This Time Last Year II

Babies are rather wonderful things.



And Grandbabies even more so.



Since I think I need to chronicle every part of my life, I've been feeling sad that I didn't start blogging when Zane was born, to have started in a very obvious place...the beginning. However, those first months when I was getting used to a baby in the house again after 13 years and teaching one of my kids how to raise one....



There was NO time to blog.



Hardly time to shower!



I learned a lot of new things with a grandbaby living in the house and relearned a lot of old ones. Having a digital camera with a baby around meant I took a LOT of pictures. And I also had fun playing with the photos.



I have friends that influence me a great deal. If they aren't telling me what I should be doing they are doing such fun and interesting things and I want to do them too. Thus, the large amount of photos I have and the pains I took to make them interesting. These friends are also farther down the grandchildren road than I am...so...I AM watching!



How sweet this tiny Zane looks in Gramma's hands, with the afghan I knitted for Lynette's dolly.

He is the focus of this nice photo, with his eyes open at not quite a week old.









Some of these friends inspired me to get a little basket for my own little peanuts to sleep in. I didn't have a bassinet, I had a family tiny crib that stayed in my bedroom. It was nice to have a little place for new babies to sleep out in the living room so I could feast my eyes on them.

It holds MY old dollies when babies aren't sleeping in it.

I place a great value on handmade items. I put my little ones in booties made by Elinor Kleeb when Jim and his sisters were babies. Now Zane was wearing knitted booties made by his great auntie Bonita.

It is so hard to believe the almost 13 month old running, climbing, messing, loving little boy in our house now was ever so small.

Zane -- 2 Weeks

Photo Edits

I love photography, but my results are limited by my skill and my budget. I enjoy my digital camera since it allows for a lot of bad photos to get a few good ones.

I also discovered photo editing when Zane was born and spent a lot of time with a slow program editing these photos and trying new things to get different effects.

I especially like the softness that is available when working with babies.

These are just some of my first attempts in the first couple months of Zane's life.




A Baby Asleep



A Pensive Look

Gramma's Boy

Baby Feet

This crib belonged to my father. It was purchased for him by a brother of an aunt's husband, on the condition that my dad would be named after him. He was, and the crib has welcomed many babies into the world. Four of Dad's brother's children, all four of Dad's children, my three and now Zane have slept in this crib.

I enjoyed playing with some different effects to this photo. I still can't decide the one I like best.

And for the last a sleepy little two month old Zane.

Enter at Your Own Risk

Sometimes I think about what life would be like if I didn't have a boy in our family.

If we had no boys, we wouldn't be inviting over the other VERY BIG BOYS who our son has for friends.

We would have one less boy when all the cousins are over.

We wouldn't have to get books like this from the library.

I suppose that would mean less noise and excitement around here.

Would I really enjoy boring?

I had another blog idea for this particular book. I intended to rave on about how COULD anybody do this to my favorite book of all time, how DISGUSTING, WHO would EVER read a book like THIS!!!!

I didn't read it. I looked at it and Nathan told me a little. If you can imagine a classic interspersed with z...... oooo, I can hardly type the word. Heroines with ninja skills, and I don't know what else, then...

This book is for you!


Anyway, this is the kind of thing it inspires at our house.

Back to the original post.




During those LONG days over Christmas when we we snowed in with the blizzard, the kids couldn't go outside, or off to town. They were getting bored, so in order to get them to go outside, Aunt Cindy suggested they make a zombie movie.

So, they began. They found raggy clothes to tear up and decided they needed blood.

Did you know you can google recipes for stunt blood? There is too much information on the internet.

If you want to know the recipe, look it up yourself.

It takes cornstarch and red food coloring and I wasn't going to have anything to do with it.



I am not sure how they bribed Lynette into helping. She IS the best of them all in cooking and knowing her way around the kitchen.











Eventually, they got all painted and dressed up and went outside in the windy, cold, snowy weather, with no coats, out to the barn.

I didn't see any footage, but at least we got them out from underfoot for awhile.

By the way, what I said about things being different if I didn't have any boys in the family....

forget it.

Lynette DIDN'T go outside.

Family Fun Part 1

I suppose you are wondering why part 2 of this family fun series was published before part 1.

I'm not exactly sure.

Most of it is poster's privilege, I suppose, but closer to the truth is the other one came together more quickly than this one, and this one was already started.

