two brothers birthday party

The little brother has his birthday in February, and the older in March, so their parents threw a party in the middle.

They host the party at John's work in the big rec room. See James and Little Jay playing basketball in back?  We have all wondered how anyone gets any work done at all at this place with this room down the hall.

John claims he is too busy to jump in the bouncer. 

Wow, that's sad.   Knowing this would severely depress childhood John.

"I'm going to grow up and be too busy to jump in the bouncer at my office. And I won't have any time to play basketball in the rec room either."

Very sad.  That almost makes me feel like crying.

But these people are not sad.  They're having the time of their lives.

Could we really have had this boy around for SIX YEARS?  How is that possible?

Okay, these weird pictures were taken inside the bouncer. Notice the huge grin on my sweetie.

And here's Auntie Kirby hugging b.g.'s little brother.  (He likes it.)

Look at the color coordinated dishes.  Dannell planned all this, brunch--egg bake, muffins, cinnamon rolls, on and on amazing, party favors, perfect.

Now they're going to open some presents.   t.c. was pretty darned excited about this.

Oops, here's l.c. tipping over while he works at it.

I'm not sure why l.c. is hugging Alicia here, but it's a pretty cute moment.  That's Dannell's little brother, known as Uncle Dietz, in the striped shirt.   He's a good man. 

So is this guy.  He FINALLY, after 7 weeks, has b.g.'s little brother in his arms at last, no interfering aunties or GRANDMA snatching the child first.   Awww.  Look at the kid, collapsed in the heat.

Cake time!  

Yes, indeed, we sang and you two blew out your candles, and it was a truly great party.   Plus you great boys each turn a year older and this whole family is better with you guys.  Lucky old us.   love forever, Grandma and Grandpa

the battle of the crayon box

 Oh  yeah, here she moves it.

 When she wasn't after the crayons, Sidney was her second target.

 There go the crayons again.

She's working her own book, and doing a good job of it.

 Yeah, it's all pretty funny.

 See how high up beside me Sidney has climbed?  The dog's smart.

 Crayons aren't edible, as we've told her numerous times. Same with the sea shells--not in your mouth.

In the end, Sidney was un-handled, and the crayons were safe.   Friday was fine, and Saturday is looking pretty great too. 

In less than a week it'll be MARCH, and that's the best news of all.  Love, Val

happy for snow

It wasn't a lot, but it was a pretty night and the kids were happy in the morning, but especially Sam was.

And I can see we have a playhouse window to fix and a back steps to paint, but those are future Val's problems. 

Today?  No problems at all.  love, Val

blah, blah, blah

Okay, today we had errands to do: drop off the saxophone at the repair shop, mail packages, have a form notarized, drop off  b.g.'s mittens. 

All these are quick stop errands where I can run in and leave Lydia in the car to supervise.  She's going to be twelve in a couple months. She can handle it.

 I promised the kids McDonald's for lunch as compensation for this boring morning.   

But getting out the door is so annoying.  (We even forgot the packages and had to go back again.) 

But as I attempted to put p.j. in the carseat--big baby, awkward angle, I realized SOME IDIOT had buckled the straps, so now I had to lift her up with my left hand and unbuckle them with my right, and get them against something just so to create the leverage, and I started to sweat and then I started to YELL.

"I WANT TO KNOW WHO DID THIS AND HEAR AN APOLOGY!"   Their eyes were big, Nobody said anything.

I kept yelling, "Well, SOMEBODY did this, and they know who they are and all I want to hear is SORRY!"

More silence.  "Okay then, FINE.  No video games for anyone until tomorrow.  If you can't even say you're sorry, fine then."

Julia bravely mumbled, "Sorry." 

AAAGHHH.  Even at the time, I realized I was acting like an idiot.

Then turning the car around, I saw that window. "What the hell happened to that shade?  Look at it!  It's completely mutilated."

Silence.

 "Somebody knows what happened to that shade and they'd better explain.  I don't care about the shade. It cost $2.99.  We'll throw it away, but you can't wreck things and leave the pieces.  Tell me right now!"

Tim:  "t.c. wanted to make the room darker, so I pulled it down and it wouldn't go back up, so then I stuffed it under the curtain."

Okay, that's believable, and shades are for using, and it's sure nobody's fault the shade wouldn't go back up.   GAWD.  Get me with a little PMS and everyone run for cover.  Ridiculous.

But the errands were accomplished without further incident, except when they asked how many boy and girl toys in the Happy Meals.  I said, "Two boys and two girls." 

Kari stared at me and whispered, "Two boys??"

Pbbblt.  I'm a moron.  

But lunch was delicious and fine.  And we're going to make it through Wednesday.

I will try not to rant anymore about things that don't matter.   They nodded, "Well, we get in a crabby mood too sometimes."   Sigh.

Onward.   love forever, MOM

making the most of the snow

Last night it snowed, which is rare this winter.  I drove home late at night, creeping along over the ice and unplowed streets, taking the side roads home.   It was as bright as day, big pink sky. 

When I pulled up to the house it looked like a postcard, pines hanging with snow,  marshmallow caps on all the cars.

Okay, that was lovely.

Glad it's over. 

Today it melted quite a bit.   When I picked Tim up from basketball, it felt like a damp March wind, and that didn't bother me in the least. 

Alicia texted this morning would the kids be willing to play with b.g. in the snow?

Yes.

She took some pictures of them in the snow, but I didn't.   We ate lunch and way too many cookies and took turns holding the babies.

Here he's found an enormous hair brush and hid under the table brushing his hair.

This was a couple weeks ago, Alicia took this.  I love the look on her face.  Today she climbed up next to me to rub his head, looked at me, and then at him, and back again.  (The rubbing is probably safer than the patting.)



Later on, when Kirsten was back from the airport, Julia was being annoying. She was interrupting and a bit on the giddy side, driving us nuts.   We told her to quiet down, calm down, or get out of our bubble.

She giggled away, asking more annoying foolish questions.

I told her again--cut it out or leave.

Jay said, "Are you listening to what people are saying?"

She continued on with some foolish answer.

Jay did a little frisky move then, like a fake move, like he was coming after her.

She looked at him over her shoulder and made a fake-scared face and ran out to the family room.



I couldn't quit laughing.  As if. 

He said, "Whaaat?"

"As if you'd ever leap up and do what to her?"



He said, "Well."

This is a picture of Kirsten and her crazy nephews, taken by Alicia.   Kirsten came home from Florida today.

We asked her how it was?

"Four days, just me and Grandma and Grandpa?  How do you think it was?  AWESOME!"

It did sound pretty perfect.  Plus on the way home, she was phoned and offered a promotion at work.

That was pretty good too.   And this lovely little canine was waiting for her--she was an agreeable dog to babysit.  They were awful happy to see each other.

And that is the end of Tuesday, and a very fine Tuesday it was.    love you all so,  Val, aka Grandma, aka Mom