Ann Fleming's First Birthday!

Ann Fleming turns one April 26 and we had her first birthday party on Saturday, April 23. We invited our friends and family over to enjoy some good food and help celebrate one of most wonderful girls in the world. Royann and Kelsey prepared the lodge for the party and did an amazing job with the decorations and the food. We also had a Easter egg hunt for the kids in the afternoon after it cooled off and it was a blast.

Ann Fleming's cupcakes Royann and Kelsey made.

Dennis, Ashely, and Tripp

Nana and Royann

 The Birthday Girl!

My Aunt Jan and Momma

Pi and Andrew

Mr. Jimmy Slater

Royann and Ashley

Papaw and The Birthday Girl

Tripp and Kelsey

Birthday Girl and Mom blowing out the candle

Opening Presents

Jon Hartley Slater

I still can't figure out why Kelsey and Ashley were taking pictures of my butt.

Ann Fleming finds her first egg!

So happy about hunting eggs!

The look for the prize egg

Great-grandchild picture

Baby #2 on the way!

Baby #2's birth date is approaching fast. We did not find out what the sex of this baby is either as we did with Ann Fleming. Each time we have been to the doctor it seems like he has either moved up the due date or moved it back. First, it started out with June 13, then June 17 the next time, next we got moved back to June 10, then the last time we went to the doctor he wants to induce June 8 if Royann hasn't had it by then. So there is the latest up to date info. on baby #2. Here is a shot of Royann and she will probably kill me for putting them on here:

Do we have any idea of what sex the baby is? I don't and if Royann knows she isn't sharing. I know that she hasn't been as sick as last time, but she has been a lot more tired and she snores a lot more. I guess we will find out soon enough. The names for either sex are as follows: for a boy it will be Bradley Wilson Leflore Jr. and if a girl it will contain Taylor for Royann's Dad's family, Killebrew for my family, and Leflore of course, all put together some kind of way.

The Greatest Obituary You'll Never Read in a Newspaper!

Brutus in Julius Caesar said it best that "We have come to bury Caesar not to praise him. The good that men do in their lives is often interred with their bones but the evil they do often lives after them". This was Brutus's final obituary for Caesar. I believe a person's life shouldn't be spelled out in one final obituary and I don't believe we should focus on any evil they did but, stay focused on the good. There are so many other important things that they did and said in their life than their occupation, their kids, their family, birthday, death day, etc.. What should be put in that final obituary is the lives they lived, the relationships they nurtured, the good they did, and the love they gave. As I write this I am losing one of the most important people to me in my life, my Grandmother. She was the only grandparent I ever knew growing up. I didn't know any of my other grandparent's that well because they passed on before I got the chance to know them. I think she tried to make up for this during my life with her. She taught me a lot of really good things growing up and I would like to share them with you.

Mamaw as we knew her first taught us how to laugh. I don't think I have ever met another human that loved to laugh as much as my Mamaw. She loved to sit around and tell stories and laugh. She didn't worry about tomorrow or fret about the past. She was happy right then in the present and only focused on spreading her happiness. I think that is how God want us our life to be. I think he wants our life to be filled with happiness and laughter. I think God knows that happiness is like a disease, that it spreads. If happiness was a disease then Mamaw was ground zero for our family. Now let me say she wasn't happy and laughing 100% the time, but I would bet it was close to 99% of the time.  I don't think anyone can be. There are times in life that aren't filled with happiness and laughter. I think Mamaw would smile and laugh her way out of those times though. Zig Ziglar said that happiness and laughter should be just like pants. It should be part of our wardrobe that we put on each day. Even the days when you don't feel like it. You can't walk out of your house without pants. So why would you try to leave home without a smile? If you practice laughing and smiling it becomes a part of you. I think Mamaw knew this exact this concept.
Second, She taught us how to love. God told us in 2 Corinthians that love is the greatest gift we can give first to him,then to our self, and then to others. If you don't love God you can't love yourself or others. She loved God. I saw it in her being faithful to God, reading the bible, praying, and walking the walk. If you love God then and only then you can love yourself. She loved herself to the last breath. I will be the first to tell you if I would have been in her shoes it would have been hard to love what God had given me to work with. Mamaw was like an old old beat up 57 Chevy truck you see going down the highway. You look at it and by the looks of it you wonder how in the world is that thing still going? Mamaw was that 57 Chevy, she had horrible arthritis in her hands and feet, couldn't see, problems with her digestive system, and heart problems. I never saw her get down because of the hand God dealt her though. She kept right on and she loved herself. If you love God and love yourself God gives you the ability to love others. She loved everybody. I think one of the greatest traits we can take away from Mamaw was her ability to love others. She loved like it was going out of style. Mamaw understood that Love is a verb. It was not a noun or just something that just flows out of our mouth and means nothing. She proved her love by her actions towards others and not just saying I love you. She never once let me leave her house without telling me she loved me and hugging me though. I will think back on Mamaw and I will remember most the times was time spent around her pecan tree in her front yard talking and the way she loved spending time there with her family and friends. A man once told me the greatest things we can work for in life is not money, records, social recognition, but to see how many people we can pack into a funeral home for our funeral. By the number that shows for our funeral is the number of people we showed love to throughout life. As I sit here pre-funeral for Mamaw's funeral, I know it will be standing room only because of the love she gave.

