Evidently there is one thing that dementia has not been able to steal from mom.  She loves babies.  She and Lane have a hand patting thing going on.  She pats his.  He pats hers.




Add one more generation.

 

Grandma Great had a brief stay in the hospital this week.  The nurse said she was the cutest patient she had ever had.  

The problem with taking pictures of icicles is that the ground is also ice.  Even my massive weight wouldn't crack it.  I just wanted to share Pendleton's current status as a deep freeze.

And I didn't get any real "before" pictures but here are the durings and afters.  Gary kept muttering something about why in heck did I use sooo much glue when I put this formica on.  Funny Gary.

And here's the "after".  Now who wants to help me paint the walls.  And make new window treatments.

 Whatever we were using to bribe Tate to be a male model was really working this day.

Not so much, this one.  Just give me the candy.  Or order my pizza.

 

 If anybody needs a stylist, I think Taeg's available.  Love them all to PIECES.

Seriously, I've got to find a place in my house to turn into the "ball room".    Maybe Grandma Great would like to give up part of her room.  And Travis did an excellent job of picking the towel colors in their awesome, super cool remodeled bathroom.  Melissa, if you build me a ball room, I'll pick out the ball colors.

I wanted to show Tate what the "fridge" looked like today.  

 And I just liked the tractor in this pic.

And this is the tree that Dave spent half a day putting lights on, only to have it short out when he was done.  Then I put Travis and Melissa on it and they put in a token effort.  Not that I didn't appreciate their token effort.  I'll take token effort any day.  But bottom line was, it still wasn't working.  I was running out of people.  I discovered if I jiggled the connections just the right way we had LIGHT.  So periodically every night you will see me standing outside in 20 degree weather jiggling connections.

Today We went On a Walk

When Tate comes over he always likes to walk to the "fridge" which is his quaint way of saying "bridge".  He invited his sister and gal pal, YaYa to join us, knowing that his grandma has been working out and would have no trouble pushing three children in a stroller up mountainous territory.  

After awhile we switched and they pushed me.  

Avery declared herself a free agent and spent some time debating whether this puddle was big enough to "puddle jump"Things were going well until the stroller veered too far to the left and jumped over the edge.  

Luckily I was no longer in it but this involved me climbing down steep, rocky terrain in my sandals to retrieve it.  No problem, I am super-grandma.  And we now know my phone can take a lickin and keep on tickin.  Because it was in the stroller.  Was.  

We made it home.  I have had my work-out.  No Jillian Michaels tonight.  Just chocolate.

Besides the millions of dollars and gold bricks buried in the back yard, my children can look forward to inheriting my childhood bedroom window.  It's hanging above my bathtub (it was the only large blank wall I had and besides, maybe I spend a considerable amount of time in there).  I'm sure they will fight over it and have to hire lawyers and end up cutting it into four pieces but for now I'm really enjoying it.  Thank you to Jerry and whoever else got it to my house.

And do you love my scary doorstep?

round-up pictures

Sometimes my sign that says "What happens at Grandma's never happened" is true.  Good thing Grandpa doesn't read my blog.  

Lydia said she hadn't planned on riding her bike here so she hadn't packed her helmet.  She borrowed one she found in the garage.  It will fit when she grows three feet and gains 150 pounds.

When Avery and Luke grew weary of letting 'er buck they took a break with sidewalk chalk and the hose.

Great job on the cake, Ashley.  To quote Luke, he had a "HUGE" party.