Weekend With All The Grandkids!

With Sam just a little over three months old, I was looking forward to having all three grandkids, Saturday November 7th. On Friday evening, Gary and I drove to Byron, to pick up Andrew and Brigitte. After having supper at Giuseppi's Italian Restaurant & Pizza, we headed home.

Andrew and Brigitte get along pretty good. There are times they just need to be doing activities apart from each other. Like on Saturday morning Grandpa and Andrew rode their bikes from Roland Olsen Park to Harvard. Stopping only to have lunch in Poplar Grove. In the meantime Brigitte and I took care of Sam. While Sam slept, we had our lunch out on the deck. After Sam woke up and had his lunch, we took him out for a ride in his stroller. Brigitte loves to play Sorry. Here we have her telling Grandpa how to play the game. I had played the game with her the day before.

When we picked up the kids on Friday, Brigitte love her new toy...Leapster. She played it all the way to our home and then some.

I dearly wanted a photo of the three grandkids. Something I thought would be an easy task actually turned into a mess. When Andrew and Grandpa got back from their ride, I had Andrew sit in the recliner with Sam in his lap. I then asked Brigitte to sit next to Andrew. "I'm not sitting next to him!" she said. "Well, then just stand next to the recliner." was my reply. 'I DON'T LIKE TAKING PICTURES!!" she said with tears running down her face. Well, I knew right away that Brigitte the first one to have gotten up that morning was way over tried. So I knew that this photo was not to take place.

But after Andrew and Brigitte had taken a shower and put on their pj's I was able to capture a natural photo with Grandpa holding Sam and Brigitte and Andrew looking at him. They both love Sam so very very much.

Brigitte will make a great mom someday. She wanted to take over every duty that belonged to an adult. "I can hold him standing up." "I can carry him out to the stroller." "I can, I can." she just kept telling me. While I was feeding Sam his bottle, Brigitte tried his little jacket on and to our amazement it fit her...somewhat. During the stroller ride, Brigitte was in charge of pushing it.

Here we have our two very handsome grandsons!

Gary enjoys making pancakes when the grandkids come. I forgot to get some cool whip. They both love to put cool whip on their pancakes. This time Brigitte put peanut butter on her pancake while Andrew used the traditional pancake syrup on his.

I do believe now that I think of it, that Brigitte used peanut butter on one of her pancakes and syrup on the second one.

Sunday morning we got ready for church. We weren't sure if Andrew recovering from a cold should go. When he decided to go back to bed, I ended up staying home with him. Believe me when I tell you that I got his cold that very morning. But I'm getting plenty of rest so I can enjoy events coming up.

As always it was another fun time with our grandkids...ALL THREE!

Sound of Music - Fireside

We all know that the Fireside is an expensive place to eat and see a play. But we also know that it is well worth the moeny...if of course you have the money.

When I knew they would be having the Sound of Music I really wanted to go. So we gather some of the people we thought might like to go and made plans..well the plans we made for a Friday, October 30 fell through. Which I was not happy about. The Firseside didn't do a matinee on that Friday. Because my friend Jackie had already made plans for Saturday, she would not be able to attend the Saturday matinee. And we were all looking forward to spending time with her. (A side note: Ann-Marie and I met Jackie at Granite City for lunch on Friday.) We'll have to do better planning in the future.

Here we have Colleen, Jan and Betty doing some shopping in their unique shops.

The shops are always fun to browse through. Some of us had a few items we wished we could have. Like Jan. She just loved these decorative Christmas boxes.

Ann-Marie found several mugs she liked that related to being a mom.

She especially liked the one that said, "New Mommy Two Blessed To BE Stressed."

My sister Louise who has more money than some of us, purchase this beautiful picture. "To Grandmother's House We Go."

And again, if you know anything about me, you know that I am a snowman collector. Well, here's my purchase. The comment some of us made were, "That could be Grandpa and Grandma with Grandson, Sam."

My sister Louise is just herself wherever she go and whoever she's with. She had us all laughing. We could truly say that she was our entertainment for the evening...skip Sound of Music. But the meal was so delicious...right to the last bite.

Here's the gang: Me, Louise, Betty, Jan, Colleen and Ann-Marie.

The play was excellent. Even if not all the songs were sung from Sound of Music. It's always amazing to me how they can take a small stage and bring it to life like a real movie.

County Fair in Watertown

On October 23rd, Gary and I headed to Watertown to enjoy an evening with my sister Jan and her husband Darryl. Mainly I was going to enjoy the County Fair that was for ladies only!!! The members of her church put so much work into this event. The evening was so filled with fun, food and fellowship Of course what's a fair without trying to guess how many items are in a jar.
Before the fair started, we all had a sandwich from Cousins. Then the men had to leave.


What a great performance that Jan and Susan did with the song, "There's a Hole in Your Bucket..."

I had a small part in this...I cut the hole in the bucket.

It was so nice to see Betty again. We had fun making cards for the Fall season.

Wow, if you ever get a chance...you must try funnel cakes. They were the top of the line.

There were many booths to visit. I got to an Avon booth to purchase bubble bath. The baked good table dug into my wallet also.

There were prizes to win from each of the booths. Books, Avon products, homemade cards, etc. Well, for me, I got the best prize of all!

