sleepovers!

 We had one on Friday night, these two, living it up.

 Lillian, peeking out:

 Saturday night we had these guys. She plays dolls, which is pretty cute.

 We played Legos for a while, watched part of an incredibly boring Pokemon movie, read stories.

Yeah, reading of the stories. That was sweet.

Not.

 Yeah.

It was very fun having them.

I love you guys, Grandma and Grandpa

national honor society

We had this Monday night--Kari's NHS night as a junior.

It's November.

These are Tim's bare knees. In November.

Today I called my brother about some computer problem, and when I checked back with him to tell him we'd figured it out he said, "Yes, I called your house, and some Manly-Type Person told me it was taken care of."

(Manly-Type?)  That was the kid who was flapping around smarting off his mouth and I told him to go look at that computer again if he had so much energy.  Some little device wasn't pushed into the socket. Voila. Wi-fi.

Anyway, here's the orchestra warming up, so lovely.

 And our girl is right there in the middle. She's worked hard and earned it.

So proud of you, Girl.  So proud.

love forever you guys, MOM

11/16

 It was a long, weird week.

Progress continued on the painting--looking excellent.  More work was done today.

We cleaned up the patio, but these guys took things out again on Tuesday. That's all right. There was energy to burn.

 Yesterday Alicia's car was being worked on, so she came to our house to wait the two hours that turned into four hours or five.

It's no problem to me, but Good LOR-ed.  At one point after I'd started work, there was food cooking and I wandered out between appointments to see what everyone was up to.

She said, "I'm feeding the kids.  I know you do not care."

No, I do not.  Whatever you can find.  Make it happen.

Eventually she did get home again, had to walk to the dealership to get her car and come back for the kids.

 Last night was a sleepover that was very fun. They did art and had a puppet show with some old lunch bag puppets Julia had made years ago and some new ones.

This morning she was in my bed on Jay's pillow, had pulled a chair up next to the bed to hold the art supplies and Curious George was on TV and while I slept she'd wake me up and ask me to spell words.

At one point she said, "We haven't done this in a long time!"  So true.

Eventually she woke the kids up for another puppet show, and then we got dressed and went to Costco, which was crazy on a Saturday, but also a lot of fun.

She found a Sleepover Set for her American Girl doll and wanted it.

$40!  ($5 or $12, I'd have said sure, but $40?)

I told her I would buy it for her, but it was expensive.  It would have to be wrapped up and put under the Christmas Tree and be her Christmas present.

At first she said nope, and that's fine. It was her decision.  But after we wandered around Costco some more, she decided she'd rather have it in 6 weeks than not at all.  Not easy for someone only five years old--I don't know how developed her concept of time even is.

But this guy--his concepts are well developed. He's turning 11 in the spring, and he was sick on Monday and came here for the day.  Except he rallied from his fever of the night before and was under orders to REST, only his energy was actually quite GREAT.

And his parents don't want him to eat a ton of junk, and with the resting and all.

We hatched a plot where we would video tape him running around in the park with an ice cream cone in one hand and a Little Debbie in the other, chocolate on his face.

We laughed and laughed.

But then we decided that treating his careful and responsible parents like this would not be a good idea.  On another sick day they might decide we were irresponsible funny people and not let him come back again.   So we had our laughs and controlled ourselves.

And that brings me to the end of this week, and the tremendous sadness felt about the election result.

We were all so excited to elect the first woman President.

A friend I'm fond of said no matter who is in office it probably won't change our day to day lives very much. I think that's probably true.

But I am scared for people I love who are not 50 something, married, white people.

I'm also scared for people I don't personally know, ordinary people, living their lives.

In St. Paul this fall, a man was shot five times at a traffic stop, while trying to get out his billfold to show his ID. He bled out in the car, in front of his girlfriend and her little child.  There was video, appalling, heartbreaking, shocking video.

You don't get a do-over when a guy is dead. He's permanently dead for no reason.

This is a complicated world with lots of layers--and that also freaks me out in terms of this elected guy, about Foreign Policy and the Environment--long term problems where the results of decisions made now expand ahead of us in infinite, unpredictable ways.

As much taxes as we pay, and it's a lot, I would not put those things on the line to save myself a buck.

Okay, time for bed.

Love always, Val

sunday working

 We worked on leaves. Tim ran the mower.

He got up there scraping, and it was worse than it looked from the ground.

 I cleaned the kitchen cupboards and drawers.  I enjoy washing the pretty dishes and putting them back all sparkly in clean cupboards.  (Dealing with drawers and tossing expired spices? Meh.)

The stove has standing pilots and they make some kind of greasy dust that gets on the dishes and surfaces up high.   409 cuts it like magic.

And in the bottom cupboard where the pans are?  Mouse poop.   I think we're done with mice now for the year.  And there were stray onions in the back of that cupboard by the dishwasher.  I poked them out with a stick, scared to touch them.

The plastic storage containers were so out of control.

Anyway, it's all clean and beautiful now.

 One more coat and this will be presentable for another twenty years.

Onward.

November is looking pretty good.

Love, Val

a couple late birthdays to celebrate

 Kirsten's birthday was a couple weeks ago, so we were happy to have her here in person.  It was a business trip, but there were still evenings to spend together and Saturday.

 And Jay's girlfriend, Katie, had a birthday last week too.  A year ago, we barely knew you, Katie.  It's been a lot of fun having you, getting to know you.

 When it was time to bake the cake, the round cake pans could not be found anywhere.  Gone.  Must be at the lake.   So, I baked the cake in a 9 x 13 pan, and Maria cut it in half so we had a square layer cake.

Worked great.

 Happy Birthday, Beautiful Girl.

 And Katie's turn

 Left one candle lit for Little Jay.  Sweet.

Thanks for all the party friends who came to celebrate with us and see Aunt Kirsten.

Lots of Love, MOM aka Grandma

11-05-16

He's trying to get the Scooby Doo Movie going.

Maria shared her guinea pigs, Dash and Bolt.

love, Mom