Leaps and Bounds

Tito and I have noticed BIG changes in Kaiden the past two weeks. He is changing so fast. He is noticing so much more around him and is so active. Grabbing for things - like Tito's glasses and Gram's glass. He is constantly in motion when he is awake. Rolling around on the floor, lifting himself up. (sorry about the quality of the pic - have no idea why it is so grainy)

Playing with his toys, grabbing his feet, making sweet baby sounds. And when he is hungry, he grabs that bottle and holds on.

Even after he has fallen asleep. He is our precious little sweetheart.

Where did the time go?

A month ago, we attended a wedding reception for Kevin and Maria. They were married in Cancun last November and live in Florida. When they came home this spring, their parents had a reception for them. Kevin is the son of our friends and he and Nathan grew up together. This is a picture of the "kids" at the reception. Most of them went to our church or to school with our kids and they spend a fair amount of time at our house. Now they are grown up, married and have children. Where did the time go?

Incognito

My Son, the Father

This is Nathan and his father in 1979

This is Nathan and Kaiden in 2009

There is something just a little surreal thinking of my son as a father. But watching him makes me so proud. He is so much in love with this little boy and his wife. Happy Father's Day, my Son!

100th Post

My 100th post and I gather it is a tradition to make a list of 100 random things about yourself so here is my list of 100 random things :

1. I have a strong faith in God which is how I survive everyday
   
2. God has blessed me with a wonderful, crazy family
   
3. I could never have imagined how wonderful being a Grandmother (Gram) is until I became one
   
4. God has blessed me with many dear friends
   
5. My favorite colors are blue and purple
   
6. My favorite flower is a tulip
   
7. But I also love iris, columbines, hollyhocks, cosmos, sunflowers, zinnias - I love flowers
   
8. My favorite meal is fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy and green beans (very seldom eat it anymore because it is fried and see #9)
   
9. I cannot make fried chicken to match my mother's
   
10. I am the youngest of 5 - I have 2 brothers and 2 sisters; my husband is the oldest of 5 - he has 3 brothers and 1 sister
    
11. Although I was never told, I was an unplanned child - my closest sibling is 12 years and 1 day older than I am
    
12. My mother turned 43 the day after I was born
    
13. I have 2 nieces who are 15 months younger than I am - they never called me Aunt
    
14. I was named after my paternal grandmother
    
15. I love being in my garden - flowers and vegetables
    
16. I find pulling weeds relaxing
    
17. Easter is my favorite holiday
    
18. Spring is my favorite season
    
19. I do not like bananas or raw tomatoes
    
20. I do eat raw tomatoes on a BLT - go figure
    
21. I am not fond of peanut butter, pineapple or lamb
    
22. When I was pregnant I craved peanut butter - go figure
    
23. I like my hot dogs cooked black on the grill
    
24. I don't like anything else burned - go figure
    
25. The joy of seeing Kaiden born was indescribable
    
26. Giving birth is easier than watching someone you love give birth (I can't imagine how hard it was for her mother)
    
27. I love black licorice
    
28. I have never been out of Colorado for more than 2 weeks at a time in my whole life
    
29. That fact won me a door prize as the most unusual fact at a church gathering
    
30. I have used an ATM machine only once and that was an emergency and with my son's card
    
31. I am hooked on Dancing With The Stars
    
32. My family sang songs all the time - while camping, in the car, while working
    
33. I was an adult before I knew most of us are tone deaf
    
34. I tried out for solos in choir all the time
    
35. I was always made narrator
    
36. I want to be able to sing beautiful notes - like my friends Suzanne and Yvonne


37. I broke my arm when I was 8 doing something I wasn't supposes to do. I didn't tell anyone and walked around with a broken arm for almost 2 weeks because I didn't want to get into trouble. I got into trouble anyway!
    
38. My high school graduation class had 33 people
    
39. I took a trip the year I turned 50 with 2 of my girlfriends from high school - we had a blast
    
40. We tried to recreate some of the things we did when we were 18 - we decided not to do a Chinese Fire Drill - traffic lights aren't as long as they used to be!
    
