From General Store to the DR's office

Latte run this a.m.

Cameron and I swung by Grand Central Bakery this morning and picked up a pastry and latte for Harlan. It's hard to go in there and come out with only one pastry, so I bought two for him to choose from. He's enjoying a piece of coffee cake this evening with his tea.

Getting to know a new General Store

Cameron and I went back to the high school this morning to shop. Here I am in my new t-shirt, draped in Harlan's sweatshirt and holding Cam's new travel cup. I just might be the oldest new mother on campus but I like the school colors.

Wyatt's ear ache

Wyatt's had an ear ache every day this week  but didn't have any other symptoms. Joylynn put drops in it on the weekend and I've put some in every day before he went to bed. He asked this morning if he could go to the doctor to see if they could help it.

The kids' pediatrician's office has more books than some school rooms. They have two drawers full in each exam room plus a ton out in the waiting room.

Wyatt and Genevieve sat and shared an I Spy experience while waiting for the doctor. There were a lot of stories that Danika wanted me to read to her and several flap books for her to enjoy.

As both Joylynn and I suspected, Wyatt needed medical intervention to clear his ear of a major wax plug. If I didn't know better, I'd have said he'd put one of least favorite veggies (peas) in his ear canal. A large Green Giant brand by the look of it.

The relief was almost immediate.  He tested to see if he was going to feel anymore pain by swallowing air to make himself belch... loudly! It turns out that burping, swallowing, and yawning made his ear pain worse. He can now do all of them pain free. And he says he can hear again. Now if we can get him to listen... :0)

First time in 27 years... I'm not a homeschool mom

Angry Birds - do you have a fav?

 I got to play a few levels of Angry Birds yesterday while waiting for Harlan at Howard's office.  I enjoy playing all of them. However I have banned the grandkids from playing them during worship time at church. I do have a couple of quiet games like Tesla toy and Atomic toy on my iPad that are like glorified Spirograph type programs. They keep the little ones quietly occupied and are boring enough to allow the kids to keep listening to the service.  Our poor kids only had a scrap of paper and a pen to doodle when they had to sit in church. 

The girls got ready for school 

Genevieve picked various patterns of purple clothes to wear today. She looked so cute.

 Danika wanted to share the new book she got yesterday. She loves her SMART class. It stands for Start Making A Reader Today. You can tell that she watches old tv shows with Aunty Krystle. She said that this book was "episode one" of the Fancy Nancy books.

Last log on :'(

Eight years is more than enough time to get attached to a daily ritual. I've appreciated everything about Connections Academy. The free curriculum, the computer support, the encouraging teachers and the freedom it gave us in educating our kids. I'm going to miss it.

First walk through Grant High School

I'm so glad we went to register Cam when we did. It happened to be the perfect timing to talk to an advisor, get him set up for classes, get his text books, his locker and to tour the building. He's all set to start second semester of freshman year along with the Class of 2016.

Cam has the same high school colors as I did!

He didn't even realize it but he wore grey jeans with a blue and grey sweater today.

We're going to have to get some General gear! 

Lunch date via Skype

 Happy Henry - Adorable Anabelle

 & their Momma

Henry requested a Skype date since he had a disappointment and wanted to tell us about it. Harlan was home with a head cold so he, Hayden and Cameron all got to watch these silly kids on the computer. Henry's a number boy and is fascinated by calendars. He showed us his lego calendar for February that he'd gotten ready for the end of this week. As we were talking, he was changing it back to January. When Henry was chatting, Anabelle was observing and playing shy with Grampa. And being a typical one year old, wearing her lunch. It is so fun just to virtually hang out with them.

Other fun photos from the southland

 Anabelle getting the hang of planking.

Hens and Bellie playing chess together. This is so cool. I want to take pictures of them playing it in real life!

 (Put that on our itinerary, Cherise)

Medieval Theme

Youth Central had a Medieval themed night on Friday. We didn't get a costume put together for Cameron and he didn't mind attending in his regular clothes. They provided him with a great Burger King crown!  Krystle dressed up though. She's collecting quite a few costumes for various themed parties. 

They always have a great time at youth group. 

Special request sewing projects

 I spent way too many hours indulging in my "quilty" pleasures this past week. I sewed six quilts. Three throw or lap size, 2 twin size and a full/queen one. Looking at these latest projects, it seems I'm sort of stuck in a granny square pattern. All of my Christmas ones were a diagonal pattern. Weird hey?

I love Debbie Mum prints for quilt projects. They are so happy making!

I'm taking a sewing break. I promised that I would put the machine, rotary cutter and mat away until after Super Bowl Sunday. 

Go 49ers!

