My Man!

Rachel Trying to Decide About Tubing

Rachel was the youngest to tube behind our boat. She couldn't make up her mind until her second try and then loved it.

I'm Getting Seasick

Perry IV is taking a rest from standing and looking at the waves go rushing by.

What a Place for Relaxation!

We were on our way to get on the lake. It was so relaxing to see God's beautiful handiwork.

Deanna is ready for the sun.

Our Vacation Gang

The Vacation Gang

Byson and Mom

Byson was trying to think of a way to get down and stay longer.

Beka and Rachel waiting for the swimming gang.

Here HeComes

Cute lil redhead

Water Babies

Where's Perry?

The older Perry IV gets the more like his grandpa he looks. We did a comparison of the two Perry's and what do you think? I think from all the old photos of his grandpa he is the spitting image of him.

Aunt Yvonne

Aunt Yvonne is a special aunt. She loves to spoil all the grand kids. She has a special place for each of them in her heart and they love all the attention she gives them. Byson was right at home in her arms.

Like father like son

You have heard the phrase "the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree" Benjamin looks so much like his father when Perry was his age. We don't get the older boys here in Tennessee very often but when we do so many of our friends say boy they do look like their dad. We have four sons and it is so much fun when they come for a visit. When Benjamin came to visit he got to the airport to find several flights were cancelled the night he was suppose to come for Thomas' graduation. Since his Aunt Yvonne works for American Airlines he was looking for a nice evening flight and get here around 11 pm. Every American flight he tried to get on was booked because flight were cancelled because of the severe weather they had that weekend and it did not look like he would get a flight here. Good ole dad came to his rescue and booked him a flight on southwest and he made it to Love Field but his luggage did not. He spent the night (what was left of it) at his Aunt Gail's and they took him to the airport early to get his luggage and get on the first flight out to Nashville. Of all the weekends he wanted to travel the severe weather cancelled more flights and he was not able to get a flight until 5 pm. the day before graduation. We were attending a special program at our two youngest children's school when we got a call saying he was actually at the Nashville airport and no one was there to pick him up. Boy was he glad when he got to our house that night.

Byson with his dad

Kids do the darnedest things. Byson is really becoming mobile. When Catherine and Marcus spent the weekend with us during Thomas' graduation Byson was always into something. He got a little help in figuring out how to open grandma's kitchen cabinets from his brother Blaze. When Perry IV was here they crawled everywhere and kept each other pretty much entertained. On the day we had a party here for Thomas everyone was in stitches when Byson got the plastic storage cabinet opened and instead of pulling out everything to play he climbed into the cabinet and started to hand out the plastic ware to his cousin Perry IV. Boy did they make a pair.

Getting Ready For The Trip Across The Pond

Our son Thomas has been across the pond for the last 14 days. Lord willing he will be home tomorrow. His flight left London tonight and so he is flying across the ocean as I type. Each year the seniors at his high school Franklin Classical take a trip after graduation to England. This year he and his friend David wanted to back pack across Europe after everyone else came home. Well, to say the least that didn't happen but a dear friend who chaperoned the kids volunteered to take Thomas and David to Scotland for four extra days after everyone else left. He has over 1000 pictures and we can't wait to see them when he gets here. They toured lots of cathedrals and saw the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, visited the bookstores and I don't know what else they did. Hopefully I will be able to update tomorrow night and fill in the blanks on what all he did.

My Perry

When Perry and Kim and the kids arrived at our house the Thursday night before Thomas' graduation their youngest did not recognize grandma. He was only 5 months old when he saw us last in Texas at Thanksgiving and here he is almost a year old. But I did some fast thinking and got him something to eat and in the end he became my friend I hope for life. It reminded me of his sister Megan when we moved back north when she was almost a year old. She had never met us and did not want a thing to do with us. Her parents were napping after we had gone to visit some friends for the afternoon and she was awake in her pack and play looking out the upstairs window. I sent her older sister to get her and fixed her some supper and fed her. After that she let me hold her without crying. It is true of children like men. The way to a child's heart is through their stomach.
I was sad to see the time for the children to go home. But just wait until next time...

