Easter Goose

goose, a photo by ssw751 on Flickr.

I wish I had video taped the girls as I put the bunny costume on the goose - they giggled and giggled the whole time. They thought that was the funniest thing to dress the goose like a rabbit

Decorating the Easter Tree

spring break 2011 014, a photo by ssw751 on Flickr.

The last day the girls were here during spring break, I got out my spring decorations and they helped me decorate. They loved putting the little ornaments on the small tree I use for a centerpiece.

Grandma Day Care

With this last week being spring break, the girls didn't go to day care and Maranda was certainly not up to watching them yet since it hadn't even been a week since her surgery. So Grandma to the rescue! Jimmy brought them here in the morning and we had lots of fun. I had hoped to take them to the park in Haysville but the weather didn't really cooperate. Izzy and Audrey were having allergy problems and the wind was just awful so we didn't go anywhere but I was surprised at how quickly the days flew by.

We played with playdoh


and legos











and beads (no, Jessica they did not use your supply!)







They also played with dolls and the doll house. Audrey especially loves the dolls here - they are mostly old Barbies from my girls' childhood but there is also a doll that Audrey told me "her best friend Jessica brought her" She dressed in my mother's old square dance can can and said it was her "fancy" dress.





































The last day they had fun in the tent that Jessica also gave them. Took awhile for Grandma to put it together but I was successful.

Signs of Spring - March 20 2011

Today was a lovely day. I went to church this morning to the early service. I like this service because it is 8:45 to 9:45, small traditional service and I am not the oldest person there. I also tried a new recipe that was fabulous - pork loin in the crock pot. Add 3/4 cup cola (I used diet coke) spread on barbecue sauce and add chopped onion. Cook on high about 5 hours and it is so tasty! Also fixed beer bread and a potato salad so lunch was great and there was plenty left to send over to Jimmy's house tomorrow. The weather was warm and sunny so I sat out on the front porch in the rocking chair and knitted for a long time this afternoon. Of course being Kansas it was also windy so the front porch was out of the wind and the sun and was marvelous. Love this time of year.

Yesterday was also a most excellent day as Maranda got to come home from the hospital. She had surgery for Crohns on Tuesday and except for a little scare on Wednesday when she ended up in the ICU for low blood pressure she did very well. It was a long and hectic week for all of us - Jimmy and I took turns with the girls when they were not at the day care and I know the little things are very confused over all of this. This week being spring break, I am going to watch them here for a few days and Jimmy is going to work a few days and take a few off. I got some new playdoh, some beads to string and the Little Mermaid DVD so we are set!

While out around the house today I took a few "proof that spring is here" pictures.

Monster Cat!

With Maranda in the hospital this week having Crohn surgery, I have been helping with the girls more including taking them to their day care and picking them up. They love Joanna and her family which includes this monster and gentle cat. I have never seen such a huge cat! Today I took my camera when I picked up the girls and Joanna was so nice to pose with Lily and the cat. She said the cat weighed around 25 pounds the last time it was weighed! Not only is it big, it is beautiful and very nice. With Maranda being allergic to cats, this is as close as they will get to having a pet cat. :)

I also want to thank Joanna for her kind care she gives the girls and her understanding and flexibility this week with our crazy schedule. I am so glad the girls are in her care each day.

Jessica's mat

Jessica made this mat with her old t-shirts and a hulu hoop. I have no idea how she did it but she found the instructions in a Family Fun magazine.

Texas trip

We went to Stacy's on Friday for her birthday plus a color guard performance and hopefully a soccer game. As it turned out - the soccer game and the color guard performance were at the same time so we missed the soccer game. Keep in mind that the entire color guard competition is about eight hours long and her performance is three minutes long so the odds that there would be a conflict were remote but it happened. On the way to Texas we saw a huge grass fire. We learned later it burned a number of houses and threatened some schools






Friday night we went out to eat at a mom and pop Mexican place in Midlothian not far from the kids schools which was fun. Saturday started out fun with Stacy, James, Dennis and I walking over to a house being constructed a few blocks from their house. This place is HUGE - and we had fun trying to figure out what some of the rooms were. Will be interesting for the kids to see it as it completes to see if we were right on our guesses. We think one room is a fitness room with a sauna and shower. The house is around a half a million so it is going to be nice.



