Grandma Week Day 4: Toy Story 3 and the Splash Pad

Day four of Grandma Week was filled with lots of fun things. We started out the day with the first showing of Toy Story 3. Grandma bought our tickets on line and I have to say that whoever thought of reserved seating for movie theaters is a genius. There were sixteen of us and we took up nearly two rows, high in the center section. Pictured here left to right: LadyBug, Miss Butterfly and Mantis and in the front, Roly-Poly and Cap'n Underpants.

Grandma snuck in had little goodie bags with Swedish Fish, gummy bears and granola bars and we got a large popcorn which we divide out into little bags for everyone. It is a good thing that you get a free refill with the large popcorn. We also got some large sodas to share, which we divided out into smaller cups with lids for the small hands. Pictured here: Grasshopper (who thinks he has to make a funny face in every picture) and Mouse.

After the movie we had a little lunch and them some ice cream treats. Grandma always has ice cream because ice cream always makes you feel better. Left to right: Roly-Poly, Miss Butterfly, Mantis, Lizard and Mouse in front.

Then we stopped in to see Grandma's dad, who is my Grandpa and the kids' great-grandpa. It was a quick visit, with lots of hugs and treats for all the great-grandkids. Behind the couch from left to right: Lizard, Grasshopper, Andrew, LadyBug, Me, Miss Butterfly, Julie (you haven't seen her before, she is Miss Butterfly, Mantis, Capn' Underpants and Roly-Poly's mom and the sister just after me). On the couch from left to right: Jill (my twin-ten-years-younger and Lizard and Mouse's mom), Mouse, Pixie (sleeping on Jill's lap), Cap'n Underpants, Great-Grandpa, Roly-Poly Bug and Mantis.

And then we went to the Splash Pad. As it is a public area, there are some random kids on the photos. I'll just skip over them. Here is Grasshopper with the water gun and Pixie is in the far right corner.

Cap'n Underpants (sans underpants) on the opposing water gun.

Pixie taking a turn with the water gun.

Roly-Poly Bug, Grandma and Pixie playing in the fountains.

Roly-Poly, Mantis, LadyBug and Grasshopper playing in the fountains.

Pixie and the Cap'n playing in the fountains.

LadyBug playing in the fountains.

And because she is just so darn cute, LadyBug playing in the fountains some more.

Miss Butterfly under the dumping buckets. The water was really cold.

The kid patrol (left to right): Grandma, Jill, Julie, Andrew and Grasshopper.

Quote of the Day: Too wet! My feet! Too wet!

Grandma Week Day 3: The Aquatic Center

Day three of Grandma Week was spent at the aquatic center -- with the cameras at home. It is a really fun place that is indoor and outdoor and pretty much the entire day was spent there. The kids started to grow gills. The weather this spring has been really mild and even though the sun was shining, the small breeze made things chilly in the outdoor portion so most of the time was spent in the covered area. I asked the kids what their favorite parts of the day were.

Grasshopper: Going around the razy liver with my uncle.

Miss Butterfly: the outdoor pool, because we kept pretending to faint and we were gliding through the water. I went down the slide 25 times.

LadyBug: The tubes! The tubes! The tubes! [Editor's note: for floating around the lazy river.]


Mantis: I liked the part when I went down the slide.


Lizard: We got to go down a big slide. I went in the lazy river and I went in the lazy river [Editor's note: transcript is verbatim.] and I got to float on a blow-up float.

Cap'n Underpants: The big yellow slide.

Mouse: The swirly-whirly slide.

Roly-Poly Bug: We go in a big huge pool. [Editor's Note: this is how big the pool was:]

Pixie: I swimmin' on my boat.

Grandma Week Day 2: The Dinosaur Park

Today's outing was a trip to the outdoor dinosaur park. And who doesn't love dinosaurs?

Andrew started off by trying to feed* LadyBug to the velociraptor. I'm thinking he lost his spot as favorite uncle.

[*Editor's note: he also threatened to feed her to the neighbor's dog later in the week. What is up with him trying to feed my LadyBug to vicious creatures?]

The favorite spot at the dinosaur park (after all the fantastic life-size dioramas of dinosaurs, of course) is the playground. All the other children are digging up fossils, but my children seem intent on burying themselves, possibly in hopes of coming home with petrified arms.


Q. What do you do if you are stuck in a dinosaur's nose?
A. Raise your hand until you are picked.


Q. What do you do if you are stuck in a dinosaur's stomach?
A. Run around and around and around and around until you're all pooped out.


This is Grasshopper and LadyBug. I have a picture of Grasshopper and Miss Butterfly at this same cut-out when they were 4 and their heads were so tiny ou could almost fit both of them in one hole. Wish I could find it so you could see. Oh, and my dinosaur jokes are better.


Lizard and Grasshopper riding on the back of a giant tortoise. Looks like a great way to travel.


Behold, Grasshopper the Valiant, atop his mighty beast.


Pixie and Grasshopper in jail. Probably for trying to slay dinosaurs at the dinosaur park.


Oh, and guess what was for dinner? Dinosaur chicken nuggets!

Precious Moments

This is my second quilt.

