costume party at great-grandma and grandpa's house

For many, many years now, my parents have hosted this costume party for all of us, and it is seriously a blast.

Okay, Tim in full Luigi moustache

And Julia in Heidi's old ladybug costume. It's way tamer on Julia than it was on Heidi.

Jay getting help from Maria with his Power Ranger helmet

Oh, be still my heart. This is Lydia as Justin Bieber

The whole group--Maria is a toucan, and James is a Lynx basketball player

Here's us. I'm the tooth fairy, and he's an invisible villian.

Here's my mother--the witch stirs her brew.  Actually, it was sloppy joes, and they were divine.

Here's Alicia as a ninja, and pregnant ninja at that.  You don't find a lot of those. Dan was also a ninja, though the family pictures were taken with their camera, so I don't have them. b.g. is a train conductor.  That's quite appropriate, given his love of  Thomas the Train.

Here's p.j. in her tulip fairy costume--notice the shoes.  Every litlte girl could use green velvet shoes with turned up toes.

Kirsten told us she was Black Swan. I have no idea what that is, but she looked good.

Oh yeah, attacking the old video games--See Dannell's pants? She was Smarty Pants for a reason.

Here's me and my Sweetie. He ate a lot of chocolate and then wanted me to lick the rest off his fingers, and he insistently put them in my face.  Okay, fine.  Later I heard he threw up last week.  I'm livin' so dangerously, sucking chocolate off the fingers of a Sweetie who barfed.  (unh.)

Here they're playing in the kitchen, attempting to share.

The video games in the storage room--note the intensity of concentration.

Oh, but here we begin the Mummy Wrap Game.   There were many winners and no losers.

And the whole basement was effectively tee-peed, but we cleaned it all up.

Yes, Pin the Tail on the Cat.  We made this thing back in  2002, and my mom faithfully saves it in the bathroom closet so we can tape it on the door every year.   Everybody won, in case you're wondering. We wound them up, blindfolded, six times and pointed them toward the door, where they staggered and felt the cat over carefully.

YAY! You did it!

Phones now are way more fascinating than they ever were.  Mines's still fairly dull, actually.  I'm proud I can even text and email photos.

Yes, and crafts.  We had those too.

And ended with birthdays and cake and  it was a great night.

Mom? Dad? Thank you for doing this every year. The excitement around this house the last couple days was pretty intense. The kids were ready to put on costumes at 2:30.

The thing that had me laughing my heart out tonight was my brother's child, my own godson, asking if there was any limit on the number of little weenies allowed to any one person.

We made four pans and it's this: Little weenies, wrapped in bits of crescent dough and baked for about 15 minutes.

They are delicious, a feast.

Jay and I have even brought them as an appetizer to grown up dinner parties and people descend upon them, but nobody has ever asked the legal limit on them except my brother's child.

Eat up, Buddy.

What a great night. love, Val

the last little girl

Oh, you know her. It's Julia Katrin.

This afternoon I found this Christmas dress at the store, and we've been going through closets and drawers, getting rid of outgrown clothes, and I'm pretty sure there must be a Christmas dress that fits her already in the closet.  I think it's a black velvet dress Kirsten once wore--completely plain because though she was too old for ruffles, she was too tiny to fit in the older size dresses.

But this dress tonight, with the tulle and the little matching dress for a doll--stopped me right there.  I was practical for a minute--we don't need it.  But then I hung it sideways and went back to look again, and you know what?

There may not be any more fancy Christmas dresses after this year. She's long-legged, with long fingers and toes like Little Jay,  growing fast, and shortly frilly dresses will look foolish, and this might really be the last one.

Yes, indeed. I'm not living with regrets. 

(And we'll find her some tights--not those striped socks on Christmas. And we'll brush her hair.)

All these babies, and something I've loved most is, well, besides sleeping together, is bathing and dressing them.  I'm a terrible sucker for pretty baby clothes, striped socks, velour, moccasins, pretty sweaters.

