Ring around the rosie

The girls love playing ring around the rosie. Here is a shot of all five grandkids in our front room and some are trying to play together. Of course getting the three do it together is not easy - Audrey and Isabel seem to take turns doing it with Lily. Lily loves to do it and says "ashes ashes" to get the others to take her hands. Then after she "falls down" she claps her hands and says "yeah". Then she put her hands up and says "up" and then starts saying "ashes ashes" again. Is it cute? oh my yes. In this picture Audrey is going to play with Lily and Isabel is walking towards James. If you click on the picture it becomes larger. You can then see that Lily is finally getting some hair. :)

Jessica and Isabel

Jessica played dress up with a scarf with Isabel

James and two girls

James showed Audrey and Isabel how to fix a hotdog - of course it was fake food but the girls sure have fun with it. Isabel and Audrey are looking more alike all the time. Audrey is in the dark pink top in this picture

Audrey and Lily

Audrey and Lily seem to like following each other around lately. They took out to our kitchen on Thanksgiving and even stopped long enough to allow a photo.

More Pictures

It is very difficult to get good pictures of three fast moving babies. This one of Audrey next to the ceramic cat is priceless.

Almost Family meal

If I knew how to photoshop a picture of Laura at the table, we would all be together. :) Couldn't get Lily to look at the camera - she was quite interested in her Uncle James. We had a great day - was so much fun watching the five grandkids play together. The triplets take awhile to warm up to new people but were very entertaining to watch.

Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and hopefully this weekend I will have pictures of grandchildren eating turkey. Stacy and family are coming tomorrow morning - they have soccer and swimming tonight. I had to work all day today (didn't even get off an hour early like we have in the past) and then stopped and bought groceries with a few thousand other people on the way home. Tonight I made a sugar free pecan pie. Tomorrow I will finish some cleaning and cook the rest of the items. Hope I remember what to do! I have a sheet of notebook paper that I keep in the bible that tells me when to cook what and what to do. It starts off with "wash Laura's hair" so that should give you an idea of how old this paper is. Laura is now 39 and living near Boston so hopefully she manages to wash her hair by herself tomorrow. I have a new recipe for sweet potato casserole - I hope everyone else likes it as much as I do. I got it from the owner of the new little cafe the Palette on Douglas.

We plan on eating around 5 - hope it is all done at the same time!

Texas photos

The second photo was a fun one. They had t-shirt relays - each swimmer had to swim with a t-shirt on then had to get the wet t-shirt off and hand it to the next swimmer and they had to put it on and swim. When Jessica got to the other side the two big boys lifted her out of the water so she would get out quickly.

The photo of James was taken during the only time I took my hands out from under the blanket. Glad it came out!

Saturday in Texas

Had an eventful day with the kids. Jessica had swimming practice this morning so James and I watched from the stands. The building is just amazing. Most of the seating is bleachers but there were some that were seats with backs. Since there were only four or five parents watching we chose the seats with backs. After practice we stopped and bought doughnuts and went home to eat them. At 11:20 we left for soccer practice followed by a game at 12. Today's weather changed just a bit from the rest of the week. Try cold and windy like in Kansas. It was bitter cold - absolutely not the type of weather for an outside soccer game. We took blankets and chairs but it still was awful. At 12 when the game was to begin the other team had only 2 players. I had high hopes and went in to my repetitive prayer mode - please let them forfeit. God hears prayers as Jessica was praying the same thing. The refs were too nice in my opinion - they should have cancelled the game at the stroke of 12, but they gave the other team 20 minutes to show up. I say, be on time or you are gone. :) By 12:20 the other team had four players and it was cancelled. The sub coach thought the kids might want to practice more and possibly they did but James didn't and Jessica and I folded our chairs and headed for the car. I had not been that cold in a long time.

After a Sonic lunch, we went to the movie - High School Musical 3. That was a great show. I had not seen one or two so now want to rent them. We saw one as a musical at Music Theater last year. This really was a super feel good fun movie.

Left the movie, stopped at Target and am now at home. I am on my computer, Jessica is on the kids' and James is on his mothers. So we are having family time in the front room on three different laptops.

Texas

I have been in Texas since Tuesday evening. My son in law won a trip to Orlando and took Stacy with him - they left Wednesday morning. They return tomorrow evening and I will head back to Kansas on Sunday morning - bright and early so I get home in time to watch the last NASCAR race of the year. What will my weekends be like now until mid February! I will miss the last Nationwide race - go Clint!

I brought a couple of sewing projects to work on while the kids are in school. A friend has a friend that wanted a stuffed animal made from her deceased mother's clothes to give to her baby. I finished a bear and it met with great approval by Jessica - she is 11 but loved hugging it. Now I am working on a small patchwork quilt made from the lady's t-shirts and jeans. It isn't coming out as well, but hopefully will be ok.

I brought Jessica the sweater for her American Girl doll and am now making a matching stocking cap for it. I finished a hat for either Isabel or Audrey. Now have started another so there will be two. Lily already has one.
Lily has a cold but Jimmy took her to the doctor and we are very happy to find out she is really gaining weight. She is over 17 pounds now (with clothes on). The tube feedings are very successful.

Things have gone well - took the dog for a walk each day and he did great. I wish he wouldn't bark outside as if he does I have to bring him inside. This area has a lot of rules and one is no barking. Also can't take the trash out to the street before 6 in the evening. I started to take it out in the afternoon yesterday and realized no one had theirs out so figured there must be a rule about that too. The cat finally let me pet her today so that was a big success. She is the true "scaredy cat". I have gotten the kids to school and swimming practice on time each day. Tomorrow we have swimming practice then a soccer game and then we are going to a movie. Each night we had homework, practice instruments, etc but they did great. I am sure they will be very happy to have mom and dad home.

Dennis is deer hunting - so far has one doe but still trying for a buck.

Laura has a new blog - if I knew how, I would link to it from here. :) I don't know how she thinks of all the things she writes on all her blogs and twitter too. I have trouble thinking of things to say. I think she has three blogs plus she does the twitter and flickr and probably others.

The kids will be home soon. A friend has brought them home each day so I baked cookies for her. I will run them out to the car when they pull in. The weather has been beautiful - in the 70's each day. I have really enjoyed sitting outside knitting.

Holiday Table Display

Each year there is a fund raiser at the Center for the Arts called the Holiday Tables. These are table settings that are out of this world and most not practical at all but wonderful to see. I went last year for the first time and didn't take my camera. I went back this year and took Maranda and my camera. The tables are done by societies, individuals and businesses. Most of the finer florist shops were represented. I am going to try and pick out just a few to post but they are all just so great it is hard to decide.

Oh so cute!

I finished the sweater for Jessica's American Girl doll and think it is just adorable. First sweater I have knitted and it went so fast and was such fun to do. It is a mock cable sweater from a book that has doll clothes patterns and matching outfits for the doll's owner. I will start Jessica's sweater tomorrow. Grandma Hummer always said to not start a new project on Friday or you will never finish it so I will wait. I know the pattern so it will be easy to knit but my main concern is it fitting her. She is so skinny and so long waisted that I need to combine different sizes and that isn't easy when you don't know how. She wears about a size 8 chest and size 12 length.

Anniversary present

Jimmy and family came over on Sunday and Jimmy hung the stained glass picture that they got us for our anniversary. It is just beautiful.

Halloween in Texas

Wasn't able to be with the Texas Grandkids but got some great pictures from their mom