December 10 Brendan's Choir Concert

Tuesday: I was invited and was delighted to attend Brendan's Forest Hills School Christmas Choir concert tonight over at the Fine Arts Center. One of these days I'll have to take some good pictures of this performing center--it's really quite impressive!

Here's a bunch of pictures I snapped with my phone--they are not the best quality--but I'm glad I have them nonetheless! 

The concert lasted about 40 minutes. There was the Middle School choir (to which Brendan belongs) and the Sixth Grade choir too. I don't think I took any pictures of the 6th graders singing.

I got to sit with Dylan and the little kids in very nice viewing seats.

The Middle School performed "Carol of the Bells", and one of the medleys they sang included "In the Bleak Midwinter" ... they sang a bunch of other medleys too and had a good time of it.

After the concert, we hung around in the lobby of the Fine Arts building looking at the trees and art work. I love these pictures of Brendan.

Young Mr. Cal had fallen asleep in their van on the way to the concert, so he was a little bit "touchy" and out of sorts; but he actually did quite well.

Dear Erin! Isn't she amazing? 

She loves to pose for her picture. I am SO glad she does!

Cal had just about had it by this time and was ready to go back to sleep ...

And look at three trees decorated for Forest Hills Schools! "The Huskies!"

Kelly wasn't able to be with us tonight because of an obligation she had over at their church; so Dylan attempted to get a group picture of the kiddos to text over to her ...

But one member of the "tribe" was having NOTHING to do with having his picture taken and would not step into the picture frame. I think he thought he wasn't being photographed; but I noticed that Dylan's phone was wide enough to catch him, as was mine. But still ... there are times when I truly don't understand little Aidan. He has such nice folks! They treat him with such kindness! But he truly doesn't like to be told what to do--although I have seen less and less of this in him over the last few months, for which I have been thankful.

Perhaps Aidan was just tired tonight! I was looking back on pictures of him from six years ago this afternoon. You just couldn't find a happier baby than this kiddo. And his belly laughs could get an entire restaurant cracking up! Sigh. Well, I will continue to pray that God will make Aidan into the person He wants him to be--and give continued patience to Dylan and Kelly. I love all of these people so much.

December 6 with Cal and kids

Friday:  Kelly dropped Cal off to me today, a little after noon. He was not one bit hungry when he walked through my door, so I postponed our lunch until he was! He was actually too excited looking around at the few Christmas decorations I have put up inside my house.

Cal grabbed Cocoa Cat and they spent some time checking out the Christmas tree. They found pictures of Brendan, Erin, Aidan, and Cal too! Plus, all of their cousins!

Cal picked "Hammie" up out of the stuffed animal box and informed me that "Hammie" was NOT a stuffy! I told Cal that Hammie likes to be with all of the other pigs that live in the animal box--that's where he lives! 

Cal was very enthralled with the Thomas Kincaid Christmas train tree, so we turned on the switch and started the trains circling around and around ...

Here is Cal, yucking it up for my camera ...

After going through quite a bunch of toys back in the playroom and every single toy we got out was involved in a major WAR ... I was relieved to see Cal play with this little Duplo set for a very long time. We make cool roads with this set and it fits perfectly with our Micromachine cars.

Cal actually had NO WARS with the cars ... well ... there were quite a lot of CRASHES, but at least no one was being killed.

Cal told me that he has this very same nativity set at HIS house. I remember seeing it there too. I just keep this little set out during the Christmas season and then I put it away for the rest of the year. Cal and I reenacted the Christmas story (a very brief version of it), which was a lot of fun too.

We drove over to Cal's house in time for Aidan and Erin to get off their bus. We played for quite awhile--in their basement, in the kitchen--Aidan and I even played a game of Chess.

Cal fell asleep on the drive over to his house, so I carried him inside and covered him up for a little extra nap time. Erin loves to watch Cal sleep. She says that Cal is her "little baby." They are pretty cute together. We finally got Cal to wake up and play with us.

Here is everyone goofing up my picture taking ...

But that's okay because I love these guys! 

