Celebrating Louis Dean's 85th Birthday!

I'll start out tonight's journal entry with a photo of Tabitha and Samantha.....

They are litter mates with Amber's Ginger and Benjamin's Klaus.

While Samantha is the first at the food bowl and eats more than Tabitha - she's still smaller!

Ginger is about the same size and they are similar in coloring. Tabitha is a smaller version of the Bell's man cat, Bandit. All four get along very well together....which is wonderful since our girls visit over there on a regular basis.

Yesterday was Louis Dean's birthday and I was up early putting together the meal I was taking over to Amber's to celebrate.

He asked for a pot roast with potatoes and carrots......cream cheese corn and 'those sweet dinner rolls'.....aka Hawaiian kind. I added a Caesar salad with avocado and cake!

We planned to leave the house and head over to Dallas around noon.....we were doing school pickup for two of the grands while Amber took the other two to dental appointments.

I had planned on leaving our cats with Amber when I thought we would be going to the ranch in the car, but since the truck is now running, I told her we'd just take them with us. Her house is in full chaos mode with workmen there painting and continuing the repairs from a water leak they had back in February - NOT from that Arctic freeze but from the laundry room two weeks later. And since every plumber in the country was booked up and you know how all the supplies were scooped up - she's been living in 'survival mode' practically all year long! Man, does she have some horror stories of her experiences with all these contractors!

Anyway, she asked us to bring them anyway so Louis Dean and I were trying to get them in their carriers. I had put them in the guest room so I wouldn't have to chase them through the house and I meant for us to go in there together -but Louis Dean went first and he got Tabitha but Samantha ran under the bed! I used the water gun and a yardstick to motivate her to come out and I grabbed her as she was headed up the steps to the top bunk! Got her in the carrier and picked up Tabitha to carry her out to the car when I noticed it wasn't heavy enough. Louis Dean had forgot to zip up the side opening - he'd put her in through the top! And I had left the front door open so, naturally, she high tailed it outside! Long story short - I was not late for school pick up but I didn't get the errands done I'd meant to do before.

So I took Kailey and Logan with me!

First stop was Aldi and then Central Market where we picked up a delicious German Chocolate Cake.

Back at the Bell's house, Amber had made the kitchen look like a party with a Happy Birthday banner and big balloons!

It was a fun afternoon! 

The cats were making themselves at home and if you look hard, you can see Trystan and Granddad in the background. He's trying to remember how to do 'Cast out the Nines' to check his addition.

Have you done 4th grade math lately??

I did NOT know there were at least THREE ways to do double digit multiplication problems!

Trystan took this pic! All of the kids love to take my camera and 'surprise' me when I get home and look at my pictures. Logan showed me one way and then Kailey taught me another one!

We cleared the table and all ate dinner together and it really was good!

I'd brought everything over including the crockpots as well as the food.

Amber took the bakery cake to a party level when she added candles - '85' and a few of the re-lighting ones!

I love the way Louis Dean is looking at Amber in this picture.

The kids laughed when his candles kept relighting!

And I laughed when I saw all of them crowding around their Granddad helping him blow them out over and over! I laughed because back in May of 2020, at the kids' birthday party.......blowing out candles on a cake was a risky business!!

We have been busy as bees here today.

While we meant to go to the ranch, we couldn't leave with all the mess we'd made getting Christmas out - or at least some of it! There were open tubs scattered in the back yard and Louis Dean had all the gazebo furniture stacked up on the deck so he needed to put all that back. 

Louis Dean had some unfinished projects and I wanted to get the kitchen cleaned and decorated since the grands are coming next week to stay a few days while the new flooring will be replaced.

Never mind that the living room, foyer, porch, dining room, sewing room, main bathroom AND the gazebo are all trashed with decorations strewed about waiting to be put up.

What do you think? I bet the kids will help me!

AND I told them to bring their playing cards!

There will be a NUTS game marathon!

I have been doing some Christmas shopping and ordering some things on Amazon.....

but mums the word here in the journal.

The other day Logan and I were talking and I was telling her about something and she said, "Yes, I read about that on Linda's Life Journal. But you didn't write anything last night."

I love that the kids read my journal!