February 26 Last winter soccer game

Saturday:  10am at Stoney Creek on a Saturday morning ... the last game of the season. This has been great for Kaity. She has a lot of physical energy and she has friends here to play with. She and Kenzie often get to be on the same team--not always, but mostly. You would think that after SIX Saturdays, I would get better with indoor action photos ... but alas ... I have not. I think today I took some of the worst pictures in my history. Anyway, I'll post the ones that are acceptable ...

I've got to say that these volunteer "coaches" have done an incredible job with the kiddos. They are super instructional, helpful, kind and positive.

Kaity ALMOST scored a goal here, but the goalie threw a nice block and thwarted Kaity's efforts.

At the end of the game, all of the kids gathered for a group picture. These are the same kids who played every week and who went on what team was decided on the spot. 

Good job, Kaity-Girl! 

Here is Kaity, after jumping up and stealing Jesse's Veteran's hat ... which she said "smelled" and Jesse agreed to wash it ...

Diana had this shirt made especially for Kaity. Nice.

February 24 Bucket pong and other games

Thursday:  When Kaity came over today, I wasn't sure what we were going to do exactly ... we started by playing 1.5 games of "Sleeping Queens" but Kaity QUIT in the middle of the second game because she was hungry. So I made our usual hot dog meal, which takes about 5 minutes of preparation and 5 minutes to eat and about the same to clean up! Kaity seemed a little bit antsy and in need of some physical action, so I got out our ping pong balls and a bucket and we played a rousing hour of "bucket pong" ... 

If you've never played--you SHOULD! We cracked ourselves up! 

Kaity was a more accurate shot than I was, so she won every game we played. We then switched to playing with the ping-pong paddles in the hallway, hitting the ball against Emma's closed door, counting to see how many volleys we could do. I had decided victory in this game--probably because I have played so much ping pong in my life. I wasn't sure Kaity would like this odd hallway game, but she did--and we got totally silly while playing it and laughed and laughed. Good time! I'm always thankful to have such a happy few hours with my Kaity-Girl.

February 22 A Tuesday without Aidan!

Tuesday:  I received a "message" early this morning that Aidan was not feeling well and would be staying home today; also, that there was winter break this week and no pre-school. SO ... this was going to be a different sort of Tuesday.

The art work began as soon as we arrived at my place. I showed Brendan the half-finished "book" I had so-far fashioned: "A Paco Book." Brendan asked if he might help me continue my story. YES! YES!

I got out the ink pads, thumb-print book, rags (for wiping our inky fingers), pens ... and we opened up our imaginations and set to work! 

Darling Erin used a few of the stamp pads and letter stamps to sample all of the letters she could. She was very busy!

We also played TRAINS, which is something we haven't done in a very very long time. I think one factor for our negligence is less SPACE in which to lay out our tracks ... since Emma now occupies the spare room, all of our toys have moved out to the main room which gives us a little less floor space out here. Also, when Aidan is here, he pretty much comandeers the entire building of tracks ... Brendan and Erin eventually give up on having any say in the matter. I've tried lots of different tactics to deter Aidan, but nothing has worked very well. Anyway, TODAY, Brendan and Erin were free to build ...

I love these pics of Erin. She is completely precious. 

I think the layout took more than an hour ... both kids were going at it ... but these two shared much more effectively with each other--so all was well.

Once the track was built, a few trains were run on them and then ... that was that! I've always said the building of the track is what is FUN. I do have a few battery powered trains that will run on most of our tracks (if we don't build too many high bridges to go up) ... so we let those run around the layout for awhile.

We also read a ton of books today. I went to the library Monday to replenish our supply. I love our library. I've learned to pre-read all books I check out now ... I've checked out too many poorly written/illustrated books in the past. 

I was able to find TWO books on sea otters--one was merely informational, the other one was a piece of fiction about a family of beavers trying to get along with a family of otters. I set up Oscar on my window seat and posed him like he was reading one of the otter books ... in the other corner of the window seat, I set up Sweetie-Pie (my shark puppet) reading one of the three shark books I got this week from the library. These kids love to pretend with the puppets ... and I do too!

One of my favorite parts of reading to these kids is the fact that they snuggle up nice and close as we read, AND they are SO interested in all of the stories and pictures. It is not difficult at all to read 6-8 books to them during our Tuesday times. By about 4:00, we turned on a movie to watch: "The Good Dinosaur" which was a cute animated story. 

