"When the one man loves the one woman, and the one woman loves the one man, the very angels leave heaven and come and sit in that house and sing for joy." (A piece of art we have hanging in our bedroom.)




We're a blend. The lady of the house, Mellody, was born and raised in Chicago and its 'burbs (Chicago is in Illinois, but not the state capitol, for those who didn't know that). The gentleman of the house, Payne, is a farmboy from rural central eastern Wedowee, Alabama. We met in LaGrange, Georgia and married in 1985. We have a blended family of his two Southern kids and her two Yankee kids. The Southern son married a Yankee (Minnesota) girl, but our two daughters and other son all married Georgians. All the granchildren have been born in the south, but the lady of the house uses her mid-western diction to help them at every opportunity. :-)


The darling man is known as Poppa Payne to everyone, not just our four grandchildren. Their friends and ours call him that, too. We think our "grands" are a special gift to us.




The youngest grand is DW. He's 19-months and came to visit today; upon request he folded his hands to show us how he prays. To learn more about him and his family, visit their blog at http://jb2crew.blogspot.com/. His sister, TM, lives in Tennessee, but you can see her on the blog. She's beautiful! Right now she's 10.


The next youngest is DP, at 9 years, and he loves to cook with us. Last week he came to our house (from the great distance of across the street and two houses down) to make muffins. We had to pose for a photo with him so his mother could tell his teachers what he did on his day off (it was President's Day).





Oh, by the way, that's Grandma Mell in the center. DP battles cerebral palsy and is a real trooper.




Mellody fondly calls Payne "Music Man," because he loves to sing old fashioned country music (and mostly despairs over the genre the "country" radio stations are playing today).






Here's a sample below of Payne, doing his thing on stage at the Golden Saw, in Williams, Alabama on February 20, 2009.


In the photo at the right, Payne is shown with Dewey Huddleston (middle) and Leonard Brown (far right). Dewey was the leader of the band in which Payne played after high school. Dewey now entertains crowds and emcees the whole production at the Golden Saw every Friday night, in a Grand Ol' Opry style. Payne met Leonard at another venue, the WSM Pickin' House, which is open on Tuesday evenings in Claxville, AL.







Time to meet our precious granddaughters. The oldest is LA, who is 13 going on 21. She, too is a musician - first chair clarinet in her 8th grade band AND she sings in the advanced chorus at her school. TM is a soccer player and has three more siblings at her home in Tennessee. Here's a photo of the girls together in 2007.