bedtime

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Our granddaughter, Claira, is 15 months old. She was spending the night with us, along with her brother and sister, ages 5 and 3.

Claira has a sweet, happy personality, but she’s also semi-strong willed.

She was all rainbows and unicorns! She even had them on her pajamas, but then it was…bedtime.  Claira had been laughing, cooing, and cawing until JJ (my wife Janet) and PawPaw (me) had the audacity to lay her down in the baby bed.

As JJ carefully laid her down, Claira immediately let it be known that she thought we were completely incompetent to try to put her down to go to sleep!

We talked softly to her, patted her back, patted her diapered bottom, rubbed her head, nothing at all made her happy.

She spit out her pacifier like it was a poisonous trick, pulled off the baby blanket, and screamed even louder when the door closed. We figured she’d quickly settle in for a long night of restful sleep.

Nope!

The unicorns turned red and grew multiple horns, and the rainbows became a Class 5 hurricane.  She started to wail, not whimper, not cry, wail.

Continue reading Nightmare at Bedtime →

beauty, children, Faith, Family, Grandparents, love, story

Where Your Story Starts

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I told four of the grandsons, ages 3 to 5, a story before bed time.

I learned a long time ago, the hard way, you don’t tell a scary story to small boys, UNLESS you’re camping and you have to sleep in the same tent with them.  Then, any old ghost, alien or crazy wild flesh-eating bear story will scare the living bejeebers out of them.  Afterwards, you can go soundly to sleep in the tent while in silent terror they stare wide-eyed listening intently for any ghostly rattles, spaceships or bears creeping through the woods.

This wasn’t such a time, so story time was about four boys with names that rhymed with their own. They were just amazed how the names seemed so much like their own. 😉

The story was about a submarine adventure in the Gulf of Mexico. The four boys were looking for sunken pirate treasure.

Instead, they found a sunken K-Mart cargo ship full of copper forks, tambourines and a miniature cannon. Continue reading Where Your Story Starts →