Happy 2008!

I wish you all a Happy and prosperous and healthy New Year!

If you are going out tonight and will be drinking, please have a designated driver so you can stay safe!

More Parties!

Only this time it's a birthday party for our youngest grand daughter, 'baby Becca' as we call her. She will be two tomorrow but we celebrated tonight. She is quite the 'daddy's girl' and really doesn't like for daddy to not be visible to her at all times in large groups. This photo is of her and her Daddy (our oldest son, Brian) at our home on Christmas afternoon. Her party was at a place called "Playworld" in Grandville. She had a ball. It is an indoor play area and they have lots of tubes and slides similar to a McDonald's play are only on a much larger scale. Lots of different compartments filled with balls to jump in and Playschool toys to play on and in and giant inflatable slides, etc. Amber went along and she is as exhausted as 'baby Becca'!

'Baby Becca' reminds me of pictures I have seen of my older sister when she was about the same age. Her maternal grandmother and a maternal aunt, think that she resembles our side of the family more than their side. Since we think she is beautiful, we'll take it and keep right on bragging! It's what we "mema's" do best!

Everything is done!

My house was full with some of the grown children and some of their children, while we had our annual Christmas Cookie Bake. It ended up being quite the mess..........but 100 years from now, who will care about the mess. In fact, I don't care about it now!
We did this Friday night. I was a bit groggy from Thursday morning but we managed. I spent all of Thursday morning in the ER. Just those darn old muscle spasms again, but this time there was an enzyme that was elevated and they kept me much longer in able to do more blood draws and check the enzyme over a time period. They thought I might be having a cardiac event of some kind.
I told them when I got there it was muscle spasms, but they can't take a patients word for it..........they really need to be very careful if they think the heart is involved especially if there is a history of heart problems.
So, after 5 hours and two shots of morphine, oxygen, heart monitors, chest x-rays and an EKG, they believed me and released me with a couple RX's and instructions to take it easy for the rest of the day. I think they must have forgotten what time of the year it is...........it just isn't possible for this "Grandma" of 18 to take it easy. I'm not like Staples and I don't come equipped with an 'Easy Button'!
But this was the last item that needed to be checked of the list in preparation for Christmas. The cookies are made, the menu is planned and ready and the presents are all wrapped and placed under the tree in anticipation of Christmas late afternoon. I can hardly wait!

Wrapped!

This is the same tree as in the last post but now all the presents are wrapped and underneath it. I still have to wrap one more that I have for Bumpa hidden upstairs and I will do that today. He's working again today anyway, so he won't see me wrap it or hide it under all the other ones there already!


And this one is what my backyard looked like at 8:30 AM this morning! It's deep enough that when the dog goes out to go 'potty' she is actually getting her tummy wet when she squats to pee! Brrrrrr.....cold, huh, pup!

Brrrrr............it's cold outside!

Wow! The temp outside is 22.5º. Fortunately the wind is not blowing today, so there is no wind chill to factor in. This is still fall.........winter doesn't officially arrive until December 22. But with the cold temperature and the snow, it really does look and feel like winter and Christmas. I have the tree up and decorated.....well, two trees this year. One in the family room and one in the living room. These two rooms are on different floors in my home, that's why I wanted two this year. This is the one in the family room........I know it appears to be crooked, but it is the way I had to stand on the footstool balancing while trying to fit the entire tree in the photo, but it gives you an idea anyway!

I would normally have all my decorations up by now, but this year, I just can't get into the mood to get it done. I'm lucky to even have the trees up. Maybe later this week.............who knows. And if I don't get them out, will anyone really care?

Please help me find the Christmas spirit this year.......it seems to be lost!

Since Bumpa came home early (Tuesday evening) from deer hunting to see his real "dear" (that would be me in case you were unsure) because he missed me and he still had the rest of the week off for vacation, we decided to run errands together on Thursday. One of our errands was to purchase a new pre-lit tree. After going to several stores, we finally found the one we wanted at Meijers; purchased it and brought it home. Tom put it together and plugged it in only to find that some of the lights were not lit. After playing with it and inserting new fuses, it still refused to be a '600 light' tree. So we decided that tomorrow we would take it back and exchange it for one that would actually light!

So Friday arrived and Bumpa had to do some outdoor stuff..........like taking the blade off the riding mower and putting the plow on, loading the lawn cart with firewood and bring it to the garage and unload it and stack it for easy reach. And Prancer (our dog) had an appointment with the doggie doctor (I can't say 'vet', she knows that word and puts her ears flat down against her head when I say it) for some shot that she was due for...........kind of like a DPT booster for small children. We had a new "doggie doctor" there this time. Nice younger gal, but Prancer was still scared and this gal kept saying that some 'kids' never like going to the doctor! Well, I have always thought of Prancer as our fur kid so I'm thinking this new "doggie doctor" and I are gonna get along great! We come back home and decide that Tom will finish up the outside stuff while it is still daylight and I will run to the bank and stop and pick up a birthday present for Bumpa's God daughter, and he will trim the 'fur kids' nails. Now we know this is a task she hates! So in the process of attempting this, she jerks her leg away and Bumpa ends up cutting it too short thus making the quick bleed...........no I mean BLEED......forever! We pack the nail with cornstarch to try and subside the bleeding. NOT WORKING. In the meantime, Prancer is running around because we are trying to hold her in one place to care for her and prevent having blood everywhere. No such luck. I steam cleaned the carpeting Monday and Tuesday, so of course that is where she leaked blood!

We got a really late start (like 9:00 PM) leaving to take the tree back for the exchange but we finally did make it. And then I decided not to get the exact same tree anyway. Found one I liked better and it cost less............pretty cool! Got home around 10:30 PM and Bumpa put it up. And it's really pretty except.......................are you ready................all the lights don't light. It's supposed to be a '800-light' tree..........this one may remain under that. I'm not going through the hassle of taking it down and returning yet another one to the store. I'm sure he can fix it or he can't, maybe we will learn to live with it! Merry Christmas.............Bumpa says "bah-hum-bug!"