Lastly and most important is the way she lived. She lived a life that brought glory to God. She gave her life over to God at a young age. She realized it wasn't her life to live but a life for God to live through. She set an example on the way that life is supposed to be lived that I was glad to be able to witness. She was close to God. She exemplified everything of a Proverbs 31 woman should be. She set an example for  her own kids to follow and now they are passing those same qualities down to their kids and grand kids. I can see good qualities from Mamaw in each of my Aunts and Uncles that were passed on to them from her. I mean I couldn't ask for a better group of Aunts and Uncles and my own Mom to look up to.  Even to those of us that didn't have the privilege of being raised by her, she showed us how life was supposed to be lived. She spent time with her grand kids. It wasn't a hassle for her to spend time with us grand kids. She looked at it as an opportunity and a privilege to pass on some wisdom to part of her family tree in her grand kids. One of the biggest things I remember is no matter what she was doing,  if any of her grand kids showed up at her house she would stop whatever she was doing and spend time with us. She understood the most important thing in this world outside of God was family and being a mentor to that family.

You know as I am sitting here writing this, I could have filled this up with funny stories of Mamaw. I think God wants us to remember those and I think they are important, but I think the main thing God wants us to take away from Mamaw and her life was her ability to laugh, love and live. I know one day I will come to the end of the road here on earth and I hope people are remembering me in this way. We will never see Mamaw again in an earthly body, but one day if you have given your life over to Jesus we will all spend eternity together with her. I know it is gonna be a special time filled with watermelons, tomatoes, and visiting.

Ann Fleming's First Ole Miss Game

Ann Fleming went to her first Ole Miss game this past weekend and had as much fun as a five month old could. I knew from my wonderful childhood experiences of going to games with my dad(see blog post I made last year on Ole Miss Game memories) that one day I would hope I would get to share the same experiences with my own kids. Ann Fleming got her chance Saturday to become a Rebel fan. I think she is hooked. If you read our blog you probably read Dennis and Ashley's(Royann's sister) blog also and you have probably read how her son Trip loves the bands and musics at football games. Ann Fleming is the same way. She loves the band in the grove and at the game.

We really couldn't ask for a better baby. I know a lot of people say that, but Ann Fleming really is one of the best babies in the world. She just goes with the flow, never crying, and always smiling. I hope it stays that way. I know if we are blessed with a second one they will probably be just the opposite.
Royann and Ann Fleming going in game!

Ann Fleming with Pi and Pap

Even the teams take time outs!





The band is on the field, sorry they get all my attention!

Getting Older!!

Ann Fleming is growing up so fast. Some say time passes by quickly and it does when you have a child, but when you get everyday and every hour with your child it makes it slow down a little. Just to give a update on her, she is: rolling over now and has been for about a month, sitting up when you hold her legs down from going up in the air, she crawled a few steps last wednesday(she is not a professional crawler, just a intermediate crawler), she loves to see, momma, daddy, mamaw and papa leflore, and she loves her pi, she doesn't not love her Pap, she is just still trying to figure him out,she loves her great grandmothers, she loves animals and remote controls(sounds about right since I love computers and her Mom is a Vet.),she loves her jumparoo Aunt Ashley let her borrow, she doesn't like her pacifier very much anymore, she loves babies like Tripp, Ann Carol, and Avery her cousins, she loves bath time,she loves the Ole Miss band, she loves changing clothes(we may be spending a lot of money on clothes one day) and the new one is, she loves looking at herself in the mirror(she gets to laughing and giggling and slapping the mirror). She is the calmest baby in the world. The only time she really ever cries is when she is hungry and then it isn't but a wimper. I hope it continues and here are a few latest pictures:


Ann Fleming listening to the band!

