From the Youngest Guy to the Oldest Guy In My Family...

In January I went to LaGrange to watch Hayden and Bailey so that Michael and Andie could go to the theater in Louisville to see a play. When I arrived at the Marx home, Hayden gave me a present he made for me.

In his kindergarten class, their teacher gave them a coupon book for a Christmas gift. The coupons were things that could be used in class during the remainder of the year. Hayden turned in one of his coupons that allowed him time to work on art. He spent that time drawing a picture for 'Ma' (me).

My lovely picture present is a purple turtle. That alone is just wonderful. My favorite color is, and has always been, purple. I LOVE turtles. So for the youngest guy in our family to make a purple turtle is, in and of itself, just magnificent. Hayden actually drew this turtle in the water and swimming toward the brown land on the left side of the picture. I just love that. If you look carefully at the bottom of the picture you will see green squiggles under the water. That, my friends, is seaweed.

Silly Moi put all the things she worked on in a pile to bring back with me when I came home the next morning. Then I promptle walked off without them.  I called the Marx home and told Andie that I left my picture and some other things. She saved them and I got them when we went for Bailey's birthday party.

I've begun the practice of scanning pictures the kids make. This is the scanned version. I just want to thank Hayden for using one of his precious coupons to make a gift for his 'Ma'. It brings joy to my heart each time I look at it. It is taped to my closet door in my sewing room so I can see it often.

Today I spent the morning at Papa's apartment. My goal was to do some deep cleaning. Claude had two meetings in Georgetown so we could ride in together, he dropped me off at Papa's while he went to do meetings until 1pm. Papa and I had a nice chat about some things that he needed to talk about, I cleaned the front bathroom and part of the kitchen.

As I cleaned the counter over the kitchen sink, I came across two clear plastic bags. They were sealed shut and each contained a piece of plastic. I couldn't figure out what they were. At first glance the red one looked like a whoopie cushion that you would need to blow up. The other one was a turquoise color. Hmmmmm...

I showed them to Papa.  He looked at them and didn't remember what they were either. He opened one of them to see what the object inside really was. It was a piece of plastic that is about 6 inches wide and 3 feet long. That is it, just this silly piece of plastic that is very stretchy. Papa suggested after looking at it that they might be tourniquets. I told Papa they seemed a little long to me for a tourniquet, unless you needed to put one around your belly!!! We had a chuckle and I brought them home to see if Claude had any ideas.

I showed them to Claude and, without any prompting from me, he also thought they were tourniquets. I'm not sure but that is what we will go with.

It was fun to go through all the things piled on that counter. We found a teeny, tiny boom box that is actually a little bitty radio. Amazing. We also found a little flat metal thing that you can record sound to. The sound on it is a baby laughing. We're not sure whose baby it is but we are thinking it is Hayden. If any of the rest of the family may have given Papa an item with the sound of their baby laughing, please let me know. We left the sound on it and put it back on it's place on the shelf.

So there you have the discoveries of the oldest guy in my family. There is a lot of stuff in that apartment and I'm sure as Papa and I dig through it, we're going to find lots of interesting things. Right now Papa is going through journals and family history stuff and sorting it into boxes for him and for Mimi so it will be easier for me to work with in the future.

I do love my family. There is always some little thing going on to keep life fun and interesting.