Our Little Sweeties

What fun it was this summer to take our grandchildren with us to the lake. Watching Byson and Perry IV crawl all over the kitchen and trying to get in cabinets snacks and anything else they could was so much fun. They loved giving each other kisses and tugged toys out of each others hands. When we went out on the boat with them they definitely did not like the life jackets they had to wear the first time they were put on but got used to them the longer they were on. Perry IV liked to stand on the edge of the boat and hold on to the wall and look at the water rushing by. Byson liked to stand up and hold on
to the edge of the seat and watch the water rushing by.

Vacation Highlights

What a time we had this year as we made our annual trip to Hot Springs for a week of boating, tubing and just plain relaxing. This year our oldest son and his family of 8 children and his wife came with us. The kids really had a blast flying behind the boat of our dear friend since high school, Randy. He brought 2 of his grandchildren and with our children and grandchildren we had a total of 12 under the age of 14 with us this year. They had a blast with the hot tub, swimming and all the boating. The weather was great and only the day we left did the storms come in. The only bummer this year was the restaurant that has some of the best chicken fried steak was closed during the middle of our vacation but Grandpa C. came to the rescue and cooked breakfast almost every morning we were there. We took turns on the suppers and lunch was on the boat when we got tired of tubing. Grandpa C. made sure we had plenty of snacks and sent the left overs home with the grandchildren to enjoy. Also we made out trek to Wal-Mart and stocked up on perishables so we were all set when we found out the restaurant would be closed for two days. It was a good thing I started a couple of months ago stocking up so we were able to cook our own meals. We had our own little restaurant available for us. When the children were not tubing, the boats were nice diving boards for the children to plunge in the lake and even the babies had fun playing in the water. Once our youngest grandson was looking over the side of the little plastic raft he was floating in with Grandpa C. and when he asked Abigail to watch him while he untangled some goggles all of a sudden we heard lots of commotion. When we looked to find out what was the matter grandpa c was pulling Byson out of the water. He had looked so far over the edge he fell in face first. Momma Catherine was quick to scoop him up and Perry IV took his place on the raft. He was not interested in looking over the edge and had no problems staying in the raft. Pictured above the 3 musketeers in mean our 3 oldest of the clan enjoys the view from the tree house in the back yard where we stayed.

Spring and Summer Happenings

I can't believe summer is here already. We made it through the spring with all the program practices and programs at the preschool and on top of all that we managed to get our youngest son graduated. He had a whirlwind of senior activities the last two months of school and we will always treasure them. He did an amazing job with his senior oral defense of his thesis paper this year as did all of his classmates. They are a tremendous group of young people who will indeed change the world with their talents. Right at the time of his senior defense a flu like bug hit our family. Dad got it first and then it hit me right after his oral defense. The Friday of his Jr/Sr banquet it hit Thomas but he rallied back and made it to the banquet. Abigail was only down one day but her older sister had it two weekends in a row. We had hoped we had seen the last of it but right after everyone came to visit for the graduation it hit again this time giving it to our grandchildren.
Thankfully it was after Thomas was on his way to England before it hit them and he missed it. It tried to mess up our vacation but we managed to get the kids lots of time tubing, water boarding and swimming, snorkeling and just having a good time with the hot tub around the guest house we stayed in.
We had the privilege of staying at a lake house where cell phones did not work (they don't even have phones in guest rooms at all) the computer did not work and we had the luxury of relaxing every morning before we headed out to the lake. It was great!

Midnight Painting

Sometimes I surprise myself. Like the other night. I was tired from going to get a new car with my daughter and spent over 4 hours in the car and got to bed around midnight. Tuesday night the kitchen was finished with the tile job and my husband was planning to put the appliances back the next morning. I came home from work around 8 pm and fell asleep on the sofa watching TV to relax. When I got up and started to bed around 10 pm I noticed the laundry room had not been painted yet. So I got the bright idea to paint it, it was a small area and it couldn't take that long right? I got the paint out, the roller, brushes and ladder and went to work, by midnight I was finished but it took me another hour to clean up and get a bath and go to bed. Boy when will I learn I'm not young anymore. It did look rather good when they put the washer and dryer back.

