New Year's surprise!

New Year's Day the kids came running in to my room to tell me it had snowed overnight.  Not so strange, right?  Wrong, because we live in Arizona in an area where it snows only every couple of years and no more than 0.25" when it does.

We had about an inch and it stayed until early afternoon.  The children loved it!

Good bye, sweet grandsons :-(

When I got up yesterday I didn't know it was my last day with Holly and the boys. Her dh and mother-in-law came to get them in the evening. It's a long drive and I appreciated their taking it on.

Little LJ has spent more than half his life at our house. He was 3.5 weeks when he came and a few days past 2 months when he left.

Zachie got a buzz cut when he arrived (from Holly), so I asked her if I could give him another one before he left. He looked so cute with his little blond head and short short short hair.

The picture above is the best of four I took of the boys with their great-grandmother (my mother).  Lots of action on the baby's part and a slow camera response on mine.  I'm glad to have the picture though.

We miss the three of them already.  We hope they come back soon.

Library haul

This afternoon the children and I went to the library.  I had a notice that the book for my book club had come in; in addition, dh had finished reading my book from last month and I had to get it back.

My girls usually like to color a picture while they are there.  They introduced Zachariah to that.

You can see we expect to be enthusiastic readers (plus watch a DVD) this week!

My little Halloween boy

Elizabeth put this cat hat on Zachariah and it was funny to see! I'm so accustomed to seeing it on my girls only and they are a lot bigger than he is. Isn't he cute?

After a new haircut

Holly decided Zachie needed a little less hair in this hot weather (100 today). Doesn't he look cute?

Holly is my daughter and Zachariah is my grandson.

More of my Sweeties!

This picture . . .

. . . reminds me of this picture taken about 3 years ago.

A day for reminiscing

Dh and I went back to our old town Friday -> Saturday because he had some business there he needed to attend to, and I wanted to see my older dd. Something of big note: it was the first time we had ever left our younger girls without either of us being there overnight. Almost 10 years and dh and I had NEVER been away overnight together without the girls! We left them in the very good care of Grama and Conor and everything went fine.

Going to the flea market in our old town is kind of a Saturday ritual, so we picked up dd, s-i-l, and grandson Zachie. Dh and s-i-l dropped dd, Zachie and me off at the flea market. As you can see, we will be adding to our family very soon.

I always like to look in these rows of boxes. Lots of inexpensive imported products, mostly junk, to be honest, but a few good deals in there. Zachie was great about looking at the toys and touching some, but not throwing a fit when we didn't buy anything. He's so sweet.

When you go to this area you have to buy fry bread. It's a local delicacy. ;-) (I think dd had some food in her mouth--her chin really is completely normal!)

And finally, I ran into my old next door neighbor at the market. She and her husband have been selling knick knacks there for about a year and a half. Their table was busy most of the time I was there, so it looks like they have hit on a good combination of things to sell. Unfortunately their cute son (that my dd C adores) was not there with them today. C would have loved to have seen a new picture of him. You just get his mother and me.

P.S. Do you like my muffler? It was made by my special Australian friend.

Ready to send

Today the girls and I sat down and finally wrapped all the Christmas gifts for dd, her dh, and her ds. (If you are a new reader, that means dear daughter, dear husband, and dear son). Since I really doubt dd reads here, I'll go ahead and say what the presents are.

Dd's main one is a small scrapbook I made for her with wedding and baby pictures (her baby). I didn't have many pictures, but it was a labor of love for her so she can have a keepsake from this important year in her life. I also got her a shirt I think she'll like. I got her dh a nice polo shirt. He's tall but slender so I hope it isn't too big while I was trying to get the length for him.

The main star of the gifts is the quilt L (PeskyPixies) made for her own grandson that she didn't get to give to him. Her grandson has the same first initial as my grandson so she generously asked me if I'd like to have the quilt to give him. Did I ever! She does beautiful work and mailed it to me from Australia! How much love is that? Here is the inscription area on the back. Isn't it sweet? That's my handwriting on the blue rectangle and hers on the rest. She didn't really scribble on the bottom part ;-) , I just didn't want to broadcast her name around the globe.I'm really excited to give my grandson this quilt because of all the love for two grandsons that went into it.

Here are the pictures of the front. I wasn't going to post them just in case dd really DID look here, but I want to show it off.L sent me the quilt in a huge postal bag that made the trip here completely unscathed, so after wrapping up the gifts I just popped them right back into the bag, changed the To:/From: addresses and will take it to the post office tomorrow. Very low stress.

