Being Grammy...

6.16.2014

Meanwhile, Back in Arizona...

If you're a news junkie like I am, you must be feeling pretty overwhelmed these days as I am. So to take our minds off of all the strife and trouble in our world, I thought I'd share photos of recent happenings in my little world:

Storm & Grammy as he turns 24 hours old!

6/7/14: Thunder, Dan, & Gabe at Sunny's dance recital. I'm not sure what look Thunder's going for in this photo!

Gabe, Thunder, Katie

We provided the traditional flowers after the show

It was very bright out and hard to get her to look at the camera

A close-up of her required make up for the recital - she loved it!

This is a sampler I stitched for one of Katie's friends.

I love how it turned out, but it sure took longer than I anticipated!

Roberta (Abuela) & Sunny at 5th BD party

My nephew Matt & my mom, JoAnne (Gigi)

Me & the BD girl - I think everyone wore the crown but her!

Blowing out the candles

Thunder

Grammy Summer Camp

Dan & I found this Lincoln Log set at a yard sale.

When we got it home, there was only one piece missing!

It took me 45 minutes to put it together, guess I'm out of practice.

Thunder brought his horses to play in the fort.

I'm not sure what Sunny was doing!

Jessica got Sunny a neat sewing toy for her BD. You stitch the outfits on the doll. She loves to stitch, and did a great job!

We're getting her ready for cross-stitching!

At cooking class we made Root Beer Floats.

When we were finished, Dan & Thunder loved them, but Sunny said the soda was "too spicy" and didn't drink hers!

Me & the kids taking a cool break in the pool

Storm (our cousin Bev sent him this cap - he'll grow into it!)

Jessica got this idea from Pinterest... it's so cute!

Gramps & Storm

Grammy stealing a kiss

I can't wait to see if he keeps his strawberry blond hair!

6.06.2014

Five

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

Happy Birthday, Sunny!

Gramps and I are so proud of you and we love you "to Pluto and back!"

6.05.2014

Storm

Yesterday morning at 10:01 am, Storm arrived weighing 7 lb 3 oz, 21.25 inches in length. Yippee! Is there anything in the world as joyful as a new grandchild?! Jessica, Adam, and Storm are doing great. This post is short because I'm heading over to the hospital to visit them in a few minutes. You can bet there will be many posts and many, many pictures of Storm in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead!

We now have four grandchildren - what a blessing and privilege. It is just so satisfying to see our family continue to grow.

Just a reminder: Storm is not his given name. For security purposes I use weather terms for the names of my grandkids in this blog. Storm joins his older cousins Sunny, Skye, and Thunder. A couple more and I'd have a complete forecast!

The proud parents

The ecstatic Grammy

5.23.2014

On my recent trip to Hobby Lobby...

On my recent trip to Hobby Lobby I found...

Only 216 days to go!

5.22.2014

Grammy Summer Camp

I am going to have Sunny and Thunder three days a week from now until school starts on August 6th. Since I don't want them to just lay around and watch TV, I've come up with a summer curriculum to keep us busy having fun every day.

Generally Monday is Library day, Tuesday is music/art day, and Wednesday is cooking class (as Sunny calls it). I've also assigned each day a letter of the alphabet and some days are specific color days. I'm throwing in some theme days (Jungle Day, Circus Day, Backward Day, etc) for extra fun. Dan & I plan to ride the light rail with them one day and also take a trip on a city bus. My goals for Sunny are to teach her to read, help her with her math skills and teach her to tie her shoes. I'm going to work on counting skills with Thunder, as well as alphabet skills. I hope they don't get bored!

I had Sunny over yesterday and since it was Wednesday she was anticipating "cooking class". I hadn't planned to start until next week, so I had to come up with something that I had all of the ingredients for. I had just found a recipe for Peanut Butter M & M cookies on the Internet so that's what we made. The cookies were delicious. And as you can see from the photos below, Sunny had a great time!

(BTW, the covers are off the sockets because we're painting the kitchen)

Our ingredients: Peanut butter, sugar, baking soda, 1 egg, pink M&Ms

Showing off her mixing skills

Stirring in the M&Ms

Ready for the oven

Ready to eat!

5.01.2014

Finally, Our Family Easter Celebration

Our family Easter celebration took place the Saturday before Easter Sunday. Now that the grands are getting older, we have more fun than ever! We decorated Easter Egg sugar cookies on Friday. And on Saturday we had an Easter Egg Hunt as well as baskets from the Easter Bunny. A fun time was had by all!