happy birthday, laurie

It's your birthday, which used to be a dang National Holiday!!  (That's one of my favorite pictures of you.)

And this:

Awwww

Girl, I just love you so much.

Happy birthday!  Here's hoping this was a wonderful birthday and the year ahead is perfectly great.

Always, my heart is with you,   

Love forever, Val

come on april

Chickens are getting bigger by the day,

And this old car has a new fast battery and they were flying around the driveway last night, even doing wheelies.  It was a bit intense, but you can see how winter is dragging on and on.

Julia's on her way home from Los Angeles tonight, and hoping the blizzard in Minneapolis doesn't delay her.   It's only raining so far, and thundering, which scares Elin quite a bit.  She couldn't go out to the bathroom unless Jay put on a coat and went with her.

Anyway, April starts tomorrow and we're holding out hope for spring

Love, Val

 

oh dear

This dog was spayed on Thursday, and now this: A false pregnancy. Those are all her babies gathered around her in Dan and Alicia's bed.

Oh my.

Poor doggie.    Love, Grandma
 

babysitting on monday

This guy arrived bright and early.   After a bottle and some snuggling he fell sound asleep.

Then the other kids on spring break turned up to hang out for the day. She's putting her hair in a pony tail after just one brief encounter with that innocent looking hair puller.

They played. They were so nice to him.

Eventually he seemed tired again. I walked all around the living room with him wrapped up with the pacifier, doing the baby swoop walk.

He was not having it, kept craning his neck around and doing the stiff arms.

The little girl suggested we just put him in bed with the musical Winnie the Pooh.  It was a good idea, but didn't lead to any sleep.

Sleep isn't mandatory. He doesn't have to sleep if he's not tired, so we plopped him back on the very popular big mattress again.

Where he fell asleep in the middle of all the yelling and whooping.

It was a great toasty nap.

She offered to feed him his bottle, and he was ready for a snack about then.

After he went home, I had to make a work call, and Tim and Jay played Mall Madness with them.

At first the game was very orderly and civilized, but that didn't last long.

And these lovely collages were made, and that was the end of the afternoon.

Love you all so, Grandma

sunday

It's not warming up much, but enough to get some thawing going during the day.

This is definitely not one of those early springs.

We put all those rugs on the steps because she loves to be out there and yet her poor knees. Sometimes after sleeping on the cement she seems stiff, limps a little.  So we put the rugs, and she's so happy about them.

Jay built a fire and burned papers for a couple hours.  It melted that big puddle, interesting.

These two are leaving for a spring break trip with a few other friends.  They are staying at a place owned by a relative, and hopefully this will all be perfect.

Bye,  Jule!  Have fun!

Love, Mom
 

trip to walmart

 We went over there Friday night in search of a new vacuum, a pinata, and the candy to fill the pinata.

Luck prevailed!

Our old vacuum was making a very loud noise like it will make when something is caught on the brush and banging into everything inside.   It was taken apart by me, cleaned, and put back together. Same noise. Repeat.  No change.

So.

We picked out the second cheapest one, which is the usual standard, cost $79 and then saw it a few aisles over for even less money, $68.   

I glanced at the box and thought it said, "Explosive."

Okay, no.  Just no.  That's the last thing we want.

Jay turned the box around, "Exclusive, not explosive."

Ahh.

So far it seems perfect--quiet, sucking up dog hair like a champ.

The pinata is being stored safely in the trunk of the car for now. 

We looked at it carefully because over the years we've had many of these, and they break down in unpredictable ways.  There are a lot of kids, so we want it to last a while.  I suggested we should run the cords through it and across the bottom for better strength than all the weight just from a tab along the top--don't want it to rip at the top in two smacks.

I think we will do that. 

But the side panels are weak.   A few whacks and it seems like the entire side might just fall off on either side.   Thinking about this.  Hot glue?   Poke holes and use little plastic tie strips?  

Thinking about this some more.

And that was that on a highly exciting Friday night.    Love, Val

saturday night

This little guy came to visit while his parents went to Costco.  He loves hanging out on that mattress with his cousins.  He kept looking from one face to the next, playing with all the toys they handed him.

Video games and painting:

They found a bag of Barbie dolls and asked about them. I bought them last winter after Christmas on clearance for three dollars each, purchased for the lake next summer.  But there's nothing magical about taking them to the lake.  If they wanted to open them up now, that's fine.

They put aside one for each of the cousins who wasn't there, and they argued and each picked out another.   Good enough.

Julia's doing homework:

They wanted to play McDonald's.

I kind of hate this game because it is shockingly messy and annoying.

And yet, as Dan and I discussed, we're always wishing they'd get off the tablets and do something creative and all.

Sigh.

Elin was super into this game. She LOVED it.  They heated up the leftover chicken nuggets and fries from supper and made Happy Meals to dispense out the window in the door to the family room.

They brought a little container of bath tub toys and asked if they could put them in the meals?

(Jesus, why?)

I said ok.

They did put the toys each in separate bags, ziplocked, just like McDonald's does.

Good thing.

Elin was the first customer.

They served her a Hawaiian bun and she LIKED it.

Those are the Happy Meals

And a late night game of chess:

Thanks all you kids for a splendid Saturday night.

Love, Grandma
 

st patrick's day, 2023

Ah this messy family room--maybe tomorrow it'll get neatened up.

The leprechauns came this afternoon, threw candy, and left their usual mean note.

We don't even have kids anymore and the leprechauns did mention that in the note.

That's okay.  I hear the grandkids are living it up at their houses, big time believers, delighted and shocked at the same time.

We drove over to the kids school at suppertime for fish again. They have this Lent fundraiser going and its been fun. We met Alicia's parents there and saw the kids.

A couple weeks ago I bought Viewmaster slides and brought them with to amuse the kids.  We had viewmaster viewers and no reels. Well, on ebay they don't sell just the reels that much, and some are awfully expensive. This was a package deal with a viewer included.  Good enough.  

The kids were intrigued, and yes this is how we used to be entertained before internet.  It was crazy boring, you realize.  I showed them how to position the reels just so to make the images 3D, and hold it up toward the light.  They were amused by the slides. Some were kind of disturbing. Loincloths?  A guy about to stab a monkey?  (Very Hollywood, all fake, no worries.)

This afternoon my sales manager called with a lead for me.  Jay and I were in the office shooting the breeze when he called and we asked him, did he remember when we all were at Normandy Inn on St. Patrick's Day ten years ago?  

He is a pianist and his group used to play music in the fancy little elegant bar in the hotel.  We often went to the city for this on Saturday nights. They had old timey movies with the sound off playing behind the bar, Some Like it Hot, Titanic.

It was the nicest way ever to spend a Saturday night.

 

Except for St. Patrick's Day. This tiny, quaint bar was packed with revelers marching in and out. The crowd was loud and inebriated.   At some point Jim and his group played Danny Boy and then they really went nuts.

Today on the phone he was laughing, "Oh yes, Danny Boy, maudlin.   I remember, I remember," and we laughed some more.

We had invited friends to join us that night, not realizing. Their eyes were wide, "You come here all the time??" 

Oh my goodness. Yes. But not this way.

How I'd love to spend a Saturday evening there again, sitting with Jay along the stained glass windows, watching old movies, listening to Jim play the piano with his friends.

Ah, well.  Nothing but love,  Val