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Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Happy Birthday, Jon Christian

It is very hard for me to believe that my first born is the big "40 " today. I am very blessed by the man and the father he has become. (yes, I was definitely a child bride) Ha, ha who am I trying to kid, I am older than dirt.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JON CHRISTIAN
May 28 , 1968

I love you, you have made your mother very proud

Monday, May 26, 2008

weekend projects

We finally got the anchors put in the swing set. The last few days Uncle Roy has been pushing Matt on the swing while I was the anchor Susan actually bought the swing set. Matt's other grandparents got him one of the wooden sets with the fort etc, like Papa and Nana got for Josh and Jackie's girls. Wondering why the small slide is there........because I refused to allow Matt to bring the step ladder from the garage (I can do it, Gramma, it would be OK with Papa) and this became his second choice for a ladder. Aside from being safer, he swings out on the trapeze, comes back to the slide, and then he slides down. Very creative, that boy!


The other project we worked on was putting the annuals in our garden in the front. I raked out all the old mulch Saturday and then weeded it. This morning we went to Lowes for some plants and mulch. I do have a few more plants that will be coming up this summer. Two of which I think are mums.

Betsy and Kenny Ashley came down on Friday night to open Betsy's sister, Carol's pool on Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon, they all came over (and both Betsy's and Carol's dog)so everyone could meet our little Alice. Funny, Lisha and Zoe were born only days apart and had been great friends since they were puppies. Alice and Lisha became fast friends as well. We were outside in the yard and all the dogs (and Matthew) were running and playing. We moved into the house so Betsy could cut the back of my hair when Alice turned into an absolute wild dog. Our LR is not very large, we have an 8ft. window seat on the front wall, 2 recliners as well as a table and lamp on the other wall; the TV armorie is on the third wall and a love seat and 2 ottomans make up the fourth. Everyone was sitting in the LR when Alice began racing around and jumping from one person to the next if she could or just running up and jumping on them if she could not. She just kept running like some wild dog. Betsy said it was like a little kitten would do. Anyway, I was mortified,; everyone else was hysterical. On Sunday afternoon we ( Wm. Uncle Roy and I) met them (Betsy, Kenny and Carol) at Cracker Barrel for lunch. It was great to see them again and my hair looks terrific!



























Thursday, May 22, 2008

Snip-its.........again

Matt went to Snip-its again last night. Papa worked until 6 so it was 6:15 before they left here. His new haircut was little more than a trim but at least he is not shaggy anymore. Papa told Matt if he was a good boy, they would stop at (old) MacDonald's for dinner. This is the strange part. Matt got a kids meal with chicken nuggets and fries. (he does not usually eat chicken nuggets) and he ate the entire meal as well as some of Papa's salad. It was 8:30 before they got back here, 1/2 hour past his bedtime! No, Papa did not take pictures but Matt let me take this one today.

Ya gotta love Snip-its.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

disappointed

I had an appointment with the orthopedic surgeon this morning. It has been 9 months since I had the euflexxa shots in my knee and it can be repeated after 6 months. I was hoping that I would be able to start the series of shots today. They did give me a cortisone shot ( 2 actually) while they waited for the authorization from Blue Cross/Blue Shield. Now we are hoping for next week. Being the pessimist I am, I can see the authorization coming on Wed of next week because they are only in the Liverpool office on Tues, meaning I would need to wait an additional week to start the series of shots.

Papa dropped me off at the doctor and he took Matthew to IMS to see where he works. It has been all that Matt has talked about since Papa asked him if he wanted to go.

After work today, Susan and Papa are taking Matt to Snip-its to get his hair cut. He told me during lunch that he was going to go with Papa alone; "you and mama are not going". I said Mama likes to take pictures and his reply was "well, Papa knows how to take pictures you know!"

Thursday, May 15, 2008

adjustments

I realize there is a time of adjustment for Alice to get use to us and to our home. She came from a breeder in Hastings, NY. No, not of bassets but of golden labs I found that a little strange but here is the story we were given. They raised golden labs, their teenage daughter wanted a basset hound puppy. They finally got her one and then she wanted to breed her. A year ago, Alice had 11 puppies, they kept one and then their daughter lost interest in both Alice and her puppy. There were getting rid of both of them.

Alice was crate trained. Yes, that is good but she was never a house dog. When she was not outside (200 acres where she could run free) she was in the crate. Getting use to being inside is hard for her. At first, she wanted inside until you let her out, when she wanted to be inside again. She is a counter surfer (3 of our other bassets were as well) and she is a Houdini wannabe. She escaped through the spindles on the front gate when Matt and I had her on the front porch with us. She had no collar on and Matt and I were barefoot as we chased her through the neighborhood so I had to carry her home. Other than that she has been very good. Well, she does seem to have a paper fetish and rips up every scrap of paper she finds.

