I Would Give You My Heart

but it’s already been stolen.

By this guy.

Forever.

But try to have a wonderful Valentine’s Day anyway. :o)

 

Love you all!

Hankies

A couple of weeks ago I was cleaning out the closet in Bradley’s room. There are all manner of things stored in there, toys, games, books, Jessi’s high school memorabilia, Nick’s collection of Christmas ornaments, exercise tools, extra pillows, airbed, oh, and clothes. I came across a small cardboard box filled with odds and ends from Grandma Regier’s house. This box was stored in her guest room closet and no one wanted it when we cleaned out her house, so I brought it home, put it away, and promptly forgot about it.

The box held an antique swim dress, a velvet-lined box full of dress shields, some embroidered kitchen towels, a couple of sets of pillowcases, and quite an assortment of old hankies. Jessica was thrilled by the hankies, and we sorted through them, enjoying our new-found treasures. She picked out a few she wanted to keep, and I did likewise. All of them were washed and pressed, then divvied up between all of the Regier cousins. I hope they each enjoy having this small remembrance of Grandma.

As for the ones I kept, I put them in frames and hung them on the bathroom wall:

I love the touch of “vintage” they add to the room. Now I’m gonna have to re-do the bathroom again… :o)

First Cereal

Jess fed Bradley some rice cereal tonight – his first solid food. Here’s what he thought of it:

Sorry the photo is blurry – my camera, argh.

I did get a little bit of video. Oh, and yes, Jess calls him “whiner boy” all the time. With love. :o)

And he did spit up all of the cereal later…

Once again...

Yes, my computer is awaiting yet another repair, so I'm using Greg's laptop for a few minutes each day to try to stay caught up on email and such. Greg is going to attempt the replacement of the piece on my laptop where the power cord plugs in, but it'll be Wednesday or so before the part arrives. The computer shop wants $120-200 to fix it, and I just cannot justify putting that much $$ into a four and a half year old computer. Isn't that sad? Well, I'll either have my laptop back by the end of the week (fingers crossed) or will have to keep on stealing a minute here and there on Greg's until a new one comes along.

In the meantime, there are projects to work on around here that seem to get done quicker when there is no computer distraction. (Funny how I'm able to prioritize, huh..) One of those projects is finishing Bradley's bedroom, which has been the playroom for the past few years. Closet rearranging, furniture painting, and wall treatments will all happen. The toys will still be accessible for all of the kids, but the room will be his until he and his mommy get a home of their own.

Anyway, please wish us luck that my DIY handyman husband is able to figure out how to fix my computer, and stay tuned for updates on project progress!

Snowflakes I love

Several years ago I started collecting crocheted snowflakes to put on the Christmas tree. The summer before she got sick, my mom made several for me for my birthday gift, and I love them. I hung them on my Christmas tree, knowing what an effort it had been for Mom to learn to make them, and that she’d enjoyed learning a new handcraft.

The Christmas after Mom died, as I was unpacking my ornaments and decorations, I had a pit in my stomach and an ache in my heart. My mom loved Christmas and I was missing her so much. I called Tonita and we cried a little and she made me feel better. Then I opened the package that held the snowflakes. I literally felt like someone had punched me at first, but soon I was able to be comforted by the love they represented.

Over the years I’ve used the snowflakes well after Christmas as part of my winter decorations. Usually they’re on a small tree that stays up past Easter, but this year I did something a little different. You saw snowflakes hanging on the baker’s rack in my previous post – some are from Mom, but most of those are the ones I purchased.

They’re hung using twisted ornament hangers. The ones on the candlesticks just have their strings under the candles so they hang freely.

I wanted something wintry for my few apothecary jars, and filled them part-way with fake snow, then started looking around for something else to tuck inside. Aha! The snowflakes.

I love how these came out, so delicate looking.

So while I long for Springtime, I can’t help but enjoy these wintry displays. You see, they warm my heart.

Winter Therapy

The days have been gray – foggy, wet, cold, and depressing. Winter is a long way from being over.  In an effort to lift my spirits I picked up some clearance tulips at the store the other day.

Yes, those are snowflake decorations hanging on the baker’s rack, and I think they’re very pretty, but the tulips made me smile. They’re a little touch of Springtime, a glimmer of hope that this insane winter will one day go away.