It is that Time of The Year

It is amazing to me how one smell, one song, or one word can take you back to one moment in your life. One of those things can bring a time or memory back to life that you thought you had forgotten. It seems that the dew falls harder in the late summer months and mix that with fresh cut grass there is only one memory that pops in your head as a boy. Football Season! I was never much of a football player growing up, but I tried. I grew up playing in the yard with my J.C. Penny Hutch pads with my cousins and those were some pretty intense games. The Hutch equipment couldn't stand up to much pad popping though. The shoulder pads were nothing more than packing plastic or Styrofoam that you pack a package to get ready to mail. The helmet was made of a small layer of plastic with straps on the inside that looked like belts making an x on the inside to cushion the impact of head on collisions. The face mask on the helmet was so small it would make any kicker on any football team scared to wear. The lower pads such as hip pads, knee pads, and butt pads were about as strong as the shoulder pads, all they did was just slow you down. Our uniforms never matched when we played each other because we always asked Santa for our favorite teams jerseys. I remember Russ one year got a Ohio State set. We made fun of him for Santa's mistake. We had one cheerleader at the time, it was Russ's younger sister. She did most of the cheering for both teams and alot of time drew more attention to her from the crowd than the game would. We drew big crowds young and old from our little community of Horseshoe to watch these epic battles. I still don't understand how a game of two on two drew such a crowd, but they did. It would be thirty to forty people sitting on picnic benches and lawn chairs oooing and aahing at some of the skills we as eight years old had. Looking back at the video now that my Aunt has brings a good laugh. I think back and I can smell the grass, I am catching that twenty yard pass for a touch down, I am wiping that grass off my face that a real face mask would have blocked after getting drilled into the turf, I am stopping a run in the backfield to a loud roar of people most of which have passed now. I am there. I am reliving it again in my mind.

As I got older I moved on from professional yard ball to junior high football. I know it is hard to believe, but I wasn't very big. I may have been five foot and I may have weighed a Benjamen. Summer practice was no fun for this pro yard ball player. The only time we played in the yard was when we scheduled it and when it was not hot or the cracks in the yard were only two inches wide or smaller. I was amazed at the difference in my old Hutch pads and the one I received from the school. I got a real helmet with a real face mask, real shoulder pads, and real lower body pads. They weren't as good as the ones received by the really good players. They got bike helmets. You could pump those up with air to add more protection. I wanted so bad a pump up helmet, but never got it. Those August days were hot and sticky. We had a new coach in town and he was a tough one and he wanted to make an impression on us as young men. We had a total of thirteen players, (talk about "Iron Man" football), on the squad which was a huge upgrade from the two I was used to playing with. He would run us until we would puke our guts up. The "Junction Boys" thought they had it tough. Most of us had grown accustomed to the heat because we had been working on farms most of the summer. The only difference between football and work was at work if you got thirsty you drank, but at football if you asked for water the whole team ran gassers and puked some more while you watched. Repayment for asking for water came from the team in the "bull in the ring". By the end of summer workouts we prayed for school to start.

