Hemmer family just keeping in touch.

Grandparents Day

2010-09-21T21:22:00.000-05:00

It was Grandparents day at school today. This little girl is growing up so fast. The bond her and I had for the first 3 years of her life has made a special place in my heart, they say that will never go away. I can't say that I love her more than the other two grandchildren, I have plenty of love to spread out between all of them but Elly and I connect. Not sure how or why, we just do.

Here is our note that she wrote us.

Grandma watch me, I can do cartwheels in the classroom.

Grandchildren fun

2010-03-21T20:43:00.000-06:00

I love to spend time with the kids and the grandkids, they are getting to be so much fun but poor El has a hard time understanding that Grandma isn't only hers anymore. She wants to play games and the other two either can't be near the small pieces or they want to play too. Garrett decided he wanted to play Uno with us and to her that was the worst thing ever but he thought he was a big boy playing games with Grandma (Ma to him) and Elly.

Garrett being a big boy while Elly pouts

Ma trying to explain to Garrett how to play the game.

Toy box fun, let's all get inside and see who we can squish.

Miss Mallory played so hard and so good, she is such a good baby. As long as there are toys she is happy.

I hope I'm playing peek-a-boo with Mallory or these three are really getting to me.

Everything about this next photo is wrong, it's out of focus it's over-exposed and it's just not a technically good photo but I love it. I'm not sure what Lynn said to us but it must have made all of us open our eyes really wide.... so funny. Our grandchildren are not going to remember the days I made them dress in good clothes, sit in a certain spot, smile at the camera at a certain time.... they will remember the times Grandma got on the floor and played with them!!

Mallory still playing all by herselft while Elly and I try to get a quick game of Uno in.

Treasure your time with your kids, they grow up too fast. Now I enjoy the days they come over to hang out, eat pizza and just play..... of course we usually have a sleep over guest after days like this..... someone still needs her Grandma alone time : )

Garrett’s 1st Birthday

2009-11-17T21:28:00.001-06:00

Jett and Jake seem to think Garrett shouldn’t get clothes for his birthday…. I’m wondering why he got Bud Light???

Elly got him a shape bucket, because he likes the one at Grandmas house.

His Mommy and Daddy got him a bead maze, I think it’s his favorite.

Can I have it mom? Please!!

He bearly got messy but he loved all the attention.

Here is the sweater that Adam wore when he was 2 so the girls thought it would be fun to have Garrett sit on Adam’s lap and make their mother cry. Adam had that white hair just like him…. where does the time go?

I’m not so sure I could have stuck that toothbrush in my mouth…. it’s usually dripping with Garrett drool.

Then Jett was wearing an Adam t-shirt too….. those girls are not nice to their mother.

Halloween adn Garrett's 1st Birthday

2009-11-01T18:11:00.002-06:00

Here is the birthday boy in his giraffe costume, with of course his toothbrush. He can now walk all over, get himself up without help and can even walk while dragging his blankie between and under his feet. At one point we even found him almost completely upstairs.... I guess that means he can climb steps really fast.

Elly loving her picture taken with Mallory.

Miss El the kitty cat sporting her new haircut.

Here's all three of them. Garrett can hardly move, Mally can't see and El refuses to wear her ears. Gotta love Halloween.

Elly (6.5 years) and Garrett (1 year)

Coffee Cake Recipe

2009-10-09T21:54:00.003-05:00

I found this recipe on someones blog but I can't find the link anymore or I would certainly give them credit and leave a comment on how wonderful this cake is. I made it last night and as John knows I rarely follow all the directions (which drives him crazy). I'll give you the real recipe and then I'll add my alterations below.

Coffee Cake

1/2 cup butter, softened
8 oz cream cheese
1 tsp. almond flavoring
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 3/4 cup blueberries tossed in 1 T flour and 2 T sugar

Lemon Glaze:
2 cups powdered sugar
2 T lemon juice
2 T heavy cream
1 T softened butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine butter, cream cheese, almond and sugar; beat until fluffy. Add eggs and then flour, baking powder and salt. Then fold in blueberries. Bake in a well-greased bundt pan for 35-40 minutes. While it cools, combine ingredients for glaze and stir until smooth. Drizzle over pound cake and enjoy.

Okay I didn't use blueberries I used apples to the same amount and tossed with the flour/sugar mixture. I didn't make the glaze since I don't really like the sweet frosting and I'm not really a lemon fan. It was fabulous without the glaze.

After last night and tonight eating half of this cake I realize it taste much like a cream cheese danish and I love cream cheese danishes. I love just about anything with cream cheese and then when you add almond flavoring.... ummmm yeah that's the bomb. It's suppose to be a crappy weekend so go bake this with whatever fruit you have in the house or even without fruit would be good too.,and then sit in front of the fire and eat the whole pan so I don't feel so bad.

Adam updates

2009-09-22T21:32:00.008-05:00

I started this post back in Sept and decided I should probably finish it up before too much more time passes by.

Adam bought a new truck so the ole' car is no longer going to be seen on the open roads. I know you will all miss that car and you will no longer be able to wave to Adam since you won't know it's him coming but there is no way on this little green earth that he is going to screw any horns or antenna's to this truck.... right Adam? You'll all have to just get used to Adam in the white clean truck, at least he kept the same color.... I'll tell him to watch for you and wave. Here is Adam with his past and present pride and joy...

Adam has been going to school about 40 minutes from home and his first class starts at 7:30 AM, yes AM and that class is 5 days a week...... his mornings are no longer meant for sleeping in as he likes to do. I get up before him and then when I'm done in the shower I knock on his door and open it slightly so the hall light shines in on his face. Adam is either somewhat awake when I do this or his sense of "Emmerich" humor is way strong and he can't help it. I will let you in on a couple of morning wake up conversations

Me - Wake up Buddy Boy

Adam - Leave a message after the beep....... beep

Me - Morning Bud
Adam - I don't smell the coffee

Me - Up Son
Adam - They canceled school due to lack of interest

Me - Good Morning
Adam - Good afternoon, I must have missed school today

Me - Are you getting up buddy
Adam - I already took a shower

Me - Sun's up
Adam - No I'm not

It's always interesting as to what the next morning will bring, but Adam gets up every morning with no complaints, he doesn't like it but he does it. I think sleeping in is a Emmerich thing too, I wish I liked getting up in the morning but I hate it. That is one of the reasons I cannot nap during the day.... two mornings in one day I couldn't handle that.

More Hemmerfest

2009-08-28T15:00:00.001-05:00

Okay so since I have a day of vacation and it’s raining outside let’s load up some more Hemmerfest pictures for you to see.

I think this is where we left off….. Hummmm I’m not sure why this happened but I got the pictures. From left to right is Michelle, Shawna, Grandma Hemmer, and David.

Here is poor Grandma getting her hair done by the others…. don’t tell anyone but Shawna is a licensed hairstylist!!

There now she looks Purdy!! Anyone want a appointment with Shawna?

Ohhhh one tidbit of information so it doesn’t look like all the kids’s fault….. Grandma had a very large Old Fashion and then everytime I got near her she would drink out of my glass….. not a sip either like gulping half my glass. She loves Paul’s Old Fashions!!

The little kids were feeling left out, they wanted to know why wrapping yourself in toilet paper was so fun. : )

Megan is showing Grandma her lovely pictures…. Shawna looks like she may be in trouble…… hint – look in Grandma’s hand

Here is what Grandma thinks of all of us picking on her… I think she belongs on the front of a Hallmark Card!!

All kidding aside they really are the reason we have Hemmerfest for a number of reasons

1) They had 5 wonderful sons who married awesome girls who had beautiful children who now are marrying great people and together they are having beautiful children….. Circle of Life

2) They gave this land to their sons when they sold the farm and it has been the family gathering place for everyone.

3) They taught their sons to enjoy the outdoors and ride around the woods…. summer or cold winter it’s always good weather for a picnic.

Hemmerfest

2009-08-17T22:05:00.001-05:00

During our Hemmerfest weekend we took hayrides around the block. We borrowed the hayrack from Bill and Gayle and Bill made sure he put the slow moving vehicle sign on the back of the rack…. ahhh oooopps I think I covered that up with the Hemmerfest 09 sign.

On our hayride we stopped at the old Hemmer farm and had the sons that were on the ride stand in front of the house for a picture. It’s sad to see the house but it still holds lots of memories for them.

I can take you for a ride on my big green tractor,
We can go slow or make it go faster,
Down through the woods and out to the pasture,
Long as I'm with you it really don't matter,
climb up in my lap and drive if you want to,
Girl you know you got me to hold on to,
We can go to town but baby if you'd rather,
I'll take you for a ride on my big green tractor.

Next ride was for the kids so all grandchildren and great grandchildren stand on the steps and stop acting goofy…. yeah right. Gilbert and Fran sold the farm when I was 8 months pregnant with Adam. Adam is the last grandchild of 12 and now there are 9 great grandchildren.

Josh, Jake and Jett

Mallory and Lynn enjoying their ride

Here is Garrett finally smiling, he was cutting all 4 teeth on the top this weekend and ohhhh was he crabby. Poor baby

We went back to the farm one more time to get a picture of all the grandchildren that were at Hemmerfest. These kids were so darn funny and having such a good time together. I never laughed so hard for so long, they all have different memories of the house Grandma and Grandpa lived in, well expect for Adam he doesn’t remember a thing!!

They are from the top left Adam, David, Jody, Shawna, Shannon, Megan, Sarah and Lynn.

Here’s the girls without those dumb boys…. Poor Adam and David were out numbered. Don’t you just love those Hemmerfest shirts?

yeap we had no fun on this trip to the farm.

And here was Grandpa and Grandma’s ride from Adam. They got to ride around the woods. They love to be able to get out and see what is happening, right now it’s lots of mud so Grandma screamed at Adam most of the trip…. did he slow down or go around the mud….. I’m thinking not, he loves to mess with his Grandma.

This is enough for tonight but I have plenty more.

Garage Sales are the best

2009-07-31T17:07:00.005-05:00

I didn't realize how well I liked finding deals until this summer and even more fun is envisioning what it could be with a new coat of paint or give it a new use besides what it's designed for. I thought I'd show you a few finds that made my heart skip a beat.

Here is a yucky gold mirror and two vases that tug on my heartstrings and beg for fresh flowers.

Now here's the mirror that I seen as a fun apple green accent for the living room. Also remember the large round mirror that I used as a coffee table for awhile, it's still in the same finish but moving it to a new area gives it new life. I am considering painting it but so far I like it brown and rugged. Check it out here as a coffee table.

Here it is closer so you can see the detail in the frame, of course I had to rough up the new paint treatment, that's just what I do.

Now here's my finds from today. I took Shan and the kids out of town for a doctor appointment and very close to the clinic were tons of.... yeap you guessed it, garage sale signs. I had a whimper in my voice and told Shan we were going after the appointment. Her suggestion was for me and El to go while her and Garrett were at the clinic for an hour and a half appointment..... super "can you jump out as I roll past the door?" I got a jacket and purse to match my house decor, every girl needs clothes to match her house. Check it out here.

Then I was looking for a box to hold my make up on my make up stand, I wanted something with a cover so it wouldn't get dusty and I also wanted it to be pretty. After a coat of paint, a fun design or words and a little re-do on the inside this twenty-five cent jewelry box will be great. Then El found a bring pink one that will work great at two upcoming weddings we have and it was also a quarter.

Then I found a old tool tray that was full of spiderwebs and had small little compartments that needed to find a new home in my garden or maybe this fall move into the livingroom, after he gets a fresh coat of paint to hold magazines, candles, jars, beads, flowers.... hummm yeap and it was only $1 and it said Earl on the side of it. The little old lady told me "I hope it holds your tools just like it did my husbands".... ahhhh yeah, that's right it will.

A chair for 1 dollar, I see these in magazines all painted with fun colors all the time.... MINE!!

Then the item that made me pee my pants, I was late for picking up Shan and El was begging me not to go to this one but I was right there and it would only take me a second. There it was right at the opening of the tent.... a clay fire chimney. OMG and the price was only $50, do you know how much these are new? I never deal at garage sales, I just pay the price they want but I thought what the heck lets try a deal.

Me - "I'll give you $30 for the fireplace"
Man - "I'll have to ask the boss"
Man - "Hey, wanna take 30 for the fireplace?"

Boss - "Ummmmmm"

Man - "Do you want to get rid of it"

Boss - "Fine"

Me - {peeing my pants} "I'll get the truck"

Here are my last 3 finds, and Shan didn't even care that I was 15 minutes late. I love deals and I'll be sure to update you with the finished projects.

House Update

2009-07-28T08:44:00.004-05:00

Since I haven't shown you the wide view with the column being stained and the table painted here is a look into our space.

I love the updates and now living in an old house is so homey and the character you get cannot be repeated, if you want to remember what we started with go here or here. Now I have to start saving my loose change for hardwood flooring throughout the entire downstairs. When we moved into this house there were hardwood floor throughout both floors and we have managed to cover them all except in Adam's bedroom (I painted that one). My only dilemma is what to do with the steps, John doesn't like my idea of rebuilding them so I'll have to do some magazine shopping and find the perfect solution.