The Faces of Boredom

My kitty boys are kept inside most of the time, and they’ve been okay about not having to be out in the cold and wet and miserable weather this winter.  But it gets a little boring being in the house all the time…

The other morning when I got home from work I found them on the table by the back door. Tucker was lying on the dirty clothes in the basket. Max was contemplating climbing inside my gym bag…

Well, perhaps that would take too much effort. Do you think if they just ignore me I’ll go away?

Snow Play

Last Saturday we had the kids here all day to play. The weather was beautiful and they spent some time after lunch out in the yard, climbing the snow hills.

Each of them got a spray bottle filled with colored water to “decorate” the snow.

I purchased “ironing spray” bottles at “SprawlMart” – they cost a little more than the ones in Health and Beauty, but I figured the volume difference was worth it. We only refilled each bottle once and they played over an hour with them. Be prepared to use a lot of the liquid food coloring in each bottle so the color shows up on the snow. I purchased the store brand at a little over a dollar for the four colors.

This activity not only fosters creativity, but teaches cause and effect, and is a good one for small muscle control. We had a little lesson in social development also when they had to choose to settle a dispute without squirting each other with the colored water. :o)

I love my decorated snow spots around the front yard. 

Sweet pea

Just showing off a photo of the grandboy and his mom. I took this last week when they were playing on the floor. 

Bradley was three months old last week. He’s starting to grasp objects and when he happens to get ahold of something,  puts it in his mouth – his favorite thing being our fingers.

He seems to be recognizing people, or realizing when he doesn’t recognize someone. He also recognizes the bottle and opens wide when you show it to him.

The jabbering continues, cooing and squealing and belly laughing. Takes after his mom…  :o)

Bradley’s First Christmas

Well Bradley’s first Christmas was definitely an adventure as far as the blizzard went. He was pretty laid  back about all the excitement, though. Jess is blessed to have such a good baby who takes the routine changes in stride.

He’s three months old today, oblivious to the gifts and celebrating, so the excitement of his first Christmas was ours. We actually didn’t go overboard with gifts this year, but cannot wait for next year – Grammy already has plans for a sled, and a wagon, and toys, and…

He’s pretty happy here while we wait for Grampy to wake up and join us to open presents:

Santa brought a Glo Worm that plays music. Santa said he was really impressed with it in the store, smiling and laughing. Here at home he was a bit puzzled…

It ended up that a nap was preferable to present opening…

Uncle Nick’s gift of a new bouncy seat turned out to be most useful for that.

Snowbound: Our Christmas 2009 Adventure!

We knew for days ahead of time that the storm was on it’s way. All of the headlines read “White Christmas”.  We awaited the freezing rain and the 6+ inches of snow they said were coming. But we were not prepared.

Not prepared for 50 mph winds.

Not prepared for 10’ high snowdrifts.

Not prepared for 18 hours with no electricity.

The rain/sleet/snow mix started on Wednesday morning. The highway was okay to drive if you went s.l.o.w. 

I had given my Thursday morning shift to one of the college girls, so when I went home Wednesday morning, I was home for the duration. The wind began to blow and the snowflakes were huge and abundant.

The rest of the family still had to work on Thursday, but each of them arrived home safely by mid-afternoon and I said a quick prayer of thanks that I had my little family together under one roof for the holiday.

Then the wind began to blow harder. Through the night I awakened several times to the howling and creaking and banging noises it made. Each time, another prayer of thanks that everyone was warm and safe at home.

By Christmas morning we were officially snowed in. Greg started periodically scooping by the back door so the drift there didn’t get so high we couldn’t open it. His brother came by with a blade on his pickup and made a path so he could get the Bobcat and start clearing the driveway.

We were able to get out and drive the block to Nanny’s and Poppo’s for lunch and presents, then back home to snuggle in and stay warm. Yeah, warm. For awhile, anyway.

I went to bed just after 10:00, falling asleep quickly. A few hours later I awoke, feeling the chill of the air in our room. I was puzzled since I’d set the furnace temp to stay at 68 through the night – usually it’s programmed to go down to 64. Anyway, I opened my eyes to darkness. No alarm clock numbers visible – no electricity.

By the time everyone got up and moving at daylight, I was heating some milk on the gas cooktop for hot chocolate. It was the best way to start this chilly day. This is what we found inside the front door when we opened it…

Greg got out and onto the Bobcat right away. Nick scooped by the front door, then went out to uncover his car – it was completely buried except for a few inches of antenna.

This is looking out the front window at Nick’s car. It’s out there – somewhere…

After the baby ate, Jess and Nick took him down to Greg’s brother’s house where they have a pellet stove and a generator. He stayed toasty warm all day and enjoyed having everyone love on him.