41. My first college class had more people than was in our entire school K-12
    
42. I believe life is too short for bad coffee
    
43. My husband is addicted to Starbucks, but will drink gas station coffee, or warmed over coffee and yet turns his nose up at my iced coffee - go figure
    
44. Our faith in God, our friends and a wonderful caring doctor brought us through my husbands cancer operations and the following chemo
    
45. I truly believe our life is better now - God had this plan for us
    
46. David has been cancer free for 3 years
    
47. It was very hard for me to move from our old house - I loved my gardens
    
48. I am having a good time planting new gardens at our new home
    
49. I enjoy playing Bunco once a month with a great group of women
    
50. I enjoy our Women's Group at church - we always have a good time
    
51. I enjoy Martinis - gin
    
52. I enjoy having dinner with John & Janice, Gary & Vivien and playing games afterwards - especially Mexican Train
    
53. I enjoy the laughing we always do when we get together
    
54. I enjoy playing games of all kinds
    
55. I enjoy sewing
    
56. I learned to sew on a treadle sewing machine - the only machine my mother ever had - I have it now but do not use it
    
57. I enjoy knitting
    
58. I enjoy crocheting
    
59. I love to read - especially mystery novels
    
60. I love the Jan Karon's Mitford series
    
61. I read the last Harry Potter book in a day
    
62. I do not like to drink water, I would rather drink Diet Coke or coffee
    
63. I especially like vanilla Diet Cokes or Diet Coke with fresh lime
    
64. I like to hang my laundry outside to dry - especially the sheets
    
65. I went to Pioneer Girl summer camp every year from 3rd grade to 8th grade
    
66. I won scholarships to go every year by completing Sunday School lessons, memorizing scripture, songs and extra credit assignments
    
67. I always signed up for extra credit assignments - in Sunday School and at school
    
68. I am somewhat of an over achiever (my friends are laughing) (Note to Janice and Vivien - I wrote this before we went to Estes)
    
69. I do not like to be wrong (my family is nodding in agreement)
    
70. I do not like to lose
    
71. Most people I know would find this hard to believe, but I am basically shy - but not as much as I used to be
    
72. I do not like surprises
    
73. I like to plan surprises
    
74. I have never been surprised by a birthday party - several have been planned, but I have always known about them before
    
75. I am not nosy, I am observant - there is a difference
    
76. I am also very curious
    
77. I like word puzzles (crosswords, cryptograms, etc)
    
78. I like jigsaw puzzles
    
79. I can add numbers quickly in my head
    
80. This is probably why I am usually the scorekeeper when we play games
    
81. I love tea towels and am tempted to buy all the cute ones I see - so I have too many
    
82. I love note cards and thank you cards and am tempted to buy all the cute ones I see - so I have too many
    
83. I like to send thank you cards and love to receive them
    
84. I keep most of my thank you cards - they make me smile
    
85. I am not good at sending other kinds of cards - birthday, anniversary, get well, etc.
    
86. I have always had a love/hate relationship with my hair - I love the color, but fight the natural curl
    
87. I do not like talking on the phone
    
88. My least favorite household chore is vacuuming
    
89. I do not have the vacuum very much anymore since David retired - he cleans!
    
90. I do like cleaning closets
    
91. I do not like to drive
    
92. I like dragonflies
    
93. I always use cloth napkins, even on a picnic, even for a cookout on the patio
    
94. I never use paper plates or cups or plastic silverware
    
95. I have been bitten by dogs 3 times in my life
    
96. My mother initials before she was married and her 3 siblings initials spelled words - HOT, GET, ANT and RAT - I always found this fascinating
    
97. I am strange like that
    
98. I never knew my grandparents - 3 of them died before I was born and 1 died when I was 2


99. My son only had one grandparent - 3 of them died before he was born
    
100. I love lists - I make them just to be able to cross things off - I save certain lists as reminders of events in my life (see #97)

Wordle

Since this is my 99th post and I have planned my next post to be 100 Random Things about Me, I created this wordle at http://www.wordle.net/ using the titles of my first 99 posts. I thought it was fun. You can make it bigger by clicking on the picture.

Garden

I was able to get into my yard Saturday morning and work. It has been raining almost every evening when I get home from work that I haven't been able to get outside and play. I was surprised that there weren't more weeds than there were, but there was plenty to do. I cut the spent blossoms from my Columbines and Roses, deadheaded the flowers in my pots. I yanked mint. I try to do this once a week to keep it from overtaking surrounding plants and it had been almost 3 weeks! With all the rain and the cooler weather the mint and my rhubarb have gone crazy. This is my glass flower with water reflecting the sun, so pretty!

