Graduation

Today is a bittersweet day....  It's the day my husband and I have looked forward to for a very long time....  But now that the day has arrived, it has me torn to pieces emotionally. 

Let me back up.  Back in 2008, my son and his partner announced that they were expecting a child and asked if we could babysit, just through the newborn stage, as day care is ridiculously expensive in Juneau. 

So we said, "yes." 

Well, a few months later my daughter announces that THEY'RE also now pregnant, and can we watch their child as well?  Okay....  It was, after all, going to be a few months only.  So now we had two newborns five months apart. 

 

Well, months turned into years, and then a third grandchild showed up, and five and a half years later, our babysitting is coming to a close today.  Well, sort of. 

The two big kids will start kindergarten tomorrow and we will be left with just one granddaughter to watch.

So today we celebrated with McDonalds for lunch and a banana split for dessert.  Now it's time to go shed a few tears....  Maybe I can write more about these past five years after the sadness wears off. 

May Day

Who remembers making May Baskets as a kid and sneaking over to your neighbors and hanging them on their door?  Little cones made out of construction paper.  We'd attach some kind of handle to it and fill it with flowers out of the garden. 

Well.... we aren't going to be doing any picking of flowers from our yard this year, but the grandkids and I still made May Baskets, filled them with store-bought flowers and tiptoed to the other grandparents homes and left them on their doors. 

I found some really cute ideas from Pinterest and I took the pictures to Joann's to get the material I needed.... a $160 later!  $160 for material to make May Day Baskets.  Or Tussies as some call them.  http://skiptomylou.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/may-day/

I don't know who had more fun making our May Day baskets.... me or the grandkids.  But I think they turned out beautiful! 

Each child had their own techniques for making, designing and selecting the flowers they wanted to use.  I think they turned out fabulous!

What do you think? 

Later!
Nancy 

Our Home is No Longer Our Home

Remember when we were raising young kids?  Our house was usually chaotic.  Toys everywhere.  Art work hanging on the fridge.  Color crayon "art" on the walls.  Kids were running rampant.  Not to mention clothes strewn everywhere, especially if there were girls involved.

Then, the kids grow up.  Move out.  Get a place of their own.  Get married.  Have their own kids. 

Meanwhile, we retire and settle in for our next adventure whatever that might be.  Some times that involves traveling, crafting, gardening, and other hobbies.     

This is our life now.  The chaos.  The new trend is to babysit grandkids.  That's what we do.  It started out with getting our first grandchild through the new born stage, where day care was most expensive.  Then came our second grandchild.... and our third... and five years later, we're still at it. 

And that's okay.  I've come to accept that this is where we're supposed to be, and this is what we're supposed to be doing.  Right now at this particular time.  I don't know what else God has in store for us, but I have confidence that are services here will be completed in the near future so we can go on with OUR life. 

Besides being exhausting work and not having much of a life for ten hours a day, our home is no longer our own.  We have toys everywhere.  Chaos everywhere.  With two grandaughters (age 3 and 4), we have several wardrobe changes a day.  Art work?  Yep, can't see the fridge or the walls most of the time because of all the pictures that have been colored or painted and presented to us. 

The grandkids don't seem to like how we decorate and they take every opportunity to switch things around for us. 

We have craft projects hanging from every knob or nail the kids can reach. 

There's forts.  Babies lined up in a row.  Stairs become staging areas for babies.

Yep.... we lost our nice, quiet, home five years ago when we started watching grandbabies....  Instead of spending our days enjoying the quiet of doing nothing or possibly playing cards or gardening or having lunch with friends, we now change diapers, fix meals, clean up messes, do craft projects, change more diapers, make more meals, make more forts, do more projects, and clean up more messes. 

But the joy we get seeing our grandkids every day almost makes up for all it.  The rest comes from the hugs and smiles we receive. 

 

I'm not saying that I don't long for those days when our life will become much simpler.... when I don't have to wash tongue prints, lips, and fingerprints off the windows every week.... or move dolls that have taken over the couch so I can sit down.... or when I can go out to lunch instead of fixing lunch. 

Yes, I do long for the days when our home and our life becomes our own again.  But it's not time yet....