She follows me around all day. It has only been in the past few months that Matt has stopped following me to the bathroom, now Alice does. I have finally stopped Matt from unrolling the toilet paper but yes, you guessed it, Alice now does. What really surprised me was when she came running into the bathroom after pushing open the door and jumped right on my lap!

All in all, she is a very sweet girl. She adores Matt and he always wants to be with her. We walk her a couple times a day and he takes a turn holding the leash. For never having been on leash other than when she went to the vets, she walks pretty well, even for Matt. She still has not barked, PTL.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

We have a new addition to our family. We got a beautiful little girl basset hound, Alice, who is 3 yr. old. She is adorable and she absolutely adores Matthew. She was outside when we got there to pick her up. We took Matt along because if she did not like him or he did not like her, it would not have been possible for us to get her. Once we got out of the car she made a bee line for Matthew. All the way home, she rode with her back feet on the seat and her front feet on Matt's car seat, licking his face while he giggled with contagious laughter. They ran around the back yard together for a while when we got home. She has yet to bark, PTL
Anyway, here are some pixs of Alice and Matt and Papa in the backyard.
I love her markings. Zoe was also tricolor but she was predominantly brown with a little white.

Stretching out my Mother's Day

I had a very enjoyable Mother's Day weekend. Yep, the entire weekend! Susan took Friday off work and took Matt (Tyler and Aunt MerryBeth went too) to Medina for a "Day out with Thomas". This meant my weekend began in Fri. Uncle Roy and I went to breakfast at Cracker Barrel and then to the Christmas Tree Shop (I do love a bargain) and then to Big Lots. I was elated. I love to find bargains and my sweet William hates those places. He will take me but he stays in the car and there is no fun searching for a bargain alone.
Saturday, Wm. got the tub surround up finally after a lot of frustration from the not so square walls. Saturday night we took my MIL to Kirby's for dinner. They have the best BBQ ribs in town (OK, maybe the dinosaur BBQ is better but I rarely go there.
Sunday afternoon Matt came over to bring his card and gifts.
We did not even try to out for dinner on Mother's Day. Instead we went to Tassone's for the all you can eat crab legs on Monday night. (( found a gift certificate Matthew had given me for Grandparent's Day last year).
I was a little sad only having one of my children and one of my grandchildren with me for Mother's Day but Alyssa called and I talked to all the girls, yep, even Lauren :-) Jon and his family are at the shore in NC this week but I did hear from them too.
I loved being a mother but I really love being Gramma!

Thursday, May 08, 2008

early Mother's Day bouquet

I got an early Mother's Day bouquet from Jon, Donna, Morrigan and Max.


Hmmmmm...... I guess the standard has been set :-)

Sunday, May 04, 2008

musings

Wm. went to Canton this weekend to help Josh put privacy fence in the back yard. When we started thinking about going we were both going. Jackie and the girls had gone with her parents to a wedding on LI and I really did not see myself helping with the fence. My knee is in desperate need of another round of Euflexxa shots in it and my back has ached every day since I broke it 14 yr. ago, Riding is not easy for me although knowing my sweet grandchildren are waiting at the other end, does make the trip more bearable. The more I thought about them not being there, the more I thought staying home and accomplishing something was better than going and not seeing them but having to do my weekend chores on Sun. when we got home. I opted to stay home, and do something while Wm. went by himself to help Josh. Did I mention we were in the middle of putting in a new tub surround in our bathroom, our only bathroom? No? Well, we were. Last Sunday afternoon, I told my DH that the caulk around the tub was loose almost all the way around. He went in to scrape off the old caulk and then zap, the tub surround was gone. Now we never liked it in the first place and there were a couple of small cracks in it. Once it was gone we went to Home Depot and Lowe's looking for a replacement. Lowe's were special order and that would have added an additional 2 wk. to the project.
You have no idea how thankful I am to have my DH back home working on the bathroom tub surround. The fence went in without any hitches and he came home on Sat. night. Now he was gone 12 hours, which makes for a long day but he is home and I am so blessed. Not just because he is finishing up the bathroom and soon we will be able to take a shower again; but also because I just love having him here with me. There are only so many sponge baths a person is willing to take. :-)
Did I mention I got a bread machine and I have been making gluten free bread for Wm? Until today I have been using a mix from Wegman's but this is getting expensive. I think I mentioned before that gluten free pasta is $3.50 for 6 oz. Wegman's has 2 different bread machine mixes, one is $3.50 and the other is $6.00. (it also takes 1 egg and 5 egg whites to make this bread) .