I stayed home and cleaned up our Christmas mess, keeping a big pot of water hot on the stove for dishes and handwashing. By mid-afternoon, though, I succumbed to the cold and headed down the street to enjoy the warmth of the pellet stove with everyone else.

Shortly before 5 p.m. the power was restored and we didn’t have to have a huge slumber party at Greg’s brother’s house after all.

I have no idea what the official total of inches of snowfall we had, but it had to be double digits. I’m thinking we not only had a white Christmas, we’re going to have a white winter.

A long, white winter.

My Tree on the Avenue

For the past few years the local library has offered their “Avenue of Trees” event for the holidays. They invite the public to bring decorated Christmas trees for display in the building from the weekend after Thanksgiving until the weekend after New Year’s.  Each year a growing number of individuals and groups bring trees of every size, color, and theme,  and turn that library into a Christmas forest!

The first year of the event, I think it was 2006, I was still at Head Start and we put together a small tree with crayon bundles and small wooden alphabet blocks as ornaments. It was simple and sweet and a good way to advertise for us.

The next year I took Grace to the library one day, not remembering about the trees, and she was entranced. She would have been just almost 3 and we spent a long time going from tree to tree, touching what was allowed.

This year I decided to take a tree of my own. My theme is “In Loving Memory” and I made ornaments with photos of loved ones who have passed on – my parents, my brother Arlan, all of our grandparents, and some of the great-grandparents.

The ornaments are photos sandwiched between two pieces of microscope glass, then soldered around the outside. While soldering, I attached a jump ring to the top so the ornament could be hung with a ribbon.

This is the wedding photo of Greg’s grandparents, Fred and Myrtle Wolfe:

My dad’s high school senior photo:

Mom when she was 15:

There are only 10 soldered ornaments and it’s a 4-ish foot tree, so I filled in with plastic silver ornaments and silver/white wired ribbon. A small plastic topper and some white fleece around the base finished it off.

I’ve had several compliments on the tree and a woman from Exeter called the last week wondering about the ornaments and where I got those frames. She said if I ever want to make her a dozen or so, give her a call. :o)

My tree is in the foyer of the library, and time was short the day it was set up, so I’ve not been to see the rest of the Avenue for this year. Perhaps this week? The twins will be here for the afternoon on Thursday, so maybe we’ll stop in after preschool and take a look. If so, I’ll share our favorites with you!

Decking Some of the Halls

Thanksgiving weekend began the decking of the halls as we helped decorate at our church here in town. It’s  tradition to wait until the evening of the first Sunday in Advent to traipse up the narrow, winding wooden stairs to the attic and haul down the boxes of festive adornments for the sanctuary.

(The photos I’m posting here I took from another blog by Nile Buch, our current supply pastor.)

The first thing to be set up is usually the model church. Like a dollhouse, it has furniture (pews) inside and is decorated for Christmas. You can see that it is lighted on the inside. There are lots of little details I’d love to show you – that’ll be a separate post.

I don’t know how old this church is, but it’s been on display at Christmas every year since I became a member of Zion 26 years ago.

Another tradition is garland and bows all around the sanctuary. Greg worked with a few others on that project.

 

I helped with the tree. A little bit.

Several years ago the congregation donated white and gold ornaments to replace the aged and worn ones we’d used for a long, long time. I think it makes for a beautiful tree.

 

Decorating the church has always been a family holiday tradition for us, but as the kids grew up and moved away, we got away from it. I was very glad that Greg signed us up again this year. It was a fun way to begin our holiday season!

Grandboy Update

WARNING: HE’S THE SWEETEST, CUTEST, STRONGEST, SMARTEST BABY IN HISTORY, SO I WILL BRAG ABOUT HIM.  :o)

Bradley will be 10 weeks old tomorrow and is growing and changing quickly as babies do. At his two-month check-up he weighed 12 lb., 14 oz. and was 23” long. Definitely a big, healthy boy.

He’s been pretty strong since birth, and is now pushing his upper body up off the floor, holding his head up and looking around.  Leslie took this one day last week:

Bradley is a happy baby, evident by the smiles and giggles we get all the time now. He’s vocalizing a lot, “talking” to us in baby jabber, squealing, and the sweetest contented sighs while he’s eating.  He’s pretty ticklish, especially under the arms and on the bottoms of his feet.