Dream Come True

We took all the furniture out of the living room, dining room and our Florida room 3 weeks ago today, and our dream is finally coming true. The kitchen is finished with beautiful gold swirly tile and the Florida room has the wood laid and the workers are putting the wood in the dining, living room and our hallway today. It is gorgeous! it is almost like camping with the way our house is torn up. Most of the furniture is upstairs some is in our bedroom, Abigail managed to put the TV in her room and we have little walkways to get from the bathrooms in each room. On second thought it's not like camping it's like moving. We will be glad when we can put the furniture back and have a house again.

Remodeling

I just can't believe we are doing it. Remodeling that is. When we bought this house (May 30, 2002) almost 5 years ago (yes, son we have lived in the same house for almost 5 years) we talked about putting wood floors in the main part of the house, and ceramic tile in the kitchen and bathrooms. Well, the day is here Lowes bought the materials for the kitchen today and Friday morning the installers will be here to put the tile down. We have become spoiled in our "old" age, we splurged and are having a warming pad put under the tile so in the cold months our bare feet won't be ice from walking on tile. What will they think of next. We also tackled the job of repainting and I got to select colors for the walls this time. (you see my man is a neutral wall type of guy) We still have our red room but to complement it we put gold on the living/dining room walls and a lighter gold in the kitchen. What a chore to get it done but it will be worth it in the end.

The picture above shows what the floors look like now. This was taken at Thomas' graduation party.

Teenagers and Cell Phones

I don't know how we have survived this far having raised four teenagers. Thomas is going on 18 and Abigail will be 13 on her birthday this coming Valentine's Day. It is a little sad tho because that means our six children are almost all grown up. We did the unthinkable and got Abigail a cell phone for this past Christmas. You should have heard the groaning and complaining from Thomas and Catherine. "I had to wait until I was . . . to get my own cell phone." For one thing life was different when they were 12 years old. Now that Abigail is in the 8th grade she sometimes goes to friends homes to work on projects and it is so much easier to keep up her with her own phone. I don't have to do to her what I put her Dad through all those years ago when cell phones were unheard of. I would look up the number where he was going and call and ask the clerk to page Perry Coghlan. He just hated to hear his name over the loud speaker. Last summer I'm sure I drove Thomas crazy like his dad when I needed to talk to him and called all his friends to find him. Even tho we did without them in the past it is so much easier with them.:)

Random News

Revised Feb. 25th

January was a busy month. We put away Christmas decorations, cleaned the preschools and jumped into a new year. The theme in January is always snow, we haven't been getting any outside so we decorated with snow all over the insides of our two schools. The kids made paper doily snowmen, paper plate snowmen, had snow ball fights with paper snowballs, and painted snow scenes with chalk. The weather just wasn't cooperating with temperatures in the 70's but we imagined it to be cold enough for snow. Well we probably wished a little too much as it got cold the third week of January and stayed cold for a month. We actually got two snow days in the first three weeks of February. It did wait until the day after Valentine to give us our second snow day and the kids were sooo happy.
It was great because we had planned a birthday party for Abigail our youngest daughter at Pump It Up in Cool Springs on that day, and by 9 am the roads were cleared. We had a fun afternoon with her friends from school helping her to celebrate her big day (it was really on Valentine but with all the Valentine activities we celebrated the day after). I'll try to post some pictures of Byson (our 9th grandchild) enjoying the big slide with his mom.

Week One

The first week of the new year has past and it was back to work for me. God has really blest our preschool's we only have 2 openings at our second location left. We are excited to begin the new year with a full house (almost). We will have a full schedule with Valentine parties, Easter egg hunts. Then it will be time for our annual spring program. This year at our second preschool we will be having a kindergarten graduation too.

Back to Normal

Another day of work. Our sweetie is back and Catherine is at work and I get to dress him and take him to her when he wakes up. His Deluxe Jumperoo is waiting for him to get a good workout and I can't wait to shower him with kisses. All the teachers at our #2 school was soooo excited to see him yesterday. They all said he had gained a ton of weight. He really looks like a little rolly polly sausage. He still has the same twinkle to his eyes tho. He still remembered grandma. He didn't cry once when I took him from his daddy at the airport. Abigail can't wait until she gets home from school to spoil him a little.
Thomas is busy working on his senior thesis, and looking for a job. He has to get his passport this month for his senior trip to England. What a busy second half this will be. Well gotta go and get ready for work. I'll try to post pictures of our sweetie tonight.