I won a bag of popcorn!!! But I must say, if I had known this was going to happen, I wouldn't have purchase a bag. But since I just LOVE POPCORN it was no problem for me to down two bags! But I must say, Betty and Jan kept putting their hands into the bag...especially Betty. I kept asking her if she wanted to take one of the bags. "No, I have popcorn at home." was her reply while she put her hand into the bag to get more popcorn. What a way to end an evening...laughing.

Then our men came back and helped cleanup the place and got it ready for Sunday morning!

Isabelle's Shower & Horse Rides

Shower for Isbelle Berg

This wonderful family of ours, just keeping growing. What's another family shower now and then? Just more family memories. So we now welcome Isabelle Berg! What a shower without a delicious cake! And it was real delicious.

Here we have Cari, Isabelle and Grandma Louise.

Spencer enjoyed getting the gifts to give to Cari.

Tammy had two great games for us to play.

After the shower we all went outside to watch the kids take turns on riding the horse lead by Caleb taking hold of the reins. I had to post the above photo and entitle it "Smarty Pants!" I had a pair of purple gloves on my hands but when I wanted to take a photo, I took one off to snap the picture. I noticed that I was missing it and tried looking for it on the ground. My sweet neice...well, I use to think she was sweet said as she put her hand in my face with my purple glove on, "What are you looking for?"

The whole day was filled with fun, food and lots of fresh cold air! I trust I will get the slide show done so you can see the kids riding the horse. They all just loved that part of this day.

Linda Sturgills & Kids Visit

On Friday October ninth, we were able to have Aaron's family spend the night...that is minus Aaron. Linda and Aaron have four great children, Molly, Spencer and their twins brothers, Ryan and Dakota. Since they live in Michigan, we don't see them as often as we would like. Jan and Darryl took them to Edward's Apple Orchard in the afternoon and then they all came and spent the night with us. I wished I had a photo of the four kids sleeping across our bed in the computer room. Poor Linda, she slept on the floor next to them. I had phoned Ann-Marie earlier in the week and wondered if they had Friday open to come over for pizza and visit with Linda and the crew. I'm so glad that they were able to come. All the kids, including Linda had been wanting to see their cousin Sam.

The twins Ryan and Dakota were anxious for Ann-Marie to open all the gifts they brought for Sam.

What was also so fun was seeing how Sam is developing. In the photo above when Ann-Marie was talking, Sam would turn his head to look at his mommy because he recognized her voice.

Here we have Molly holding little Sam.

Here we have Linda holding Sam while Dakota and Ryan look on.

The kids all love to play games. Here Spencer plays checker with his Grandma.

In the morning we had to get ready to go to a family baby shower but not before Gary was trying to show Spencer how to really whistle loud.

Spencer tried, but it is going to take some time before he catches on. I wonder if his dad knows how to whistle loud. Perhaps he could teach him.

What a joy to see them! It's hard to believe that the twins will turn four in December. Thanks for spending the night Sturgill Crew! It was fun! And great memories.

Door County to Help Charlene

On October the fifth, we headed for Sister Bay, Wisconsin. This was not to see all the wonderful places in Door County but to do lots of needed work around Charlene Rice's home. Having been a widow myself, I know how much it means to have someone come and help out with yard work and odd jobs that need attending to. We arrived in the afternoon with the sun still shining. Gary went right to work with trimming the branches off the trees that were hanging too low and got in Charlene's way when she mowed the grass.

Here we have Gary climbing the ladder. In both of the above photos, you will see that I am no where near him or the ladder. Gary was on his own due to an accident I received last year trying to help him.

I stayed with doing the safe jobs. Like raking up the loose branches on the ground and taking them out to where they could be burned later. We worked till the sun went down. THEN for me one great blessing I recieved was watching....

YES!!! Monday Night Football. What was also a surprise for Gary and I was that Charlene had us take the downstair. We original were to stay in Grant's study room. And the couple that had stayed in Grant's room wanted to stay there. So we got the whole downstairs to ourselves. But Charlene, along with her guest Sam & Paula also like football, so we all watched the game together.

It was such a great game!! It was so funny to see Brett Favre play against his former teammates. I was hoping Minnesota would win...and they did!!!

The next day it rained ALL day so Gary and I cleaned her two garages. Gary also changed the vacuum belt on one of her vacuum and replaced a vacuum bag on another one.

The next day, Wednesday, the sun came out and we were so glad to return to much needed yard work. I worked on trimming death branches out of different bushes and trimmed a few low branches out of the trees.

Gary took time and washed all the deck furniture before he put it away for the winter. Then he swept off the deck and driveway. He was able to drain her hoses and put them away for next year.

See how great it all looks when he got done!



But as the saying goes all work and NO Play....We did take a two hour break to do a little shopping. And of course we stopped at Wilson Ice Cream shop for a treat.

On Thursday the sun started coming up and we needed to head home.

But Gary and I was so spoiled by Charlene. We didn't know it and didn't even expect it, but she fed us everyday! After thinking about it, it really saved time for us to get more work done. She was truly a blessing to us. We told her if we had had more time we could still do more work but she just said, "No, No, you have already done so much."

It was Work and every night my body was feeling it. But both Gary and I thank the Lord for the health to help Charlene.