I am finding a problem with this blogging already. I have defect that has hindered my scrapbooking and I was hoping it wouldn't overlap, translate, interfere, ....

I CANNOT think of the word I want. I want one that exemplifies the relationship between these two mediums of creativity than is going to cause me to want to blog/scrapbook/journal every minute of my life. (That's the defect)

I don't know what part of my deep dark past have formed that particular piece of my character and I don't believe in going back to find out, I subscribe to the "get over it and move on" school of thought. (most days)

ANYWAY, I am having a problem some days wondering if what I am publishing on this blog is really important, clever, creative, or necessary. And then, does it really matter? What am I doing this blog for anyway! For ME! So, I can put whatever I want to on it. I enjoy going back and looking at my blog, and the pictures of my family and the things we do together, or separately. I really love the comments that other people take the time to write. But this blog is mostly for me and people who are interested in the little things, and the big things that my family is doing.

So, we shall begin,

Another entry for the
Christmas Holiday Season.

When a family of people gather together in one house to enjoy themselves and each other. In this case there were 16 people and one dog sleeping and eating here, for four days. And 12 minus the dog for two more.

So different people find different ways of entertaining themselves or other people.

Cindy is patching her favorite pair of jeans, that pretty soon will be more patch that jean, and talking on the phone.



Mom with her cup of tea or hot water, taking a well deserved break. She's always right in there with help with the food and the dishes.



Max entertained himself by finding the warmest spot in the house.

Lynette tried hard to make friends with Max.

Caught on Camera!! Proof!! Nathan will play a board game on occasion. Preferably one that involves a lot of money.

Zane is helping with the dishes.

Titus enjoys putting things together, and that is one of the reasons he likes Jim. Jim is one of the best "put-er of things together" and he lets Titus help.

A big contender for the list of "things to do with a lot of people in the house" is the GAMES. I grew up playing games and there is always some sort of game going. We have really enjoyed playing 5 Crowns these last two winters and we played that one a lot. Dad didn't like it, he lost big every time.

Contemplating the next move.

The next most popular time waster, err...activity. was the electronic games and computers and phones.

And then the NEW GAME! Called "Thing", it involves writing a sentence that satisfies the card picked for the round, like "Some thing you wouldn't want for a pet" and then everyone has to guess which one is yours.

Very fun!

Here are the monopoly players. One cutthroat game was already finished. Jim and Cindy had a rematch from an aborted game at Thanksgiving. Jim loves Monopoly and so does Cindy and they play until the very long end. I don't play monopoly, and if by some chance I am talked into it, I take my crocheting with me to do between plays, buy up everything I can and then as I am getting squeezed to death by more vigorous players, sell out and go do something more profitable.

And the game that got the most comments was this one.

To play: get 5 boys that have been inside for several hours because there is a blizzard going on outside and a ball pit with 170 balls.

Playing area: a living room with 6 other people and one dog in it.

Object: Throw balls as fast and hard as you can at the other players in the game, avoiding the extra people in the playing area.

To Lose: Throw them at Cindy patching her jeans and if you hit her one more time, she will put everyone down for a nap.

Wouldn't you like to come next time?

We have a lot of fun!

What a Tangled Web We Weave

And how do you entertain your children when you want to get some work.....

I mean... some fun done.

Zane has a lovely habit of wanting to be where I am, all the time, when we are alone here together on school days.

Which means, if I want to knit or crochet he is either sitting on my project, grabbing the needles or pulling my yarn.

Believe me, a partially used skein of yarn that is shaken is NOT very useful after awhile.

Unless you have a need to spend useful hours untangling it.

So, I hit on the very ingenious (hey, wow, I just checked my spell check and I spelled that very hard word correctly the very first time!) idea of just giving him a small ball of yard to play with.




And he played with it all right, all over the house and all over himself.



I did keep an eye on him, just in case he got tangled up in something else with the yarn that could be potentially dangerous.



I still don't think I got much done on my project.

Took too many pictures.

Oh, well, Babies do grow up and who cares if the afghans do.

Did somebody order one?

Family Fun Part 2

I don't know what you do when your family gets together.

We do lots of different things, in fact, I never know what is going to happen next.

Haircuts?





Pushup Contest?


UP, Down, UP, Down




Story Time!



And this is my favorite. Take a big piece of paper and tape it to a card table. Scatter markers on the top, and everybody GO!

The Last Word!!

And That's All Folks!