Summer time with the grandkids

2009-07-26T21:47:00.005-05:00

Elly - Age 6

* Elly finished her first season of soccer.
* She liked the games but not practice.
* She is not aggressive enough to get in there and kick like the other kids.
* If another kid fell down or got hurt she would stop and ask them if they were okay.
* She made lots of new friends and one BFF, this weekend she spent the night at her house.

Garrett - 8 months
* Garrett got used to his nightly naps in the stroller during the games.
* We loved spending the time with him twice a week, we're gonna miss him now.
* He's a momma's boy, we had to keep Shan out of his sight and she had to keep quiet or he'd whine for her.
* Grandpa loves his little boy.

Mallory - 7 weeks
* It's time to smile and coo
* Mallory is recognizing voices and faces.
* She's gaining a little weight, she's not so fragile anymore.

Flower Walk

2009-07-20T08:14:00.001-05:00

I thought I’d take you on a flower walk since almost all the lilies are blooming. Of course it just got done raining and I’ll tell you the names of them if I remember. I don’t remember this one’s name and it’s a huge flower.

Moonbeam Coreopsis

Volunteer Petunias that are coming up inside my bricks on the front steps. I have problems with plants coming back from their seeds of last year.

This Lilly is so white until the pollen gets blown around on them. I guess I can’t remember many of their names, I should have taken notes while I took them or stop being so lazy and walk back out there to look at their tags.

Salsa

Dancing Eyes

Shirley

America

Coneflowers are getting close

Some stray Lupines are still blooming and Pink Poppies in the back…. don’t worry they are in the garden that I don’t care about so they can grow as much as they want.

Purple Loosestrife

Gara – This is an annual that I put in my pots…. I love this stuff.

That’s what I have so far, there are tons more out there so if you’d like to come take a real walk just give me a call, with the cooler July weather I have plenty of plants to share with you yet (besides the Lilies, I don’t share them).

Big Blue Eyes and El's Hugs

2009-07-15T21:48:00.005-05:00

Anyone wanna go for a swim in these eyes? I don't remember El's being this blue, she did have big blue eyes but I think Garrett has hers beat.

Elly with more hugs see here this one I took when the game wasn't going on..... those silly girls, they kinda look alike and the only thing they have alike is their mom and grandma's name is the same.

Misc. Happenings

2009-07-08T08:45:00.001-05:00

I have a hard time updating this blog for a number of reasons. 1) I tell you just about everything about this family on my POTD blog. 2) I spend so much time outside and my battery is dead on this laptop so I’m stuck on the couch when I blog. 3) I don’t Photoshop the pictures I put on this blog and I have a hard time with SOOC pictures. 4) Why won’t my camera flip the portrait pictures when it downloads???, no matter what I tried and read the manual 50 times I still can’t get them to flip so I have to do them all by hand when they are downloaded 5) I’m lazy!!??!!

Here’s a few random photos for this random post. Shawna, Elly, “M” and “L” at the 4th of July party. We had corn on the cob and the kids loved it.

Elly in Ed and Jeannie’s big pool all by herself (don’t worry I was watching her, I’m kinda a freak when it comes to kids swimming), the rest of the kids got tired of swimming but not her.

John and I with Mallory, she’s getting so big. She had Elly’s 4th of July outfit on before this one…. I seen this little girl in 4 outfits on this day, she’s all girl…. or her Mommy is

Garrett crawling… sniff, sniff

Elly in her little pool which she insisted she wasn’t too big for….. she did play in it for hours.

Garrett sporting his first haircut

Garrett and Shannon with his present from Auntie Sharon and Uncle Bruce.

Having these two presents on my table for a week has been driving me crazy I wanted to open them and see what Sharon made them but I waited until Elly was here to open Garrett’s for him. Then after Shan got here and loved it, wanted one for Elly we decided that Elly could open Mallory’s too since Mallory is too young to open presents. I love them and getting presents from the Wells family is always so much fun, my sister Sharon is a very talented person…. why did I only get half that much talent? She showed me pictures of her garden pond while she was here and now that is all I can think about…. I am drawing up the plans now and have already started ripping up the back garden. Sharon I’ll show you the progress on here when it actually looks like I’m getting somewhere.

Well that’s enough Misc for one post.

Wedding Highlights

2009-06-29T22:15:00.001-05:00

Marcus and Sara had a rainy day for a wedding but that didn’t stop us from having a great time. The rain stopped every time we needed to walk outside.

The ceremony was short but very special.

The big highlight came after the ceremony. Marcus and Sara released two doves while the helpers released another dozen or so. They circled the church and then flew off. I happen to get both doves taking off, let me tell you they were quick.

Great Grandpa Earl got to hold Mallory, she got passed around lots. She slept through most of the night, I’m not sure how.

Ashley held Garrett. He was not as willing to sleep like Mallory. The commotion, music and heat was not in his favor.

Jarrod also held Garrett for awhile. This is the first time Ashley and Jarrod are meeting some of their cousin’s babies.

We tried to take a family photo tonight, but with this crew it’s almost impossible so this is the best we could do. Jarrod is a stand in for brother Dan and Ian is a stand in for his Daddy Terry. Which is kinda funny since Jarrod is the oldest nephew and Ian is the youngest.

From right to left – In age order
Back – Sharon, Starla, Danny (Jarrod), Gayle, Wally, Rusty.
Front – DiAnn, Connie, Joanne, Dad, Randy, Brian and Terry (Ian)

Here’s a couple more (In case you noticed we added an older brother next to Sharon – that’s cousin Bruce, he tried to be part of our family back then and he’s still trying. Dad still doesn’t notice another kid in the house.

Brian is struggling to get Ian to stay in the picture. Don’t worry Ian your father used to cry during our family pictures himself. Mom would hold him down and the only pictures we would get Terry was crying.

Elly caught the bouquet.

And she got to dance with a real princess!!

Lots of fun!!

Garden Update

2009-06-14T09:43:00.001-05:00

Check out my garden happenings.
This is Globe Flower

This is a Gas Plant on May 29th.

This is Gas Plant on June 10th.

This is Kiss Me Over The Garden Gate invasion…. yikes.

This is Sedum Ground Cover, it’s leaves look like roses.

This is Cat Mint in the front and Blue Flax in the back

This is my coffee table decoration on the porch. Can you guess what these glass insulators are in? Someone’s trash is someone else’s treasure.

This is Lynn’s Tree Peony that Jesse cut down last fall b/c they didn’t know what it was. Oh my gosh I hope mine looks this good someday. These flowers are the size of dinner plates.

This is under the cedar trees, I don’t do a thing with this.

This is Poppy invasion and I was letting it grow since our plan was to re-do the front of the house with a patio and other fun stuff but now since we’re not sure of my work status that will have to wait another year so I pulled all these poppies and mulched once again. I will not let another Poppy grow here, I will not let another Poppy grow here, I will not let….

This is the same area with the poppies gone and the mulch in. What a difference.

This is Superstition Iris, he’s also in the photo above. He’s such a dark purple that he looks black.

There’s your walk around the garden.

One happy family

2009-06-07T21:17:00.005-05:00

Today is Mallory's Birth Day. She is beautiful and a wonderful addition to our family, I can't wait to spoil her just like I do Elly and Garrett.

Here is Momma Lynn and her beautiful brand new little girl.

Here is Auntie Shannon, she has been waiting a long time to be an auntie and I'm sure this won't be the last picture with all the kids snuggled around her. She is a baby magnet and loves every minute of it. We didn't realize how big Garrett was getting until today

Along with being a auntie she is a nurse, always taking care of the needs of anyone who needs her. If you ever have the opportunity to have Shannon be your nurse you will know how big her heart is. She was going to go to school to be a accountant until she had Elly and then Dr. Mark's nurse inspired her to change her direction without even saying a word. Now she gets to work along side Dr. Mark's nurse, between the two of them I'm not sure you could find two more caring, compassionate MA's. We are very proud of Shannon and all she has done and now she is right along her sister's side teaching her everything she knows. She went with Lynn to her appointment on Friday and wanted to clean up the exam room before they left, she's always working and taking care of others. Here she is giving Lynn and Jesse a lesson on changing Mallory's messy diaper, somehow I think they will learn this sooner than they wish.

Grandma with all her grandbabies

Adam and Michelle playing with Garrett.

Greenhouse and Winery

2009-05-16T21:39:00.003-05:00

My sisters and I went greenhouse hopping today and boy do I have stories to tell you. There is never a dull moment when we get together. So I'm very sick but I was not letting these girls go without me, what am I gonna do at home while I'm sick anyway?? We took off about 2ish and since I didn't take anything to help my flu I could drive, I have the biggest truck and when we go shopping we need the biggest truck we can get. My sister DiAnn wasn't with us, she was at the winery that morning and so far we still couldn't find her. By the time we got out of town we found her so we waited at the local tavern (outside in the parking lot, we're good Catholic girls, but it is 5 o'clock somewhere). So now we talk with DiAnn and she tells us all the new wine they have at the winery..... hummmm let's go there first, see I told you it was 5 0'clock. We all tasted and bought a few bottles of wine, my voice is back to normal.....I'm cured....now we're off to the greenhouses.

We find the first one and it's crowded, we grab a cart and start filling it with fun plants and Starla had a very pretty hanging basket. We couldn't get the cart down one of the houses so we leave it at the entrance and we're gone for about 15 minutes, we come back and Starla's hanging basket is gone. This is worse than the day after Thanksgiving Day Sales, people are stealing plants.... we find the guy who stole the planter and confront him.

Starla - "That's my planter"
Guy - "Nope I bought it"
Starla - "You took it off our cart"
Guy - "No that guy over there helped me find it"
Starla - "That's my plant, you took it off my cart"
Guy - licking his ice cream cone "Nope it's mine"

Starla and Gayle go find the lady who owns the shop and explain to her and see if she can help them find another one just like it. The lady puts out an Amber Alert.... not kidding, she alerts all the checkers that if anyone tries to buy a basket like the one in that guys cart to call her back up there. The lady asks the man where he found the planter and he said "that guy helped me", she says "that man doesn't work here". It's really getting weird now!! Well they found another one just like it and now we are getting out of there. Plant thief, be careful they're everywhere.

Now we're traveling down the road and Gayle is giving directions but she calls Bill because something doesn't look right. Here's her conversations

Gayle - "Billy, what's that road that's off of 29?"
Gayle - "yep that one when your going that way and we want to go to that one town"
Gayle - "Oh that's right we're going the wrong way"
Gayle - "yep that road in that one town"
Gayle - "okay thanks, now I know where I am"

WHAT???? what the heck kind of conversation is that? How the heck does Bill know what she's talking about? I think they talk in a foreign language but we turned around and sure enough she knew where she needed to go. Who needs a GPS???

About 3 greenhouses later we have the truck loaded down with plant. As I'm loading my plants a man and his wife walk by and he laughs at how full the truck is. I tell him "Hey we still have open cup holders inside the truck so this is nothing" By the time we drove home we had one cup holder full and the backseat was full. Ahhhh the trill of flower shopping!! We stopped at 2 more places after this picture.

So after we're all done we celebrate with a bottle of wine.

We were missing our sister Sharon so we toasted to Sharon, the queen of gardening..... living in her zone 5 and up. No I'm not jealous!!

Then Gayle found a replacement for Sharon so she could pour the wine for us.

Look at her hangging onto that wine bottle and not sharing with us!!

Lynn’s Shower

2009-05-03T21:22:00.001-05:00

Today was Lynn’s baby shower. She wanted a springy look and she got just that on the inside and the outside. Here are some of the decorations.

Now we all know where Garrett gets his looks from, not from Grandma.

I printed all of Lynn’s baby blog post and put them in one book for her. Even though I’ve read them from the beginning it was still fun to go back to the beginning and read them again, and watch her tummy grow.

These are Grandma Fran’s Fiesta dishes, Lynn has already spoken for them when I’m done with them. At the end of the shower I asked if all dishes were accounted for and she never even noticed them…. I guess she was a little busy!!

We played a fun game where a rattle was tied onto a long string and another on the other side. Then you take the rattle and put in down the first girls shirt and down her pants and out your pants leg…. then you put it up the next girls pants let and up her shirt, stringing through your clothes, there are usually two girls tied together while one is putting the first rattle in the other is trying to get the second one out. The winning team gets the entire rattle/string through all team members clothes. This was loud and hilarious, the next shower you have make sure you wear loose fitting clothes!! : )

The winning team…. they weren’t excited or anything!! Look at the sisters in the background all teaming up to help Gayle and DiAnn

The hard workers for the shower…. Shawna on the left, Elly, Lynn and Shannon in the back. Lots of nice gifts to welcome little blueberry into this world.

Hurray up blueberry these two can’t wait to play with you!!

