New Favorite Picture

It's wonderful to have a grandson that is so photogenic. Of course, I'm not prejudiced at all, right? It probably also helps to have a husband that is is such a great photographer. When Michael showed me this image I think I said to him, "This is my new favorite picture of Ty." The composition of the picture itself is wonderful with the lake and the wildflowers, etc. But darling Ty is what takes the picture from just a pretty scenic shot to a character shot.

What I mean by that is not that our grandson is a character; though he is-he's got a great personality. No I mean that I think the photo shows Ty's willingness to explore and experience life. He is very much a sponge at this point, soaking up ideas and trying new things.

He has great verbal skills too. Tonight when I said goodbye to them and added, "I love you." He piped right up with, "I love you too." We're starting to get to the point where our conversations are not his mom telling him what to say and him parroting it, but his very own observations and opinions expressed (sometimes strongly).

Ty is an original and I love this picture!

NS

Carynn, Jamie and Ty 2010

Aren't they a gorgeous family! I love this picture taken not too long ago in their backyard. The happiness on their faces is real. I'm so thankful that they are an eternal family and part of my eternal family.

I love them!

NS

Happy Birthday to Papa 2010

Michael's birthday fell on a Saturday this year and he was remembered by our children, his dad and brother, my mother and of course me. We decided to celebrate his birthday on Sunday with a barbecue. Jamie and Landan were our grillmasters. I cooked the corn on the cob and we had watermelon too. Yum!

After our tummies settled a bit it was time to get the party started with the birthday cake. As you can see from these pictures, Ty was very excited to help his Papa. Papa was happy for his help. Ty had a tough decision to make-though he really liked helping Papa open his presents, he really wanted birthday cake too, so there came a time when he opted to not help with the presents. It was a fun evening and we're so blessed to have family close.

Happy Birthday to Papa.

NS

Yes, she can be taught!

I've always been a pretty fair typist. Actually I'm being uncharacteristically modest, I trained as a secretary when they were called that instead of the politically correct term "administrative assistant," so I type quite well. When computers/word processors etc. came on the scene it was an easy transition for me on the typing part; some of the other stuff wasn't intuitive for me, but I like to think I can learn.

My last few blog posts are illustrative of that as Carynn taught me how to insert pictures on my posts and I've done it enough times now that I can say with just a tiny bit of confidence that I know how to do it.

I may add some pictures to some older posts. If I do, Dear Reader, I will make a note of it in a separate blog post referring to the old posts if you'd like to reference them. So I can say,

"Yes, she can be taught!"

NS

Rainy Days and Mondays

There's an old song by The Carpenters about rainy days and Mondays. The chorus of it talks about how rainy days and Mondays always get them down. Au contraire! Rainy days and Mondays can be quite fun as we witnessed yesterday.

It had been a weekend of travel for our children-Carynn, Jamie and Ty went camping; Lynette and some of her friends went camping somewhere else; Bret is traveling to Brazil as I write this, Laura, his pregnant wife, is not traveling; Melinda and Landan traveled to the cabin. Since we'd done some traveling earlier in the week, Michael and I opted to stay closer to home, literally.

I had decided to run out and get some material for a project-taking advantage of a great coupon when I received a call from Carynn and Jamie. Since the weather had been uncooperative they had ended their camping trip early and were wondering if Nana and Papa would like to watch Ty so they could go out. Of course I said yes, we love having Ty over.

We had a fun afternoon playing. These are some of the things I heard Ty say while he was over:

As he was all tucked into his car seat and we were leaving the parking lot of Target, "We're coming Papa."

As we were driving to our house he observed, "The trees go up, up, up to the sky."

Upon arriving at our house and seeing Papa, "Ty's back!"

When I offered to help him put together the tractor trailer that he was playing with he said, "No, Ty fix it."

In the kitchen and having a snack he looked outside and said, "Hummingbird" and then "Baby" as it was so small.

Placing himself in front of the freezer in the garage and saying he "wanted a treat." Then he further defined it by saying, "popsicle." I was so surprised that he remembered the popsicles from last summer that I looked into the freezer, found one and then instructing him to say, "Please, may I have," which he did, I then gave it to him. I know, I know, I shouldn't have caved, but... it was a very small popsicle, it wasn't going to spoil his dinner AND I'm a Nana and that's my job. Really, I found it in the job description: Give your grandchildren what they want, within reason. Okay, I made that up - it's not officially in the granparent handbook but every grandparent knows this unwritten rule. If I ever write a grandparent handbook it'll be in there.

Rainy days and Mondays are fun!

NS