it's my birthday and i'll blog if i want to... blog if i want to... blog if i want to...

go back and read the title with a monotone indifference. thanks. proceed.

so, i'm 35 now. september 27, 1972, jefferson hospital in birmingham, alabama. richard and vicky had their 3rd kid in 4 years.

cindy woke the girls up before they "woke me up." i saw them scurrying down the hallway pretty giddy. that's not the normal behaviour in our home in the mornings. but they were happy. they couldn't wait to surprise me and give me gifts. so they rush in carrying things and saying: "da...ddy, wake up daddy, it's your birthday. we've got presents.."

so i pretend to snore a time or two and act disoriented. it was almost as if i was bating them. and they bit. "da...ddy, wake up! it's your birthday! c'mon daddy."


so i turn over and look at my beautiful two daughters. they had smiles and a bag full of presents for me. so i "read" the cards, they were basically pictures of things i like and represent love. a rainbow heart from lolo. hearts, soccer and basketball from aubrey. things i love. with their name on it. i gave them their names.


so, i smile and thank them. i truly was excited... not so much for the cards, but the fact that it made them so happy to bring me joy and do things they knew i enjoyed.


so then i open up the gifts. i pulled out several things: one by one i pull out 3 "hot-wheel" cars. i told them how fun it was going to be to play together with them. then, i pulled out a snack bag of "gold fish". cindy bought these last week for aubrey's soccer team. and then i pulled out a zip lock bag of chocolate candy. this candy is from their dessert bowl. after dinner every night they each get one or two pieces of candy. that's all the candy they get during the day.


as i thought about it, my heart was pounding. i was smiling. they were so excited to give me what they gave me. but everything they gave me already belonged to me. it is all mine. it was given to them by their father. it was bought by their father. and they brought it to me with joy, and it made me extremely happy.




cindy and i grabbed some lunch at mcalister's. i can't wait to spend the next 35+ years of my life with her.i actually worked a full day today. we're taking off to dallas tomorrow, so i just had to get stuff done. but, we met up with family and friends at tele's in spring hill for my birthday party. about 25 people gathered to eat some of the best food in town. it was a lot of fun. i was so glad to be able to celebrate and thank God for these people who help me live for God and experience his love and joy, and over come trials. God is so good to me.

of course, i ordered the #11 (enchiladas mejicanas - cheese enchiladas with fajita beef on top) - cut the pico and the onions in the enchiladas. it came out just like i ordered it. and i did some damage to it! cindy ordered the #4 with the sour creame sauce (chicken enchiladas).

cindy helped the girls ... or the other way around... make chocolate cup cakes with oreo icing. hmmm...

and then the birthday boy special. a baskin robbins oreo cake. now that's good stuff. becky can probably do a cake just as good (with blue bell) but she's in the middle of her volleyball season right now.

uh... who gave us this? becky... i think this one is yours. i thought this is a funny pic. caleb is 4 months old today.

i've been around here for 35 years now. i've prayed prayers of thanks giving to God for this life that's mine. i've told him how i want to give him my life, i want to use my gifts for him, i want to thank him for things that i've done or have had this year. that's when i realize that my life is a vapor of his breath. the gifts i have are his - not something i've developed and now show him something new. the things that i have that i say i want to give to him are already his.

all i have is his. it was his already. it is his now. it will be his. i wonder if he had a smirk on his face this morning when i woke up and "told him" about the gifts i'm going to use for him and the things i'm giving him. i wonder if he smiled and hugged me and thought: "ricky, your life is my gift to you, your gifts are my glory i placed in you. it makes me so excited to see you give the to me with joy. you please me." as i go through my day, a light bulb comes on in my head. "none of it was ever mine to begin with..." and i see Him smirk with joy.

P.S.: as we're getting ready to leave the exquisit cuisine establishment of tele's... in comes another huge group of people to sit in the same room as us. a guy walks in with a pink baseball cap on and a dallas cowboys "t.o." jersey (#81). it was neal mckoy. he does a lot of work for the "angel network", you know helping sick and handicaped kids. good stuff. and no, he didn't "give me that 'wink'!"

world's worse home owner...

the title of this entry is singular. i'll claim the "worseness" of the two. i just don't care enough to do stuff. i feel secure enough say that i spend most of my time loving people in my home than loving my house and taking care of it. that's my personal rational. yes, i realize that loving my family means taking care of the roof over our heads, so from time to time, after family, work, and espn... i'll use some of my time to do house repairs.

i'm not that good at it in the first place - just ask kory phillips. we almost called 911 in the middle of replacing a ceiling fan last summer. now that was exciting. turn off the switch before you grab any wires, in case you are going to try that type of repair soon.