More painting

2009-04-26T20:42:00.004-05:00

This weekend I painted the wood wall between the dining room and kitchen. This is one of the first projects we did in the house, the wood came from the sawmill across from Mom and Dad's house, and Fritz's been gone for 18 years so it was a long time ago. We wanted to tear it down but we did such a good job of gluing and nailing it on that we'd have to tear the wall down and build it again so the next choice was paint it. The kids wanted us to leave it as is since it's what they remember but it just didn't go with the decor any longer. I was having a hard time getting this job done since I also didn't want to cover up one of our first memories in fixing up this old house but I tackled it today and it looks really good. The old wood was so yellow from age that it made the kitchen cabinets look yellow, which they're not.

Here is the view with the old wood.

And here is the view with the wall painted. The dining room looks much wider and longer, the kitchen actually looks like part of the house, you notice the cupboards. No more busy yellow old wood, I'm not real sold on it yet but it's better. I may need to hang some pictures or curly iron pieces on it to break up the diagonal pattern.

Easter at Home

2009-04-18T08:55:00.001-05:00

During holidays we all spend so much time running from one house to another and eating at every stop. This Easter we decided to not go any where and to have all of us together for a sit down meal. I tried to soak up the sun while John and I wait for the kids to arrive. He thought he needed to take my picture and he’d be disappointed if I didn’t include it.

The day started with Elly, Garrett and Blueberry finding their baskets and hidden eggs. Elly is a horrible finder so you have to play the hot cold game with her.

We had a meal of Ham, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy, Coleslaw, Asparagus, and Rolls with lots of left overs. I forgot to take a picture of the set table it was so pretty with my yellow and white dishes and now the black and yellow chairs. I even did the fancy multiple plates with the pretty napkins on them….. darn why did I forget? Now it’s time for the dishes, and I don’t have a dishwasher. The girls and John helped me so it wasn’t so bad.

Adam and Elly really miss each other so when they get time to play it’s pretty wild. They both love it and we all giggle at them, Adam better watch out when Garrett gets old enough to join in he’ll be the one pinned! Michelle tried to help Elly pin him but I’m not sure it ever happened. Elly yelled “ding, ding, ding, ding pinned” lots.

We ended the night with a sleep over. Wow it looks like a tornado went through here.

We had a great Easter and I hope you had the same with your family.

Elly brought John a dozen boiled Easter eggs that Adam and Michelle helped her with on Friday. Elly said it was her collection, so John takes 2 of the eggs to work on Monday and when she came back on Monday night, John told her that her eggs were very good. She got so mad at him for cracking 2 of her collection eggs. Then later that night she thinks it’s fun to hide the plastic eggs and let Grandma find them so I told her she could hide 10 of them. I found 8 and couldn’t find the other 2 and asked her for help. She says “Oh I’m so sorry Grandma I put them in the carton of my collection since Grandpa cracked two of mine” We laughed so hard, it’s just amazing how those little minds work. Then we had to play again so she hides the 10 eggs again and I go look for them and I start to put 10 jelly beans in the basket. She says very seriously “Grandma why would you do that” with her confused look on her face. Oh she is so much fun and getting way too big.

Easter Bunny..... Chicken?

2009-04-12T08:49:00.006-05:00

I always thought the Easter Bunny just used the front door, he's not like Santa Clause and comes down the chimney but this year there must have been some confusion. John hears something in the basement, it sounds like someone is scratching and struggling to get out. He goes to investigate but first he calls me. I'm in the garage so he uses the intercom and says "Connie can you come in here", "there's something in the basement and I may need some help". So I come in the house and we find something has come down the chimney and it stuck in the pipe.

Now how are we gonna get it out? Is it the Easter Bunny? nope it's the Easter Chicken, he must have taken the wrong flight and now he's in a pickle.... or pipe.

So now while John is taking off the cover we both are ready for this stupid thing to come flying out of there and scare the crap out of us.

I'm hiding behind a pair of snowpants as John is on the front line of Operation Easter Chicken Get Away. I opened the doors in the house just in case he flies around he'll have the door open to just go out, before he drops his jelly beans all over the house.

He's still too big to get out on his own, we're not even sure which side is the head. He's lucky it's warmed up or he would have gotten a little warm in his new home.

Here he is the Easter Chicken!

Have a very Happy Easter and don't eat too many jelly beans!

Prom

2009-04-05T21:15:00.001-05:00

Adam and Michelle went to Prom this year. Lynn was here to help her little brother do his hair and get those darn cufflinks on. His vest is hanging behind Lynn and yes it’s camo, typical Adam.

We took quite a few pics of him before he left to pick up Michelle. He wasn’t to thrilled about sitting on the dresser but he did it. Ignore his camo slippers that he wore, yep he wore them to prom, he didn’t even order black shoes.

And more pictures when he returned with both of his special girls.

They had a fairly large group that they met up with for more pictures.

And of course I need to get pictures of the girls shoes…. and then Adam felt left out.

And a few of just the guys.

Then their ride came to pick them up for dinner

I love all the colors of the dresses and these kids were so darn excited about the whole evening they had planned, it was so cute, they were so cute.

See ya later buddy, have fun and be good!!

Breakfast Nook

2009-03-26T19:47:00.002-06:00

How about another peek at the house? I LOVE it. Now lets find me a black table.... come on garage sales!!

Garrett 4 months

2009-03-19T19:59:00.001-06:00

I get behind when having to post multiple pictures since blogger drives me crazy with where it decides to put my pictures and where it decides to do the spacing between paragraphs so I’m trying out Lynn’s new Windows Live Writer to see if I like it when posting more than 1 photo.

So here’s Garrett’s 4 month photos…. 19 days late.

I should attach a balloon to this basket…. hummm now that’s a good idea!!

He kinda grew too big for his rusty ole’ dump truck…

And of course I have to include the big sister.

and the same in color

Okay this post was somewhat easier using this Live Writer but I don’t like the size of the photos and if I change them to medium or large they are off the page. Nope don’t like it…. sorry Lynn, Dad just asked me what I was shaking my head about…… this is has the same frustrations for me….

Get Color

2009-03-14T21:07:00.004-06:00

I finally got to put some color on the walls, now most of the downstairs walls coordinate with each other. Here is the primer going one, look how not homey this looks.... ignore the mess, I used this as an obstacles course for more exercise.

Now check out the color, homey feeling now. You would never believe this little space was so much work. I think I even had one sweat bead on my body.... for me that's a workout considering I have only sweat one day in my life.

So while I'm up on the ladder I feel this strange sensation, it was like someone brushed by me slightly hitting my clothing, it was like a tingly sensation that started on my back and went down my arm and immediately the TV snapped and shut off. El was upstairs playing and no one else was in the house with me. I got down off the ladder looking around wondering what happened, for a moment I thought the electricity shut off. I tried to turn the TV back on and nothing happened, it was dead. The dish was still on so I knew the outlet was okay. When John came home I told him what happened and as he's looking at me kinda like "okay honey whatever" he touched the TV and the static that was on it was amazing. You could hear it snapping and popping when he touched the screen, more than normal. We're not really sure what happened yet, maybe I have electrical powers from being struck by lightning 20 years ago and just never knew it, or maybe the ghost that lives here doesn't like my color choices. So hence the little TV we brought down from the bedroom.... dang I didn't want to buy a new TV.

Light Earthy

2009-02-28T19:44:00.002-06:00

Here's the painted walls in the upstairs hallway. This is a bookshelf with the kids books still on it. I cannot bring myself to put them away... this is exactly like they have looked since Lynn was old enough to be read to at bedtime.... long time ago. I will put them in fun baskets now but I just have to go shopping first. The walls are a tan "light earthy" and I decided since Adam took over my fitting room (Lynn's old bedroom) I would bring out all my pictures he stashed in the closet and use them in the hallway. I'm thinking fitting room slash vacation decor with a earthy slash black slash aqua color theme. Should I paint this bookshelf back or aqua?

A closer look at the aqua accent color I'm thinking about. Don't you just love these shoes, I'm a sucker for shoes, even if they don't fit me. Two pictures from my trip to New York City in the aqua stripped frame.

And how about that shabby chic tin cabinet all dressed up in the fitting room decor.

John removed the heater so you can see the patch job that I have to let dry before I paint it. That tin cabinet I bought at a garage sale for $5, it was painted cream but had peeling paint so I took a sander to it and found about 4 different layers of paint and loved the look of it so I never did paint it. Hummm how would it look in aqua? The old dress and hat came from Jeannie's Halloween box and looks perfect here.

And here is my gaping corners all filled in and looking perfect, ready for primer and paint. This sanding is a mess, I do most of it with the water sanding method but some of it needs dry sanding. I can't wait to dust and not have everything covered in white again the next day.

Hopefully soon I can show you the finished living room.

Painting again

2009-02-27T18:22:00.000-06:00

With our new skeleton crew at work it's 4 ten hour days and production gets Friday's off so I took advantage of that and used Friday for a vacation day. It's dark during the week when I get home so I can't paint and then we haven't had a whole lot of weekends that we stay home so I used today to paint the upstairs hallway. I stenciled it 13 years ago when that was the cool thing to do, not so much anymore. Even though it's embarrassing to show you the before pictures.

Here is the cool 90's stenciling job, I'm not sure why I didn't paint these walls a while ago because I love to paint walls when I'm bored. I guess it's because no one goes upstairs so no one seen it.

Here's the light switch cover.... yep that's wallpaper wrapped around it to match the wallpaper before the cool stenciling.

So while I'm prepping the walls and priming them we have this electric heater that we used to use to keep the upstairs warm.... yeah right, if we wanted to keep the upstairs warm with this heater we had to have an extra $200 bucks added to our light bill. So the heater was just attached to the wall and never used. So I decided, why have it so I'll just pull it off the wall, well that worked okay until the electrical cord stopped me. Just then the phone rang and it was John, he asked what I was up to and I told him. Just before we hung up

Me - "oh I ripped the heater off the wall so you'll have to unhook that when you get home so I can paint around it".

John - "what? You can't just rip that off the wall"

Me - "why? I already did"

John - "Connie those are live wires"

Me - "yeah so?"

John - "that's 220"

Me - "so that will kill me?'

John - "YES"

Me - "Okay, I'll be careful"

Here's the heater where I decided to not touch it again.

After I was done painting the upstairs I decided to sand and mud walls in the living room. With an old house you have very, very crooked walls so you get lots of gaping between the sheets of drywall that have to be filled in.... here's a picture to show you what the better of the three seams look like. That silvering black area is completely open and needs me to fill it up 3-4 times with drywall mud, sanding between every coat.

To get to the top of the ceiling/walls I have to stand on the top of the step ladder to reach the tallest point. As I'm standing on the very top of a really wiggly old step ladder I wonder how bright this is.... I may not get electrocuted (since I've already been stuck by lightning, I'm pretty sure I don't want that to happen) I will fall off the top of this ladder and hit my head on the pellet stove knocking me out so I don't realize I've landed on top of the stove burning me to 4th degree burns over my entire body until John comes home from work and finds me.... but I do it anyway and I didn't fall. When John gets home I want him to take a picture of me way up on the ladder so I could show you..... this is what I got.

Nice huh? I didn't know what he was taking until I downloaded them. He did take a couple others but nothing that showed me way up on the top step of the ladder. Let guys take pictures and this is what you get, I should have been more specific in what I wanted. I must have been talking on this one.... surprise huh?

I'll give you completed pictures of the upstairs hallway tomorrow. I love vacation days like this.

Who was here?

2009-02-13T11:34:00.003-06:00

Last night Adam came home and immediately said, "who was here"?

Me - "why?"

Adam - "I know someone was here"

Me - "who do you think was here?"

Adam - "Josh, Jake or Jett"

Me - "Which one do you think it was?"

Adam - "Jett", "He always picks this truck when he's here"

Here is where Jett left Adam's truck, he didn't try to hid it at all, he leaves it right in the middle of the steps.

As soon as Jett walked in the door he is repeating "Connie, can I play with Adam's trucks?", he's such a cutie how could I say No? I could listen to his stories and stare at his facial expressions all day long.

Adam then runs upstairs to make sure he didn't mess up the other rows of cars, you know one tire out of line puts him over the edge!! I think Jett knows that too because all the others were safely in their rows yet. Poor 3 year old has to carefully pick out a toy to play with or Adam will never let him play with his trucks again. :) All Jett needs to learn is to put them away and Adam will never know, Josh and Jake already do this....

Adam you'll never know how often those cars are moved without you knowing, they are good.

Elly and Garrett were here again and Elly wanted a snack as I'm playing with Garrett so I told her to find one. She has her own snack cupboard here but this time as I'm not there she decides to find something else that she always gets at Grandma's house. She hollers.... "Grandma, I made a mess". This is what I find. "Elly, Grandma is not making you pancakes for a SNACK!!"

And she is backed up against the table and wouldn't turn around for me to get her picture, the backside of her was white with pancake mix. How she did this is beyond me. Such a goofy girl.

And just a picture of Garrett starting to play with his toys.

Super bowl party

2009-02-07T21:10:00.004-06:00

We had the super bowl party at Lynn and Jesse's this year. It was so nice to be able to have a party at their house and not have to travel 3 days or 3 hours to get there. Garrett showed off his giggling, he is now a belly laughter and is really ticklish under his arms. Grandma had lots of fun playing and making him giggle. He is 3 months old today.

