Together Tuesday ...

Tuesday was St. Patrick's Day, a favorite holiday of Kelly-O's for many reasons … chiefly, though, because she is IRISH, which is enough right there! So I offered them a date night (which we have been trying to do monthly anyway)--and they snatched it right up! I met Kelly and Brendan over where Dylan works, and we got Brendan all snug in his car seat and then we drove straight over to the ...

 CAR WASH!!  Brendan LOVES car washes!

 I tried to get some good pictures of his dear little face while we were passing those glorious spinning brushes. These snaps were the best I could do under the circumstance.

I know Brendan does not appear to be ecstatically happy about this … but he IS. He is taking it all in and his little mind is working it out … how the brushes spin, the water sprays, the dryers blow … he doesn't miss anything. 

I love it when Brendan comes to visit my little Beach House. He loves it here. I was really pleased when the first thing he asked for was the bean bags. A few weeks ago when he spent some time over here, we had gotten them out and I had put on "The Bean Bag" song, perfect for three-year-old kiddos. 

We did the song together over and over again … mostly with Brendan up in my arms and ME doing all of the work! But then throughout the night, I would hear him humming the tune and singing the song. He has a really sharp memory and is VERY musical. 

 We also enjoyed tossing the bean bags around ...

 Brendan was really enthused about this ...

 I love the above picture of him. Sweetheart!

See the alphabet puzzle on the floor? We played with that for a long time too. AND I got out my animal memory cards and we had so much fun matching all of the animals up together and seeing if any of them were on our alphabet puzzle too! 

 While I was throwing some dinner together, Brendan requested I light some candles and get a few lighthouses out for him to play with … what a great little kid! He so enjoys these lighthouses.

 We read many books--train books and lighthouse books. We played our instruments for quite awhile too. And we naturally put all of the matchbox cars through our own pretend car wash.

 We topped off the night with an ice cream sundae! Brendan really loves ice cream sundaes, especially the whipped cream.

Kelly-O brought some shamrock cookies over--wasn't that sweet of her? We were too tired to eat them after all of that playing! I sent three back home with them and kept one for my lunch! Such a lovely together Tuesday!

My little love ...

My Little Fellow is growing up and getting SO big. I love him so much. I got to play with him Thursday after work. We did our usual stuff over at his house and enjoyed ourselves to the max.

 Our lighthouse keeper ...

 Our little engineer ...

 He is my little love ...

And this coming TUESDAY, he is coming over to The Beach House for a few hours while his folks have a date night. Pure happiness.

Notebooks, Bible stories, and memorizing ...

Somewhere around Christmas 2013, I began intentionally teaching my grandchildren the beautiful stories from God's Word. Since it was Advent time, we began with the birth of Jesus. There were SO many wonderful lessons to teach during Advent! Since the grandchildren are somewhat hyperactive, I felt it would work best if they had something to do with their hands while listening, so I began searching the internet for COLOR PAGES that would illustrate our lesson of the week.

It actually works really well, because you can GOOGLE just about any phrase from any story in the Bible, type in COLOR PAGES afterwards and voila'! There are usually quite a few to choose from. I just download those pictures and then print them off for the children to color.

After Christmas, we did a few stories about Jesus and then got right into the accounts of his last few weeks on earth. We studied these right up and through Easter 2014. We had a wonderful time learning together and coloring beautiful pictures too. I had made a separate file folder for each of the kiddos and that is where we were putting all of their artwork ...

…but I finally realized that they really needed a nice notebook to keep all of these pictures and stories organized, chronologically, if possible. This weekend, I finally purchased our notebooks, a 3-hold punch, and some dividers and put it all together for them. 

 After we finished all of our stories through Easter last year, the children all asked, "What next?" "What happened AFTER Jesus died and rose again, grandma?" YAY! What a joy to teach them all the way through the book of Acts! We worked on this from Easter and all the way through early fall, until we finished! 

