I can't believe that Mama (Lelia) has turned 84. She had two birthday parties. The first was held at Georgia Belle where she lives and was a real treat for us all. Hank and Kay came up from Lakeland and we all went to hear Hank play for the residents where mother has her home. He sang right after dinner and it was so good. I forget how wonderful my brother's voice is and so much like my Dad. Kay got a cake and there were presents and everything. What more could you ask for. Harry and I were there too and we went up to Mother's apartment for cake after our concert. Hank brought music sheets so everyone could sing along. My favorite was I'll Fly Away. Mom and Daddy spent the last years of their retirement singing for nursing homes so it brought back many fond memories for us all. Thank you Brother for such a treat for us all.

For those who aren’t as familiar with the name – Robert Brooks was the only son of Viola Brooks – known to me as Aunt Viola – my Mother’s sister. He was adopted when an infant. Big families are hard to keep track of.

Well we are as settled as we are going to get until January. The house has concrete walls, really high windows and resembles a jail cell. My guess anyway not that I've ever been locked up. Our first shipment came in last Thursday. It was suppose to contain our dishes, linens and Christmas Decorations. Our dishes were in there but they were all broken.

Our Christmas decorations survived so we put the tree up on Friday. The boys had fun with that. Tommy would grab and ornament run to the tree and throw it in and then run back yelling "more more". Joey would said "uh Tommy your not suppose to do that, now I have to fix it". Which of course meant double the ornaments that he could hang. I guess you could say they balance each other.