I must make one mostly-unrelated comment. The quilt is lying on the safety net covering our swimming pool. I don't have a clothesline, only a drying rack, so when I want to dry big things like towels and sheets, I lay them out on the pool net and they dry in a jiffy. :tappinghead: Smart girl, aren't I? LOL

I love Fridays!

Next weekend Holly is getting married and ds1 and his wife along with her parents and two brothers are going to stay with us. My ds2 is also going to be here as well. As long as a bunch of teen and young adult guys don't mind sleeping on couches, we have plenty of room. This room below, however, was in need of a bit of straightening. It's a small room that has been used most recently by Holly and also for storage as you can see. Since we are moving soon I didn't want to do too much with the boxes, but they really couldn't stay where they were.

Here's the other part of the room. It is adjacent to the girls' playroom so the guest room has been played in extensively and there was all kinds of "stuff" all over it. The part that took me the longest was putting several games back together after they were taken out and the parts mixed. Let's just say Cranium has a lot of parts. I should have taken an "after" picture but I forgot. The room is plain, and there is a certain pile of boxes under the window, but it is very clean now and will be fine for ds1 and his wife. Her parents are going to have S's room because it has a trundle bed in it. I moved the toddler bed that was on the left side of the picture below back into the big girls' room where it used to be before we gave S her own room. She insisted on sleeping there tonight as I figured she would.

Holly was over with her wedding dress for me to alter a bit. It's a size 6 but honestly, it could have been worn by a 6' woman and still have dragged on the floor a bit. I ended up serging off about 6" of the underskirt, then pinned the lower part of the skirt up to match how the upper part came from the manufacturer. This seems to be in style right now. After I pinned it up we sat on the couch and chatted while we both tacked the skirt up each place I'd pinned. We managed to get it short enough (along with her 4" heels!) to not have to cut the outer layer.

She tried it on over her camisole. Won't she make a pretty bride?

I couldn't miss an opportunity to post a picture of my little darlings, could I?

After all that it was time to color Easter eggs. I think we did them two years ago and the girls didn't really get into it so I was wondering how they'd do this time. I wish I'd had more than the seventeen eggs I had boiled! We had our neighbor over and each one had four eggs to color and I had one. On the other hand, everyone was satisfied, so maybe it was just the right number. I'll have to say most of them were cracked by the time they were settled back into the cartons to dry. :-)

It was a fun day. I love Fridays.

Easter basket for Zachariah

I've never been a fan of overboard Easter gifts and baskets. Our Easter celebration consists of . . . remembering Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection. Imagine that! Okay, and we usually color some eggs and have an egg hunt with those eggs, some plastic ones with treats inside, and some candy. Depending on the weather the hunt is in the back yard or in the living room.

HOWEVER, this is my first Easter to have a grandson so I decided to make a little basket for him. Since I have no sense of decorating and creativity, it is rather plain, but, I hope, practical. Don't most Easter baskets have disposable diapers in them? LOL

What the camera saw

Sometimes I go to upload a picture from my camera and find lots of pictures I didn't take and sometimes ones I know nothing about! Here are a few I found today: C showing what six year old teeth are like. Lots of different teeth in various stages of loss and growth. Pretty fun stage, I think.

Here is E playing on dh's computer. She has about five educational sites she likes to visit and she's pretty good at finding them on the 'net.

Pictures like this one of S always interest me. She's standing on the bunkbed ladder that has been put up against her sisters' bedroom window. Hmmm. I didn't know about this one.

Okay, I'm being very brave to put these last two pictures up because they show how old I'm getting and how well I haven't aged. ~sigh~ They also show that when baby Zachariah visits it's not all sweetness and light. Imagine that--he acts like a normal baby!

These two were taken a week ago. He's getting stronger and more interactive every time I see him.

Grandpa dh and baby Zachariah

Holly stopped by with the baby last night and I got a picture of dh with Zachariah. Aren't they cute?

I'm going to be one of "those" grandmas :-)

You know, the ones who are always trying to get you to look at pictures of their fabulous grandchildren, LOL. I like this modern version of the wallet full of pictures because this way anyone can choose to look or not and I'll never know! Although my map does show quite a few visitors from Seoul. (To my Korean friends: that last sentence was a fragment and not a full sentence, but I know you know that ;-) )

Holly came by last night to show the baby to his grandpa and three aunts. They were all properly impressed at his cuteness.

Look at the lovely afghan. My mother crocheted it for Zachariah (that's what Holly is calling him these days) and it is done in my absolute favorite denim blue colors. I wish I had one big enough to wrap myself up in, I like it so much.