Another life...

You know that Grandma has been with us since April and except for a couple of weeks ago when she visited my brothers, we've had her all to ourselves...well, it turns out that we'll have to share her once again.

Last week, our family lost another of our favorite people. My great Aunt Nina passed away on Thursday morning. Wow, has this been a crazy year or what? Mom is heading up to Washington on Thursday to celebrate Aunt Nina's life with our family and to visit all and sundry in our great pacific northwest family...(oooh, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna get letters about that one...for the record not a single one of them is named "Sundry".)

So as the "video"/"picture" girl...I've been sharing a bunch of memories with my cousin John (he's a second or a removed or something but you get the idea) as he weeds through pictures and posts them. Some of them are so funny and some are sweet...

This is, from right to left, Aunt Nina, Nina's daughter and My Grandma Marie...all looking very "June Cleaver-y" to me...they are all gone now...



And here is another of of Aunt Nina, Grandma Marie and their brother, my Uncle Karl...also all gone...



As straight-laced as they all seem in those shots, there are also a few of these nuggets that were found...anybody else thinking...WOW!



But in light of all the other pictures...this is the one that stopped me. This is the one that made me the saddest and the gladdest...This is one of those..."I wanna do that" pictures that remind me how great my WHOLE family has always been...

Johnny titled it, "Mom and her girls---practicing for church"



What a great memory for those kids. What a wonderful moment, caught on film. I'm sure it was a typical "rehearsal"...someone was probably off key...someone was MORE than likely fidgeting or acting up in some way...someone else was probably impatient about something...but the picture of the moment...that flash of light caught the togetherness of a family. The togetherness that I KNOW carried on in her life and gave her children and the rest of her family joy. Lots of it.

After seeing that picture the other day...I put MY mom to good use. The woman can PLAY the piano...so I made her. And she made US learn a new song...and then Bear made HER play an old song for us...one that is full of meaning for us because it's played a part in the last two funerals, Grandma Marie and Daddy...and I just recorded the moments...in memory of Nina...but FOR me.

I don't know how long I'll get to keep my mommy...but I never ever want to lose the moments.

The one she taught us "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" (1:59)



And part of one we made her play, well BEAR made her play, again and again..."Until Then" (1:54)





Aunt Nina...you will be missed. We love you.

See ya around...

Letters to Grandma - First Day of School...

My mom has gone to visit my brothers in Florida for a couple of weeks. She left last Thursday and will be back next Monday night.

We were originally supposed to start school LAST Monday, but we had some issues with shipping and organization on my part, so I just pushed it off without thinking that Grandma would miss some of the fun of the first couple of days.

With that in mind, I kept my camera handy today. As things happened I had the girls tape a "letter to Grandma"...I won't pretend that ANY of these are uncoached...TOTALLY coached...in some cases FULLY rehearsed. Strangely, it was Bear that was able to do her little schpeil in a single take. Anyone who knows Miss Bear knows that she is joyfully distractable...it's one of her gifts...so the fact that it took her more sober sisters SO much longer to get "it" said, is kind of funny...and altogether charming.

I'll give you the run time of each of these in case you want to opt out...but they are pretty cute...

Beanie to Grandma :29



Bear to Grandma :09



Monkey Face to Grandma :11



This is Monkey Face's plan for the day...or the school year...she said this one on her own in varying ways and then I grabbed the camera...

Monkey Face :23



And then here is just some footage...it'll probably end up in our year end video...but Grandma would have thought it was sweet if she was here. This is Bear reading her passage from our morning Bible Study...Gen 1:14-19...Bean is there "JUST in case"...I'm not sure "in case of" what?...but that's what sisters are for...

Bear 1:31



And this is the actual moment that Monkey Face got her pencils. We have used Prismacolor pencils for a VERY long time and I truly love them. Because of that, when Bean started school I was looking for a reason NOT to share mine with her anymore. That bit of selfishness created a tradition. In our house, upon arrival into Kindergarten, a child is given her very own box of 48 Prismacolor pencils. Daddy searches high and low to find them at a reasonable price and it's a very exciting rite of passage.

Sorry the angle of the shot is off...I was trying to be unobtrusive with the camera because she REALLY likes to play to it if she knows it's on...oh well, you still get the excitement...

Monkey Face 1:06



Well Grandma, we hope this finds you well (I know you are, I just talked to you last night)...and that it brings you a little added joy.

As for the rest of you?

See ya around...

Dude...Cool Pancakes!

Happy First Day of our 2010-2011 School Year!

All three of the girls are in school this year...that's right Monkey Face is a big ole Kindergartner this year. So nothing for it but to make this a great day.

A few weeks ago, I saw a cool pancake trick on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives (yes, I am a cooking show dork...moving on) and thought, "eh, I could totally do that". So I set about figuring it out.

And figure it out...I DID!




We made a bunch of them...and quite a few of them flopped. Those flops provided sustenance until such time as we could figure it out...which, of course, gave us MORE time to figure it out...but by the time the technique was perfected, we weren't really all that hungry. I think I started making them at around 8:15 and we started cleaning the kitchen around 10...nearly two hours WELL spent.

After I'd really figured out what to do, Bean wanted to give it a go. I figured that I'd offer ya'll a tutorial in case you ever want to make them.

First of all...get yourself a big flat pan, griddle or some such...We're using my electric skillet. Take your favorite pancake recipe and thin it out. Then you need TWO dispensers, one for writing and one for flooding. I started trying to write with the squeeze bottle that Beanie uses to "flood", but because I'd cut the top off to make the hole bigger, it was too big to be precise enough to write. No matter, we used the squeeze bottle to flood and we ended up having the best luck with a standard baby medicine dropper for writing.

Here is Beanie after she has drawn her picture, in this case a tree. You want to let it cook for a good long while, the darker it is the better it will show...



Then once the outline is PRETTY dark you flood it...wait 15 seconds and then flip it. The part of the pancake that is flooded will be MUCH lighter...if you wait, it will catch up to the outline part in darkness, and where's the fun in that? In this clip, Beanie wrote "Go Mom"...remember, if you are writing, you have to write BACKWARDS because you flip it...and if you don't WRITE it backwards your final pancake will be backwards...we lost SEVERAL that way...

(Oh, the weird part in the middle where I turn the camera is because I thought I was flipping it, and she decided mid-stream that she could do it...eh...with a real film crew, you'd get some sort of editing...that is not the case here...)



Here is an example of one that was left too long after the "flooding"...


Once you get the hang of it, the only limit is your own drawing ability...I don't draw much...but I am working on my penmanship...(Still too long on the pan)


It was a great first day activity...we just wish Grandma had been here to share it...



See ya around...

Um...WOW...

This afternoon, I heard some hilarity...I followed it...and look what I found...



Evidently, Bean asked Grandma if she would mind a make over. Methinks Grandma got more than she bargained for...



I'm told that at one point Beanie was dabbing at Grandma's face with a paper towel. When asked why, Beanie replied, "Oh, I need to wipe off a little of your make up so that I can do that next! I can JUST imagine it!"



REALLY can't wait...(snort!)

See ya around...