sunny saturday

 It was cold and bright.   This morning was shopping for our youngest grandchild's birthday gift.   What would he like that they don't already have?

And I didn't want to buy some permanent toy that will take up room forever.  What would be fun in the short run and then non-sentimental and easily tossed when it's over?   And what would a one-year-old enjoy?

We found a few things.

Then there was a little real estate, always a good time.

In the evening, we went downtown to have dinner and listen to jazz.  That was truly lovely.   The bar is little with lots of dark wood and stained glass windows.  The music is original and has personality.  I'm fond of the piano player. There's a TV over the bar--and tonight was a baseball game, but usually it's old movies.

One night we watched, without sound of course, Some Like It Hot--Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon--those two guys dressed as women half the time.   We have no idea what it was about, but it was fun. 

Another night they were playing a black and white Titanic movie.  The boat tilted this way and that way, dishes slid off tables, people ran around.   We laughed, even though it probably wasn't meant to be  a funny movie.

 Then we came home and Tim was there in a coonskin cap, working on a bird house kit.   Julia helped cut the potatoes for the potato salad for the party tomorrow.

The recipe for the potato salad:

10 pounds of red potatoes, peeled and boiled, cut in small pieces when cool
8 eggs hard boiled, likewise cut up when cool
4 stalks of celery chopped
1 onion chopped

Dressing:

3 c Miracle Whip
9 T sugar
1/2 c vinegar
4 T mustard

Stir the dressing up, and then fold it into the potatoes.   Transfer it to a pretty bowl and garnish with slices of radishes and paprika (or not.) 

Okay, good night.   love, Val

snow woman

When we came home, I saw the weight of the snow on bushes and trees all along the block.  Then I saw that branch on our own tree. I wonder what that load of snow weighs?

 The kids went outside and built two more snowmen.   Snow women, I guess.

 Actually, they told me the big one is the mom and the two small ones are children.  I'll take their word on that.

And these two guys came for the evening and their parents went out for dinner.  That guy in the stripes only wants his MOTHER when she's around.  Well, when she's gone, he's like butter in my arms, melty and tender against my chest, cuddles under my chin, smiles when I nibble his ears.

The other guy in the black shirt told us this morning while Tim assembled Thomas the Train tracks in his family room:  "Tim loves playing with me."

He does. And it's nice he also knows that.  Tonight he spent some time up in James' room and apparently took phone calls on the calculator--held it to his ear and said, "Hello?  Hello?"  James found that somewhat hilarious.

See that kitchen in the background?  This afternoon I painted the walls and washed the nasty curtains.  They looked innocent enough hanging there on the windows, but when I took them from the rods they were full of goobery, greasy old nasty dust.   (It's the vintage gas stove with the standing pilots that does this, but I'm not giving it up.) 

When I put them back up again I had to face how very faded those curtains are.  I probably should think about sewing new ones.  Those are about 15 years old.  Lots of sun has shined on them, no matter how glum this particular spring has been.

Anyway, not tonight.

Friday is my favorite day of the whole week, and this particular one did not disappoint.

April, you old annoying fool who thinks you're March?   Soon you will be gone and don't think I'm going to miss you.   I'm in the mood for an April who sees itself as June.  Actually I'd be happy for a May who just thinks like May.

Tomorrow I'm going shopping for a birthday gift for my youngest grandchild, and there's a house to be looked at, and some jazz music downtown in the evening.

In fifteen minutes it'll be tomorrow.   xo.   love, Val

an april evening

love, Val

one more time

 It's doing it again. 

Again.

We can't seem to get out of this winter.

 

See that happy face.  I was asking her if she wanted to go over any math.  It is pretty obvious she does not.     

That's fine.  Tomorrow works too.  Or Saturday.  Whatever.

 

The kids are outside trying to build a snowman.   Might as well.

This is funny though.  At my parents house there's a little pair of praying hands my dad carved from wood back when we were kids.   Pam's hands served as the model, so they're about the size the kids' hands are now.

Well Tim came out of the den swinging those hands like crazy, hollering, "Hi-YA!  Hi-YA!"

Okay, those are NOT karate hands.  They are PRAYING.  Praying!   Please.

"Oh."

Yeah.

And then they were getting babysat at Alicia's and getting a little too rambunctious in the family room with a plastic golf club and some balls.   She told them to settle down and do something else before someone was hurt or things got broken.

Sounds reasonable.  They agreed.

