surprise

Lydia, aka Kari made this calendar last winter after Christmas.  It took her hours and hours, forming the grids for the dates with a ruler, decorating it.

It's been a fun little thing on the dresser all year.

I overlooked flipping it to November though, but I did it this morning.

And then I laughed right out loud.   After all these nice, appropriately decorated months, she threw in this:

Kari, Kari, Kari.  I love when the old crazy you comes peeking out of your civilized, grown up self.   I love knowing that there's still that craziness in there too.

 love you for always, Mom

first communion

It was today, t.c.'s first communion.

There he is, that tiny little head over to the right side.

That's my parents.

Here he is, all communion-ized.

Below are the attempts at getting a family picture of them all.  Dannell had on that beautiful dress I love.  It fits perfectly, plus cute shoes.  m.c. looks like some kind of lady.  The guys all dressed up?

There were tacos and Mexican dip, vegetables and desserts and cake, a celebration feast.

He was delighted with his gifts, and Tim and Julia got to take a ride back home in the backseat of my parents pick up truck, which was apparently a highlight.

They took pictures on the ride home.

And that's the end of that.

What a beautiful first communion day for a fine, growing-up boy.    love always, Grandma and Grandpa too

mom, i'm not going to be home...james and his finally good luck

This is James, so laid back his calmness is sometimes kind of is puzzling for the rest of us.

Well, today he went to the grand and glorious Mall of America, and his Dad and I had plans to meet friends downtown for dinner, and his dad told him, all fine.  Just be home by 7pm.

So we get this text: "Mom, I'm not home yet because I won $250 at like 5:30 and  I'm spending it all so I don't have to go back."

???  We were at dinner, confused. (Sort of like normal, actually, confusion and all.)

Who wins money at any mall, especially in that quantity?  Well, he did. Something about win sunglasses here and pose for a picture and post it on Instagram, and you can WIN!

He did.

He bought new shoes, socks, so forth and so on.  It was great.

We had a perfect evening in the city tonight.   My sales manager plays jazz with his group at a place, and we went there and had a scrumptious dinner, and listened to music, laughed with our friends.

 The owners of the office passed through at one point, and introductions were made.

He's one of those people who is always learning and growing, asking questions and is attentive and true, and she's so tiny, encouraging, and funny.   After they left, I told Lorene, "I've been with this office for five years and no one has ever said a single bad word to me.  They are just encouraging and helpful, and kind.  When I have  questions, they never act like I should already know.  No egos to fluff, Ever.  I love them."

And this is a good thing. When I encounter personalities who require fluffing, pompous?   It makes me want to laugh, and snicker and chortle, and outright double over.

Unacceptable, Val.

Pay attention.

Important people are talking to you.

Okay, shaping up now.   Lay it on me. I'll pass the information along to my client.

Where we will also laugh at you.

Back to shaping up.

James, you lucky winner?   xo.  You chose some truly stellar socks, and this pretty much made my whole day, you and your finally good luck

love you so, MOM

excellence in son in laws

This picture was taken by Heidi's friend Ashley after they ran a half marathon. Can you imagine?  I'm still a little in awe.

Okay, so we're trapping mice in this old house.  It's fall and there's a big field behind the house, plus the kitchen has a dirt crawl space under it.

Mice.  It happens every year in November.

So I set traps last night.  I don't want them to suffer--just quick, boom, gone.

When I checked the traps, eeeeww, little limp tails could be seen.



I closed the cupboard doors and decided to think about this for a while.   One time I called Jay at work about mice dead in traps and he was rude.  He said, "Call Don Saba."   Our next door neighbor?  Who was also at work?

Then he said, "Well, I don't know!  Call the police!"

Thanks for nothing.  I went upstairs and woke Little Jay and he helped me.  I think one of us held the bag.



Well, while I was still thinking this morning,  Joe showed up to drop off p.j. so I asked him how he felt about dead mice.

A flicker of amusement crossed his face, "Where are they?"

"In the cupboards.  If you hate them as much as I do, don't worry about it.  I'll figure it out."

He replied something along the lines of not a fan exactly, but also not bothered much either.

In two seconds they were disposed of, voila.

Thank you Joseph.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

love forever, Val

christmas stockings

 

Okay, so this goes back a ways.

The five oldest children all have lovely Christmas stockings.  I painstakingly did counted cross for each of them.   Kirsten's stocking is trimmed in handmade lace my dad's mom crocheted.  Heidi's has little pockets.  John's has a checkered back on it and I embroidered his whole name: John Kenneth.   Dan's has french knots for all the popcorn in the popcorn string.  Jay's is almost solid stitching, a Mary Engelbreit design from the mid-90s.

But along the way, I fell behind.  Maria's stocking never got past a central 4" of stitching.. I did try with a magnifier, and a couple stockings are well started, but I'm so slow and also so unmotivated.   

What's inspiring about sitting in a stiff chair with a bright light and magnifier, trying to stitch, hour by hour?

Who has this kind of time?  Or patience?  Sadly the other five stockings have never materialized.

