Monday, March 31, 2014

Uncle Sam and Cordelia

One of the joys in my life is watching my boys play with their nieces. Last night, Sam and Cordelia were having a grand time. Sam's bigness compared to her smallness made for a sweet scene. Cordy's giggles and smiles were contagious. I just enjoyed watching (and snapping photos). I know some grandmas and a certain girlfriend (Hi Alaysha!) who will enjoy the photos as well.











Sunday, March 30, 2014

Making Silly Memories

Sunday evenings at our house are all about family, dogs, little kids, toys strewn about, noise, food and often a lot of silliness. I'll show you.




Betty wasn't really as sad as she looks.
Really, she was pretty happy because at
Grandma and Grandpa's house 
she gets lots of snuggling.




Remember that last Sunday we took Laura out for dinner 
to start off her birthday week?
We fancy ourselves to be her family-away-from-family.
Anyway...
Maria made a cake for her this Sunday.
She deserves a week-long birthday!

If you are trying to figure out her age according
to the candles you see, you may as well give up.
It made sense to me, but likely no one else.
I'll just say, she's still a sweet young thing.


 We were happy that Sam came by.
We still miss him but he is doing well out in the world as a grown-up.


Elise was getting pretty excited to see the cake come out. 


She kept asking for frosting.


But then, this happened...


For some reason, it really upset her to see Maria cutting the cake.

Not to worry, though. A little frosting took care of that problem.
Apparently Mike thought the frosting on her nose was a look
that would enhance his handsomeness.  


Because we all looked over to see him quietly eating his cake, 
with his nose decorated like Elise's.


Next, Maria joined the movement.


Then, the birthday girl got into the act.


Sam said they were weird but...


Cordelia and I didn't want to be left out!


Since I started this blog, I most certainly
have taken a lot more photos than I ever did before.
I wonder, will these photos help us maintain memories
of ridiculous times like this?
I hope so.
It's really these little, silly moments that make up
family memories, don't you think?

Do you want to share any silly moments from your family life?


Saturday, March 29, 2014

God's Not Dead

Mike and I just returned from the movie, God's Not Dead. We had a lot of people recommend to us that we go see it and I'm very glad that we did. I really enjoyed myself!

This movie certainly isn't the run-of-the-mill Hollywood production.  Let's be honest, Hollywood isn't much enamored with the Christian Faith. In fact, my experience has been many people are ok with a person being a Christian but they don't want us to much talk about it.

I'm not going to tell you much about the movie but at the end, everyone is encouraged to text everyone they know with these words, "God's Not Dead".  Have any of you received such a text?  Or maybe seen it on Facebook? Now you know where that came from. It's Christians letting you know they have faith in God the Father.

I am sure everyone who goes to this movie is not a Christian. If you are not a Christian, I'd encourage you to see it. I don't know that seeing the movie is going to convert a non-believer, but it may help them better understand the Christians in their life.

I really enjoyed Kevin Sorbo in this movie. Remember him, Hercules? I'm currently reading a book written by Kevin Sorbo. I'll do a book report later...stay tuned.

Newsboys are featured in this movie as well.  In honor of their part in the movie, I'm going to leave you with this...

Friday, March 28, 2014

Spring?

This is what we woke up to this morning...Spring disguised as Winter.



It is really beautiful. I think flowers and leaves are pretty as well, though.

Anyway, I am planning a quiet day with my Mom. I drove up yesterday, when the roads were just fine  We have our Kindles loaded and ready. Maybe one more snowy day isn't so bad.



Thursday, March 27, 2014

Dylan Winter and the Starling Murmurations



Mike showed this to me last night. It was so amazing, it needed to be shared. I really can't understand how they fly like that, as if they have one brain. How do they not bump into each other?

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Wo-wa





Last Saturday when the little girls were at our house Elise kept asking, "Wo-wa go?"  She'd look so perplexed and extend her little arms out, palms up. She was wondering where are family friend, Laura, was.







We invite Laura to our Sunday Night Family Dinners (yep, these dinners are so special, I use capital letters) because we've enveloped her into our family. She has a lovely family and is most definitely not lacking in that way. They live out of state, though, so we like to be her family-away-from-family.


We don't want her to be lonely, plus, she just fits in and we enjoy her so much. I think Elise believes that she lives here.


Anyway, today is Laura's birthday! Happy Day to you, Laura!




We actually celebrated her day on Sunday by going out to eat together. Except that Elise wasn't feeling well, it was a nice evening.

Eric told us that Cordelia spent a good deal of time planning her outfit for the party. She was quite beautiful!


We have only cell phone photos to share, but they are better than none at all.




Anyway, we just want to say Happy Birthday to our friend and pseudo family member, Laura.

Hope your day is wonderful!


Monday, March 24, 2014

Frozen!

Saturday night was fun for us. We had granddaughters over and we watched the movie, Frozen, with them.

I'd already seen part of the movie at the theater with Cordelia, as well as Maria and Elise. However, Cordelia got scared and we left before the ending. Nevertheless, she has continued to be obsessed with the movie. She wanted me to see the ending and she wanted Grandpa to get to see this movie. It was right up Mike's alley so why not?

It started out kind of like this...


Then there was some silliness.


Elise had to drive somewhere.


Every now and then she had to stop and check her engine.


When the song, "Let it Be" came on,
the party really got going.


Cordelia knows all the words.


She knows all the actions but it seems she wanted
to add in a few of her own moves.


But in the end, it was all about the song itself.
It was adorable!


These are the "Good Old Days", aren't they?

Saturday, March 22, 2014

More Snow

We awoke to snow.

Yes, more snow.

I decided I needed to try to enjoy the beauty of it so before I even fixed breakfast I took my camera out for a little excursion in our yard. I am sorry I didn't work the camera as well as I wanted because it was that kind of snow where you could easily distinguish large, individual flakes.


I took a good look at this poor tree in our backyard. A year ago it was a lovely, well-formed tree. After that remarkable storm in October that broke so many trees around town, this poor teen-age tree will forever be misshapen. I am rather fond of it. I like that it still stands tall and proud with no apologies for its battle scars.


I looked around at some of the other trees that still bear the scars from that storm.


I've been looking again at all the branches around town that are wounded and dangling. I'm sure many of them won't leaf out and their destruction will become more apparent. Although we had our's professionally trimmed after the storm, we still have evidence of the brutality they all endured.


This evening, I took my camera out again. And again, I was disappointed in my photography skills.
I was trying to capture drops that had frozen on the tips of the blades of grass. Can you see them? They were all sparkly and looked like diamonds balancing there. I had not seen anything quite like that before.


OK, winter, nice show. Let's just call it your encore, ok? 

Move along now.

Friday, March 21, 2014

Winter, You've Overstayed Your Welcome!

 It seems to me this has been a long, troublesome winter. I think people in the Midwest and East have maybe had a worse time of it than us. Our's started so early, though, with the first snow in September. Soon after that we had that heavy snow that broke hundreds of trees here in town.

Winter is on its way out now. I'm not going to miss it! I think now is a good time to make fun of it a bit. I've resurrected these photos. A friend once sent them to me but I'm not sure where she found them. Sorry that I can't give credit because they are a pretty clever little collection.

Anyway, if you are as glad as I that winter is soon moving on, enjoy a little laugh as we boot it on out the door.








Thursday, March 20, 2014

Mall Golf

After Mall Lunch today we went to a sporting goods store and Mike introduced the girls to the little practice putting green there. What do you think? Future golfers? Even Maria got in on the fun.






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