He’s always been a pretty good sleeper, going a good 6 hours at night, but a few weeks ago he had a couple of 8 hour nights. Last week he had his first set of shots and there were a couple of rough nights, but he’s been back to sleeping those eight hours again. I think one reason is that he’s found his thumb and can soothe himself back to sleep if he wakes in the night. (We love thumbs and will not discourage his use of them!)

He’s noticed the TV a few times, couldn’t tear his eyes away from the movie “Star Trek” the other night (Uncle Nick will be proud!), and loves to watch Giada DeLaurentiis on Food Network. He doesn’t care for Rachel Ray (again, Uncle Nick will like that).  Last night he paid rapt attention to the Nebraska football game.

His first Thanksgiving went great – he doesn’t mind being passed around in a group of strangers, or the noise in a house full of family.

Jess and I haul him all over Creation to run errands or workout at the gym, but when the weather is bad, he’s happy to stay with Nanny & Poppo or Aunt Leslie and the kids.

We truly feel blessed to be able to share in Bradley’s first months, to be able to hold and care for him daily.  I have to confess that I say a little prayer of thanks every day that he and his mommy are here.

Oh the things you see…

Yesterday I cleaned out photos on  my cell phone. This means I downloaded anything I didn’t already have, then deleted everything off my memory card. Sometimes there are odd photos on that cell phone and I wonder “why?”.  Obviously some are taken as blog fodder, but never offered up since I’m so great about blogging on a regular basis…

Anyway, here are a few things I found on my phone that I intended to share with you:

This is Baby, the “stray” cat I’ve been feeding for a few months in the hope that she’ll keep the mice at bay in the garage. (I put stray in quotes because I think she belongs to the neighbors who bring cats from the farm and then just let them run  all over.) She likes to sleep in the garage rafters and is very friendly. When working in the garden she’d come lie down nearby and purr when I scratched her head.  I must also mention that I’m not the only one in the neighborhood who feeds this darling. We’re all hoping she’s a good mouser.

Next up, a pretty decorated wine bottle:

 

One of my regulars at the gym in the mornings bought this at a huge craft show in Omaha recently. She knew I’d like it, and was kind enough to bring it for show and tell one day. I’m thinking something like this would be neat back in our wine center, so I snapped some photos in order to be a copycat. There are four empty wine bottles in the garage waiting to be donated to a friend of Greg’s brother’s for use in his homemade wine-making hobby – one of them probably needs embellishment. Stay tuned.

Last, but definitely not least, we have perhaps one of the oddest things we’ve ever seen. Jess and I were in Lincoln in early September and when we drove past this, um, display. It struck us both as being hilarious, so I slowed the car way down and she grabbed a photo. Doesn’t this just make you want to buy ice cream?

I didn’t think so.  :o)

After the Carnage

It’s been almost a week ago that the shelf fell down in the laundry room and we lost almost all of the produce we’d canned during the summer.  Today I finally gathered all of the surviving jars next to the sink and washed each one. Several were coated in syrup, and shards of glass glued to the outside. Don’t ask me how I discovered that…

Here are the survivors, all shiny and clean after a hot soapy bath and vinegar water rinse:

I removed and tossed many dented rings, but the seals held on everything except three jars of apple butter. 

I appreciate all of the kind comments of sympathy. I truly feel fortunate that we have anything left of our hard work and each time I open one of the surviving jars, I’ll be a little more thankful than before. :o)

Losing the Bounty

So yesterday morning at 7:15 Jessica called me at work and this is how part of our conversation went (approximately):

J: “Mom, where did you keep the stuff you canned this summer?”

Me: “Where do I keep the stuff I canned?”

J: “Where did you keep the pickles and green beans and stuff? I know where they are now, I just want to know where they were.”

Me: “It’s all on a shelf in the laundry room, why?”

J: “No, it was on a shelf in the laundry room. Now it’s all over the floor.”

Me: “The shelf fell down?!” (Thank you, Captain Obvious!)

J: “There is broken glass, pickles, and green beans everywhere.” (Compelling reading, no?)

Yes, the shelf that Greg safely installed high up on the wall in the laundry room had too much weight hanging off the front of it (where I had hung Bradley’s full clothes hamper to get it off the floor…) and the metal supports just couldn’t handle the load. They bent almost 180 degrees, pulling the shelf out of the brackets and flat against the wall, perpendicular to where it had been.