December 5 and 7 with KT

Thursday and Saturday:  The reason I am combining these two dates is because I took ZERO photos on either afternoon--and I can barely remember what Kaity and I did Thursday! I think this is probably due to the fact that I took a double dose of anti-histamine (as directed by my doctor), to help with my recently diagnosed eczema, and I felt rather "loopy" and terribly tired. I think I even fell asleep at Altitude while Kaity was jumping. I do remember that Kaity got better acquainted with kind of a new friend, Elias, and she enjoyed hanging out with him for an hour or so.

Kaity and I also talked about the new kind of decorating we are going to do next week with frosted sugar cookies--I'm excited to try it--it's something I've never done before and I figured Kaity would get a kick out of it. We're going to give this a try NEXT weekend.

Saturday, we played four games of UNO, three of which Kaity beat me in record time. Yikes. I can't seem to find my favorite UNO deck (the dinosaur deck), so we made due with the double set I have had for years.

I fixed us Chicken Fettucine for dinner, and Kaity ate an entire bowl! Yay. I'm having a difficult time, lately, gauging whether Kaity is hungry enough for a meal or not! She eats intermittently all throughout the day (although she claims she doesn't)--but she does! Anyway, I was glad she ate a good dinner.

We left early to go to Altitude tonight because we wanted to check out the neighborhood STAR that began shining a night or two ago. Up on Chauncey Avenue, there is a house on a hill with a giant star on the side of their garage. When lit, you can see it from SO FAR AWAY! But it's always deceiving to me where the actual house is located, because when you are driving on Canonsburg Road, it looks like it is straight back from the golf course--but it isn't! Anyway, we found the star and were very satisfied about it! Then we drove over to Altitude and Kaity jumped for almost 2 hours. Her friend, Elias, was there again tonight so they hung out together. I am glad Kaity has met and made so many friends over at Altitude! 

November 30 with KT

Saturday:  Have I ever told you how much fun it is to be Kaity's grandma? 

Kaity helped me lift the Christmas bins from my shed to the house, along with the very awkward box that holds my fake tree. It's a very easy tree to assemble, so I did that in a flash. The next step, naturally, was the lights. The lights I got LAST year (two strands) for some reason would NOT connect to each other THIS year. I vaguely remember having that same issue a year ago, and I forget what I did to rectify the situation. After about 30 very frustrating minutes (in which Kaity took a video of me talking to the "female" connector and the "male" connector on the lights, trying in vain to have them connect), I gave up! I had to think the problem over.

Meanwhile, Kaity and I ate our usual meal and chatted awhile. Kaity wanted to jump for awhile over at Altitude, although not a single one of her acquaintances could be there tonight. After about 30 minutes of jumping and looking around for anyone her age or type to interact with, Kaity asked me if we could leave. Kaity is a very social person--usually, she just finds other kids to hang with--but tonight, the crowd was just not her type at all! As I had been watching Kaity jump, I was formulating in my head what I was going to do about the lights on the tree, and I came up with a plan.

I hauled Kaity over to Menard's with me to help me in my decision-making. She is a scream at Menard's. She knows the place like the back of her hand (thanks to her Menard's loving dad). Anyway, we looked at every single box and type of lights available--Kaity thinking this would take about two seconds, and me knowing that it would take at LEAST 20 minutes. Ah! How did we work this dilemma out? Hilariously, of course. AND we ended up purchasing quite a different type of string of lights that I thought would compliment the other string quite well (and it does!!!).

I strung the lights Sunday afternoon without much of a problem at all! I'll show you more pictures of my finished decorated tree in later posts. It's quite lovely.

November 29 Chris is TWENTY-ONE!

Friday:  Chris and I arranged to meet over at his mom's house at 4:45 so that I could give him his birthday gift and card. I was so glad he didn't just want me to drop it off if he wasn't there to open it. I love watching loved-ones open gifts and the cards I've made for them. And ... Chris gives really nice hugs--the sincere kind that say "I love you," and you know he means it. Nothing beats that.

Here are a few funny/cute/sweet pictures of Chris from a LONG time ago ...