The boy clothes I have mostly given to Dannell and Alicia--all those pretty Swedish Christmas sweaters my little boys wore, the squirrel sweater Jay's aunt knitted for Dan, and I stuffed numerous fluffy dresses in boxes for Heidi this week, whether p.j. looks good in satin and tulle, we'll find out.

This trio of little kids still in my house make me so darn happy.  That moment in the grocery store on Monday when their laughter rang out behind me, laughing at that goofy birthday card?  I looked at the three of them, Kari, Tim, and Julia, and thought, "Lucky duck me." 

Oh, sweet, rowdy, irreverent Julia,  I could keep you seven forever, just for the sheer fun of it.  Enjoy your beautiful dress for me, and for all your sisters who also twirled in fancy dresses when they were little.    Love you all so much, Mom

birthday lunch

It was her idea, and an excellent one. Her dog leaped through the air, attacking Sam in the head, sooo excited to be here.  I picked up food from the deli and my mom came and it was perfect for a birthday on a Monday. 

This is the insane card the kids picked out for her. They were behind me while I looked for a card--I often don't even buy them, just write my own.  They seem like such a rip off, and shoot, I can speak for myself.

Anyway, behind me was this burst of crazy, deep laughter.  Tim, Julia, and Lydia were all laughing their heads off, right out loud in the grocery store.   It was this card.  It's one of those musical ones, only this one--the baby cowboy dances.   His little legs kick around and arms flail.   It was pretty unexpected, and since we were all cracking up, that definitely had to be her card.

Here she is with the cupcakes my mom brought. Funfetti--doesn't get any better than that.

And no problem on the candles.  She's got it.

Oh, it was a truly great Monday.

And this is today. 

Today we got ambitious and cleaned the kids' drawers and closets, tried on clothes, went through the boxes in the basement.

We have p.j. (napping) and b.g. (upstairs playing barbies with the girls right now) here today, so they got dragged through the ordeal also, though they didn't seem to mind.

b.g. is always happy for a trip to the big basement where the legos are, and p.j. just wants to practice standing.

Anyway, a productive day--big pile for the goodwill--I must have eliminated forty pair of socks. Where on earth do they all come from? Why did Julia have over twenty little camisole undershirts? Must have come down the line from older sisters--well that's just too darn many.

Sending home a box for p.j., I held up a wad of tights to show Joe. There were at least five black pair, and five red pair, a few white, and a couple pink, plus a pair with hearts and another with stripes. And that's just the size 2-6x range.

What in the world?

He said, "Well, five girls..."

Yah.

I got rid of half the sweatshirt jackets, and there's a big basket of sheets.

This is a funny story: A co worker of John's used our cabin this summer, and has only two children. I guess the older child went around the cabin counting all the beds and in astonishment asked his parents, "HOW many people LIVE in this family??"

Then he picked out a bed to sleep in. The next night he wanted to choose a different bed, but they said no. (He sure could have. Who cares?)

Anyway, even WE do not need this many sheets.

November is looming and looking fine, and KIRSTEN, your birthday has had me still smiling all day long. I love you so much, Mom

who's got a birthday?

Kirsten does!

Here they all are, Halloween 1986, her one week old--see her tiny on the pillow?

She grew pretty fast for a while.

Here's daddy with both his girls.

I love this crazy nakey picture of you Kirsten, one year old.   You're so darn cute, I could grab you up and smooch your neck.

Playing house, sort of.

Here's how we used to be all the time, sucking the thumb, twirling the hair

And here s my favorite picture of you and Pauline.  The story of Pauline is that she went everywhere with Kirsten, and then one day was lost, terribly lost.

We searched the whole house, called places we'd been--Fleet Farm, the supper club where my grandparents' 50th anniversary party had been held, the lost and found at all sorts of places, looking, looking everywhere for her.

A couple weeks later she turned up in the He-Man castle, and we were so excited she was found! Right in our own house!

This was before cell phones, but Jay had a pager.  If we called it, we could leave a brief message, and then  he'd have to drive to a pay phone to call us back.   We didn't want him to have to do that, so we called it and together just yelled, "We found Pauline!"

