Hi Barb:

I am so glad that ya'll had fun on the camping trip! And yeah you and Scott get to go camping alone. Good idea!

Honestly, I do not remember bringing the play pen when we went camping. Can you ask your Dad? I just remember watching both my girls like a mother hawk. LOL Beth when a toddler had a tendency to go wandering off and no looking back. So I tried to keep that little hand in mine at all times. I do remember packing the play pen for family picnics though very clearly. We may not have had room in our car for the camping gear, all the food and clothing for the play pen.

Do you remember all of us talking Beth to sleep? I think it was your idea and then we all did it; asked Beth to pretend she was asleep sitting in her high chair at the dinner table. We could see her little eyelids flutter with the effort of pretending and then the next thing we knew we could see her pattern of breathing was in sleeping mode and her head would start to tilt to the side. It was so cute.

This blog is proving to be a lot of fun with all the memories we are sharing with each other. I will admit; now with the passing of so many years I miss totally miss the time when you guys were babies. We did have a lot of fun. Raising three kids is hard work but the joy on your faces when we were playing was/is worth every second of the hard work.

Beth and I last weekend were talking about Brian doing art with his poop. Every freaking day! I think we grossed Jimmy out. We had just finished lunch. LOL It wasn't funny back then at all. And his art wasn't all that creative either. I wonder if he has improved. LOL

One fun memory of you Barb I want to share. It took place in Feb. 1974; the month that Beth turned one. It rained every single day but five and very cold too. Beth cut five teeth in that month. We were sick to death of being stuck inside.

I think I was watching the Phil Donahue show. Suddenly you shouted out "Momma come quick. Momma come see!" I asked if something was wrong were you okay. You ran into the living room. "Momma come look. A red chicken with a hat on outside!" I got up to see what you were talking about. It was a male cardinal sitting on a telephone line! I agreed with you he was beautiful and then explained to you what kind of bird this was and than when we saw cardinal outside warmer weather was close behind it. You were so adorable and happy to see this red chicken!

Then you asked your Aunt Susan (your Dad's sister) what happened at night why were all the lights turned off. Susan explained God turned off all the lights at night. You said "well he forgot some" pointing to the many stars out that night.

Such fun memories and no I am not getting senile. LOL Oh thanks for the compliment on my art and you are right I am working it. Taking lessons on the web site for free with critiques and suggestions for making it better.

This weekend I am hosting the WDE; Weekend Drawing Event on Friday. I am so excited about this and have everything ready. I included photos of all three of my kids when they were very little. I will share some of the paintings from those artists here with you all.

Love,

Mom