Elly and Tia coloring, El asked Tia if she could paint but Tia told her no the table was full of snacks...... that didn't last long, she used her big ole' blue eyes and her flashy eyelashes on Tia and Jesse to bring up a coffee table so she could paint.

As you all know there would be one commercial that was in 3D, Elly put her glasses on for every commercial so she didn't miss it. She was so darn cute because she didn't even know what she was looking for.

When the commercial finally came on we backed it up several times as we passed the glasses around the room. Here is Jason and Lynn (with blueberry kicking) checking out the bouncy ball. I'm not sure what's up with Elly... maybe her eyes hurt from wearing those glasses for so long.

The super bowl was okay, the commercials were better but Lynn's guacamole dip was fabulous. Steph's chocolate covered peanuts with whatever the sweet crunch was (thanks Steph's mom) were a close 2nd, I ate my share of both of them.

El weekend

2009-01-17T19:23:00.006-06:00

Took me forever to post these pictures.... sorry

Elly spent the night with us and she is a mover a talker and a learner, she knows Grandma will do just about anything with her so she tries to fit it all in while she's here. She loves to cut and color. She will ask me to find her pictures to cut out and color. We did that about 3 times already so I decided to entertain her with a new project. I had my Christmas cards so I decided to let her cut them out however she wanted. She loved this since there were sparkly ones, round ones, and lots of fun stuff to look at. She decided to play teacher and I had to be the student and she would tell me the story of each and every one of her projects at least twice. Here she is telling the story, she can make up quite the stuff with one picture.

I loved the facial expressions she has, I took the picture of her holding these up but got her mouth that shows how into this she is.

And once again check out the expressions

Here is Miss El with all her stories and her trusty scissors. She uses Lynn's scissors from when she was little. It has the initials LH on them and she just doesn't understand what the LH is for since her name is Tia Frey

Now she talked me into a snack, of course it had to be a chocolate brownie with the fudgy frosting on my pink flower plate with my baby spoon. The drink of choice was a hot chocolate with marshmallows of course.

Here is her duck that she cut out and colored, it won first place in our pretend school so it gets to hang on my frig.

I had John take over a few of the never-ending games of Guess Who. She could play this forever if you let her. And she's good at it. "Does your person have big fat lips?", "Does your person have skinny eyebrows?"

I took her outside to have her brain stop learning and just have fun. We made trails in the snow and she had to follow me, then she took over and I had to follow her, except she wanted me to crawl like her.

Adam was in the house taking the pictures so he got the window instead of us but for some reason I really like this picture.

Of course she has to make snow angels. Adam was taking this from the diningroom and then he gets and idea.... "Bang, bang, bang... Mom keep her there".

He goes up to my bedroom to get a better view.

Here she is eating her waffles, she is pretty darn special to us.... and she knows it. It's not too often you'll see her with her hair down, she looks so much like Shan when it is. That morning when I got her dressed, teeth brushed, bed made, jammies folded and then I said "Okay time for your hair" she said she wanted it down. I told her that her mommy tried the same thing everyday but she never got her way either, when you have this much hair it's gotta be tied up.

We can't wait till she spends the night again, we really can't wait until all the grandkids can spend the night. There's nothing better than being a grandparent.

Last Vacation Day

2009-01-02T21:11:00.005-06:00

John and I took a few vacation days over the last 2 weeks to spend time together and with the kids for the holidays. Today is a holiday for me and John used a vacation day so we could go out for lunch and spend the day together..... well the day turned out differently than we had planned. John got the flu and we spent the day together..... at home. I make a horrible nurse and he makes a horrible patient. We do so much better the other way around and we both will admit it. Every move he makes I ask "are you okay?", "what's the matter?", "what hurts?" and he gets annoyed with my questions. We both hope he feels better by tomorrow

John wanted to play with Garrett in the worst way so I put him on the floor next to the couch so Grandpa could talk to him. For Christmas we bought "blueberry" a rainforest music box for his/her crib and Garrett loved it. So..... Grandma bought him one too. He's trying it out right now, "blueberry" should love it, it's been Garrett approved.

I played lots of games of Go Fish and Memory with Elly after school. She loves those games and she beat me in all the games except for one. The last game of memory as she was making all the matches she tells me when the last two cards are on the floor "Grandma I'll let you have a turn if you want?" She's so cute.

and here is Garrett giving me a big ole' smile. He already knows Grandma's voice (that is if Mommy isn't in the room).

Christmas

2008-12-26T19:49:00.005-06:00

Christmas morning was pretty quiet here. Adam woke up early but wasn't real excited about opening his gifts from Santa or his stocking, he could just pretend. We always get our picture taken before going to Gayle's but my boys really would rather skip it, they still humor me but when I run back to get into the picture they do something silly, drives me crazy!! This is the best we got this year.

Here's my dad relaxing in the Christmas chair.

Adam and Uncle Brad have a very special relationship.... when the first snowflake falls to the ground Adam is bugging Brad to open the trails. This is his attempt to talk Brad into opening them up by Friday night. When Adam was in grade school he called Brad to ask if he would open the trails and Brad asked Adam if he thought they were ready and then he said "okay if your sure I'll open them up tomorrow". Adam was so proud that he opened the trails, he told all the kids at school that he did it and listened to the radio just to see if Brad mentioned his name. Good thing Brad has a sense of humor with Adam because he can be somewhat of a pest.

This is Whoville. We all eat in the garage, Lynn calls it cafeteria style like in school. We have 5 pans of lasagna, 1 ham, cheesy hashbrown potoes x5, lots of salads and tons of deserts. Gayle goes through a ton of work for this day and we all appreciate it. This is the right side of the garage.

And here's the left side. This year there were 43 of us... there are 16 missing.... don't quote me on these numbers I may have missed someone.

Troy even made it from Iraq... we had a live feed for awhile.

Here are the brothers... missing 2. All the boys live right here in the area and they are never all together for a picture. Dad, Wally, Brian, Rusty and Randy

It seems this post is all about the boys so here's Garrett with his new hat made by Aunt Peggy. It's Alpaca fur, hair, fuzz.... whatever they grow. These are the warmest hats ever and so cute.

Christmas was great and ended with a bit of a snow storm. Here is John using his polish snow blower on the patio.

There was too much snow that he had to start a trucking company to haul the rest of it away.

Cookie Baking

2008-12-14T20:38:00.003-06:00

Here's a couple more pictures from our cookie baking day.

The rule is - if a cookie is broken you must eat it.... how many times do you think they break on purpose?

Miss El concentrating on her decorating skills. She likes the decorating tubes and this year actually knew how to use them.

The cinnamon rolls before the rising... I think at this point I can freeze them but I'm not sure yet. I have never made anything with yeast so this was all new to me. When I was growing up mom made 16 loaves of bread a week.... what I wouldn't do for a piece of boughten sliced bread. Call me crazy but bread was our filler and mom never, I mean never let us help make the bread. She said with the yeast and that many loaves of bread to mess up, she needed to do it. Scared me right out of trying anything with yeast, until today.

School is creating a monster

2008-12-12T20:07:00.000-06:00

Elly is in Kindergarten and she's becoming a spelling, reading, letter writing monster. She has never liked toys... ever, her passion has always been having someone read to her, color with a number 2 pencil, learn new letters, count, and count again and again..... Well now since she is learning how to read it's become worse. She reminds me so much of her mother when she was little. All Shan wanted to do was read and learn and it all came so easily for her. Elly is the same way, here she is trying to find something to do on Friday before we go see the lights. She doesn't have a clue what to do with herself unless it involves paper and pencils. She also has the same hair as her mother.... thick and long.

Grandma do you wanna write me a letter so I can copy it? Grandma do you wanna watch me read my Candy Cane Book I made at school? Grandma do you wanna draw me a picture so I can cut it out? Grandma do you wanna count the carpet fibers with me?

Here's the letter I wrote her..... I didn't know she would want me to read it over and over again until she knew all the words. Then she wanted to write it all on another sheet of paper. In this picture she is showing it to Adam and having him read it to her.... she gets to read the words she knows.... and she lets him know which ones she can read.

Adam and Elly reading her letter.... Adam eats this time up but why does she have to like reading????? this is his least favorite thing.

Now she talked Adam into reading her the paper, she points to all the words she knows while he skims for the good stuff.

"Oh Grandma please can I have a cup of hot chocolate, you haven't made me one in a hundred years. And I'll have it in a snowman cup since it is winter"

She's spending the night so we'll do this all over again in the morning.

Whitetail Gun Season 2008

2008-11-28T18:01:00.004-06:00

Hunting season at the shack is going a little slow, the deer are staying bedded down and with 3 guys they are having a hard time rustling them up so a few of us decided to do a drive for them today. Okay so let's give you a little history first. It's me, Ed and Josh that are going to drive the center of the woods, we need radio handles so Ed wants to be Batman, Josh is Robin and I'm Little Bo Peep. None of us had a clue what we are suppose to do.... so we have lots of questions before we leave the shack.

Can we carry guns - NO

Can we run through the woods yelling back and forth at each other - NO

Can we walk together so we don't get lost - NO

Can we have a radio - NO

What if we get lost - keep the sun over your left shoulder

What if we're in there so long the sun goes down - You'll come out on a trail somewhere

Can we have a radio - Okay fine

Can we have fun radio names - NO

We're gonna anyway

Can we talk on the radio - NO

What if we get lost - URGHHHH

Okay so here we go.... Batman, Robin and Little Bo Peep ride the 4-wheeler and wait for the Okay on the radio to let us know to start...... We wait and wait and then finally John (he wouldn't pick a fun radio name) says on the radio "Adam let me know when your up your tree".... I start to get bored so I am trying to take pictures of all 3 of us in the same frame. It didn't work this is only Little Bo Peep and Robin... Batman is too far down. Batman says on the radio "Bo Peep are you taking pictures of yourself"

Adam says "Okay ding and dong you can start"...... what who's ding and dong!!!! That's not our names. We all enter the woods and seriously that is the last time I seen orange..... Bo Peep is lost and so are her sheep. Seriously how am I gonna walk through this woods, there are branches in the way.... I can't walk straight north the paths don't go north.... where was the sun suppose to be.... where's Robin, he doesn't have a radio.... oh no I don't like this what if I have to spend the night out here I didn't bring toilet paper.

Adam says on the radio "Ed turn to your left".... "I mean right"... no maybe your left".... Batman says "right or left".... "Left". Oh I'm feeling better I hear people on the radio, it still works. Ohhhh no I see the path to the east, I turn to the left and try to remember where that darn sun is suppose to be.... why does it keep moving. "Ken 3 deer heading your way"..... "There all big does, take them all".... "boom".... I dive to the ground (just kidding). Ohhhhh no I see the path to the west..... "Little Bo Peep is seriously lost and I'm not talking about her sheep" I turn and start to head north east or so I think.... John says on the radio "Bo Peep turn to your left".... "You can see me?", "Yes", "Where am I", "turn to your left", "Stop", "Turn", "Okay now go straight"... he says that like it's easy.

Oh no that's the shack, I'm not even half way there.....

"This is Little Bo Peep, copy to Shepard.... where are my sheep and where am I?"

12 or so hours later......Oh there is my littlest sheep...

What.... he gets to sit on the picnic table on this big open path..... there's something wrong here. That's the last time I worry about my little sheep, he can take care of himself... But this is where I was suppose to end up and I did. I'm not lost

John says on the radio "anyone seen my Little Bo Peep yet"..... ohhhh he loves me!!

Here's the deer that Adam saw running past him this morning and he didn't get a shot at it.... but the neighbor girl did!!

A girl must have shot it... it's tongue isn't hanging out.... I think she tucked it away after they put it in the truck.... It's a girl thing.

Here's the only antlers Adam will get to drive around with for today.

Garrett's Announcement

2008-11-24T19:31:00.003-06:00

This is the reason for Garrett being naked in a basket on the last post. John thinks I may be in trouble when he's older but for now he makes the cutest knick-knack on my old dresser.

Grandchildren Pics

2008-11-16T19:35:00.004-06:00

Okay so Lynn here is a close up of the kido's. What did you do when El was little and you lived in Oregon??? Oh that's right we kept a video camera on her every second and sent you the tapes with a box of Kleenex. Now you haven't seen them for a week and you need your picture fix. Of course I just happen to have some to share....

Here is what he does best.... sleep

Miss El posing with her new hat from Granwma, you gotta love those blue eyes.

I can't tell you why Garrett is lying in a basket naked.... you'll find out soon. :) And of course we can do anything with him and he'll just sleep through it.

My little man in the clothes Grandma bought for him... inspired by Grandpa, I think Grandpa may spoil this one with boy stuff!!

There you go Lynn, and I know your waiting for the secret pic.... be patient.... soon you will see it and it will be so worth the wait.

Emmerich Soup Off

2008-11-02T14:09:00.005-06:00

The 7th Annual Emmerich Soup Off was held on Nov. 1st. This year I was only going to make 1 soup, no practice runs either.... yeah right. Friday night I am making two different kinds of soup and having John taste test for me to decide the winner. One was Spicy Chicken Tortilla Soup from former GMA co-host Joan Lunden and the other was the famous Olive Garden Tuscano Sausage Soup. Both are very good but the Tortilla soup is the winner.