This is the rhubarb before and the pile of rhubarb I cut. I made two crisps - one for our Father's Day dinner and one for our church's 30th anniversary celebration on Sunday. I still have plenty to make more.
The garden isn't doing as well, it needs some warmer nights for the peppers, squash, cukes and tomatoes to really do well. My beets and turnips are doing great - I will probably be able to make greens this coming weekend. We are supposed to have drier, warmer weather starting tomorrow, so maybe things will take off.

Shameless

I saw a post on His Doorkeeper with a warning that her post was a "shameless array of pictures" of her granddaughter. Well that's what this post is - a shameless display of the little boy who has stolen our hearts.

Sometimes he looks so much like Stacy and other times he looks so much like Nathan that it takes my breath away. Hope you enjoy.

Fathers Day

Yes, we do now Father's Day is next Sunday, but at our house it was yesterday. We try to celebrate holidays a day or so early so the kids can go to their other families or just stay at home. We remember how hectic it can be going to different families, especially with small children, and sometimes would have welcomed the chance to just stay at home! We normally would have celebrated next Friday or Saturday, but Tito left today for his annual camping/fishing trip with his brothers and will be gone and Dave will be out of town (he wasn't able to be there this week as it turned out - we missed you). Tito wanted a family picture, so this is it! We were able to take them before the rain came. We are having an unusually wet spring and I know later on we will be wanting rain, but it sure would be nice to have a nice day!

We went in and played for awhile

Cuddling with Aunt Carrie

Kaiden ate his dinner and went to sleep

Then the adults got ready to eat

Tired and cuddling with Mom!

It was a nice evening and Happy Father's Day to Tito and Nathan.

A Study of Contrasts

The sun coming in through the slats of the blinds; the delicate flutes waiting for the champagne and orange juice, the lovely outhouse salt and pepper shakers.

What more can I say?

My new favorite photo

Take a Giggle Break

That is just what we needed and just what we did all weekend.

Weekend in Estes

We had a great time in Estes, even if the weather didn't cooperate and we didn't get our hike in. We shopped

and enjoyed the views

ate wonderful food

and played games.

Happy Birthday Marilynn & Alma

When I was 15 months old, my parents became grandparents for the 1st and 2nd times within 8 days. My niece, Alma was born on 5/28 and Marilynn was born on 6/5. I came across this picture of Marilynn's 3rd birthday party. I just wanted to wish you both a Happy Birthday!

Watch Out!

Here we come! John is missing from these pictures but he will be there this weekend. Can hardly wait!

Four Months

Kaiden is 4 months old today. I drive down the street past his house twice a day - on the way to work and one the way home - and use great restraint to not stop. Tonight I stopped. He is 4 months old and I won't see him this weekend (we are going to the mountains with Gary, Vivien, John and Janice - more on that later). He was in his jammies and smiling - until I turned on the camera. I brought him a little gift.

I think he liked it!

Roses

This is my first rose to bloom. It is probably my favorite since it has a real rose smell - just like the wild roses - just like roses used to smell.

Glass Flower

This is from a glass shop in Estes Park. I have admired them ever since my first visit to the shop. I have always been afraid they would break, but the shop says they are durable, they leave them outside, but I still just admired and never bought.

Then, surprise, last Christmas, Gary and Vivien gave this one to us and we put it out this weekend. It is hard to see, but is so pretty in the sunlight. Thank you again, Gary and Vivien.

The Tonight Show

Tito and I have had a tradition of watching The Tonight Show on Monday nights to see Jay Leno's Funny Headlines. I was very sad last week to see Jay Leno sign off and know Conan O'Brien was taking over. I am not a huge Conan fan, but decided to watch tonight just to give it a chance. I thought the montage of him running across the country was cute as was the Universal Studio tour, but I'm not sold.

Vegetable Garden

Tito looking at the plants coming up in our vegetable garden. The plants that are visible our tomatoes and peppers which we bought at the nursery. Our beans, squash, cucumbers, beets and pumpkins are all up. Everything is so small right now - it is hard to imagine that in little over a month we will have items to give away and I will be trying to find room in the freezer for things!

I organized our freezer this weekend and found 2 containers of tomatoes left from last summer and 1 container of butternut squash. I pulled the tomatoes out and make spaghetti sauce for dinner on Sunday. I had oregano and chives from the herb garden to use - fresh herbs makes so much difference.