closing a chapter... the book is still open

sometimes i just don't know what to say.
i know i can say: i love my granny and paw paw.
through out the years, their house has been the only house in the u.s.a. that us kids have really known in our childhood. the red house at 609 lee road... with the ever expanding garden in the back! they taught my family about God's love and about following Him. they've helped create incredible christmas memories. granny taught me how to wrestle. paw paw threw endless spirals and fastballs at me. he taught me to frizbee. he taught me to be kind. she taught me to love grits and scrambled eggs. he taught me to love bologna. (yeah, hard to believe we're from alabama, huh?). he taught me the true way - roll tide!!!! (paw paw ushered for alabama at the ironbowl for many years). granny got us tickets to watch uab play basketball, monster truck shows, the circus, the globetrotters, and ... lot's of other things since she worked at the jefferson civic center. they let me shoot their b.b. gun, and there's lot's of stories about that (i'm sorry for shooting pebbles - their dog - whew... good to get that off my chest, it's been over 20 years since the "accident"). he taught me to help others. she showed me it's a good thing to pick up old people who needed a ride to church. and so much more... $50 a month during college, trips to the beach, watching countless football games, being at center point church of Christ every time the doors were open.

granny died this weekend, late friday night. she was due for her promotion. she was tired. she was ready.
there's so much more to say... i may just have to come back and edit this blog again later.
here are some pictures of when granny and paw paw came to visit us in the fall of 2000. all they did for about a week was hold and feed aubrey (we did the changing). but paw paw would not let us lay her down by her self anywhere. a quick side bar... aubrey's baby pics look a whole lot like cooper's ... surprise! caught us off guard with that one, even though my mom swears he looks like me.
here's some pics of my favorite people.

sunday sleepy sunday (a la U2)

what a weekend. but not really. but really. we didn't do anything extra heroic. it was simply tiring. on friday night we were at the clairemont nursing home with my parents and granny and amy and didn't get to bed till close to midnight. i'll elaborate more on that in a different entry. yesterday, we slept in for the most part. i wrestled the girls on our bed (and yes... someone always get's hurt - part of the fun right?). went out to eat @ tele's with my uncle larry who came into town friday late at night. came home and slept and relaxed and played. got to bed late. coop pulled a fast one on us last night. it took 2 hrs to get him down after his 3:30 feeding so we both had to get up and tag team him.

so i came home from cleaning out the nursing home room with chrisp and dad, amy, mom, & mark. the one that granny stayed in and we put the stuff in several places. cindy was konked, coop was out... and the girls were monkeying around quietly in their room. so i turned out the light and got them into their beds and played some ball to try out my calf.

here's what i came back to:

so ... now it's 5 p.m. and we're about to head over to the rangels for a fun night of small group fellowship and worship and learning (for me, the eating part is included in the worship part).

i/r

for some of you non basketballers... "i/r" stands for "injured/reserve". 10 days ago i suffered my first pulled muscle. and yes, the "you are not young anymore" and "you are getting old" comments have been pouring in... and have gotten pretty old, too. 35, c'mon.

so anyways, the brace i borrowed from rodney cox was working ok... but i decided to go with the full boot, to completely inmobilize my calf - thanks to bobby burke's brace. i've worn a brace for 9 days now and today is my first day with my feet free. i'm taking it lightly. i hope to be on the treadmill this weekend and shooting ball by tuesday. we'll see.

nice site of pooled blood up and down my leg, huh?

i guess there's a "little captain in me"... (capt morgan commercial reference - but i guess that makes it not funny if i have to explain it).

i'm really looking forward to getting with the guys for basketball. they did awesome last night, almost pulled it out agains a team we'd beaten the past year or two, but used to beat us... so kinda' rival-ish. but they are good guys. anyways, we came back from 18 down in the 2nd half to within 2 pts with under 2 minutes. it was awesome, we just couldn't get over the hump (and some chincey missed calls at the end didn't help either).

coop got to come with me to the game. cindy gave me one of those "ya'll ain't stayin' home and you've got to get the heck out of here" (ok, so i changed up a line from stewart scott from espn) lines. so at 9:15 p.m. we went to his first basketball games. it was fun... and right when it was time to go, he decided it was time to eat. so i drove home with my arm behind my back holding in the paci ("opi" at our house)... and smiling.

blubbery monster

coop and i hung out in the room before the girls came in for our nightly devo. we had it our bed tonight... lolo suggested we rotate rooms - the girls', mommy & daddy's, and cooper's room - through out the week. such a smart girl. her brain is just exploding right now. mrs brenda and mrs margaret are doing an awesome job in that class at alpine christian academy's kindergarden.

so... back to coopy doopy. i took some pics of him like this back in mid december and posted a few, i think. so now that we think he's about 9-10 pounds, and he has grown from 20 to 21 inches, i thought i'd update the naked picture files.

we were both falling asleep on this one. but as you'll read in the next blog... cindy had other plans for us. by the way... she's a great mom, and we got her some "alone time" - something that i had to learn about from her. when i learned it... i started kicking her out of the house to go get sonic, and she'd come back a different person. it worked.

so coop and i are just bumps on a log in this pic. sleep is so hard to come by these days for cindy and me. we're both looking forward to sleeping together again. not that way. although we are - i am, atleast. sleep ... i mean sleep. "r.e.m." overdose sleep. 8-9 hrs in a row. both of us. feeling fresh in the morning. maybe in a few months... the actual sleeping part - that is.

princess and... prince?

i snuck in on the girls today. it's cold outside and they were playing quietly so they wouldn't wake up mommy and coop.

i heard the music playing and had to see what was up? recognize the tune?

against the rules...?

catching a smile - part 2

catching a smile

faces in the crowd

the best christmas gift ever...

ok... this is me opening the only gift i actually recieved. it was a book about all kinds of sports from becky and chrispy.
but my favorite present was something else.
this fall i came accross a concept called "advent conspiracy". the thought is "worship more, spend less, give more" during the christmas season. we did. i don't think we did it perfectly, but we gave it our best shot!
the pruitt clan, cooper clan, and peurifoy clan contributed $875 to mission projects in mozambique, africa. our missionary friend will dig a new water well with that money. clean water for a whole village. that's what i got for christmas.
$875... that's what it's worth not to worry about what gift to give who and how much are you spending on each person and the feeling like you got shafted with what you got. cindy and i bought no other family gifts for adults, and only a few for our girls. we really scaled back, and put some money in the pot for our gift that will give life... LIFE! "i have come that you may have life, and have it to the full" is what our Savior said. we've helped contribute to that this year, and we're not worrying about how much we spent on xmas... we celebrated the life bringer, instead.
so... if you are interested in the concept, check out www.adventconspiracy.org , it's becoming a movement! although some centralized their giving to work with a certain organization to give clean water through out the world. others have used the money in their community.
imagine...

family fun

krazy kids

retelling the story

celebrating the king