so anyways... back in june when it rained for a week while me and the girls were in mexico on our mission trip... our roof leaked in our living room... causing a sagging sheet rock to break and leave a mess in our floor. the sheet rock had been sagging for about 6 years... how about that for home owner. well, i put another coating of tar on the outside in june... and in august finally did the sheet rock. charlie farrell, my dad, and i did the sheet rock, cindy did some painting, and i repainted the entire ceiling (it could still use a second coat if you are a pro... but i'll see how long i can make it on this one).

here's the way the ceiling looked. how do you like that black mold action? we bleached it and it cleared out.

puttin' the mud in...

after the mud and sanding and mud and sanding and one more time... mud and sanding. then we started painting. i did the ceiling in the kitchen, living room and dining room... sure wish i had an extender.


dad painted the edges and cindy painted the walls and the cabinets. the wall right where my dad is used to be the country blue checkered you see on the other wall. so cindy primed and painted it. then she had to all the dining room walls (the bottom half) and aggravated her sciatic nerve. this is the only pic i've got on that...



all of this done of course under the great supervision of charlie farrell... here you see him working hard while my dad uses the paint brush. actually, charlie came over several times during the week to show me how to do things and get me started on different parts of the project. he also loaned me some tools and materials... thanks charlie!

here's the ceiling... vuala (sp?)

but wait... i'm not done. nope, today i finally replaced the ballast (sp?). i've actually talked about "replacing the ballister" all week. what a geek.

i had a trusty little helper ... and not a bad photographer, huh? she's got a mouth full of apple.

hey look... we made light! ok, maybe we just fixed an electrical artifact that produces light by channeling an charged current through a glass tube...

well, i just finished my last project for a while. we changed a plug outlet. that was quite the task (don't worry, i pulled the fuse this time). aubrey and lolo helped me with their flashlights (the rechargeable ones that they get to wind every 2 minutes). they even got to screw in part of it. we went from a two prong to a three prong (one with a ground on it).

so there you go. all the work has been done over the last month. the next project is the fascia board and the sophet (sp?) too. but rand said if i help him, he'll help me and dad do ours. that's it for now. no major work to do in diego's room. we wish we would have put the wood laminate down the hall way of the house... but that's way beyond my learning curve. that's the house front.

on the home front, i'll get you up to date on the girls school and soccer here in the next week. cindy is currently looking for a job, since the only way to keep her hospice nursing job at "southern care" was to become what they wanted: a full time nurse. cindy and i feel good right now about two days a week. so... we hadn't planned on this happening until december, so... pray for her job search. keep our whole family in your prayers as we continue to search for God's will for us. more posts to come...

who are we...

ok... it would have been really cool if i would have asked the girls to fill out some "favorite things" type of a questionnaire for this entry... but i didn't. you'll have to settle for staring at their beautiful pictures. i wished we would have cataloged our experiences with both our girls since their birth... but we didn't.


so, in july of 2000, aubrey victoria decided it was time to come out of the hatch (even if she was 3 & 1/2 weeks early). this one is all princess, although last week she put her shoulder into the girl she was stealing the ball from in her soccer game. she is very creative and a good artist. she loves to dance, the colors blue and pink, and is a great reader. she's a good soccer player. one thing she is really good at is singing. wow, she's going to be a great soprano, like her dad. she looks like her daddy (and has her mom's green eyes) and loves to laugh.

so, about a year and a few months after aubrey came along... cindy and i got "9/11 syndrome" in the fall of 2001, that's what they are calling the phenomenon of all the babies that were born within a year of 9/11. they say that people were trying to get close to each other again and valuing family. hey, i was just celebrating cindy's birthday. nine months later, two days from her sissy's birthday, another baby has arrived for the pruitts! laurel ann! when we introduced her to her big sister, we said "can you say her name?" she said "baby lolo"... and it stuck. lolo is a bunch of fun. she's our snuggler, just like her daddy. so she loves to wrestle, play soccer in the house, color, dancing in the living room, and talking with an accent with her daddy (ratatouille style - sp?). she has a beautiful soft alto voice, like her mom. one thing she's really good at is goofing around. her pictures look just like cindy's pictures growing up, although i saw a picture of becky (my sister) the other day that looked a lot like her. she's got beautiful blue eyes (like grandpa' cliff cooper) and loves to hug, tickle and trick people.