Just a project or two

Cooking is always a project

 I have been experimenting with various kinds of curry dishes. Genevieve and Danika love these little sweet peppers. I can't seem to keep them around for very long. They do prefer to eat them raw instead of cooked. One thing I appreciate is that the grandkids are veggie eaters. Even if one likes cooked carrots while another likes them raw with ranch dip and a third likes them raw with no ranch. Since I'm not a short order cook; they get what they get.

Cookie baking daughters

Krystle enlisted Courtney's help in making cookies for her writing club. It's a fan fiction group and on Wednesday they were watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles so the girls got creative and made ninja turtle sugar cookies. They turned out pretty cute and everyone deemed them very tasty too.

My recent sewing projects

I needed a few gifts and decided to make quilts. Today I've been working on the blue and white one (above). Earlier this week I finished these other two. I delivered the one with the orangey binding to Harlan's sister, Anita. It was a belated birthday gift. She is planning on taking it to her beach house. I hope we get to visit it there someday.

Grandkiddos this week

Henry and Anabelle and Rapunzel were sitting very nicely and watching "Tangled". Notice Anabelle has her Rapunzel dress on? She's got big eyes just like her doll!

Alyssa's kids got a bit of snow yesterday. Evie was happy to be out in it. Look at that little red nose! 

I love getting pictures like this!!!

Genevieve's Day at the Dentist

Hollywood Pediatric Dentistry is great!

 It was finally Genevieve's turn to visit the dentist that Danika has been to. Danika loves!!! this place. Genevieve, being older, enjoyed the dress up dolls more than the play kitchen. She was pretty impressed with the theater seats and movie playing. It wasn't long before she was invited back to choose her new toothbrush, flavor of flouride and color of the chair she wanted to sit in.

She bypassed Danika's favorite pink chair and chose the blue one. One of these days there is going to be a purple one in the hygene area but for now it's just a space outlined in purple floor tiles.

On to x-ray

I got to stand and watch some of the best scenes from "Lady and the Tramp" while Genevieve got her x-rays taken. Bella Notte! 

On to meet the dentist

 Dr Badger's favorite color is purple so of course there's a purple chair in her exam room. There were a different color pair of sunglasses in the peace sign design for G'vieve to keep the exam light out of her eyes. After her check up, we were able to start some of the work that she needs to have done.

The OSU room

Each of the operatories  has a college theme. Genevieve was worked on in the Oregon State room with the orange chair. There is a U of O room too with a green chair. This is such a great place for kids and teens. They take patients through 18 years old. They let her pick her own movie to watch while they were working on her mouth. She chose "Despicable Me". Isn't the main guy in that movie a dentist? 

Out for the day

I was going to bring her back to school after her check-up but since she had work done too, I kept her home for the rest of the day. She looked like she got in a fight! but is doing much better now. She said her tooth isn't asleep anymore :0)

She's got a few more appointments to complete the work.  Hopefully that nitrous oxide had a bit of a amnesia effect and she'll be good to go on Feb 7th. I'm crossing my fingers on that one.

Party hearty

It turned into a family affair!

It was decided that we would take out the whole Reardon family to celebrate Jess' birthday. He is just like the President. He officially turned 38 on Sunday but we didn't publicly recognize it until Monday. Just like the inauguration! It was determined to go to Shari's due to coupons covering the cost of the 4 kids' meals.

Do ya think they have enough crayons for our gang?

The children's menus have coloring activities for multiple age ranges. That kept the little ones occupied for a couple of minutes. 

Joylynn and Jess had to settle for adult menus. 

Garrett knew exactly what he wanted. He's kind of stuck in a rut where this menu is concerned. He won't try anything else. Jolly Roger Cakes it was.

 Beverages arrive and coloring sheets are abandoned

It's hard to wait for the food to arrive. They didn't get too squirrely.

Impromptu Family Picture

 When dinner was mostly eaten I tried to get the whole family together for a picture. Here they are. The boys and the giggle girls. I'm glad they got to have a party for their dad. No dessert or cake because of colds but it was fun,

...and funny,

 ... and freezing cold as we headed home.

I had one just like this when I was 4!

 I saw this at Goodwill today. My mom has a picture of me with my buggy just like this. Though I think mine was navy blue. It's hard to tell from a black and white photograph. Cameron just rolled his eyes as I took a picture of it. Isn't it nice to visit things at Goodwill. I sometimes even put treasured things in my cart and push them around the store for a while, before I put them back on the shelf. I really need to bring a few van loads of stuff from my house over there. I can visit it anytime I feel like it!

My recent sewing projects

 I realized that I hadn't made Garrett a "Gramma Blankie" yet except for the one I made when he was a month old. This one is his bigger boy quilt. I hope he likes it. The little dino-monsters remind me of him.

This a quilt that I cut, sewed x's on each square, stacked them into columns and packed it away. I found it when I was looking for fabric for Garrett's quilt. I think it turned out lovely!