Blogger Nighmare

I'm sure everyone is familiar with the new version of blogger. Well, last night I was typing away and when I took a break and came back to type some more it asked me if I wanted to switch to the new version of blogger. I clicked yes and my husband's gmail account came up and asked for his password which I promptly gave and clicked enter. It was only then I realized I was signing up with his email and not my own. I tried to stop it and I tried to change it after it went through but no way would it change. I tried to look up how I could email the site to ask them to change it and could not find a way to do so, finally I gave up and turned off the computer. Tonight I was able with Kim's help to add myself as the administrator of my blog site but I cannot find a way to delete him as administrator. I just want myself listed as the one on my blog site. If anyone knows a way to do so please post a reply to help me.

It is only 5 hours away when our little sweetie pie will be home again. We just can't wait. I will kiss him over and over again. Catherine, Marcus and Byson will be leaving to come home in just 2 hours and Thomas and I will be at the airport with bells on our toes to get them. I still have to wrap his presents and get his little bed ready to come home. It has been over three weeks since he has seen us. I hope he hasn't forgotten us. Just give me a few minutes with him and he will remember grandma. I have the Christmas tree waiting for him. He has a free standing jumper waiting for him to try out tomorrow. I just can't wait.

Our Christmas Tree

Christmas Giving by Cheryl Parvin

Christmas is for giving, like Christmas gifts and cards.
And giving smiles and hugs, and giving help with things too hard.
Why is there so much giving? Is it just for fun?
We give gifts of love because God gave to us his son.

That sums up why I love to give gifts to my family.
It was such a joy this year to give our sweet four oldest granddaughters their own lap top computer. We hope to read lots of news as they work on their blogs this year. To make sure the two little girls were not left out we gave them a Leapster TV game system to enjoy with a Kindergarten game to interact with. Rachel and Perry IV will be sharing a Little Leaps Grow with me Learning System. Since we could not be with them to see their delight in opening their gifts their dad has preserved it on a movie that we can't wait to see. To make sure the girls could get online we sent Kim a router to make their house wireless and Perry a Bluetooth headset so he can talk hands free while he makes the hour commute each way to work and back.
Our son Benjamin was here for Christmas and he and Thomas and Abigail helped me shop til I dropped on the day before Christmas Eve and then we had a nice quiet day on Christmas eve and ended it attending the fourth Advent Service at Dr. George Grant's Parish Presbyterian Church in Franklin. Dr. Grant made the message of Christmas so alive while he preached and we could not help be excited to celebrate the most wonderful gift ever given to mankind, the birth of our Savior.

Why is there so much giving? Is it just for fun?
We give gifts of love, because God gave to us his Son.
Amen

My Two Perry's

After seven precious granddaughters we now have another Perry in our lives. He looks just like his grandpa and dad. When he was only two days old we flew to Texas and looking at him was like going back in time to when I held his dad as a baby. Now the girls can't keep their hands off him and he is truly spoiled. If he lived closer there would be no hope for him indeed. 

Happy New Year! 

Merry Christmas
To all of our family and friends

Christmas Joy

For the first time since 2002 we spent Christmas at home. It felt so funny being here and not being with our grandchildren. We stayed at home this year and traveled to Texas instead at Thanksgiving and Perry and Kim and the children joined us for Thanksgiving with our families. We arrived the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and stayed until Saturday morning and headed back to Tennessee. We had Catherine and our sweet little Byson with us as well. He was quite the traveler and slept most of the way to and from. Since we made the trip then our son promised if we stayed home at Christmas he would bring the family to Tennessee after his work slowed down after the first of the year. We can't wait until they get here. Our son Benjamin came and spent the holiday with us, but it still was quiet without our little sweetie around. They are visiting his other grandparents. Perry took his sons and Abigail along with two friends to see the new Rocky movie and I shopped for last minute gifts. After the movie we talked Dad into joining us at TGIF for a late lunch and then hit the mall for more last minute shopping. Considering the day before it was not very crowded at all. We had a quiet Christmas day eating our traditional turkey and ham dinner and watching the DALLAS Cowboys get stomped to death. We just could not believe how badly they played. Just when we think they are back to a winning streak they lose. What a day. We finished it watching George C. Scott's "Christmas Carol".