so, now we're on round 3. it took me a while to convince cindy that we needed number 3... but with my good looks, charm and maybe some other help, we conceived #3. we were hoping for a boy, although i really love my girls. i had no idea how much i would fall in love with them and love being their daddy. so a girl would not have been the end of the world... but i can honestly tell you that i have day dreamed for the past few years of things i would like to do with my son. we've got some friends who have 3 boys, and the dad is known as "the bull" because he procreates so often and produces male heirs. they used the "dr shettles" method. it has to do with the time of the month you try to conceive, basically. (look it up, this ain't no scanky site!) so anyways i asked him for some advice on conceiving a boy. he helped me out with some good advice. he said "take your wife out on a nice date. dress up nice, buy her flowers, the works... you know, take her to her favorite restaurant and complement her the whole evening. take her home, let her shower up, powder up or whatever she wants to do, and tell her to put something on that makes her feel like a real woman while you wait in the living room. when she's done, all of that, then pick up the phone and call me. i'll be right over." so i did everything i was instructed to do and... well, there you go, i guess it worked.

ok, really, i've prayed for him. and we tried the shettles method, although we missed by a few days. oh, well. God is gracious, even if he hadn't granted me "diego". we are almost out of our 2nd trimester right now. he's a wiggly fella'. i think he's just practicing his kicks, or dance moves. uhh, hopefully his kicks. "diego" has a "two-vessel chord" instead of three vessels in his ubilical chord. that means that blood flow and proper nutrition can be restricted, and there's a higher rate of chromosomal or physical abnormalities, but so far, the doc, the specialist, and God say all systems clear. the specialist told cindy she was a "boring sonogram". that was great news. "diego's" due date is late december, so keep him and cindy in your prayers. (his face in the picture is looking to the left of your screen). we think he's got his dad's nose!

the day we found out if our baby was a boy... it was kind of hectic. cindy went in for an early appointment and called at 8:40 saying... "get up here, they're going to let us see a sonogram". so with the girls in their pj's eating cereal watching "curious george", it was quite a hussle, but we got there in 25 minutes. it was fun. it was kind of like waking up and someone saying "it's christmas!". you don't really know what to say, you are not ready for it but you know it's supposed to be a fun day! i didn't know how i was going to react either way, but i was trying to be ready and excited. the girls were in the room with us and they were very excited. i didn't know if i would cry or not when i found out it was a boy... and i didn't, but i figured it might happen.

and then there's mommy... ahhh, the most beautiful woman in the world. she's a loving mom. she don't mess around in the kitchen - it's serious business in there. she's a great cook, she's a caring nurse, and loves to read. she makes me think of the songs "she don't know she's beautiful..." and "Lord have mercy, baby's got her blue jeans on..." (even if she's now wearing the "stretchy" jeans... she can still work it). i would show you the pictures of her belly progression, but she's asleep and i figure i'm already going to have to edit this entry once she see's it in the morning, so maybe there's a few lucky ones that will get to enjoy my humor. so i'll just put a picture of my pregnant wife, who i think looks extremely beautiful when she's pregnant! so i'm going to post a picture of her for you to agree with me. (yes, she's 6 & 1/2 months pregnant in this picture).

and i guess i'll introduce myself. this is me. (i'll get cindy and me to do a little more biographical stuff sometime later). my hair style (which is still working for me since 1989) represents my lifestyle: business in the front, and party in the back! i know what kind of lifestyle some of you were thinking of, but you are erroneous, i did not say "alternative lifestyle". you will see what i mean in two years, when my hairstyle officially becomes a classic (20 years old), and it'll come flooding back into style. other than that, i love to help people. i love to have fun. i love to see people connect with God. i love to go on dates with my wife. i love watching my girls do just about anything. hmmm... and i love food.

so... that's kind of who we are right now. we're at the beginning of soccer season. we've actually done some home repairs lately. we're praying about how our life will change.

You think YOU're checking US out...?

well, this fall has started off blazing for us. we've ended the "endless summer", which started in mid may and ended on september 4 and 6 (for aubrey and lolo - respectively).

we've really enjoyed keeping up with our friends and family on the web... even though some live just a few blocks away. so we thought: "of course everyone wants to keep up with us, too." so we've joined the latest fad and so the journey begins.

i'm not big on capitalizing or sentence structure. we just hope to put some stuff out there to keep you guys up to date. (yay - cheer from all 2 of ya'll reading)

This could be fun or tedious

so... here's a place for the pruitt's to keep their friends up to date. yep, some of the biggest news could be highlights from the princess power or wildcats... or sonogram pics. so... enjoy it. i feel like the last kid in the class to get my driver's liscense. "everybody's" got one of these. i guess the bottom line is that we've learned a lot about some of our friend and enjoyed their updates on their sites. so, we'll give it a shot.