There were jars of green beans, dill pickles, cinnamon pickles (the syrup!), and apple butter stacked neatly up there, along with extra jars and a box of miscellaneous canning supplies. Here is a snapshot of what I found when I got home:

Jess had cleaned up much of it already so I never saw the entirety of the mess. This was enough to sicken me, though. Yes, that is the cat box in the lower left-hand corner, full of fresh litter and now, dill pickles.

It took me about an hour to get through the broken glass and scattered food on the floor, mop up the syrup and bean juice, and run the Swiffer over it all to hopefully pick up all of the tiny shards of glass. That was all I had time to do before we had to leave for Jess’s and Bradley’s six-week check at the doctor’s office in Lincoln. By the time we got home early in the evening, the floor had dried with a sticky syrup-glue coating. It was just staying that way overnight. I was tired.

First thing this morning out came the bucket, rags, and scrub brush. It took almost an hour to do just the laundry room floor, but now it’s all shiny clean and our shoes don’t make that sticking, slurpy sound when we walk back there.

If I have to guess, I’d say we lost 80-90% of what we canned. There are a few jars of each thing that did not break, and a couple of empties that survived the crash. Fortunately, this loss doesn’t mean we won’t eat this winter, though it is disappointing to lose what we worked so hard on together. It all sucks, but if we look on the bright side, which I always must do, no one was standing back there when it happened, so no one got hurt. And I’m sure there would have been injuries if a person had been under that shelf when the Mason jars came tumbling down.

I still need to wash those jars that survived and put everything back where it belongs in the laundry room, and the baby is asleep, so now’s my chance. Off to work…

Baptism Day

Baptism: The act of baptizing; the application of water to a person, as a sacrament or religious ceremony, by which he is initiated into the visible church of Christ. This is performed by immersion, sprinkling, or pouring.

Today was Bradley’s day to be officially welcomed into the body of Christ that is Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church. His family and friends pledged to raise him in a Christian environment and teach him about the church, “placing into his hands the Scriptures”.

Sara and Nick, along with Jessi’s very good friends from North Dakota are his sponsors.

(From l to r: Sara, Nick, Jake, Jimmy, Marae, Brandon, Bradley, Jessica, Pastor Buch)

In a few short years he’ll be old enough to attend Sunday School and VBS, and have a part in the Christmas program. We haven’t done any of that in a long time, and this Grammy looks forward to it again. :o)

What fun we had!

Halloween has always been one of our favorite holidays. We enjoy the costumes, the decorations, and passing out the candy.  When our kids were still young enough for trick-or-treating, Greg and I would take turns each year, one of us staying home to answer the door, the other toting the kids around town for the candy-fest.

Obviously, with our kids being 22 and 25 years old, we haven’t done the trick-or-treat thing for several years. Instead, we just enjoy the young ones who come to the door, chatting with those who aren’t too shy, and pretending to be horrified at the scary ones.

The past few years, Wyatt, Garett, and Grace have been our helpers, answering the door and giving away handfuls of candy to each trick-or-treater who came up on the porch. This year they did the same, up until time to head out into the neighborhood themselves for their first time to wander the dark streets, begging strangers for candy.

Here we are when they first arrived and were pretty cooperative about picture-taking. Wyatt is Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots, the good Transformers. Garett is Bumblebee, guardian of the kid in the movie, also an Autobot, and only talks through the radio. Bradley the Cat has no idea what in the sam-hill is happening, and Grace was the Snow Princess with beautiful hair, though you can’t really see her hairdo in this picture. 

When it was time, we met up with niece Hannah and her two young cousins, Olivia and George, who are visiting from Hawaii with their parents. Grace decided Olivia was pretty wonderful and the two of them walked and talked. We didn’t get to hear much of their conversation, but at one point Grace was heard to tell Olivia, “I live in the country.”, to which Olivia replied, “I live in the jungle!”

Here they are at their first house, getting treats from our sweet neighbor, Jo:

(Bradley had to stay home with Grampy.)

For awhile, Garett followed behind Olivia, clucking like a chicken. We aren’t sure why. :o)

We pass out candy for the trick-or-treaters, but I always have something else for Wyatt, Garett, and Grace. This year the big hit for Wyatt was the glow-bracelets and glow-sticks that I picked up at Dollar Tree. We’ll definitely invest in those again. Here he is using two bracelets to make himself some eyeglasses:

It was a very fun evening, and I enjoyed that little blast-from-the-past from when my kids were little. Next year, if the weather is good, little Bradley may get to go along. Oh, Grammy can’t wait!!