WE DID IT!

What a game, Thomas' team won the national 8 man football championship game Saturday night 46 - 32. The game was a cliff hanger. We took the lead early in the first quarter. When half time arrived the score was 26 - 20. We had the lead until in the third quarter they got a touch down to take the lead. The score was 30 - 32 until the last 3 minutes of the game. We caught a punt return and Taylor Huskey returned it all the way for a touchdown and that brought the score to 38 to 32. To clinch the win when Redemption kicked off the ball bounced off their player who just stood and looked at it. David Swift who was the best player all around did alot more than just look at the ball he jumped on it and it was Knights ball again, we got another touch down in the last seconds of the game. We won 46 to 32. What a night.
We had traveled down to Birmingham with the team and stayed at the Drury Inn. We had quite a turn out of other students to support our Knights. After the game we returned to the hotel and hooked up our dvd of the game and watched it again until almost midnight. What a night it was we really had a good time and celebrated all the way back to Franklin.

Life is Good

Here it is the start of a new work week. Everyone was up early getting ready. On Monday's Abigail goes in early with her dad to catch a ride for her 8 am Algebra class. Catherine and dad have to open each of our schools and Byson is sleeping like a little bug in his bed. He is so cute when he wakes up in the mornings. We have to be there by 8:30 today and it is the count down until the big game Saturday. Thomas' check up was postponed until today, so we still don't know how his knee is. We do have a prayer praise tho, after the game and before the players got on the bus to return one of our mom's placed her hand on his knee and prayed and for him and the swelling started to go down. Mrs. Bannister said Thomas said she had to pray for him so he could play in the playoff game.
Well, the Dr. visit was good. He said in light of this being Thomas' senior year he would approve him to play if he put a brace over the bad knee. He did not ask him to get a mri since he probably will not be playing anymore games. This will be the very last game of his senior year. We are soo excited that he will indeed be playing. Life is good.

Our Little Sweeties

After 9 years we finally have a grandchild close by. When our oldest son and his wife started their family 13 years ago I was in heaven. Their first daughter was born on my husband's 40th birthday. We were so excited, they were living about 30 miles from us which was close enough for them to come over for Sunday dinners and we could babysit if they wanted a night out. It took about a month for them to be willing to leave her overnight but their dad and I just loved having our grandchild in the house. I remember Kim nursed her and put her to bed and she slept until they came back the next morning. Seven months later our youngest daughter Abigail, was born and she and Deanna were almost like sisters. Then the next year they added Kaitlyn to their family and what fun we had with 3 little ones on weekends. I remember keeping the children and working in our garden and they kept eating the strawberries even before they were ripe. Those were the days indeed. Sometimes we even kept our friends children and would have as many as 4 extra little girls running around and, bath time was a hoot.
The next year #3 Lydia was born and she came over on week-ends too. My friends would say boy are you a gluton for punishment, and I would say "you know someday I may not get to live around my grandchildren and I want to keep them as much as I can now". Little did I know when Lydia was 9 months old God was going to move us to Florida and for two long years we did not see their family. Since then they have had 5 more little ones but we have not had the pleasure of living close by since August 1997.
This past August God gave my oldest daughter a precious little boy and it is fun having a baby around again. When my son's family traveled to Tennessee in Sept. what fun we had with 10 little ones in the same house. It reminded me when I was little and all the fun my 6 sisters and I had growning up.