I'm pretty sure this picture was taken just after the family moved back to Michigan (2013)

Chris is about 8, here in El Paso

This was taken at Schwalliers Country Basket, probably 2015 (?)

Another picture from Texas ... Chris is about 7

I can't even guess these last two -- but definitely here in Michigan. 

Chris has grown up a lot in the past few years and has changed in many good ways--not that I didn't love him when he was younger; but I see God at work in his life more now than when he was younger. He is more content, less arrogant (!!), much kinder, goal-oriented, more honest ... lots of good things! That's how you know when God is answering prayer--your life changes and you become more and more like Jesus. Nothing else really matters or really satisfies.

I am thankful for you, Chris! This is the card I made for him:

Keep on keeping on, dear grandson. Your grandma loves you and prays regularly for you!

November 29 Lovely Children

Friday:  The kiddos have the day off from school, due to Thanksgiving break, so I was able to have all four of them over for a few hours today. We had the nicest time together! 

Cal was a tiny bit "testy" at the outset, due to the fact that he is used to having my place and every toy in it to himself on his Friday's every other week--but today he had to share both toys and space! He wasn't very happy about it at all and made it verbally (and loudly) known. So he and I had a little chat. I told him it was very sad that he was being quite unpleasant and that I expected him to do better. I reminded him that the other kids hardly ever get to come over! He did much better afterwards and I told him many times throughout our day how proud I was of him.

I set the art table up with lots of paper, colored pencils, art books, stencils, etc. All of these kiddos enjoy drawing and coloring. They are amazing little artists. Cal hasn't quite gotten into this stuff yet--he's a fighting machine, so perhaps art hasn't much interest for him right now.

Brendan took down the Great Wolf Lodge puzzle and assembled it while all around him Cal and Aidan were cooking meals for the puppets and other stuffed animals. They were VERY into this.

I love to watch these kiddos play. They are so creative and interesting!

Brendan was walking around singing "Can't Help Falling in Love", so I grabbed my music and accompanied him for a bit. He has so much music inside of him! I told him this is a gift from God.

Aidan spent some time in the playroom constructing stuff. He is an excellent builder and designer. He is a good problem solver, too, when it comes to his projects. He is happier playing by himself--which I can understand--Cal struggled about this today, but he was able to find other things to do and leave his brother alone for the most part. It's not that Aidan didn't play with anyone else the whole time or anything; but now and then he would make his way back to the playroom and stay there long enough to build something to his satisfaction.

Erin got into the cooking scene too. She was cooking for Baby Bonnie and announced that it was Bonnie's birthday today! We sang her "Happy Birthday!"

Brendan brought over "The Princess Bride" which he has started reading. Dylan said they all watched the movie a few nights ago and that Brendan loved it so much. I had no idea there was a book! I'm wondering if the book is based on the movie, or the other way around?

Brendan is in the top bunk with Oscar (our otter puppet) while Erin is posing for these pictures. Oscar is a favorite of Brendan's.

Baby Bonnie got a lot of attention today. Erin was super serious about celebrating her #1 birthday, so we stretched that out for awhile.

Aidan brought out the roadway track and made a very nice layout. Cal asked if he could help, but Aidan refused; and since Aidan had already started on this, I told Cal he would have to wait his turn. So he sat down on the floor and watched his brother build and was SO agreeable, I felt like giving him a whole booklet of stars to decorate himself; but instead, I gave him a big hug and a "high five."

The kids enjoyed an Oreo cone mid-afternoon while looking through old LEGO catalogs, each one picking out their favorite sets.

I enjoyed being with these guys so much today. It was refreshing just to watch them, listen to them singing (I had music playing through my phone--mostly Christmas songs that they were familiar with), and just hanging out.

I drove them back to their house by about 4:00 in the afternoon. Our time together went by very quickly. We didn't watch any movies or programs; but I did take them to my Twitter page and show them all the funny animal videos (very short ones) that I had saved for them to see. We had so much fun looking at all of them together and we sure laughed a lot too. 

Very thankful for these lovely children . . .