With 6 different soups as the cast of characters with lots of taste testers the winning soup was DiAnn's Creamy Broccoli. As they were counting the ballets and crowning the winner I was busy getting the news from Shannon having a baby so I missed this whole process. John said as we were headed to the hospital, don't worry Gayle and DiAnn used your camera and took pictures..... hummmm they must not know how to turn it on because there are no pictures on my camera. They wanted me to send in the crowning to the Emmerich Reporter because the 2008 winning soup DiAnn stole from the Emmerich Cookbook submitted by Tabitha Poyda.

Our next event was a 22 shoot, the closest to the bulls eye wins a prize. Starla won the first round. The 2nd round Adam's friend Shawn stole it away from John and the 3rd round was won by Adam. It was suppose to be open sites and as you can see Adam cheated.

Uncle Brad helping Adam's girlfriend Sarah to shoot, this was her first time ever shooting a gun.

Brad helping Shawn's girlfriend Robyn, this is also her first time. After we were done Adam and Shawn had these girls shoot at the own target 3-4 times and they got to keep them. They were so excited that they shot a gun and they hit the target.

Gayle used my camera while I was shooting, I must have left it turned on.

Another first time shooter this year was Joanne. She has never shot a gun, we talked her into trying it this year.

DiAnn's first time shooting.

Our first time to the hospital I forgot my camera (I know how could I forget my camera?), we left Elly there for about an hour and when we went back to pick her up I remembered it. Here is Shannon, Elly and Garrett.

Shannon looks a little pale, she must have worn off all her color in the birthing tub. She was in there for about 3 hours. Shannon likes to pick days the Emmerichs are all together to have her babies. Last time it was Kristi's graduation party and everyone knew at the same time and now this time the Soup Off. All are doing well.

Happy Halloween

2008-10-31T20:11:00.004-06:00

Here's more of Elly's Halloween Costume. She was the cutest little ladybug ever.

To her it wasn't about the treats it was all about being able to come visit. But then there was the "No honey you can't spend the night, but I'll see you tomorrow" and I get this face.

Then Grandma gives her the whole bowl of treats and she's a happy girl again.

Trick or Treating makes this little ladybug very tired.

Baby Sprinkle for Shannon

2008-10-25T09:39:00.007-05:00

Last Sunday we had a baby sprinkle for Shannon. It was a sprinkle since she has already had a baby but there was no time for a shower. 20 minutes to prepare for being a Grandma didn't give us much planning time. : ) There were about 25 guests and everyone had a great time playing Lynn and Shawna's games and enjoying the great chili meal.

The cake was so cute and made by my aunt Susie. She did a fabulous job and everyone loved the taste. Our theme was pink and green with polka dots.

Among the drinks we had punch and Hot Cranberry Tea..... while with the Hemmers and Emmerichs we like to add a little kick to our suppose to be alcohol free drink so I brought along a bottle of Hot Damn Cinnamon Schnapps. What's wrong with that? Well as guest started to arrive there were many making fun of my bottle of booze at a baby sprinkle so I covered it up so no one could see. And I'll have you know that this bottle was almost gone when the shower was done!!

Since we have Elly already we set up a picture area with Shannon and Elly's pictures. It's amazing how much Elly looks like Shan now and when Shan was little.

Cute job on the decorations girls, love the green and pink. We gave everyone a nickle when they got there. To introduce ourselves we had to give our name, how we know Shannon and then say something we have never done. Then from the other guest if they have ever done that they have to give you their nickle. My niece Jody started the game and she had a great "never done" she said "I never sent a child to school" Well that cleared out most of our nickels.... Elly's never was "I never drove a car".... she now has all the nickles. A few more people went and didn't want to take the nickles away from Elly so they said things they never did but Elly never did them either..... until...... there is pesty Aunt Gayle she's not afraid!!! She said "I never wore a polka dot dress"..... ohhhhh there goes all Elly's nickles to Auntie Gayle.

Lynn and Shawna are giving the rules for the bag over their head. You have to put the bag over your head and when Lynn says take an item off your body they have to hand it to their partner. This game was hilarious and some people were getting down to where they couldn't take anything else off....

The best was Grandma Fran with this bag on her head. She was ready to take her teeth out but the game stopped just in time.

Here's Shannon with her cake. She is so cute, we tried to get belly pictures of her but that wasn't happening.

She wanted Elly to get her picture taken with her.... so this is what you get when pesky Auntie Gayle gives her a mask that she loves. She wore this all day. Good thing Gayle had a make-up gift for taking all her nickles away!!

Shannon opened up the gift from Grandma Fran and it's the famous variegated baby afghan. All the grandchildren get them. During my niece Jody's baby shower Elly got upset at Grandma Great for giving her blanket away!! We prepared her for this one.

Lynn wrote down all the babies gifts in a hard page story book. She had a bunch of different color markers and each person had a different page in the story book. It was so cute and something Shannon and the baby can read for many years.

What a great sprinkle and what great family and friends we have.

Shannon wanted a picture of her with Elly and Lynn so here are my three girls... so far...... maybe baby will make four!!

Update from Shannon's doctor appointment this last Thursday.... nothing!!! Baby is still high and nothing is moving. She's not due until the 3rd of November and I was 3 weeks late with all three kids so I guess it may be awhile yet. Don't worry you'll be the first to hear the news.

Munson Bridge Winery

2008-10-12T20:08:00.007-05:00

John and I went to the Munson Bridge Winery. http://www.munsonbridgewinery.com/ What a fun time and the wine is sooooo good. The couple that owns this place talked to us for about 45 minutes and she was so fun and told us so many stories about how they changed this working farm into a winery for the public to enjoy.

This is behind the wine tasting bar, it's a non-working piano that holds the wine bottles and glasses. It is gorgeous. John and I taste tested 12 different wines (6 each) until we both came to our favorite. Mine is Julia's Raspberry, in which they had none to sell by the bottle only the glass. They did take us back to the milk house or now wine vats to see Julia's Raspberry brewing just waiting to be bottled this week. Lifting that huge lid and the aroma of the wine was as good as drinking it. John's favorite was 5 Ducks Crab Apple, he actually got to buy a bottle, that's okay it just means I get to go back real soon.

Here is the patio for relaxing and enjoying the wine. This used to be the cow yard

There is a pond you can sit by, it is very pretty right now with the fall colors..... this was the manure pit. Not kidding!

The hay loft has been cleaned up, they use it to sell crafts, hold weddings, cater dinners, or just a space to roam around and look at the beauty in an old barn. The owner told us they needed to talk about retirement and the fact that they wanted to keep their home so they needed to do something to work from home enough to afford retirement and enjoy themselves at the same time. This is their dream and they certainly have a good thing happening here. This next Friday they are having a local artist display her artwork while you browse the gallery you can enjoy your favorite wine.

This chandelier hangs high above the hay loft floor and is the touch of class within the rustic. A smashing deal, thanks to E-bay.

John and I after 2 glasses of wine and about 2 hours of pure relaxation.

Kallie Lynn's Birthday

2008-09-13T18:13:00.002-05:00

Jesse and Robin are the proud parents of a baby girl Kallie Lynn. She was born this morning thankfully in the hospital. They arrived and 2 minutes later she was born, the doctor didn't even make it there. This would be DiAnn's 4th grandchild, the first granddaughter... wow sis we can't keep up to this pace!!

Pictures were taken by Grandma DiAnn

Here is Jesse, Robin and Kallie

And the proud aunt Monica holding her new niece

And here is Kallie Lynn, just hours old.

Hemmerfest Weekend

2008-08-18T20:57:00.007-05:00

This last weekend we had a camping weekend at the Hunting Shack (Doghouse), we aren't really a camping family but we thought we would try it to see what happens. There were tents, pop-up campers, a big 5th wheel camper and then lots of beds in the shack. We set up on Friday night, cooked a little supper and sat by the fire. It was a cold night, I froze all night long. I even woke John up from my teeth chattering.

Jesse, Lynn and Elly setting up their tent.

Looks kinda tiny compared to Ken and Tomi's house on wheels

Putting on the rain cover

This picture is out of focus but I love the look El is giving Jesse.... "what are you doing?"

Then Lynn gets under the cover..... what are they doing?

El loved the tent

And she can talk Tia and I into just about anything.... so here's Tia pretending to sleep in a tent that's about 150 degrees. She was going to sleep in the tent until it got dark then forget it she was sleeping in the shack with Grandma.

Saturday afternoon brought lots more people to "Hemmerfest", it must have been the entertainment.... or the fabulous food.... or the warm night.... or the rain showers..... the fort building contest.....or Lynn's version of how the coyotes sounded the night before Ya Ya Ya Ya Ya Ya (say that in a really high voice and like Indians chanting).... the bean bag games....or maybe it was the riding of Adam's little dirt bike... or maybe it was just a good time.

Here is Jake's fort

Adam, Josh, Hartman, and Mini-Me's fort

Elly and Jet's fort, complete with a working TV and a DVD of Nemo... perfect

I gotta simplify this or I'll never get done with this post.....Enjoying the fire and sunshine

Grandpa giving El her morning kisses

Ken checking out Adam's blind. The boys were inside then they would holler walk...... down....walk......down.... they were sneaking up on us since they were camouflaged.

The fist ever bean bag crowd wave... here they are setting up

The start of the wave.....

and the end of the wave....

Adam and Sara sitting by the fire, hey kids your gonna melt your shoes!

Jason and his little boy.... I love a thumb sucker

Great food

Amber and Nate's Wedding

2008-07-25T16:49:00.008-05:00

I better post an update on here, I kinda neglect this blog so if you want to see what we're up to don't forget to check out my POTD blog. It's link is on the right side of this blog or go to www.cmhpotd2008.blogspot.com

We had another Hemmer wedding this summer. Welcome Nate to this crazy family.... we already know you fit right in.

I'm really bad at getting the bride and groom together in the same picture so this is the only one I have of them together and Nate's eyes are closed and it's the back of Amber's head but isn't her hair pretty?

Here is Our nephew Travis, Amber, Rondi and Travis's girlfriend.

Amber and her mom Rondi, they look so much alike and they both looked stunning today. Rondi is my 2nd or 3rd cousin somehow don't ask me how and then she marries John's brother Ron before I'm even in John dreams (since you all know he dreamed about me all the time, couldn't wait to be with me, followed me around the halls at school just trying to get his nerve up to ask me out on a date.... and then stands me up, yep he really wanted me!!)

Ron talking with his Dad.

Elly felt the need to spin everyone around like a top, and then they put stuff on the floor to make it even more slippery, it's a good thing Lynn decided to take over for me, I wasn't sure how much more spinning I could take.

So now El and Jet decided to play in the stuff on the dance floor like it's one big sandbox. The dance went on you just had to watch out for the roads they were building.

El thought the bride was a princess and she stared at her all day and night. She wanted to touch her dress. She also wanted to dance with the princess but was too shy to ask. There was a point when she got really tired so we opted for the puppy and blanket, but then she got her second wind. Now she wants to dance with the princess.

Will you please dance with me but I'm too shy to ask so I'm just going to look at you with my sad eyes and hope you know what I want.

Please, please can I dance with you???

Okay forget it, throw the puppy down and dance with the boys, the start of the second wind. Here is Josh, Jet, Megan, Lynn and Elly dancing the night away.

Okay Jet's tired lets give him to Mom and we'll keep dancing.

Jake starting dancing too, these kids are dancing machines!

I love the dancing picture but probably because I know how much fun they were having, if you weren't there I'm sure these aren't much to look at.

Just a side note - Elly knows all the words to so many songs, she would sing to almost every song that was on. It was un-believable so we all watched her to see if she knew the words... sure enough so did.

Elly finally tuckered out at 11:45, she was done and wanted to go home. We got in the truck and drove about 2 miles when her song by Kid Rock "All Summer Long" came on the radio

Me - Elly can you take another song, it's your favorite

Shannon - Mom, she's sleeping already

Me - Oh

Elly - Grandma can you just turn it up a little bit?

: )

House is done on the outside

2008-06-30T21:38:00.005-05:00

Here is an update of the house. It's done on the outside, now we're slowly working on the inside. When it's nice outside who wants to be working on the inside? I have this week of vacation to stain and varnish windows... yuck! But it was too nice out today, I'll maybe start tomorrow. :)

I think we are finally getting used to the windows on the inside, they make the house very dark and keep it really cool. I love the sunshine coming through the windows making a bright house and I do not like a cool house so I'm opening the windows to let the heat in!! Crazy I know. When looking in from outside you cannot see in the house either unless your right up by the windows, we like that part. I'm sure in time the effects of the sun not coming through the windows will pay for themselves. No more fading carpet and furniture (oh darn I don't really like my couch and chairs). Check out the pictures.

View from the north including the big garage. We tried to get the tan colors to match but they don't... but they look okay together.

View from the south-east.

East side

North side - I gotta figure out a way to hide those electrical boxes and pipes!! Any ideas?