School started and so did the season. The first game was a jamboree with other teams. I guess you could call it a glorified practice hitting other people besides our own teammates. We had a pep rally to get everyone fired up about the upcoming battle. More than one cheerleader was new also. We as a team needed more than a few cheers to get our team going. I told you earlier there were thirteen of us on the team. It takes eleven to play a game of football. I and a boy who couldn't even be a good water boy sat on the sidelines that night and watched the first massacre. After the game we shook hands and I ran into my older cousin who played for the opposing squad. Did I mention my older, bigger, meaner, stronger by a mile cousin? He told me I better be glad I wasn't in there because he would have killed me. He would always beat up us younger kids at family get togethers, so I knew I didn't want to tussle with him. We got beat the first game by twenty by our rival Central Holmes. Now really twenty doesn't sound like to bad of a losing difference but,it was only one quarter of football. In a jamboree you only play one quarter per so called practice game. So now how does twenty sound? What if we would have played all four quarters? That's right it adds up to eighty points they would have scored to our zero. That was not the shot in the gut though. We lost our starting tailback that practice game to a broken collar bone. So that left a big decision to the coach. It was me or the boy who thought the jock strap went on the head under the helmet for extra protection to start next game. He tried on a few of his teammates jock protection straps on his head until he figured out what was going on when he ran through the gym with one on his head and the coach caught him. He told the coach he had taken a pretty serious lick in practice and wanted some extra protection for his brain. After the coach laughed a little he told him what was going on with the little joke from the team, but back to the story. Hard decision huh? Jock strap boy or the little engine that couldn't (me). He chose jock strap boy. Nah! Just kidding! I lined up on the first kick off against Carroll Academy and peared across the line at men. These were not boys like on our squad. I think I saw a mustache on the guy lined up across from me. It may have just been mud, but all I know is it was intimidating. The ball was kicked to about the thirty by our kicker and it was on. I ran as hard as I could to the ball like I was taught to do in practice. The only difference was here there was a receiving squad on the other side and they were taught to block for their return man. We just kicked off to a return man in practice because we didn't have enough for a team to practice against. I remember taking off and going towards the ball. That's it. That's all I remember. Mustache boy pounded me! Pounded me right into the Bermuda. I saw stars, I saw moons, and I even think I saw Jesus. I hurt all over.My brother told me after the game later that night that it hurt him on the sidelines the lick was so hard. He still talks and laughs about the hit. The squares inside my face mask were each had a perfect square of turf stuck in them. I am there. I think back and I remember the smell of the grass in my face mask. I remember how I hurt.

The first game of the year brought on the squad of Central Holmes who we had previously lost to by twenty in the jamboree and who my cousin played for. Game plans were in place after a hard week of practice of corrections from the jamboree. I should have known how bad we were from the way the game started that night. Every school during pre-game runs through a sign as they run onto the field. We made it through the sign with no problem. The after is what we had the problem with. A couple of guys made it through the sign and the lead guy fell down. That lead guys was me. I tripped everybody on the team. It looked like the perfect strike in bowling. The whole team went down except for jock strap boy and he just kept on running. I guess payback came back to us for the humiliation we put him through. The laughter in the stands roared as we all lay on the found in front of the goal post. Kickoff was non eventful as I just kinda ran down field and pushed a couple of boys around. I had been assigned to play right tackle. The right tackle blocks the defensive end on the right side. We broke the huddle for the first offensive series of the game and there he was. #73 Plain as day! That is all i could see was the number seventy-three unless I looked up and I mean straight up and there he was Kevin, my cousin who had warned me the previous week he was gonna get me on the field when we played each other. We lined up and I was so nervous the ref called a false start my body was shaking so much. We lined up again after the five yard penalty and the ball was snapped this time with no yellow flag and Kevin planted me face first into the grass. He let the runner run right by him as he lay on top of me and whispered in my ear hole of my helmet "Hope you like it down here, because that's where you gonna be all night".He didn't plant me every time though. He would sometimes throw me out of the way and kill our quarterback or running back. Whoever was possessing the ball at that moment. After three quarters of this beating before leaving the sidelines the coach told me " Rocky if you don't block yo man I am gonna put you in the backfield running the ball". I told him " Coach that's fine what play do you want me to run?" Let somebody else take that beating I was thinking. He didn't find it amusing. After taking another quarter of more blistering hits and power drives into the ground I took matter into my own hands. I would get the better of my older cousin just once before this game was over. As the clock ticked down to the last few seconds and we were still trying to to get one score before the end I hit Kevin with all my might. I bounced right off of him and he came back at me and I turned to brace for the hit and he drove me right into the ground. I don't mean just the grass. He drove my helmet and face mask through the grass and into the dirt. I had inches of grass and dirt in my helmet. He picked me up as the horn sounded and shook my hand and put his hand on my shoulder pad and told me I played a good game. He said he enjoyed it. I was thinking, I bet you did. I can smell that grass. I am there still walking or limping off that field with my cousin. I can still hear him laughing about the beating he had given me.

We lost Kevin a few years back, but anytime I smell that fresh cut grass fragrance I think of him and football and eating a lot of grass and inhaling a lot of grass my first year of football. We went on after that game to become pretty close. He told me later on he had a lot of respect for me for never giving up that night. I sure had a lot for him.

She is a Happy Baby!