I mentioned that most of my early projects were funded by my mom, but I'm fairly certain that I started this project after I turned 16 and started working summers and part time during the school year. I bought a cross-stitch pattern book with Precious Moments figures all dressed as clowns and picked out my favorites to make squares for a baby quilt. I can't remember the exact details, but somehow I made this fit into one of the requirements for my Senior year sewing class. I think I only stuck strictly to the guidelines for one project in that class. I viewed it as my personal sewing time during school and made whatever I wanted to work on fit the requirements. My teacher kind of let me get away with it. We're still friends. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that I had all the cross-stitches done and that I just assembled and 'quilted' the quilt in class.

I bought the fabrics at House of Fabrics, which was one of the places that I worked at part-time during the school year. I had something different in mind for sashings, I think probably a pale yellow flannel because my aida cloth was ivory, but the colors were so bright and cheerful on this seersucker and I'm a sucker for dots (ha, ha, pun totally intended) that I had to have this for my quilt. The fabrics for the picots (pronounced pē-kōs, as in rhymes with tricot{s}) are broadcloths of unknown content. I'll bet there is some polyester in there. The ways of the quilter were unknown to me back then (the batting is polyester too). They are also a little battered because this quilt has always been folded and tucked away for safe keeping.

Because I'd already hand stitched one very large quilt (I can't remember if I'd finished that by this time or not), I decided not to do any hand quilting in this one. I also did not want to tie it. So, I came up with a compromise -- I used yarn to 'quilt' big stitches around the edges of each of the cross stitch pieces and tied the yarn in bows at the corners.

I've thought a lot about pulling this quilt apart and doing it up some other way. The cross-stitch figures are all varying sizes, but I cut the aida cloth uniformly to make a nice, even grid. But I'm thinking I might cut them all down to size and fill in with fabrics in softer, baby colors and then add a border of picots (or prairie points, if you must) around the edge of the patchwork (kind of like this). I haven't quite worked out the details -- I can't quite picture it in my head yet -- but I'm sure I have some pretty pastels in my stash to be getting on with.

This little clown was the first cross-stitch I did for this quilt. I loved his colors and thought he was just so sweet.

Incidentally, I entered my the quilt in the county fair the summer after graduation. I put it in the cross-stitch division and asked that only the cross-stitch blocks be judged. However, they marked me down (a whole ribbon!) because my aida cloth was ivory and my sashing fabric had a white background. Never mind that all my stitches are crossed the same way on every single block. The top stitch always crosses from top left to bottom right like so: \ . On every. single. block. And they're all pretty uniform and even and nice. Besides, I like white and ivory together. They were part of my wedding colors; white, ivory and navy blue. My mom and the florist threw in some pink and light blue to try to break up the huge contrast, but I think that it would have been really striking without.

Since I've strayed to talking about my wedding colors, I've obviously run out of narrative to go with these last four pictures. But you can click on them to see them closer, and you'll notice that all the stitches go the same way.


I'll take that blue ribbon now, thank you very much.

Grandma Week Day 1: The Nature Center

Each summer my mom invites her grandkids for a little stay-cation. She calls it Grandma Week and we have fun doing things around town. My kids look forward to it every year.

Our first day was spent at the Nature Center. After you park, you walk along a path adorned with birdhouses in order to get to the Visitor's Center. This is my brother's little Pixie. She's the littlest grandkid at the moment. She's spunky and a little mischievous, but not so much that her cuteness can't over come that. She found a buddy (LadyBug) and was ready to explore.

This bridge is just outside the visitor's center and we totally had to stop for a picture. Starting with the people over 4' tall and moving from left to right: Grasshopper, my youngest brother, Andrew (along for crowd control and because he's the favorite uncle), my mom (a.k.a. the Grandma), my youngest sister, Robin (a super-cool aunt also along for crowd control) and the kiddos across the front, Lizard Boy and his brother Mouse, LadyBug and Pixie.

This is LadyBug with Miss Butterfly. Miss Butterfly is the second oldest grandchild, born five months after Grasshopper. She has a really tall dad. LadyBug and Miss Butterfly are fast friends.

This is Cap'n Underpants. He's Miss Butterfly's second brother. And he's a little bit naughty, like all the best little boys are. Mr. Bug said that this is the look he gives right before he takes a swing at you. But he's only just a little bit naughty, so he probably wouldn't hit you too hard. Those sparkling eyes and that charming smile melt your heart and you can't help but love him, even if he did haul off and slug you.

Here we are four-tenths of a mile onto the trail. We're really enjoying Nature now. On the back row moving left to right: Grasshopper, Ladybug, Miss Butterfly, Praying Mantis (the brother between Miss Butterfly and Cap'n Underpants). In the front, left to right, the Cap'n, Mouse and his older brother Lizard Boy, who is five, hasn't been to Kindergarten yet and can already read on a second grade level.

We are at the Observation Tower (half-way into our trek into Nature) for our annual photo with Grandma. It always looks like mayhem is about to break out. On the left are Cap'n Underpants, his older brother, Mantis, their older sister Miss Butterfly and sitting next to her is their youngest brother, Roly-Poly Bug. Grandma is in the center back and Pixie is standing in front of her. Next to her are LadyBug and Mouse on the back row and Grasshopper and Lizard in front.

And finally, back at the Visitor's Center for potty breaks and water. Of course my kids found the comfiest spots to rest. Grasshopper looks like he's about done for the day.

LadyBug always has a smile for me.

Quote of the day: At the door of the visitor's center Mouse asked, Is there Nature in there?