Sandy at Six Months Old

Yes, it's that day of the month! Sandy is 6 months old, so we had to take the pictures. Since I was asked and you're probably wondering, the pictures each month will continue until he is one year old and then we'll go to yearly pictures. He weighed 53.8 pounds Saturday morning when David weighed him. Saturday he had a bath, brushed his hair, brushed his teeth, cleaned out his ears and trimmed his toenails. He's beautiful now!

Happy 57th Anniversary!

My parents have been married 57 years as of June 22. What an awesome example of two best friends taking care of each other! I only remember them having one "argument" and that was when we were building the house they still live in. I was in the 6th grade and we had been to Lubbock looking for a bathtub and/or found one while looking for something else. The details are gone, but I remember that they found a tub with a slight flaw in it and the discussion began as to whether to buy that tub or not. They say that if you can survive a house building, your marriage can survive anything. Guess that's true. Then there was the time that Daddy spit tobacco juice in Mama's spackle bucket. But that was no argument. Just an explanation of how nasty that was from Mama. They still raise some cattle and some feed crops to take care of the feed for those cattle. And the Spur Bulldogs are still cheered on to victory by them. Congratulations, Cristol & Maude! Love you!

Sandy at the Lake

We took Sandy to the lake this morning before the heat got too bad. He had a big time. David threw sticks for him to retrieve and boy, did he have fun with that. He went back and back getting sticks out. He was so funny. His swim strokes aren't worthy of the Olympics yet, as he paddles way up in the air with his feet.

Sandy weighed in at 52.4 pounds this morning. He's getting longer and taller, but not really filling out in his chest yet. Of course, he is only 5 1/2 months old.

He also made a new friend, Rock. Rock is a beautiful 11 month old Boxer, who hates water. Sandy tried his best to get Rock to come in the lake with him, but Rock would have none of that stuff. He didn't even like it when Sandy would get out of the water and shake and then chase Rock around the park. They had fun together. Sandy was a tired little boy the rest of the day. All that swimming and running was work.

Happy Birthday, Tony!

32 Years ago on Father's Day, June 20, Tony Lee Smith came into the world. He didn't take nearly as long as big brother Kelly Ray did to be born. In fact he was coming so fast, I got very excited when David missed the turn to the hospital in Tulia and had to go an extra block. You'd never recognize him from this picture taken on 6-25-76 because he was so little. He weighed 6 lbs and 13 3/4 oz and was 20" long. He was born at 8:35 a.m. This is Kelly & my mom looking at this new little boy. Both of our boys were little birds when they were born, but it didn't take either one long to take care of that. I complained to Dr. Scarborough, the Tulia doctor who delivered Tony, that both of my babies were so little. He promptly told me "God knows exactly what he is doing because you're not very big." David was supposed to preach that morning at Calvary Baptist Church in Tulia where we went, but had to call and get that taken care of by someone else. What a great Father's Day present!

And here he is today with Elena, Nikita and Ana ---- a son, a brother, a husband, dad, police officer. What a difference 32 years makes!

Happy Birthday, Tony! We love you!

Cancer Treatment Immunotherapy

My DIL, Tami, sent this link to a piece on an amazing new process for treating cancer, specifically skin melanoma, which is one of the really aggressive cancers in spreading. This used the patient's own cells and duplicated those and then reinjected them to fight the cancer. Amazing! So much is happening in the fight against cancer.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/06/18/scicanc118.xml

San Antonio Visit (and Kyle Too)

We made our 3rd trip in the last month or so down south to see grandkids & their parents on Friday. I got to leave work at 2 p.m. which let us get out of Dallas faster and get on down the road. We took the new toll road around Austin again. We got our invoice for the last trip on it--$6.40. But you can pay it online with your checkcard. And the amount was well worth the stressfree drive we had around Austin.