 The last section of their notebooks is for memory verses. We have learned two 10-word verses together AND the children had already memorized a longer verse while at the church in Texas, so I included that one as well. We have been using our TWO HANDS and TEN FINGERS for our 10-word memory verses. Once we have memorized them, we are going to start putting our two hands together into a prayer and thank the Lord for each truth we are learning and ASK Him to do His work in our lives.

After we finished studying Acts, the children asked if I would go back to the BEGINNING and tell them the stories starting from THE START! So that is what we are doing. I am having the most wonderful time preparing our lessons every week. I love these stories. I love our God, who has been kind enough to write such a wonderful love letter to us!

A woodsy winter walk ...

Our temperature was above freezing today for the first time in many weeks … it was practically balmy outside--well, not really--but it sure was nice to be outside on a day like today.

 I drove over to Townsend Park to take a woodsy walk this afternoon!

 The sun was trying SO hard to break through … every now and then it would pop through the clouds and shine so beautifully ...

 But mostly it was a gray kind of day--not too windy, and really great for walking!

 Not much color in these photos! I am SO longing for GREEN!

The walk was good for me. I felt renewed and refreshed afterwards, and thankful I live nearby so many beautiful parks to explore and enjoy.

The hope of spring ...

These pictures make me think of being trapped in winter for a hundred years (like it has felt for the past six months) ...

 OR … I can focus on those beautiful red berries and remember that ...

 spring is much closer than it was a few weeks ago …

These berries are hanging off a little tree
just outside my work place. They
have been buried in ice for weeks now …
HOW have they survived?!!

Yes … the hope of spring … it always comes, just like God has promised. He will not let us down!

This little lad ...

During Lent, Brendan's family has special Wednesday evening services over at their church; so we have switched my visiting day to Thursdays until after Easter. Thursday works just fine with me!

I was very thankful to see my Little Fellow feeling back to his playful happy self after having been so sick! We got busy right away playing. Dolly was very hungry after driving Brendan's front loader truck (no picture taken--but it was so cute how Dolly fit right inside this cool truck and drove it around the front room loading Brendan's rubber ball that he kept throwing her way)--Dolly was exhausted and had to take a long nap afterwards and woke up super hungry. 

Brendan made her a nice sandwich with lettuce and cheese and then brought her a hot dog too … just in case she was still hungry. 

Brendan is holding a pretend ice cream sandwich in this picture. He is watching Dolly eat her sandwich. He enjoys pretending VERY much. 

Brendan's favorite is the ice cream sandwich ... 

 We naturally went downstairs to the playroom and played trains for quite awhile. Brendan has so many nice trains! Kelly tells all sorts of Thomas and Percy stories using the trains, and Brendan is so pleased to act everything all out ...

 It was a little bit chilly in the basement, so we wandered back on upstairs where Brendan showed me how he really LOVES to bounce and jump on his new bed ...

 I love his shirt, "Bedtime is for suckers" but thankful I am not the one that puts this little lad to bed each night … he's not one for sleeping alone for very long periods of time! He is a very social little person.

 Brendan had gone to a friend's third birthday party last week and received a few gifts himself. This little container he is holding out to me is filled with what I called "flubber," a smooth, cool, soft, moldable substance that was really fun to play with. Brendan giggled and laughed and just had the best time as we buried our fingers in this stuff and pretended we were STUCK … and then we put his little plastic animals in there too and tried to find them and rescue them from the flubber ...

 I asked Brendan to give me one last smile as I was putting my camera away … this was his adorable little scrunched up face--oh my, Brendan, you are something so precious! And as I was leaving, Kelly told me all about the song Brendan was singing in the grocery store about his Grandma Carol coming to visit, knocking on his door, and him smiling! Dylan was holding him as Kelly was telling me the story, and then he sang it for me! Wow--way to steal your Grandma's heart for the rest of her life! 

This is the tiny snowman Dylan and Brendan built yesterday after his nap. It is only about knee-high but it is so cute. Love you guys!