I guess I got another view from the east.... but look at the bushes on the right that line the driveway.... John cut one of them down because it was half dead and then I come home from work shocked that he cut it flat down to the ground!! Is that what we talked about??? NO. So if you cut that one down you might as well cut the other one down so they are even, really you think so he says?? So he cuts it down... later that night we visit the neighbors and he says "Paul my plan worked she wanted me to cut the other one down too" What a sneaky guy!!

It actually looks nicer with every other one gone... he's lucky!!

House Update

2008-05-19T20:39:00.005-05:00

I haven't posted any pictures of the house for you to see the shack we are living in now. It seems things are moving along quite well until I look at these pictures and then wonder.... why did we do this?

Because the windows were rotten, the shingles were shot, the siding wouldn't match up because some of the windows are going to be different sizes.... that's why

South side of house with far left window replaced

North side with one window replaced

And a close up of my red windows. John says the ZoE glass and the red frame with the sun shining on them makes the glass look red, I don't see it but remember he is color blind.

The Sisters together again

2008-05-06T20:30:00.005-05:00

Sisters are so much fun. We were all together for Adam's confirmation so we decided to have our picture taken. We have a hard time being serious for a nice picture... as you can tell.

Of course Dad had to get in the picture, he was missing the fun.

And our favorite picture.

Look at all those Lea fingers and hands... we all have them.

It was about 6 years ago I had to make a video at work and perform the job while someone filmed it. Later I watched the video and ended up in tears. I'm not sure how my mothers hands got in that video but they were there. The conference room full of people watching that video for the first time with me didn't know what my problem was.

I think DiAnn is the only one who polishes her nails like Mom always did. Mom couldn't go anywhere without her nails polished and her lipstick on.... hair in curlers, dirty clothes didn't matter as long as the nails and lips were taken care of. She carried a wood box back and forth from the bar and there was always her fingernail kit in there and when the last customer walked out she was painting, filing, cuticle digging.... until the next one walked in.

Proms

2008-04-13T20:02:00.005-05:00

3 kids, 4 proms..... Adam is a Junior this year and I wanted him to go to his Junior Prom, I think it's important to experience the whole get dressed up, pictures at every one's house, and go to Post Prom at the Sports Page until 6am the next morning. He refused until 1 week before, but that was enough time his date had a dress that night, she must have been waiting for him to ask. He had a really good time. The next day his legs hurt from all the dancing and his voice was scratchy from the singing.... I'm not so sure the girls danced or sang at their proms?? Adam and his buddy Brad stopped by the house after returning the tuxes with their aches and pains and tired bodies... all I could see is what it will be like when they are 21.... I'm in trouble!! All I can pray for is Adam choice of liquid will still be Gatorade.

Here's a look into the past (sorry it was film days so I had to take a picture of the pictures in the scrapbooks)

Lynn's 1st Prom (Sophomore Year) with Jesse

Lynn's 2nd Prom (Junior Year) with Jesse

Shannon's Junior Prom with Kyle

Adam's Junior Prom with Sarah

Spring Walk

2008-03-28T11:33:00.006-06:00

I got some pictures from by girlfriend who lives about 10 miles south of me, she took a walk and sent me the signs of spring. So I decided to tie Adam to his chair (just kidding), promise to make him a peanut butter chocolate shake when I get back if he stays in the chair, and I go for a walk with my camera. I can post the signs of spring just to get those bald heads pushed down further in my blog... :)

Well here in the north the signs of spring are not there yet. I seen nothing like L did. No robins, no pussywillows, no melting snow streams, no grass..... So I had to capture what I did see. This trip was a tad cold since I ventured out into the fields and ditches to capture just the right picture, the ditches are still full of snow but let me tell you, under that snow is really, really cold water.

Field of last falls cornstalks and the sun making the ice crusted snow glimmer.

My shawdow on the snowy ditches, look at those looooong legs!

This reminds me of the Ocean, only it's snow and cold here

An old rusty tractor at the junk neighbors house

Fence post with tips of the tall grass sticky out from the 16" of snow yet.

Broken glass blocks at the junk neighbors house.

Hummmm some sign at the junk neighbors house, I wonder what it means??

Oh look what I found under the snow in our ditch.... John is going to have a lot of raking to do and he always wants to buy more gravel.....

And here is Adam waiting for his shake, this soft food diet is not for him.

Spring is coming, it's just not over here yet.

Hair or No Hair????

2008-03-24T19:37:00.003-06:00

Picture A

Picture B

Picture C

Picture D

Picture E

Not your typical Easter pictures....What entertainment this family has on holidays.

Question #1 - Who's bald head is whos??

Question #2 - Which bald head is the youngest?

Question #3 - Which one is the oldest?

Question #4 - Are all these bald heads related?

Question #5 - If they had a sister would she have hair?

More Mexico

2008-02-24T21:23:00.004-06:00

Here another small snap shot of our vacation.

Our friend from the pool. He swam in our pool and soaked up the sun everyday.

I always wanted a picture of a bum, why I don't know but this guy was eating off the ground and I was far enough away to take his picture.

We took a sunset cruise and had so much fun on it. I took about one hundred pictures of the sunset so if I flip through them really fast I can watch it all over again. It is so pretty and the cruise was so much fun, there were only about 20 people on the boat so we really had a lot of attention for the crew... we re-named it the booze cruise.

We went to Stone Island for a day, it had a calmer beach and whiter sand. This is the building (?) at the entrance.

There was always a sailboat on the ocean. This has to be one of my favorite pictures.

This sunset is from our motel beach. Last night there.

Mexico Vacation

2008-02-19T19:39:00.005-06:00

John and I took a much needed vacation to Mazatlan, MX with our friends/neighbor P&K. They asked us a while back and we himmm-hawed back and forth and finally decided. WHY NOT? So the months flew by and before we knew it we had a day left before the trip. P&K are so much fun to be with and we knew we'd have a great time, we headed off on Friday night about 6ish and about an hour on the road a semi passed us leaving us in a white-out from the lightly falling snow we were having. As John applied the brakes we noticed a car upside down on the left, another in the ditch on the right, another with a police car and tow truck on the right. P asked John to test the road.... Oh crap we better slow down! We went from 65 down to 35-40 mph. We seen probably 12-15 cars/trucks in the ditch. Our 2 1/2 hour drive to the airport turned out ot be 3 1/2 hours but we made it safe and sound. We ate supper, had a few cocktails and turned in early (early morning that is)... 2 hours later the alarm went off, who should have to get up at 2:45am on their first day of vacation?

We left Wisconsin at 19 below with a fabulous flight, everthing on time and arrived in Mexico at 80 degree weather. The early morning was worth it!!

P's Mom and Dad had a timeshare that we got to stay with at this beautiful place, there were 3 pools and from our balcony we could see the ocean.

This is the main pool and you can't see the whole left side of the pool which is bigger than this side.

This is the pool(s) near our room (the quiet pool) WHAT?? There is another pool under that rectanglular opening, that one was heated so "P" took his morning swim there. The little one off to the right was the kiddy pool

My favorite thing to do is walk the beach so here's John and I taking a walk down the mile+ shore line. The sand was warm but the water was freezing.

This is "Valentino's" a BIG disco place. The nightlife in Mazatlan is suppose to be big into American Disco and this is the happening spot. We never made it there.

We went to see the divers.... of course they work for tips.

On our city tour we stopped at a seafood market.... no ice, hot sun, fish, shrimp, lobsters, no ice.... I wish this blog had scratch and sniff b/c it's a smell I will never forget and I think you should all have a chance to smell it too. One guy on the bus decided to buy some shrimp (good deal) so everytime we got out again and closed up the bus in the hot sun we got to climb back into a very smelly shrimp boat. I really like the look of this picture, it says Mexico simple-life to me.

We went to a Mexican Fiesta one night and these dancers were so good, the bright colors and the fast twirls they did were so amazing to watch.

Okay there are many more photos to go so I'll post again in a few days.... takes forever to load up the photos. Last pic for the night is of John and I in front of Stone Island.

Shannon's new apartment and puppy

2008-01-27T20:45:00.000-06:00

Shannon, Kyle and Elly got a new apartment and she finally let Tia and I come take a look. It's really nice and I'm sure Elly really likes having the room to run, jump and play without Mommy yelling that the neighbors are gonna hear her.

Elly had a princess bedroom.... her dad made it for her.

The kitchen and dining room, Shan baked chocolate cupcakes for the visitors.

The living room, which we got to help decorate while we were there.

And the fireplace....

It's very nice.

Shannon and Elly also got a new puppy.... I'm not really crazy about animals but they make everyone else happy. Shan brought Louie over to meet us today, John really liked him. Look at the size of his feet???? Poor Elly is gonna have a miniature horse instead of a dog! He's about 9 weeks old and really, really lazy. He's not too playful yet and sleeps most of the time. Of course he had to follow me around the house and lay at my feet as everyone else was trying to get him to come by them. Louie was taking his nap behind the chair and when he woke up Shan wanted him to got outside but no one could get him to come out.... I thought what a cute picture so I laid on the floor to take his picture and he jumped out to try to lick my face.... yuck!! Now why do animals think they like me??

So here's Louie....

Grandpa, Elly and Louie

Louie stuck behind the chair

Of course Louie laying by my feet....

Christmas Morning Picture

2008-01-01T19:07:00.000-06:00

Christmas Morning we woke to one of God's most beautiful winter landscapes, the snow was still covering the trees and the rest of the outdoors was touched with frost crystals. Of course I feel it's a great time to take a picture before we leave for Gayle and Bill's.... the two boys that still live here did not! They do it to keep me happy but they don't like it.

I need to buy batteries for my remote so now I have to set up the camera and run around and hopefully get in place without looking weird only did this about 15 times....

I look weird and uncomfortable, I better get those batteries.

Adam is done with my photo session.... D U N done.

Poor kid being the last child he has to put up with so much

If you haven't found the link on the right had side for my new POTD (picture of the day) blog, go ahead and check it out. I'm not sure how long I'll make it but I'm sure it will go better than losing the 15 pounds I found over the past year.

Christmas Misc.

2007-12-29T17:08:00.000-06:00

Cookie Baking with the kids

We all really like the cut-out cookies so we have to make more than what we get from the big cookie baking so we set aside a Friday night to bake and decorate cookies. Kathy came down to help since Paul was heading out to the snowmobile races early. Elly only slipped off her chair like 5 times from all the flour that she managed to get on her, the chair, the floor... Now she says to me..... "Grawma I can't sit on those chairs remember I fall off".

Here is Lynn rolling out the dough for Elly, Shannon and Kathy.

Now it's time to frost.... don't let Jesse fool you, he only frosted 1 cookie and then ... oops can't spoil the next picture.

Lynn why did you throw your purse at my cookie?

Hey Jesse can gingerbread men fly?

El and everyone else really like Shan's new decoraters.

School Program

Next is Elly's first school program. They were so darn cute. Lot's of boys in that class!

There's El in the middle sporting her antlers and red nose. She had a pretty polka doted dress of course in pink.

Shan was a little shocked with El's choice of shoes for the outfit, she had her real shoes in her backpack but she decided to wear her boots, good thing they are also pink. We didn't know until she walked out on stage, I think they look cute, Mom didn't!!

Brush Fire at the Doghouse

Another year with a brush fire at the hunting shack. The night was perfect for playing, snow falling down and warm. We had such a good time, El didn't ever want to come in, she was having a great time in pink from head to toe.

The kids found a sled to ride, but who's gonna pull us?

ADAM!! Maybe not!

Here's my family picture for the night. The kids didn't really think to much of it and El cried and would not even attempt to try it. So she get to be background with that pouty face.

And the pictures of the fire.

John and I took a walk to the backside of the fire for some cool shots.

And my attempt to play with a picture of El while she tried to beg Grawma not to make her lay down and kick her legs in the air. If this isn't a please face I don't know what is.

Gift Opening

Now for a few Christmas Eve photos.

Elly got a magnetic puzzle from Uncle Adam, she can dress Barbie in lots of clothes.

Adam with his new glasses, and his serious face.

Lynn this is the only picture I had of both of you....

John with his new ATV front trunk... look to the left of the picture. He got 2!!

Shan watching El open the many gifts she was spoiled with.

And Godmother Shawna got to get El her most wanted gift this year. Yep all she wanted for Christmas was a #2 pencil and she got 10 of them and they are all sharp, she was so happy. She does not color with crayons or markers. She colors with a pencil, the entire picture, with lots of shading but the pencil has to be sharp, if it's dull she be looking for someone to sharpen it for her. She has an entire color book at daycare colored with a pencil and she has another one at Grawma's. Maybe she'll be a pencil artist someday! And don't even try colored pencils... I already did and she didn't like them.

Christmas was very good to us and the family time we had was very important. I hope you all had safe and wonderful Christmas with your families as well.

Clean window and The Nutcracker

2007-12-16T18:24:00.000-06:00

Okay tell me what you see in this picture?

If you said the imprint of a bird after hitting the window you are correct... If you didn't go back and look closer, I think you can even click on the picture to blow it up bigger.