But then, before she quite reached the top of the stairs she overheard Tim say, "Okay, she's gone."

????

Oh my gosh.  Like that's how we treat our sister in law?

Yeah.

And today when Heidi was picking up the little girl from being babysat, we could hear p.j.'s unhappy voice in the living room going on and on.  Finally we went out there to see, and  p.j. was angry and determined that she was taking Kirsten's dog home too.   Heidi tried to talk her out of it:  "We can stay here so you can play with Pay-pay, or we can go home.  You decide."

(She'd been here all day playing with the dog, so it's not like she was in puppy deprivation.)

She wouldn't take off her coat or boots just keep on howling,  "Pay-pay coming TOOO!"

Finally Heidi called Kirsten to ask.   Of course Kirby didn't care.  She thought it was funny.

And that's the end of that.      Pizza for supper and time to see if they're making progress on the snowman.   Maybe we should put the inflatable Santa back up, just for a joke.

Onward.    love, Val

happy birthday mom

There she is, beautiful.

Here's the doorway, pretty funny little shoe-fest--and that sunshine had everyone happy.

 The kids were happy to be there, to be together.

  A bunch of cousins had a good time:

 The little ones changed into pajamas eventually.  The rest of us would have too if we'd brought them along.

At the end of the evening, I was witness to Dan very patiently convincing b.g. to leave the robot at Great-Grandma's.  It was a conversation that went on a few minutes, including the child telling him not to call a box a bin.

But he did toss it back in the box and find Great Grandma to kiss her good-bye.  (She'd have told him to take it home and bring it back if he ever grew tired of it.)

My parents had a picture taken for the church directory.  It turned out very nice.  But these two were not content to just buy a bunch of pictures--they had to have fun with it.   The photography studio offered retouching--lose your wrinkles, your age spots, turn back time.  My dad at first thought that was unnecessary.  But my mom laughed, "Where else can we both get botox and a face lift for $25?

Lookin' good, Guys, both the originals and the airbrushed ones.

See what I mean?  How could you really improve on this:

Mama?  Half a century we been together, and nobody could have a better mom, a better defender, protector, or friend.

(And yes, she has had to defend me multiple times, especially from people going on about how I have way too many kids, and is homeschool really anything, and babies born at home--people could DIE, you know.)

John knew it when he told the others, "Yeah, Gramma has your back.  You know this."

He did, even as a sassy, fresh 20 year old.

Thank you for all the ways you make life better for all of us and always have.  This whole family is nothing but lucky having you, and in fact couldn't even be who we are were it not for you.

Happy Birthday, Beautiful Girl, our own mamma, grandma, great-grandma.

love, Everybody

oh yeah.

I went to gather the stuff to wrap my mom's birthday present, then came back to the room.   Yep, that's the scotch tape, and those are Fruity Pebbles stuck to her nose.    I have another roll of tape, so it's all good. 

When John and Dan were little I used to often think, "When I don't have little kids anymore then I can have things how I want them."   You know, like a perfect Christmas tree, neat drawers, all the order my orderly little self likes so much.    I like things to be how they're supposed to be.

Well, as we had more and more kids and that perfect future kept out of reach, eventually I realized I have something different, and it turns out I actually prefer it, which is a good thing now that it turns out the squirrelly grandchildren are overlapping with my own squirrels.   And I do like to laugh.

 In a little while we're heading off to the birthday party, and the sun is shining for the first time in weeks.

love, Val

ugh, do I HAVE to

 Last Thursday Alicia texted me at like 9:30 at night wondering if we wanted to go to the pool in the morning.

Ugh.

It felt almost like, "Feel like having a root canal?"

 I thought for a minute about that and the reasons I didn't want to were 100% don't want to be:

1.  cold
2.  wet
3.  in a bathing suit

 But the kids would love it, so we went, and they did.  The water is as warm as bathwater, not like the shivery cold swimming lessons pool at the high school.

Alicia is easy company and the kids are adorable--fast and wiggly and slippery, but good.

p.j. didn't know he was going to be there and they were so overjoyed to find each other in the locker room.

 That's Alicia and her baby above, and today in church these two caught my eye.  The picture is not entirely clear, but her smile is anyway.    That's Phyllis and her baby.  He grew.

It was snowing like a blizzard on our way home.  But Jay had ham in the crock pot, and the cheesy potatoes were just done cooking and then we paid our taxes.

Onward.   

Alicia, thank you for inviting us to the pool.  It was way better than a root canal.   love you so, Val