February 9 Valentine Cookies

Thursday evening:  A few days after Christmas (2022), Kaity complained to me that we never made any Christmas cookies together this year--she was right--we did NOT! The last few years, we've made a bunch of Christmas cookies and given them to family; but our family really doesn't do "sweets" and oftentimes the cookies just remain in their decorated tins and are never eaten (except by me). So I just let the Christmas season come and go without baking any cookies this year. However, Kaity seemed rather distraught about this so I told her we would decorate cookies for Valentine's Day instead.

Kaity's taste buds, however, have no lack of wanting for sweets. She has been known to make herself sick by eating too many. Notice how there are ZERO decorated cookies on the trays or table. Every time Kaity would get one all decorated, she would EAT it.

Thankfully, she did NOT get sick and all of the cookies finally got finished. Did I take a picture of any of the decorated ones? Apparently not!

Ah! Here's one ... we made TWO big ones like this: one for Kaity's mama, and one for Jesse. 

Also--it's been longer than a year since I have baked "sugar" cookies. I used my favorite recipe from my Better Crocker cookbook (which is ages old). Somehow I remember the cookies tasting better than they did this time. Is it possible that I've become less fond of sugar?!?!? I sure hope so.

February 9. Pine Island Art Show

Thursday:  I picked Kaity up from Jesse at 4:30 only to learn that there was an Art Show happening THIS VERY MINUTE over at Kaity's school!! We had to go right away!

This is watercolor on top of crayon--nice work, Kaitlynn!

I LOVE children's art! Kaity even introduced me to her Art teacher, who put all of the displays together for family to admire.

I like that this teacher enjoys multi-medium art and introduces it to these children. I would be a terrible Art teacher. I would ONLY do REALISTIC drawings, paintings, and the like ... and NEVER 3-dimensional. I have zero talent for anything other than what I have done my whole life. I don't even enjoy 3-D art.  HOWEVER, I have grown in my appreciation of others who DO ... so I guess I'm not too old to change my ways a little bit here and there.

Okay. I THINK this is clay ...
but I am not sure how exactly it is painted

Kaity was very pleased to be there. Thankfully, Kenzie and Harper and their folks showed up just after we did--so the girls hung out and ran around with each other for a little bit while I wandered with my camera.

This was the only photo Kaity would allow me to take of her ..

February 7

Tuesday:  I have a head cold today, so I am at about 50% ... it's going to be a challenge to keep up with little ones--but it will be okay.

I had a few things set up in the front room, and Cal got super excited when he saw the fishing poles and fish but then scooped about 10 of them up all at once in his fishing net. Good job, little one!

Erin played for a very long time with my little princess doll, changing her outfits and matching colors.

She had to show me every single time she changed her skirt or gloves or crown ...

Cal got out the puppets for awhile and fed our alligator (Alfredo) everything that would fit inside his mouth.

After getting out about 150 different cars, trucks, and planes, Cal staged separate crashes all over the house. I thought this US Air Force and jalopy crash was rather interesting.

See him checking out the back of the jet? He's very intent on figuring out all of the different parts of each vehicle.

Little kids! I wonder what makes them tick sometimes ... but aren't they fun?

I love this little one!!

Erin and I put puzzles together for awhile. We also played an abbreviated game of "WAR" using only number cards.

We drove back to their house in time to get Aidan off his bus and into the house. Both Erin and Cal had fallen asleep on the way home, so I carried them into their main room and covered them with cozy blankets. Aidan and I went downstairs to the basement for awhile ...

Aidan will be SIX next month! He told me all about the Minecraft game he has been playing ...

These two sleepers were difficult to wake up. I let them sleep for another hour, almost, and then Aidan and I came upstairs and made enough noise to awaken them.

Beautiful little ones. 

I talked to Brendan for awhile too--but no pictures of him once again. I'm going to have to be very intentional with my camera, or I will have ZERO pictures of Brendan in the future. 
 