I'm not even proud or defensive about it, just sad.

So year after year, the five youngest kids have used their old clearance stockings from Frank's Nursery.  These are cute stockings, fine. They've been filled with candy and trinkets. They suffice, but always waiting for the REAL stockings.

Well, the LL Bean and Lands' End catalogs arrived, with lovely needlepoint stockings available to be monogrammed, and I put the whole problem down in a major life moment of Getting Real, and called the 1-800 number.

But before I called,  the catalogs were presented to the kids and for them to choose.  They did.  The stockings are nothing but beautiful, even if I didn't stitch them.  (Julia's whole name is Julia Katrin, but only ten letters and spaces are allowed.)

Heidi stared at me when I told her about this, not sure what to say.  Finally she chuckled a little and said, "It's hard to give up on a twenty year fantasy."

Well, yeah.  It is. 

 There's some absurd guilt.

The kids can keep their Frank's stockings along with  their new beautiful ones their mom didn't stitch.  See James' dark stocking with Santa and the his sleigh?   This was the one I predicted he would choose, James Evan sewn across the top.

I love all of them.

Sigh.  xo  love you all so, MOM

a week that ended perfectly

On Friday, Dannell and I exchanged texts about when we could get together.  After she texted me the Friday schedule, my only response was, "Wow."

Poor Dannell, she texted back, "What do you mean by, "Wow?"

Nothing except a befuddled feeling, like Wow.  What could possibly work here?

So I proposed to her that me and Grandpa come over on Sunday late in the afternoon, and we could eat hot dogs or something and see the kids.

She said yes.

But then she texted all the others and they bought like $500 worth of pizza and it turned into a party and a feast.

Here are two dudes playing video games.   We found out this room was designed as a sound studio.  That explains a lot about it.

So all the babies and all the toys, and I can't even lie about this or sugar-coat it--my grandbabies fight.

They're so over-the-moon happy to see their cousins, but then they get down to scrappin'.

We don't take it too seriously, but it's rowdy!  And things hit other kids on the head.  Rude tones of voice  are heard.

I love the whole thing so darn much, I can hardly quit laughing half the time.

See this lovely toy room, all the toys, the beautiful rug and cute kids?  John and Dannell's dog appeared among us, and God knows I do love that dog quite a bit more than I ever imagined.

Well then she crouched down and shit on the toys. Heidi screamed and hollered and we all stared at her, but then?

Then we knew.

Sophie? Appalling.

She didn't wait around to be chastised; she was long gone.

Okay, and here, look at this picture.  Click on it even.

This deer stood in the back yard and looked in the patio door at all of us, big eyes, sober expression. Then as I darted for the camera, the deer took off through the swing set.

Why is John sitting in the woods in camo with Dannell's relatives when he could sit in his own toyroom and have a deer walk right up?

He said, "Welll, you can't shoot a gun right in the city limits!"

True.  There's probably an ordinance or something.

Here is my youngest grandchild, the tender little morsel with the pterodactyl yell, wearing the hairy, gorilla slippers. He's doing good, looking fierce.

Okay, my sister and I noticed this tendency years ago at Green Lake.   We go outside to watch the kids? They go inside.   So, we haul our cookies inside to supervise?  They head outside.

It was the same at John's the other night.  So, after we got parked and comfortable in the basement? The babies moved upstairs, where more sharing arguments could occur.

Here's My Sweetie with a Lincoln log house he built himself.  Pretty nice.

Oh, and this picture is from Applebees today.  Okay, this is a somewhat long story.  I have an old friend, who is very fun to be with, but she's not all that reliable. She can't say no, I think, and overschedules herself.  We made a plan a couple weeks ago to meet for lunch today, so yesterday I sent her a message whether this plan still worked or not?

No response.

So I called her two times on the phone this morning, and no answer.

But I had Maria's friend, Heather, scheduled to babysit and she showed up promptly, so we moved on to Plan B.  We'd all go to lunch, and if my friend was there she could join us.

She was not.

But we all had a great lunch anyway, Heather and the kids and me.  That's p.j. sort of upside down in the booth, waiting.

Last night was a great ending to a phenomenally good week, and today was a fun start to this one.

Heather? Thank you for being such easy going company and such a good sport.

And to all my grandbabies who let me kiss you over the weekend?  You guys make your grandma so damned happy.    love you all so,  Val, aka Grandma, aka MOM

a trip to the parents

Dan and b.g. came with us, which was nice.  Dan's good company all the time, and b.g. was funny and happy and sweet.

Jay's mom has always been an amazing good cook. The meal was so delicious, and we had a great time.

Here are some kids taking it easy in the living room.

 She's reading him the comics.  He liked it.

It was cold, and deer hunting, but they went for a walk anyway, stayed on the road, away from the guys with guns.

 Here's us getting a group picture before we left.

 Okay, there we go, camera set, smile everybody!

Julia grabbed the camera and said, "You get in this one, Mom!"  So we took another.

What a great day. Thank you Mom and Dad for having us.  We love you so, Val and Everybody