We have no idea when this bird hit the window but he obviously hit it really, really hard. He left an imprint of his eye, beak, wings, feathers, tuff of feathers on his little head... it's kinda hard to see in this picture but in real life you can even see his little feet all tucked up under his body. Geeze that had to hurt, we all know John keeps his windows in his garage pretty clean but this is ridiculous, poor little bird. Jesse and I believe it looks like a robin, yep that's right it's so clear that we can even identify what kind of bird it was. It's actually quite freaky, kinda ghost like.

Nutcracker Ballet - I took pictures for Miss K, she was Clara this year. This is dress rehearsal, those girls spun around about a hundred miles and hour and the lighting was very poor. It was a picture taking nightmare. But the photos turned out very good.... all 249 of them.

Assignment #3 and Cookie Baking

2007-12-02T12:38:00.000-06:00

Assignment number 3 is - Shutter speed / Aperture

This first part (shutter speed) was to photograph moving subjects, streams, vehicles or waterfalls and make them stop the motion. Well I cheated a bit on this one since I took these photo's back in April when I went to visit Lynn and Jesse in Oregon. However, it's not really cheating because I did at that time understand the method of adjusting the shutter speed to make the water stop. Here are some examples .

The stream is stopped, you can even see the water going backwards in the bottom center as it hits the rocks.

The motion of the creek is stopped as it flows through the lush green forest.

The bottom of the water fall looks like mist.

2nd half of the lesson was aperture - The size of the opening in the lens that lets light pass through into the camera. The size of the aperture effects depth of field (how much is in focus from front to back)

This first picture is an example of all the cookies being in focus, you eye goes from the front of the photo to the back and doesn't highlight or put more attention to any of the cookies.

Now this photo was taken with a small aperture causing the focus to fall on the white candies of the yellow cookie and the cookies in front are blurred and so are the ones behind. Your eye is drawn right to the most important part of the photo, and of course it helped that the candies were white which also makes them stand out.

Here are some more. This was by far my favorite assignment so far, I love putting the depth of field in the photos. Focus on the silver'ish blue ball that's slightly higher than the rest.

Focus on the pile of balls and the sea of balls behind that just blurs into a colorful background.

And of course I have a shoe addiction so I decided to line up a few sandals before I put them away for the winter. The aperture is very small in the photo, you can bearly make out the sandals in the back.

This photo I opened up the aperture so that you could see them but still have them blurred to draw the eye to the front sandal but still move to the last shoe.

Now here's some more photo's from our annual cookie baking at Starla and Brad's house. I didn't take out my camera much this year, not sure why I must have gotten to full of frosting...

Lynn, Elly and Beth (Mike's girlfriend) are starting to frost the cut outs.

Beau still likes to frost!

Starla and Gayle had new fancy froster thingys and the creativity was great.

Thanks Starla and Brad for the wonderful day, it really was fun.

The start of the big hunt

2007-11-19T12:12:00.000-06:00

The big Wisconsin Gun Hunt season started this Saturday morning. The guys at the shack were deerless opening day but John bagged this nice 9 point buck Sunday morning. As he tells me "Another wall hanger Connie!!". He is so excited

Jake was so upset on Saturday about being the middle child and Josh gets to do everything before him. He gets to hunt before me, he gets to ride a bike before me, he gets to go to school before me, he gets to..... that mean ole' mom letting Josh do all those things first!! So I picked up Jake and brought him out to see John's buck BEFORE JOSH got to do it!!

Jake hopped down off the trailer and told Adam "I'll give you 20 bucks if you touch his tongue". Adam didn't do it.

Here is the magic of taking pictures.... it looks huge. It is a nice rack and nice spread (two phrases you can use during hunting season without getting in trouble) but my photography skills help.

Keep checking back for updates on the other hunters, Adam's been walking his little butt off., he wants another WALL HANGER. Remember this one?? Adam's first buck in 2004 opening morning, I think it was his 2nd year of hunting.

Been downhill for him ever since. Kinda bites when your first buck is a monster that happens to walk out in front of you on opening day.... most of the bucks take a little more work from the hunter, a lesson Adam is learning for the 2nd year now.

Happy Thanksgiving

Assignment #2

2007-11-15T12:40:00.000-06:00

Have you all been checking this blog every hour of every day awaiting assignment number two? Well it was to go out and take pictures of children, make their personality come out in the pictures. Let the kids be who they want to be and capture moments that make you smile.

I didn't think you all wanted to see more pictures of El than what you have already so I waited for different faces for you to see.

I have been taking pictures of this family for almost 2 years now and they are so much fun. Here's a sneak peak for the moms and I get to finish my assignment.

Family #1 - Very cute family, perfect Christmas card.

Family #2 - Little "A" on the left finally let me take her picture, she didn't like her picture taken before and this time she couldn't get enough. Now Little "C" was the one crying but we finally got her to settle down to get some sweet pictures and then there's Mr. "T" he is such a ham and we got him to settle down also for a non-posed picture. :)

These 3 were so cute

And now for some that I played with... this picture just cracks me up... Little "C" was crying and we couldn't get her to stop so I told everyone else to cry. All the little ones started to cry and the older two boys "C & C" thought I was nuts, can't you tell by the looks on their faces??

A little color wash and brightened edges.

Now I can read assignment #3, the pace I'm going I might be done with all 9 by the end of next year.

25 years

2007-11-08T19:49:00.001-06:00

25 years married.

Pretty amazing since we were 17 and 18 years old,

the priest that married us said we would be divorced in less than 6 months.

25 years later and here are 25 things that you may or may not know about me

1 - I love my 3 wonderful children more than anything

2 - I adore my loving, caring best friend (my husband)

It's okay John already knows I have and will always put the kids ahead of him, he understands!!

3 - As fast as this little girl came into my life, as scary as the first few hours were, as confused as I was, the many tears I cried.... she is my breath of fresh air and I need to see her almost everyday for my big hug and that excitement she has in her voice when she screams "Gwaaama".... My Elly girl

4 - We have a wonderful son-in-law who continues to make us proud

5 - My favorite candy bar is TWIX

6 - I love the McDonalds Southwest Salad with the Southwest Dressing and now they discontinued it...... URGHHHH

7 - Rearranging the livingroom furniture makes me feel good

8 - When John sweeps and vacuums the floors before I get home from work I feel happy

9 - I love my laptop and wireless high speed Internet, John probably doesn't

10 - Grey's Anatomy is my favorite show followed by The Biggest Loser

11 - I don't like receiving gifts but I love to give them

12 - I love Mountain Dew but I know I shouldn't

13 - I am such a creature of habit every morning while getting up, getting ready for work, leaving for work, getting to work, turning on my computer, getting my soda, checking my e-mail and then the rest of the day I'm okay for anything in any order.... if one of my habits cannot be done I'm very thrown off. strange huh?

14 - Bottles of shampoo and conditioner drive me crazy.... the pretty colors, the shapes, the names. I can now control myself not to buy them because of these marketing traps but years ago the shower was full of pretty bottles but the product was crap

15 - I get instantly crabby walking into a house full of dirty dishes

16 - I love to snuggle John's side of the bed when he has to get up and go to work

17 - My food can't touch....I know you all know this one but I had to mention it

18 - I lost my mother before I got to know her very well

19 - My hobbies are gardening, scrapbooking and taking pictures

20 - Decorating magazines are one of my weaknesses

21 - I joined a gym and love it

22 - I don't decorate my house very much anymore for the holidays and I don't know why

23 - My favorite time of the year is the hot summer days, working outside with the radio loud enough to hear wherever you are, taking 3:00 break on the porch and ending the day with a fire in the pit and our bodies too sore to move.... yeah I love that!

24 - I can't eat shrimp anymore and I know they had nothing to do with my appendix attack

25 - I got 1 huge bouquet of roses and some tasty chocolates from the most wonderful man in my life....

What a wonderful surprise.

And of course I had to play with some of the pictures. I like this one

And the chocolates... didn't I mention the gym. I guess another 20 minutes on the treadmill for each piece, but they are so worth it.

25 years - Life is Good

Halloween Parade

2007-10-30T19:28:00.000-06:00

Yep it's the Halloween Parade, I love to go and watch the parade and this year I had a big surprise.... John and Adam didn't want to go! I was pouting around the house not wanting to go by myself. Just like that Shannon called and asked if I wanted to go with her and Elly, of course I do.

Elly absolutely dislikes wearing any type of costume, so this is what you get. Elly dressed up like Elly. Adam didn't like dressing up either, he didn't like going trick or treating, he didn't like getting the candy, he didn't like anything about Halloween so we could never take him, now El is following in his footsteps and Shan is not happy with it.

Here she is with her friend "M" who is wearing a costume!!

Good thing one of the floats gave away a tiny picture book so El was happy about being at the parade. All the candy that flew her way was shared with "M". As soon as she got the book, the heck with the parade she looked at her book like 15 times.

Here's the Medford Area Senior High School Band.

And Broom Hilda was a smash hit. Isn't she just the scariest witch you have ever seen?

Does anyone recognize the face on this witch?? You can click on the picture to make it bigger so you can really check it out and guess who it is.

The MC this year for the parade was Kris she got a ride in a bucket. She did an wonderful job and the parade had 60 floats and took a long time, we were all frozen by the time the firetrucks got there. Oh yeah I almost forgot to mention the horses.... this year there were so many horses and of course they always have to stop right in front of us. Those animals scare me more than Broom Hilda.

And on the way home El trick or treated at the Doghouse where the guys were warm and cozy in their shack. The bar is done and some of the walls are getting done, the guys are doing a good job making it a pleasant place to visit for anyone.

Ken, John, Elly, and Ed

Oh... the witch is Gayle on the Reflections float.

Happy Halloween

Corn Maze

2007-10-24T20:51:00.000-05:00

Elly, Lynn, Shannon and I went to the corn maze on Saturday. Elly had a great time running through the maze finding the clues so she could get a prize at the end. She got to pick the paths that we took and I tried to scare her that she was going the wrong way... she didn't scare or fall for any of it.

Tia is helping her with her first clue, there was a nursery rhyme for each of the 5 clues.

Her favorite clue... the spider, now she wants to find the web... there is no web!

We finished the corn maze and Elly went straight to the round hay bale maze, she was cautious and ran around on the inside

and then when she seen the bigger kids on the tops she wanted to try it. By the time we left she was running. Tia wanted to know if I brought her helmet and Shan wasn't real impressed with Grandma teaching her dangerous boy things. Shan kinda likes her being a clean cautious little girl.

We took a hay wagon ride to the round barn.

The round barn, they moved this here last year and I forget how many years old it is but it's old. They are fixing up the inside to hopefully host weddings and picture backdrops for weddings, seniors... It was so cool.

Looking up through the center. There were two levels in the barn.

Elly in the pumpkin patch. It was a very fun day. We finished the day with eating at Applebee's for Shan's birthday and shopping at Target for Elly's new pink and brown cowgirl boots.

Happy Fall

Emmerich Soup Off 2007

2007-10-24T20:38:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year again, SOUP OFF! The time we all stress over what soup we're gonna make, put our families through pots and pots of different soups asking if it's a winning soup.... Making casual conversations with the sisters to see if anyone is going to spill what soup they are making.... I even stooped as low this year as stopping by DiAnn's on the night before the soup off to see if I could see or smell her soup.

I'm not very good at soup, except Chicken Noodle and I already won with that soup so I can't bring it anymore. I dig through tons of soup recipes looking for the best sounding soup and I decide on a not so difficult soup, it sounds good and it's easy.

John ask.... what soup are you making this year? I tell him "Spicy Pork and Vegetable Soup", he says "Ohhhh" not the oh like yum that sounds good, the oh like I'm not gonna like it. I tell him if I went to the 8th Street and wrote the soup of the day on the board "Spicy Pork and Vegetable Soup" he would say... "oh that sounds good I'll have to try a cup". As you can tell it gets real tense when it's close to Soup Off Final Decision Day!!

Here are some of the girls with their monster glasses drinking a fun drink that Lynn brought.

The official soup off voting cans. This year we had 10 different soups

The line up of soups, everyone tries every soup and then gets one red voting spoon and places the voting spoon into the orange can with the same number as their favorite. Sometimes you have to go back for 2nd's if you have a couple favorites until you can decide on only one.

And the winning soup is "Corn Chowder"

Made by DiAnn.... her first year winning the Soup Off. Shown below with the prize winning ladle (made by Shannon E, last years winner) and her 5 voting spoons.

Congratulations DiAnn it really is a big honor, the Winner of 2007 Soup Off

Here is Terry with his son Ian in his highchair.

A new event this year was a football kicking contest won by Tom for the guys and Lynn for the girls. Tom won a pie and Lynn won cut out cookies.

Another new event... a pie shooting contest. Shannon shot a gun for the first time in her life.

Lynn trying her luck at the pie shoot.

Here's the target

Here's where the girls shot.

Gayle's shot

Lynn's shot

And Shannon's shot

Maybe next year they will do better.

Picture Assignment #1 (Color)

2007-10-24T20:27:00.001-05:00

I found an on-line free course for some photo assignments and this is Assignment #1. Go out and take a picture of color. Well this time of year the color isn't very good. All the leaves are gone, no snow to accent the other colors.... This is as good as I could do for right now. I'm not really happy with this picture for the assignment challenge but I do like the pictures. It was a Saturday morning after a hard frost and the river was steaming.

