Slow Tuesday

Just like I like them.  Besides taking Jack out about 20 times, it seems, I spent most of the day working on an interview of Cokie Roberts by Susan Page of USA Today.  I learn so many things when I do these.  Today was about how Cokie's mother mentored Nancy Pelosi and lots of other political stories from the past and now.  I learned all about Nancy's mother and rest of the family.  They cracked me up chuckling over their opinions, and there were a lot of "don't quote me" phrases.

I had no pickup from school today, and I miss the girls.  I know they'll be having a good time with Grandma and Grandpa.  They're all working tomorrow on the house to get it ready to sell (except Emily who is working on work).  I don't know what I can do to help, but I'll check.

Speaking of Emily, her clinic finally got a web page that has been outdated for a long time.  They're really proud of it, and I'm especially proud of the director of the clinic.   She works really hard and does an amazing job as director and, most importantly, she enjoys it.  There was a strange typo on her personal info regarding where she graduated from PT school.  I think they left out an important word. 

Here is a link to the Proliance web page.  It was so nice to read the nice things patients had to say about the clinic and the individual therapists. When I've visited, luckily not as a patient, it's always seemed so cheerful and fun. 

I took no pictures today and did very little interesting stuff.  Cooked Elise and me a nice salmon with some green beans I cooked last night.  I love boring days.  I finished the John Grisham book, and it was kind of meh.  I liked Part I which was a story from 1946.  Part II I skipped because it was about the Bataan Death March during  WWII, and I don't feel I want to know anything about it.  At all.  It didn't really add much to the story, but I guess some people enjoy it.  Part III solved a mystery, but I mainly just skimmed it until I found out the why of the murder that happens in the first few pages.

I just took Jack out for his final outing.  Soooo cold.  I'm ready to get warm and sleep. 

Sunshine and Pets

I love having a dry week.  The snow is still piled up in places, but it's slowly melting.  We're keeping Jack for 3 days, and I actually went down at 7:00 this morning and walked him around instead of just standing and waiting on the stairs.  He loved it, and I did too.  It was still and quiet and not really that cold just for those few minutes.

Breakfast time was interesting.  Poor Jack is obsessive about his two meals a day and enjoys them thoroughly, but this is the time Layla decides he might be worth having as a friend.  She drank out of his bowl, which didn't bother him, and I was afraid she was going to get too close to his food bowl, and she did tempt fate a little, but he didn't pay attention to her.  She pushed her placemat over to the refrigerator and played furiously with it while he ate.  Getting no attention from him, she then pushed it against his legs and made him reposition himself every time.

 

For now, the snow is back where it belongs.

Sunday in February

Layla enjoys sitting in the window and checking out what activity she might find.

And it's started to snow again.  Really!  My car is still covered even with some days of higher temps.  It's just not melting, and I'm not trusting myself to get out in it.  I don't think this will last long, and we are in the 40s today so keeping my fingers crossed.

This is Sophia who just turned 1.  Debby has been babysitting for a week and captured this hilarious mac and cheese video.  She's just trying to figure out what it's good for besides eating, and the music goes along with it perfectly.

In case that doesn't work, here's a pudding picture.

And video didn't work.  I've got to get help with that.  

Winter's Mad

I just read on our community FB page that it's as if winter's mad and keeps storming back and saying, "And another thing!"

We were supposed to have rain, a little wintry mix and then rain again.  But nope.  After lunch I looked out, and it was snowing big fat flakes, and it's gone on for a couple of hours.  It's 38 degrees!

Snow on top of ice on top of 2 different snow storms.

Emily got off work early but is getting her hair cut in Issaquah, so I'm sending her updates and trying to get her to come on home.  Ryan is also working closer to Seattle and just having rain, but I worry about their little street when they do get home.

I'm more fascinated by this observation:  An angry mountain goat.







I'm trying to get some serious answers for Emily about the state of the roads, but people are acting crazy on the message boards, torn between being glad they stocked up on groceries to being terrified that school will be canceled Monday.

After two full days and one half day of keeping the girls, I'm not all up for a sleepover tonight.

They've colored 20 pictures apiece and have now figured out they can request a coloring page from Aunt CeCe and run to the printer and wait.  I got invited to do a Hello Kitty Mermaid one and did a fine job on it!  Not my best work, but I think I should get points for coloring all those little bubbles.

Loving their midmorning snack of grits and grated cheese.  Graysen keeps calling it cream of wheat, and Katerine doesn't care.  She's asking for more.

Cinderella Dressed in Yellow

Graysen got a jump rope from her SD grandparents for her birthday and is making amazing progress.  When she brought it over yesterday, she could hardly get it over her head and could only jump one jump without tripping.  She and her Dad had a practice session last night, and when she got here this morning, she could jump about four jumps in a row.