For now, I have a lunch to make! 

Later! 
Nancy

The Tree That Lives On and On and On

A couple years ago, I bought a cute 4' white tree at Christmas time.  My idea was to decorate it for the grandkids.... (who were 3, 2, and 1 at the time) it would be their tree to decorate, touch, rearrange, whatever, and hopefully these little hands would leave the big tree alone.  So we labeled it our Gingerbread Tree.... and all the ornaments and decorations were of sugar-origin whether boughten ornaments or made.  Cupcakes, cookies, candy.  I strung white yogurt coated pretzels with pretty red twine and candy necklaces too.  The kids loved it.  It's so beautiful with the lights turned on!

This year I decided to leave the tree up after Christmas and it would become our Heart Tree.  Babysitting the grandkids 40 hours a week gives us plenty of time to do crafts and this would be the perfect theme.  Hearts.  The kids loved being creative and were proud to hang their heart ornaments.  I cut out hearts of various sizes and they scavaged through my craft box for buttons, stickers, ribbons, lace, glitter, and anything else they thought would work. 

Well.... shortly after Valentines Day, we were ready to take the tree down and I thought.... why not leave it up all year and make it our theme tree...?  But it was too early for Easter ornaments, so I headed to our Joann's Store and bought an armload of silk flowers, then proceeded to take them apart and coated the tree with beautiful silk flowers stuffed in every nook and cranny.  The kids loved showing the tree off when someone came to visit and often asked to turn the lights on so it really shown. 

 

 

Our craft project for the last couple weeks has been making Easter decorations to hang.  It's been a fun time and I must add, our tree never looked lovelier! 

 





I haven't decided what our theme will be after Easter....  Summer... but that would involve flowers again.  Alaska?  That could be an interesting tree filled with ornaments of Alaska....  Maybe birds.  I love collecting birds and have lots around the house.  Yea, I think that's what we'll do.  Birds.  Nests.  Feathers.  What do you think?

Later!
Nancy

One Lettuce Leaf at a Time

Some might say I have a green thumb.
Others might think I have all the answers.
But I don't and I certainly don't! 
I'm just lucky and I don't give up.

My husband wanted to try his luck at growing cherry tomatoes a couple years ago.
So we bought a couple of those Topsy Turvy things and hung them on the south wall of our home where they would get plenty of sunshine.
Then he plants other cherry tomatoes in a pot. 
I guess he's comparing which plant will produce better.

Last year we grew this beauty of a plant.
But it only produced one measly cherry tomato.  One.
We were told you need to clip its leaves....
Click here for the story behind it. 

This year we have tons of blossoms and quite a few little green tomatoes....
But nothing is ripening.
So my question to you, fellow gardeners.... how long does it take a tomato to ripen???? 
These have been "in process" for about 30 days now.

My peas are finally coming on strong.

My three year old grandson  has been waiting not-so-patiently for them. 

Every night, as he heads home, he runs outside, around the car, bends and peers, anxiously waiting for the first peas to arrive.

Now he's quick enough to yank a few off the vines and heads home with a whole hand full! 

This is why I grow peas.

My strawberries are trying hard to produce.

But the birds are beating me to them.
I might get some netting and drape them next year.
I snatched this one up last night even though it was only half reddish, but it was still so yummy.   

 

I bought this basil on June 8.  It's maybe doubled in size.... 
I know basil likes warmer temperatures, but, still.... come on.... 

GROW! 

Gardening is certainly a challenge in SE Alaska. 
Our temps can be cold and weather wet.
Our dirt is poor
and we live in many microclimates.

Yet we keep trying.  And trying.  And trying. 
Trying to find the answer to growing tomatoes without a green house.
Trying to become a little more self-sufficient.
One lettuce leaf at a time. 

Later!  Nancy

Garbage Day

Our garbage men have the best route in town!
Every week they are greeted with these darlings waiting at the window for them.

Patiently they wait....
Waving and waving until the men see them....

Even the dogs wait....

Until.... there you have it!   The wave!

The garbage man looks up and sees the kids and a smile breaks out over his face and he waves back at them.