He said he heard that come shouting out of his belt and laughed right out loud.

Oh yes, Pauline.

A lot of years have passed since then.


Here you are, all grown up, college graduation.

And no kids ever had a more devoted big sister, or niece and nephews a more devoted aunt.

Your whole life you have brought dad and me nothing but happiness, pride and FUN. We all know this family is better because of you.

Twenty-five years of loving Kirby?

Lucky old us.

love you more than you can imagine, Mom and Dad and everybody

happy 8th anniversary!

Before I said it was their seventh anniversary, but John called to inform me I was off a year. He said he reads this blog every day to check it for correctness.

Oh my.

Here they are with my grandma, at the reception.   What a great day that was. We had so much fun.

Here are Little Jay and Maria when they were young squirrels.   The bouquets were calla lilies, and Maria kept using hers as a flyswatter during pictures, smacking those annoying Asian Beetles until we finally had to make her stop it or they'd be nothing left of them by church.

This is James and Kirsten dancing the night away.   Oh, this was a good story--at the end of the night, like midnight, after John and Dannell had left, the people from the VFW where the reception was held handed us all the leftover food!

What?? We had no plans to transport big trays of turkey and pans of mashed pototoes.

Then they came with the cake. No box. Not even a bag to put over it. We had tired babies sleeping in a pile of coats, and we were tired. Oh dear. I don't remember how we got this stuff home, but I know we did.

And some of the wedding planning still makes me laugh. Pricing out the dinners, adding a second vegetable would add a little to the cost of each plate. John didn't seem to be paying attention to our discussion, but apparently he was doing the math because he abruptly announced, "We are not paying $500 for CARROTS! One vegetable is ENOUGH."

Oh, and here we are now.   You guys are still even smiling.   We do love you so. Congratulations and best wishes.  love, Mom and Dad

weird people

I know some.

Okay this kid was at church yesterday sitting beside me in the pew, and I noticed the price tag was still dangling from his shoe. I dug in my purse for a little scissor to cut that plastic loop. I whispered to Jay, "You know, this is not even the first time he's worn those shoes."

snickering

I whispered, "What are we going to do with him?"

"Nothing. He's the way he's going to be."

I think this is true.

Lydia was also with us, taking sermon notes, as she's in Confirmation.

Confirmation is a Lutheran thing. Other religions have it too, but for us it means a few years of class after a kid has outgrown Sunday School, and then there's a ceremony and they're voting members of the church.

Anyway, so after this lovely sermon where the pastor thoughtfully explained all the back story--the historical context of the story, the political situation in the Roman Empire at the time, Lydia turned to me with her paper, eyes wide.

She said, "I don't know what to put!" The sermon note worksheet said to write two things you learned today.

I whispered, "Well, just write anything you learned."

She leaned toward me, eyes wide, "That's the whole problem, I wasn't paying attention."

Oh. My. Gosh.

Seriously?

I told her two suggestion: The crowd was amazed, and when life is confusing, God is still with us.

"Oh, good!"

Unbelievable.

Whee, heading into Monday. You kids are strange, and I love you, and that's the truth. love, Mom

grandparent's day, 2011

It was a pretty great day, a fun day to be grandparents.

(Well. That's pretty much true every day.)

Dannell teaches at a private school, and the kids also attend there.

First there was a church service, very lovely.

Then the kids sang songs, also lovely.

Then roast beef and mashed potatoes, green beans, and every kind of dessert.

Nobody minded that.

Here's a picture of m.c. hugging Dannell's dad around the neck.

John was home watching l.c. because they have to limit the guests due to space issues on Grandparents Day. We took p.j. with us, but left Lydia, Tim, and Julia with them, and John took them to Applebee's for lunch, so everyone was pretty happy.

Oh, and THIS:

This is a picture of our youngest grandchild, due in the spring. John and Dannell sent it this afternoon.

Two babies are heading this way shortly--Dan and Alicia's baby after Christmas, and now this one too.

Ahhhh! Oh, my. I wonder who they ARE? It's going to be fun to find out.

love for always, Grandma and Grandpa