After lunch was the color guard program. By that time I was coming down with something - body aches, head and neck pain plus a fever so I didn't enjoy the rest of the weekend as much as I thought I would. I got to go to part of the program and watched Jessica's group. They took second place in their last competition and were moved up a level. This weekend they took third place in their new higher level!





In the evening everyone except for James Jr and I went back for the advanced groups and apparently it was great. Laura was there this weekend too. I hope next year we can go to more of these competitions.

Vickie's sweater

Vickie not only made a sweater like the one I made for Stacy, she also finished a cable sweater she started about a year ago. I was totally blown away when she wore the sweater to work the other day. It has the most complicated cables and stitches I have seen and I can't imagine making something like this. The student has far outdone the teacher!

Sweater for Stacy

My boss Vickie and I did another knit along this winter and both made sweaters. Mine was for Stacy's birthday so I gave it to her this weekend. It is suppose to close in the front with a pin but haven't found the right one and she thinks it is fine open. She told me today she has a scarf that has the exact same green in it and she is excited to wear the sweater with a pink blouse and the scarf. She promised to send me a picture of herself when she wears it. I got the pattern free from Red Heart from a post on Twitter. It caught my eye because it is knit starting at one cuff and goes across the sweater ending with the cuff of the other sleeve. Red Heart yarn company does a great job on Twitter - in fact I had a problem understanding one step in the pattern so I sent them a tweet and they answered right away and explained how to do it! They also wanted a picture of the sweater so I posted it and they were very complimentary as was the Kansas State Fair twitter account. They would like me to enter it in the fair.

The pattern is free on Red Heart LW2328 and I made it with the recommended yarn EcoWays.
http://www.redheart.com/free-patterns/cuff-cuff-cardigan

Garden Show

Izzy spotted the skeleton on this pirate ship very quickly and had to go see it.

We went to the Wichita Garden Show today with Jimmy and the girls. Maranda had a solo contest to supervise so she missed out on the fun. The girls really loved the show and didn't want to leave. First thing in the door we saw the Gem and Mineral Society display and the lady took the girls over to a bowl with rocks and let each pick out a rock. The girls were thrilled. Each carried their rock around the entire show. Next we saw a bread booth and they had a sample of each bread which they loved. I think they would have been happy to have left then. :)

Going to the show was similar to going to the fair with the girls - we get stopped a lot and asked if they are triplets and how old they are and of course told how cute they are which we agree. Once a lady asked Izzy how old she was and Izzy was holding Jimmy's hand so she carefully set her rock on the floor and held up four fingers and said four. Lily then said "I'm four too and so is Audrey" The lady and her friends all laughed as did we since we had already established that they were triplets. There was a couple with tiny twins, probably a month old. They kept staring at the girls and talking to each other and so I said, "we beat you by one". They both started laughing and we visited a bit about the girls and their boy and girl.

The theme this year was movies and one display was the movie "Up" which the girls have seen and were thrilled to see this display. Another was Jurassic Park and they were not too fond of the mean looking dinosaurs. The Avatar one was fun because the walk way would light up if you stepped on certain blocks.

Botanica had a great little display with a tunnel for little ones to crawl through. Jimmy stood on one end and I stood at the other and they all three crawled through.

We had a great time at the show and went to Old Mill Tasty Shop for lunch after. This place is on Douglas and was very crowded and very loud but the girls liked the food and so did we. The best item on their menu is milk shakes which we skipped as we figured the girls wouldn't eat their lunch if they had milk shakes. I told Jimmy he would need to come back sometime with Maranda and sample their shakes as they are fabulous. My friend Goldie and I meet there for lunch some times and split a milkshake - it is the old fashioned type they serve in the metal container with a glass.

After we came home I had a most interesting (and long) phone call from a cousin of my dad. She is 86 (will be 87 in June "if she lives"). She lives in Maryland and called a couple of years ago too. She is a delight to listen to although sometimes it is hard to keep up as she talks about her three brothers and her three sons and sometimes you aren't sure which she is talking about. I have never met the woman but know just about everything about her from her phone calls. She lived in Wichita when she met her husband - she went to business college here and he was in the Air Force and was playing baseball. They married and moved to Maryland and she is still there but he died many years ago. She has three sons, eight grandchildren and nine great grandchildren. There were times I wished I were recording the conversation as she talked for 55 minutes and there were times I lost track of the conversation.