Even the guy in the cab will honk his horn and wave.

You just know that these garbage men look forward to collecting trash at our home every week.

How could they not, with these darlings waiting for their arrival? 

Today I'm joining
 Cottage Flora Thursdays

Cheap Toys or Food Bank Donations

Have you noticed how expensive toys are today?  And noisy?  They all make noise!  When I was a kid.... okay, I won't go there, but.....  I guess all the noise is to stimulate and teach....

When I was a kid, we played outside with sticks and rode our bikes all over the neighborhood.  Today, families spend a small fortune on expensive, noisy, toys for their kids that they may or may not play with.  Even though my kids are grown, here I am, spending a small fortune on toys for the grandkids as well.  Loud, noisy toys.  In my defense.... I do babysit them four days a week and fall for the whole "stimulating and teaching" thing. 

And it must  be working because I have three of the brightest, most intelligent little grandkids ever!

So here we have these big expensive toys.  Like this Ford F150 below.  I didn't buy this, but it is my grandsons.  Isn't it every little boy's dream car?  And it runs!  He toots down the road in it and over to the neighbors.  It has a real, live, radio and a place to hold your water bottle.  Very cute.  But not cheap, I'm sure.

Here you have a pantry full of canned goods.

Here you have a little boy, playing with the canned food.

He takes it from the shelves, and puts it in the back of his truck. 

When the truck bed gets full, he relocates it all to a different shelf.  (Note:  Notice how messy this shelf looks, nothing is lined up.  Very little respect for his job.)

Then he puts it all back INTO the truck bed.

For an hour or more, he works diligently on this task.  He just keeps to the task at hand.  Moving canned goods from one location to the other. 

Now, look at this next photo. What do you notice about it?  Everything is lined up perfectly.  All the labels are facing front.  There's nothing willy wally about what he's doing now.  There's a whole new respect for the job he's doing.  Now, I don't know what this means.... I did think it was interesting....

Avery, cheering him on. 

Quality check to make sure all the cans are lined up and labels facing front. 

Oops, this one needs to be lined up better. 

Then it all gets taken back to the shelf, again....

Making sure they're all lined up straight and even.  Seriously, this can go on forever.  There's no fighting, no competition between kids.  No grabbing toys from each other.  This is their chosen play activity even on a sunny day when they could be outside!  So I let them. 

I don't know what this all means about his future careers.  Maybe he's practicing to be a stock boy, stocking shelves at the grocery store.  But when asked about it, Hunter says, "nope, I'm gonna be a fireman." 

So to all you parents out there:  Forget the big, expensive toys.  Just stock your pantry shelf and let the kids have fun! 

See ya!  We're heading to the Food Bank now! 

the making of a fruit pizza

Every week I try to find a new craft or home ec project to keep the grandkids busy.  Keep in mind the two oldest are 3 and 3.5 years so their attention span and degree of difficulty is limited. 

But today we made fruit pizzas.  And they were yummy!

First you roll out the sugar cookie dough.  I bought it already premade....

Then cook the dough. 

Once the crust has cooled, you spread on a cream cheese mixture:

Let the kids start attaching berries of their choice to the pizza: 

 Being sure to make sure the berry/fruit has contact with the cream cheese mixture to keep it in place:

Voila!  It was good! 

So here's the recipe:

Fruit Pizza

Sugar cookie dough, whether home made or store bought.

A variety of berries and fruit. 

We used raspberries, strawberries (sliced), blueberries, kiwi, and banana.

Cream Cheese 8 oz

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Roll out your dough on a board dusted good with powdered sugar.  Otherwise it will stick. 

Keep the thickness to about 1/2"

Cook at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes, or until brown.

Let crust cool.

Meanwhile, prepare the cream cheese mixture (cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla). 

Blend well.

Once crust is cool, spread a nice layer over the crust.

Add your berries and fruit in any manner you wish. 

Be sure fruit is connected with the cream cheese mixture as it will keep the berry in place.

If using bananas, you might spread a fruit glaze to prevent them from browning, otherwise it's probably not necessary. 

Cut in squares or pie shapes or however you want. 

Just enjoy!