Sun peaking through the trees.

It was one of those beautiful fall mornings that smells so cold and fresh.

The reflections were stunning.

Then after what I think is not such good color that evening during sunset we are outside and I see the most gorgeous colorful sunset...... ohhhh my camera, my assignment, my color.

How's this for color outside?

I'm still not sure if I consider myself done with this assignment, so far I have not moved onto assignment #2 so I must feel I can do better, comment to me and let me know what you think.

4 wheeling trip

2007-10-10T20:23:00.000-05:00

John and I went on a 4wheeling trip this last weekend with some of his co-workers. It was a beautiful day for a ride, it should have been sweatshirts and jeans but instead tank tops and shorts were worn by some. I happen to love the outdoors and I look forward to this annual trip. John leans back to give me a kiss on the cheek and thank me for being a nature lover and not afraid of getting dirty.

It was very muddy since we have gotten over 4 inches of rain in the past weeks so John was going around all the puddles trying to not get real dirty. After a few hours of that he goes right straight through the middle thinking it might not be that bad.... Not that bad but not that good either. All others were carrying their cameras in plastic bags to prevent them from getting wet, nope not me, mine is right on my lap or in front of my face, if I can't get the splashing mud I ain't happy.

1 kid lost his 3 wheeler in a huge puddle, flipped er' right over, we got there and his dad was picking up pieces and putting the wheeler back together. It ripped his sock right off his foot, he only had the toes left and his show was floating away. Gotta love it. Next Brittney was trying to keep up to the dirt bikes and lost control and headed right into the brush, they had to pull her out but she was fine.

Then at the gravel pit All the kids got muddy from their ears to their toes. Check out the pictures from the day.

Alex and Monica (clean)

The start of some mud

Conrad is such a cute kid, he climbed this tree (and many others) like he was walking upstairs. Then he just sat up there....

Brittney in the pickers

The gravel pit (Alex and Monica are way back on the right and still clean)

Mark and Conrad driving through the mud holes like a 40+ year old...

Alex and Monica driving through the mud holes like teenagers (not clean anymore)

Say Cheese

2007-10-09T20:29:00.000-05:00

Adam got his braces off today..... yeah! Look at those teeth.

No more paying for orthodontist bills.... I can't begin to tell you how much money we have spent on straight teeth but every cent was well worth it. Now let's all keep our retainers in our mouths to maintain that work.... right Lynn??? You too Shannon!!

Happy Birthday Shannon, you're 22 today. It still seems like yesterday that you were asking for everything yellow for your birthday. Yellow flowers, yellow cake, yellow presents, yellow clothes. And of course that's what you got.

Big Weekend

2007-10-01T20:43:00.000-05:00

Elly stood up as the Flower Girl in her aunt Jamie's wedding this last weekend. She wanted Tia to give her lots of curls and put makeup on her. That was all she talked about for days. Tia did get the curls she wanted and she got to wear the flowers in her hair and her pretty dress. She was very, very pretty and is getting to be such a big girl. Her hair took a little longer than she wanted to sit still so we had to come up with lots of stuff for her to do at the counter. Here is Tia putting the last touches of curls after the tiara.

And here is the little princess all dressed up. She was so excited to get her dress on.

Here's Elly and Shannon being silly and getting their pictures taken before they head out for the wedding.

Elly got a pumpkin from Shan's friend Katrina. It has her name craved in it with a couple of pictures. I needed a picture of her with her pumpkin but she was done with pictures. I hope she does better at the wedding!

After the beauty shop at the house John and I headed up to Moniqua with the neighbors Paul and Kathy. We were going up for Beef-A-Rama.... it's were the shops on the main street cook up big chunks of beef in themed outfits/props, drink lots of beer and get judged for the best looking, and best tasting beef. This all happens on the Hwy with the traffic trying to get through with mobs and people trying to get a look at the beef.

Of course I should have taken my camera but I left it in the car so I'll have to tell you about the highlights of the day. 3:00 they shut the Hwy down for a parade.... you may think it's floats, costumes, clowns, horses.... nope it wasn't. It was for the beef to get from the mainstreet to the park. They paraded the beef down the street in wagons, carrying it on a rod, dressed the beef like a football... It was quite the experience.

Next we went to the bar to get out of the cold for awhile and watched the Badger game, thinking everyone followed the beef to the park... wrong. The bars were full of crazy, fun people. The table next to us had a cow hat that they wore and tried to touch their tongues on their nose like cows do. They took many pictures and of course the ladies wanted them deleted as soon as they seen them. We then took a walk to an outside 3 man funny band and danced a few songs. We started a Mambo line dancing with anyone who would join us. Of course we danced past a flag pole and I wrapped my legs around the pole and just about gave the main singer a small heart attack. He added after the song that I was the first pole dancer of Beef-a-rama.

What an Honor LOL

We ended up back in a bar where we watched the rest of the Badger Game, which they won and that bar went crazy. They played the Jump song and everyone in there, wall to wall, was jumping. They were jumping on the floor, tables, chairs.... WOW it went crazy in there, I'm no football fan but that was kinda fun.

Well the day should have ended with eating a Beef Sandwich, since they serve over 4,000 people, but the lines were all the way down the street so we left with no beef.

The next day we headed up to Michigan to see the fall colors, here is a picture of a lake on the way. There was a gorgeous eagle flying just over the lake when we drove by but it was gone by the time we came back. It would have been a cool picture, someone was there with their big camera and tripod so they got they moment.

We went to Porcupine Mountain to see the waterfalls and Lake Superior.

The walking brides were all the way through woods.

Just some pretty leaves

The first falls.... nothing like Oregon's but it was still very pretty and fun to hike through.

The river that runs into Lake Superior

Look at the rock formation!

And this rock....

The water swirls around and makes circles in the rocks. Very dangerous water. The leaves aren't even colored here since the Lake keeps the temperature warmer will be a few more weeks for the colors to start changing here.

Lake Superior at the end of the river.

John, Paul and Kathy walking ahead of me to the Lake.

Oh can I take these rocks home.... all of them!

John and I

Next we went to Lake of the Clouds and by now it was raining pretty good but the view was stunning. It was so windy up there we felt like it was going to blow us right over the edge (not really) =)

Paul and Kathy up at the top and John is slowly making his way up there. It really is that cloudy and rainy and John does need to hold onto his hat or it would be gone.

Paul can talk John into just about anything and this proves it. Paul is so adventurous and John is very reserved but Paul got John to go down and explore the mine on the side of the road. There was a sign saying it had 15K bats living inside it. It was dark, muddy, water was running down the sides and below..... Paul is in the cave, John is just sticking his head in and Kathy screams behind them and gives John's heart a jump start, good thing he didn't jump and hit his head on the rocks. That was it he turned around and came out mumbling something about "Why do I let him talk me into this stuff"

We had a great time!

Fall Colors

2007-09-25T20:12:00.000-05:00

Here all the fall colors in Medford. I can't believe we are that far ahead of Appleton (check out Lynn's blog on the right). This tree is on the way to Wausau and it was so pretty being the only red tree. This was on Friday and today there's not many green leaves anymore.

Gotta love the fall colors but I enjoy summer and I'm so not ready for it to come to an end.

Family

2007-09-24T19:55:00.000-05:00

Family Party - My oldest sister was home this weekend so we had a little get together at the Sport's Page. It was Sharon and Brad's birthday and Sharon and Bruce's Anniversary. I thought everyone would like a few pictures of the party so here they are.

Joanne, Sharon and Dad gambling.

Happy Birthday Sharon

and

Happy Anniversary Dad and Joanne

And doesn't that look like me behind Sharon and Dad? I looked at this picture and I knew I took it but how could I get back there.... It's Gayle!!

Shannon told me the other day that she seen Gayle and couldn't get over how much she could see me in her, Shannon said it was so weird because she hadn't noticed that before and neither did I but WOW Gayle you are one hot babe!! LOL

Here's Elly and Xavier playing race cars. They played so well together, Elly cried when she had to leave because she was having so much fun playing with her "new friends".

Xander had to show me his boo boo on his hand.

Does Xander's grandpa have a boo boo on his hand too. I didn't even realize that I got both their pictures with their hands up until I downloaded them. Xander is just like his grandpa...

Happy Birthday Brad

Here's Dad with all his Son-in-laws. Who's the favorite??

Bruce, Bill, Dad, John and Brad

Then here is Dad with his only son... that was there at the time. Terry is the #1 son, first time ever that the youngest is #1.

Terry, Ian and Dad

And Dad with all his girls, as always standing in order. We never take a picture when we are out of order, it just wouldn't be right.

Sharon, Starla, Dad, Gayle, DiAnn and Connie

Nature Walk

2007-09-09T19:35:00.001-05:00

Okay so I didn't see this buck on my nature walk. John and Ken got a new trail camera and this little buck decided to pose for the guys to prove the camera is working.

Here is my nature walk. It was such a nice day and so beautiful in the woods, I could have taken hundreds of pictures but I controlled myself to about 75. These are my favorite berry trees, they are everywhere this year.

Here is the mushroom I went out for. These mushrooms are so huge and all over. I had a hard time trying to decide which one to post here. Then since the mushrooms grow so close to the ground I was basically standing on my head and laying on the ground to get the best angle.... and lost my lens cap.... the dangers of getting into the moment.

A bright fern in the sunlight.

One of the paths in the woods, still looking like summer but not for long.

I'm sure I'll be back as we head to fall so keep checking back if you want to watch the seasons change through One Photo at a Time.

1st day of school

2007-09-06T21:27:00.000-05:00

Here are the two school kids. Elly is ready to go to Kelly's to wait for her first day of school. She will eat breakfast, play, eat lunch and then go to school and the big bus. Her teacher is Miss. Amanda and she couldn't be more excited. Adam gets the hugs before she leaves, he is just getting out of bed.

Isn't she the cutest little Pre-K girl you ever seen?

She loves to have poses now like Top Model that she watches on TV.

Her first day of school was overwhelming for her, she was excited but still scared about getting on the bus by herself. Mommy was there to help her actually get up the bus steps, since she wasn't about to do it herself.

Grandma, Kelly, Mommy and all the daycare kids were waiting for the big girl to get off the bus after school. She cried a little when she got off. She didn't like the big man that sat in her seat and said "Get Over". From what we can make of the story it sounds like a 4th or 5th grader sat with her and she doesn't like it.

She was so proud of what she did at school that she had to show Grandma some of her papers from the first day.

And here is Adam (Junior Year) doesn't he look excited?

Anyone need sunshine

2007-08-23T21:06:00.000-05:00

It's been raining for over a week so I needed a little sunshine so I guess I have to pull out the pictures.

This one is from last year and I can't remember if I posted it yet or not. It's one of my favorites.

A couple false sunflowers in the sunshine

Here are a few sunset pictures from a few weeks ago, John liked the streaks that it was making in the sky and challenged me to get them in photos....

I think I passed.

Let's hope these pictures dry up the rain and bring out the sun again.

Let me check you for TICKS!

2007-08-15T20:46:00.000-05:00

and.... step on your already skinned up toes, burn your leg, slap you in the face with a very big weed, run the side of your head into a stick hanging over the trail, lose your hat on the road and then bruise your butt cheek between the bar and seat cushion..... John and I took a romantic ride on the 4-wheeler tonight to see if it was fixed. Those of you reading this that aren't married or have less than 20 years..... this type of date is not recommended. It may cause the girl to run as fast as she can and never come back.

Along with the story comes a picture..... of course.

John's supervisior Mark was in a car accident Tuesday and is in the Chicago hospital. He had surgery yesterday, we are all praying for his full recovery. John had been asked to go on the trip with Mark for some reason he decided not to. We are thankful that John didn't go but the what if's and the fact that Mark was seriously injuried are still weighing on our minds. Mark is not only John's supervisior but also a very good friend to us. We send lots of {{hugs}} to Mark and his family.

Please help us to send lots of prayers to Mark and his family to help them find the strength they will need in the next weeks. God Bless!

Adam's Pet

2007-08-12T20:54:00.000-05:00

Adam always wants a pet, especially a dog. Well he finally found a pet in the garden tonight. It might not be a dog, it's pretty gross and he was already feeding it.

I don't know what kind of spider this is but every year there are at least 2-3 of them in the flowers in late summer. Then I have to be careful when dead-heading the plants so Adam's pet doesn't crawl down my arm or up my shorts...... Oh I'm grossing myself out! I want John or Adam to step on them so I don't have to worry about it but neither one of them will do it and I certainly can't.... I can just feel that under my shoe... oh yuck!

Okay enough of the spider. Here is one of my favorite flowers. It is called "Kiss Me Over The Garden Gate". It's about 9 feet tall and everywhere. It grows from seed from the year before so where ever the seeds go these grow. Their stems are like corn stalks... John wants to cut them up for firewood.

And of course another lily picture since they are always so pretty. This is a Stargazer Lily so they smell great too.

And a little PhotoShop playing with a picture of John.