Fall Happenings

Here it is the end of October and boy have we been busy. I don't know what I would do with myself if we didn't have two teens in the house. To start with Thomas in his senior year has kept us busy with football. His team Franklin Classical Knights are the Tennessee Conference champions and ended their regular season last night with another win 56 - 20. They are the only team in the history of Franklin Classical School to be undefeated. It was a hard game the field was wet, it rained just minutes before kick off time, it was muddy and the winds turned out of the north to give it a little chill. The first touch down the other team got Thomas was too far to keep him from catching it. After that you just couldn't keep him stopped, he sacked the quarterback, tackled another guy who was trying to carry the ball and just was going strong when he came off the field after a hard tackle and sat out a play, he returned to the game and only to return to the sidelines complaining of his knee. He said his knee cap popped out of socket and popped back in on that play and he was sidelined with an ice pack to reduce the swelling that was beginning. He is on his way to get it checked out this morning, hopefully he will be fully recovered by this coming Saturday when they face the Alabama champions for the national title of 8 man football.
Meanwhile I should be in Chattanougha today but I am fighting a sore throat. Abigail and her dad are traveling there for a Black belt tournament. Hopefully our little ninja will return with some medals. This is her first one being a black belt.
We finished our week at the preschools with Harvest parties yesterday and they were so much fun. The children spent the morning decorating their treat bags, doing art projects, and filling their bags with treats after saying their letters, numbers, colors & shapes, Bible verses and blends. Everyone had a blast.

God's Providence (continued)

Alot has happened since my last post, but to continue my story, we lived in Texas for 2 years until my husband felt God was calling him to be a preacher so we packed all our belongings and moved to Florence, Ms. and stayed until 1981, he gratuated in 1979 and we stayed another 2 years while he attended seminary. Meanwhile we were blessed with another son, Christopher in 1977 and then 3 years and 10 months later another son Benjamin who was born in 1980. We probably would have stayed longer in Missisippi but 17 months after Benjamin was born our first daughter was born in 1982. We moved back to Texas 6 months before she was born and stayed there until 1988 and then moved to a little town in Ohio and lived there for 9 years before we moved to Florida to learn how to own and operate a Christian preschool. Our youngest son Thomas was born in 1989 and our youngest daughter Abigail was born in 1994 on Valentine Day both in Ohio. They keep us busy trying to keep up with them as Thomas is a senior this year and plays football for the FCS Knights and Abigail stays busy with Taekwondo where she is currently a probationay black belt at 12 years old. It seems that God had prepared us all these years to operate a preschool. As a pastor Perry has ministered to many families and now he still is ministering to young families as he counsels and helps with child rearing questions with the many young families we serve every day. Even when he was a pastor I was involved with children's ministeries. I have served as Sunday School teacher, Vacation Bible School Director and with six children we have helped care for not only ours but our children's friends were frequent guests in our home. We both love our job and are thankful God has given us the privilege to work with these precious little ones.

Grandma from afar

Five Things

My sweet daughter-in-law tagged me so here are my five things:

Five things in my freezer
1. Ice Cream, vanilla (Abigail's favorite)
2. Chicken tenderloins
3. Bob Evans Sausage
4. Coffee Beans
5. Popsicles (waiting for my granddaughters)

Five things in my closet:
1. My husbands chest of drawers (it fits nicely)
2. Stacks of notebook paper we bought when it was on sale
3. Abigail's projects from Eagles Nest Academy
4. Clothes we wear and some we hope to wear again someday
5. Hats my husband has collected over the last 35 years

Five things in our van:
1. The weed eater Thomas was suppose to take to the shop to get repaired
2. Mats for our preschools
3. Flash light
4. Napkins in the glove box from various fast food resturants
5. Dad's tool box to have handy for the many items needing fixing at school

Five things in my purse:
1. Make up
2. Gum (a necessity with teen agers still around)
3. Lots of change (see # 2 for the reason :)
4. Debit cards for our personal and preschool accounts (my favorite things)
5. Keys with all the store ids for discounts

Five things in my school bag:
1. Markers, pens, and pencils
2. Thank you cards
3. Magazines, (such as: Better Homes and Gardens, The Tennesseean, etc.)
4. Info for my next pampered chef party
5. Directories for church and FCS the kids school

Five People I tag:
1. Catherine, my eldest daughter who is experiencing motherhood for the first time
2. Kimbra, my friend from church who has two beautiful little girls
3. Karen, who probably has a school bag too (she had a grandchild born the same day as our last one came (Aug. 11, 2006) and she teaches at my children's school
4. Anne, another friend from church who is a great artist (she painted a Noah's ark on our preschool wall for us)
5. Rachel, my nephews wife whose little boy looks just like his daddy