February 4 Late for the Party

Saturday (late afternoon):  Kaity and I left her soccer game and zoomed on over to Brendan's house, just as most of the other kids were leaving--the party had started at 2pm after all. But I didn't want to miss Kaity's soccer game, and SHE did not want to miss coming over to see Brendan and celebrate his birthday. This was the best way we could figure out how to accomplish both things.

Brendan was still pretty distracted by his party when we arrived--he was saying goodby to lots of his friends--so I waited until he had finished and then he opened the few gifts I brought for him.

One of them was a battery-operated cube with lights that you can play games on--it looks like a fancy Rubik's cube, but it isn't really. I put batteries in it before I wrapped it up and tried to play a few of the games; but I'm not good at electronic games, so I wasn't impressed. Hopefully this wasn't an entire waste for Brendan.

Here he is looking at the box I made for him.

This is their great room, photographed from on top of the stairway--it must be a 30' drop to the bottom. We were flying paper airplanes off the top. Aidan was totally into this ...

Kaity enjoyed playing with the kiddos for awhile. They are always super thrilled to see and be with her--especially ERIN. Kaity is very good with little kids and she loves her cousins. We only stayed a little over an hour. It was time for dinner, and I had made spaghetti and meatballs for Kaity over at my house. 

I had started to notice as the day went on that my throat was getting sore and my nose was running and my head was aching ... and it only got worse with each hour. Thankfully, Emma was here when Kaity and I returned--so Kaity and Emma spent some time together. Look at the temporary tattoos Emma got through Amazon! Kaity picked a couple that she liked and Emma helped to get them on her arm and hand. 

These look good on you, Kaity!
 

February 4 Another soccer game

Saturday:  This is the THIRD soccer game for Kaity this winter. I am not good at action photography one single bit. I handed Jesse my camera and he adjusted the settings on it so that I could take multiple pictures in a row without blurring the action. But I didn't quite get the hang of it.

Although I will say ... these were zoomed in quite a bit and aren't nearly as fuzzy as the ones I usually take.

Kaity played a good game! It's always good (in my opinion) to see kids actually running around playing ball instead of sitting on a couch playing video games.

Kaity and I hurried away after her game for the drive over to Brendan's party ...

 

February 3 Brendan is ELEVEN

Friday:  Today is "Little Fellow"'s eleventh birthday. His party is tomorrow. Kaity and I are going to show up LATE to the party, but Dylan and Kelly tell me this will be just fine. Here is the card I made for his birthday, except I can't find the file that has the front of his card--this is the picture I used, but I altered it with words, etc. Oh well--this is the best I can for now. I love this picture of Brendan so much.

I also made Brendan a book of pictures (from his birth until now) of things he and I have done throughout his life. It took a LOT of doing to choose just the right photos. I have thousands of him. I am pleased with how the book turned out. I hope he likes it.

A few days ago, Kelly gave me the idea to order a "Huskie" shirt (from his school district), so I did that and am waiting for it to be delivered. It did not arrive in time for his birthday, sadly; but he will understand. 

February 2 with Kaity

Thursday:  Kaity and I hung out for a little while today at my house. Nothing special, except Kaity had some homework to do; so we sat at my wood table and worked on her math together. Man! I wish they did math like they USED to do when I was in fourth grade--but they do not! Anyway, I think we got it all finished, and Kaity did a nice job. She also had an English sheet to complete, which she did while laying on my couch, while Belle walked up and down her legs.

Kaity also showed me a work-out routine she has been working on and hopes to accomplish every day. It consisted of a lot of stretching, jumping jacks, crunches, and other painful stuff like that! While she was doing HER work-out, I googled an SITTING exercise routine for old folk and kind of worked on it. I really do need to keep moving. Getting old really slows me down sometimes.

While I was driving Kaity back to her dad's place, we got singing some songs and laughing together. We ended up having a nice talk about her grandpa (Jim) and told her some things about his life. She had a lot of questions and it was good to talk.

As Kaity was getting out of my car at her dad's, we noticed this beautiful full moon. Kaity snapped a few pictures of it with her phone, so I grabbed mine and did the same. Beautiful.