Plus it dumps us out south of Austin, just about 2 miles north of Tony & Elena's house, so it is perfect. We stopped by there about 7 p.m. and ate supper with them, delicious breakfast burritos!!! Plus we picked up Kora and she road back home with us. She had been visiting cousins since Wednesday there so it was convenient for us to take her home. Sandy got to see his friend, Kowboy, and they played just like kids do. And boy did Sandy like having Kora ride with him! He loved having Kora in the middle seat with him and getting all her loving.

We arrived at San Antonio to find the other 5 girls in jammies. They were too cute welcoming big sister back home, especially Aubrey. She really missed big sister and all around good friend. Saturday the girls shampooed the carpet in the school room and living room. Then we went to town to do some shopping. We ate lunch at Panda Express, which was a real treat for me. Let me tell you-----their Orange Chicken is to die for. It is so good. I also got their Kung Pao Chicken and it was very good, too, but the Orange Chicken was just scrumptious. And the price was very reasonable and the fried rice was great. We found Kora a new pair of summer sandals since her's had a blowout at the river while she was visiting with Nikita & Ana. The boys were doing their own thing, so it was just us girls and we had a great time. That night we ate Mexican food at La Fonda. Yum, yum. They know how to make hot sauce there.

We headed out to Kyle again Sunday morning after saying goodbyes to the girls and Kelly & Tami. We all got in the car to go eat BBQ, only to find that the place we were going was apparently an excellent place, but it was full to overflowing outside. So we drove on. Wound up going to a little hole-in-the-wall BBQ place in Kyle on I-35. It was FANTASTIC. We know now where to get great BBQ in Kyle. It was so good. All it needed was a pan of my mama's sweet cornbread to go with the red beans and it would have been perfect. We all enjoyed it a lot.

We headed home after eating. We took the toll road again to get around Austin because the traffic was just horrible. There was a biker's rally and a gay pride rally in Austin over the weekend (talk about opposites) so there was lots of traffic. It was so bad once we got back on I-35, that we just took a farm-to-market road off of it and headed north. We saw some beautiful country and didn't have to worry about the traffic. Took a little longer, but it was worth it.

Next trip: Dickens for July 4th!

The Sixth Dancing Princess of San Antonio

Here's the latest dancing princess of San Antonio! She is growing like a weed. Ashlynn Faith is all decked out today, courtesy of the older sisters. She is being held by Kora---you can tell that Kora is giggling, just from her chin! They all love that new baby sister. She doesn't have a chance of not being their play doll. She's a really good baby and looks like the original 5. Apparently the Kelly/Tami Smith mold is still intact. To check out more pictures of the girls go to Tami's blog:

http://smithacademyforgirls.blogspot.com/

Ahhhhhh! School is Out!

I do not know what it is, but I swear that mothers driving kids to school are a menace to society! Every year I eagerly await the time when school is out because the streets here are reduced by about half with traffic. It has been so nice this week to have spaces between the cars and not have maniacs driving next to you and on your bumper. Everyone was driving so nice and slow and careful. What I really don't understand, is that when school is going, you never see kids in the cars---so where are these little creatures? Oh well, I'm just glad for summertime again.

Strawberry Ice Cream & Jesus

This is an email we got from Tony this week. Simple and eloquent as only a child could view things:

Yesterday Elena went to the store with Nikita and Nastya. They must have been exceptionally good children because they each came home with their own individual container of ice cream. Nikita had Blue Bell Cookies and Cream. Nastya had Haagen Dahz Strawberry ice cream. Cookies and Cream is always a safe choice for good ice cream. Nikita really enjoyed it. The Strawberry...now that was good ice cream. In fact, it was so good that Nastya described it in this way...

"This tastes so good! This tastes soooo good. Just like Jesus!"

So, for a little glimpse of Heaven, everybody needs to run out to your local grocery store and pick up a container of Haagen Dahz Strawberry ice cream. It may be a little pricey, but what's a few dollars for a chance to taste Jesus! Some people wait their whole lives to experience Jesus. My daughter finds Jesus in a carton of ice cream.