Saturday, May 31, 2008

Fun with Grandma and Grandpa, parts 2 and 3

Been a busy day today. We stopped at Best Buy to buy a Hannah Montana's Best of Both Worlds CD for the girls' listening pleasure while riding in my PT cruiser, then went and picked up granddaughter #2 for her bike ride. Asked her where she wanted to have lunch, and guess where she chose--Fazoli's. Had another nice long lunch spending some quality time with her. I managed to get spaghetti sauce all over my shirt and shorts so we came home so I could change. Grandpa laid down for a power nap, and Mia and I made a card for her to give her Mom. I then took her home and grandchild #2 was ready to go. He's 2 1/2 and has never gone bike riding with us. So the two of us set off to wake up pick up Grandpa and headed back to the bike trail. While riding with #2, there was a sign saying the trail was closed. I figured it was because the river was rising due to all the rain, but since we saw people had been through the area, we decided to go on ahead. At the bottom of the trail there was water on the other side of the trail, but then found it all over the water a couple inches deep. We made an executive decision to go to higher ground and walk the bikes. So when we set out with #3, we went another direction. After going almost three miles, we stopped for drinks. Grandchild #3 was looking kind of tired, and didn't want to go back. He wanted to go "three blocks that way." Convinced him to get into the cart and headed back the way we wanted to go. He quickly fell asleep. Brought him back to our house because he was hungry and wanted one of my smoovers (translation: smoothie). After he recharged, we got out his cars to play with until Mommy and Daddy got here to pick him up. They were going to Olive Garden and invited us along, but I didn't really think I could handle more pasta and breadsticks, although I love breadsticks and pasta. I think we will kick back, enjoy a little vino, and relax tonight. Took a shower and saw that I got some nice sun today. Well on my way to my summer tan.

I also reworked my Squirmy Wormy layout by changing the title to look like stickers; changed the stitching on the journaling box, took the worm out of the jar and placed it peeking out from under the journal box and added a lady bug to the jar. I also added a tag with "I love bugs" on it.

New Adventure for Grandpa and Me

Last night when I left work I was shocked to see the sun shining and no rain. So instead of heading to the gym, I thought I'd see if Grandpa wanted to get his bicycle out for a little ride. Then I thought, "we ought to use our bike trailer and take a grandchild with us." The bike trailer can fit two smaller children, which we've done with the twins, who are now 6 1/2 years old, but it would be a tight squeeze now. The problem was, all three of our grandchildren live in the same house with the same set of parents. How do I take only one? So I called their mother, my daughter and told her what I was thinking of doing, but that I couldn't decide how to choose only one. She put it to the grandkids. I could hear all kinds of screams of excitement and discussion. She came back and said that granddaughter #1 figured out a plan--she was the oldest by 20 minutes so she would go first, followed by her twin sister, and then their little brother. Sounded like a good plan, kind of how I worked out years ago which one of my brats children got to ride in the front seat (can you believe we used to let them ride in the front seat with no car seat ) with me and which one had to ride in the backseat--child #1 was born on an even date and child #2 was born on an odd date, so #1 rode in the front seat on even days and #2 rode in the front on odd days.

Back to last night...we got there to pick up granddaughter #1 and all of them were in a good mood although they all said they wanted to go to. We promised them we would take them today and tomorrow. So we did our little bike ride, picked some flowers, caught some bugs, and then went to eat at #1's choice: Fazoli's. (Did I forget to mention we washed our hands first?) She was a little on the fidgety side at first, not knowing what to do with herself without her sister, but was also eating up the two-on-one time, chatting away, cuddling with Grandpa, and playing with her food. You would have thought we were at a fine dining restaurant with seven courses--we were there for over an hour and a half! Grandpa and I just kept looking at each other smiling, glad that we had taken the steps to spend some quality time with her. She also wanted to go get ice cream at a place in an adjoining town where her other grandparents live. As it so happened her parents and siblings were there visiting so I asked her if she would like to have them join us, which she smiled big time and shook her head yes. So after a phone call, we all met there and as soon as she saw her twin, they were in each other's arms hugging and dancing away. You would have thought they hadn't seen each other in weeks instead of 3 1/2 hours.

I meant to take my camera and can't believe I forgot it. Going to take granddaughter #2 today, but since I didn't take my camera yesterday, I can't do it today--got to keep it fair.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Squirmy Worm



This layout is in honor of Cailey's dead pet worm. The journaling reads "One day at school Mia found a worm and gave it to Cailey. Cailey put it in her coat pocket, where it stayed during the school day. When s he came home the worm was dead. She then made the dead worm a nice home in her but catcher.

"She loves to catch bugs and worms. While at Living History Farms her friend picks up this worm. I wouldn't let them keep it. As a compromise, I promised to take a picture of it."

I used Kim Hill's Girly Bugs kit, that my daughter and her family gave me for Mother's Day. I love the jar. I can think of lots of uses for these jars.

Monday, May 26, 2008

Nikon Family poster

Saw a great tutorial by Ariadna Wiczling in ScrapGirls.com Newsletter on How to Turn Your Photos Into Pop Art. I played around with a couple pictures of Roger and myself, both with our wonderful Nikon cameras. Scraplifting Andy Warhol's “Che Guevara” poster, I created our own little poster. Wonder if Nikon would be interested in it?

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Pella Tulip Festival



Earlier this month we went to Pella with our children and grandchildren to enjoy the Pella Tulip Festival. I've finally gotten around to scrapping a page from this visit, thanks to some scrapbooking kits I received from my daughter and her family for Mother's Day. I used the Girly Bugs Kit from by Kim Hill.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Living History Farms Field trip


dj_LHF-12x12-double, originally uploaded by queenshakenbake.

Last Thursday I went along as a chaperone with my granddaughter's kindergarten class to Living History Farms. I used Pioneer Woman's actions on my photos, and Doreen Stolz's Rustic Fields Kit from http://godigitalscrapbooking.com.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Soccer


2008-May-08_soccer_0392, originally uploaded by queenshakenbake.

I am still amazed the difference a year makes. The girls are right in the mix this year, with smiles on to boot. I shot over 300 pictures during their game. The hard part is choosing which ones to post. I've posted a few more over on flickr. Check them out!