Then I mentioned Cinderella.  The only words from the chant were Cinderella dressed in yellow, so we went to our wise friend Google to find out and found a few YouTube videos to watch.  She was beside herself.  At first, remembering the words threw her rhythm off, but it didn't take her long.  She was doing 10 to 12 jumps in a row within 30 minutes - and she has jumped all day.

Well, I published too soon while I was waiting for my pictures to appear on mynew  camera.  I'll have to come back and try again later.  It's a good phone, though, so far, and it's such a relief to not have the battery lose the charge so quickly.

I think I do have snow pictures too that I can now enjoy since it looks like it's not going to happen again - or at least as bad as it already did.

It seems like it will never melt.  This is the whipped cream look at the bottom of my stairs.  My car is still encircled with a fence of snow.

Out on the highway, it's so beautiful - if a bit dirty.  Some of these were of the elk fields, and I really wanted to see them today while I wasn't driving, but no luck.

Elise drove me to North Bend to renew my car registration and to the bank and to the library.  That  was nice, being chauffered around.  The icy roadsides made me nervous, but I tried not to show it.

I got a nice John Grisham book from the library, The Reckoning, and it's really good already.  I forget how much I enjoy his writing.  Elise even went in and checked my books out for me, but I was on my own at the DOL and the bank.

The girls spent the day with us today and had a pretty good time, I think:  Jumping rope, playing Chutes and Ladders, eating, drawing and coloring (a LOT), chasing Layla, and ending up watching Puffin Rock before Emily came after them.  It's been awhile since I've had both of them all day, but Winter Break is here, and we have two more days.

This cat thinks she's a person. Elise even let her spin the wheel when it was her turn.

The rhyme is:  Cinderella dressed in yellow, went upstairs to kiss her fellow, Made a mistake and kissed a snake.  How many doctors will it take?  At least, that's the version we heard.

Graysen's Birthday Party

The long-anticipated birthday party came on Saturday afternoon.  We were a little worried that the snow wouldn't be gone in time, and it wasn't completely but enough that there were only three cancellations.

I'm still not driving - or walking much outside - so Elise took me to Safeway to get the balloons.  As long as we got the big 6, the others were optional.  She only wanted valentine ones, but I happened to see a giant mermaid and another unicorn one.  The girls who worked there gave me a birthday special if I did this or that combination, and we ended up with a huge bunch of balloons.  It took Elise and me both to get them into her little car.  

The girls were both thrilled with them.

It was so exciting to see all her school friends show up, and there was a lot of hugging and yelling out names.  They were all classmates except for Camden and Branson, who are family friends.

As soon as 4 or 5 got there, the chasing around the table started, and that was tons of fun if you judged by the shrieks and laughter.  They did settle down to get some snacks before going into the bouncy room.

I stayed in the party room while they were bouncing and took some more pictures and just relaxed in the calm.   Lots of rainbows and unicorns.

I ended up with company though because Leland and Zander didn't like the bouncy house.  They are twins but in different classes, so Graysen only knows Leland, but since there were some cancellations, their mom went home and got Zander.  It may be Xander, I'm not sure, but they are the most charming and cute little boys.  We've walked home from school with them before, because they live in the same apartments I do.

The last thing their mom told them before she left was, "No more sweets."  We won't show her this cake picture.

These are some pictures of the sweet kids I met - and some moms and dads.

Lot of blurry pictures, but they didn't actually sit still long.  And my camera is the worst.

It was such a good time.  Emily and Ryan planned well and did a great job.  Birthday parties are easy when you just have to show up.

I had given Graysen her gifts before the party, so they could leave them at my place and play with them over here.  The Lite-Brite was one of them, and then I made a choice I might regret - two actually.  Both gifts, I gave her two of so she could share with Katherine, and she was great about that.  This birthday has been hard on Katherine, having to wait another three months for hers.

The girls had got a Num Nom toy for Christmas and loved it, so I thought I would give the some more figures for it.  The only ones I could find were buried in slime, but all kids love it, so I thought I would try it.

 These are called Silly Shakes and look like little milkshakes.  There are six different flavors, or smells, from pineapple and watermelon to cupcake to vanilla butter, six in all.  Some had sprinkles in them, some had glitter, and some little marshmallow-looking things.

I did enjoy the slime too.  It smells delicious and is very soothing to play with.  It doesn't work when you get it in your hair though.  Ask Katherine.

I got my new phone today, and I hear it takes better pictures than my old one, so I'm hoping that's true.  It will be such a relief to be able to charge it without holding the cord at just the right angle to make a connection.  

Ryan went and got the phone and changed it over for me, so I kept the girls for awhile since they're out of school.  Elise said it was snowing earlier when she came home, but, again, I'm just ignoring that kind of crazy talk.