We returned to Dylan and Kelly's at nearly 6pm. Pizza was waiting for us ... and AIDAN ... and CALLAGHAN! Aidan said he was beginning to feel better--but he didn't look like he felt well. I didn't stay very long to play, just long enough to hold Callaghan a little while and visit a bit with Dylan and Kelly. 

February 20 with KT and Emma

Saturday:  This was Kaity's fifth soccer game--one more to go--next week! I only took a few pictures this week because they are all starting to look exactly the same to me. Action shots are not my forte'.

Kaity has asked about doing spring/summer soccer as well--this would be outside. I think she should!

From 4:00 until 8:00, Kaity was here with Emma and I at the Beach House. She mostly hung out with Emma, but we did play one UNO game together. I am always glad when Emma and Kaity can spend time and hang out with each other.
 

February 18 A few wintry pictures

Friday:  I managed to walk 2.4 miles today--just around the neighborhood, up Chauncey Avenue to Seven Mile and then I ducked into the woods--which was probably private property, but I didn't see any "No Tresspassing" signs ...

Once I had walked to 7 Mile, I turned right thinking I would walk to Courtland and turn on that road for a short while--but then I glanced over and noticed this stretch of woodiness ... and it just called me to come!

I love to walk where I have never walked before ... there is just something a little bit adventurous about it, don't you think?

The sun came out for just a brief moment or two ... enough to catch some shadows at play ...

I circled around in this woodsie area and walked back up to 7 Mile. By then, I was getting weary of walking and instead of walking to Courtland, I just turned around and walked Chauncy back home to where I live. I was layered up really good, so I wasn't TOO cold--the wind made it a little trickey, but I am glad I was able to take this walk today.

February 17 A nice few hours with KT

Thursday:  Kaity and I had such a good time together tonight. I am so thankful. I didn't take many pictures of our activities, so I'll just have to recall them from my head. The first thing we did was to play three games of FOOSBALL. Yes! I love to play foosball with Kaity. She won our three-game tournament, 2-1.

THEN we ate our hotdog meal and while we were eating, I was describing the books that Aidan Paul has been making every week at my house. He has even left a few as gifts for me, so I showed them to Kaity. She cracked up while reading them. After we ate, Kaity suggested we make a few books of our own. I got out a bunch of colored pencils, markers, paper and we sat at the table for close to an hour making our books. I was not able to finish mine, but I will work on it a little bit each week. It is a book about Paco the Pig. Kaity wrote HER book for Aidan and Erin and left it here with me to share with them on Tuesday. She enjoyed herself hugely in the process. 

Kaity brought over her new stuffed animal named "Valentine" since she purchased him with money she was gifted on Valentine's day from her mom. Kaity decided we should all play a few games of "Sleeping Queens". We played FIVE games! From the look on Kaity's face, I think I won 3 games to 2.

We watched a few short videos from Disney+ and just hung out for a little while. It was really nice to have Kaity over tonight. I am so glad she is my granddaughter.

February 15 At my house

Tuesday:  We had such a nice time at my house today. Nothing terribly unusual about the stuff we did--but we had so much FUN doing a lot of nothing!

Here is Brendan reading to the littles while they are assembling puzzles. The book is: "Who is the Mystery Reader?" by Mo Willems, from his UNLIMITED SQUIRRELS series. What a funny book!

Erin really really loves these tiny 12-piece puzzles. She is so proud when she assembles one of them.

Aidan really enjoys them too ... along with making books. He made two more books this afternoon.

I have toys and puzzles that sometimes I forget that I have ... in this instance, two very nice floor sized puzzles. Since Brendan is going up to Great Wolf Lodge Wednesday evening with his friend Joanna and her family, I thought he might like to work on a puzzle I purchased from there almost three years ago.

I had totally forgotten about my fire truck puzzle too! Erin, Aidan and I worked on it together and then the kiddos took a ride! Look at Aidan steering the truck ...

We played all afternoon. The little kiddos did well on the potty today (!!), we enjoyed our eating/snack times, and even watched a little bit on the Disney channel late in the day. When we returned home to their house, I had given Aidan and Erin a little pep talk in the car about being nice to their mom and dad instead of having meltdowns, and they did great! They are oftentimes super tired by the time we return to their house (these kiddos get up super early in the morning), and sometimes I think their exhaustion gets the best of them. 

Thankful for such a nice few hours today with these children.