Jimmie, My Favorite

I may have mentioned that I turned 40 last week. I may have also mentioned that Coach turned 40 last month. Next month, we will celebrate our 15th Wedding Anniversary, so this is just a year of milestones for us! To celebrate all of this, instead of buying useless gifts for each other, we went away for the weekend, just the two of us. We had a quiet, peaceful, relaxing weekend at Joe Wheeler State Park about an hour from here (we kinda have a thing for State Parks, even when it’s cold and dreary).

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Jimmie came down to hang out with Pooh and Tigger, and to provide moral support for Madre while she went through some more issues with her old, failing house. For the most part, Jimmie and the girls hung out at our house while Madre hung out with her plumbers.

Jimmie always does something crafty with the girls when she comes to hang out with them.  She learned early on to provide something for their little hands to do, or things could get ugly. They have made “welcome home” signs in the past, and around the holidays they always make cute little gingerbread houses.   This time, though, they really outdid themselves!

Coach and I walked in to find this:

wait for it...

wait for it…

wait for it...

wait for it…

wait for it...

wait for it…

See?

See?

Isn't it cute?

Isn’t it cute?

And it was absolutely one of the best surprises of my life! They cut each and every trianlge, and decorated most of them. They strategically placed each one on the yarn with tape. They made enough to surround my entire dining room and my entire living room, and it meets again at the entrance to the kitchen. They even decorated the living room for Valentine’s Day, changing out all my accent pillows for pink pillows, blankets and animals.photo 1 (74)

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It’s like a little candy-land house now, and I am completely in love with it!  I have never even decorated for Valentine’s Day before, but now I may never UN-decorate from Valentine’s Day!

Jimmie always says she isn’t talented, or isn’t crafty, or isn’t artistic. She always says that, but then she always pulls off stuff like this amazing Valentine’s banner, made from scrapbook paper, yarn and stickers.  And then spends a significant amount of time climbing up and down my step-ladder, taping the banner to the walls.  And succeeds at making us feel like we could have stayed three more days away, and she would have made sure the girls were fine.  And occupies the girls with other stuff so they don’t sneak around and call us, whining about how they miss us.  And makes the girls eat healthy, which seems to be something only she and Madre can do.  I could go on for days, but instead I will just sit here in my extremely cute house and look at all they did while we were away. panobanner

Wow. I love you, Jimmie…you made our weekend away absolutely perfect!

Happy Valentine’s Week!

X,O,X,O,

Martie