Last couple days

Last day in Mississippi full of lots of fun.  We got to watch Noah get his first haircut. What fun! He did so good.  Jamie made the appt. with a gal that is actually one of his teachers at his day care. So it worked out great cuz he knew her!

 She did a great job cleaning it all up!  Those little baby wisps were getting a bit ratty so it was time.

 About half way thru he started signing "all done", so cute, I had a sucker in my pocket and we never had to get it out.

 Look at those 2 boosters, so little on top! so cute!

 A happy hug at the end!

 What a handsome little 18 month old!

 Noah tried out his new bowl this morning and got the hang of the straw to slurp his milk up.

 Meanwhile the airplane-ing continues!   I head home tomorrow so will miss my little buddy so much. Hope to see him again in a couple months, it'll be fun now on the face time adventures if he recognizes us!

Thanksgiving

Here's a few snaps from our Thanksgiving celebration.  My sister and husband hosted us all for a wonderful family dinner.  Here is Chris and our little Brock with Mommy's little turkey shirt on with the turkey on his bottom!  And his hat they made at Miss Robins daycare!

  Bode as he comes running to Papa!

 Brock and I

 My Mom smiling on....

 The thanksgiving parade was on and on my there was Buzz and of course Bode had his Buzz along!

 My sister Marcy and husband Vince....What great food and gathering time we had at their home.

 Alissa and Alan came. It was fun catching up with my nieces and nephews...

 Freshly roasted almonds on the table for cracking and those huge leaves Marcy picked up on their getaway to the mountains the weekend before!

 Jen and my Mom....

 Corissa and Landon....

 Love the laughs on both these faces!

 My Dad....

 Bode enjoying the ride.

 We had a beautiful warm fall Arizona day to enjoy each other!  Brock looks like....are we done yet?  What a special day!

Good Times in Mississippi

We've had such fun here getting to do the "everyday" stuff with Jeremy and Jamie and Noah.  This little guy feeds himself so well now with a spoon so every morning we've been sharing our cheerios. He'll eat his and then come and share mine too! It's a WET day here.  It has rained off and on, but it's mostly just wet.  It's not really raining but you get all wet outside, kind of like this constant mist.  We went for a walk tho and then Noah went walking up and down the long driveway ( they live on several acres so believe me it's a long curved driveway when you have short legs!  We were all wet by the time we came in, it's not so cold even, just wet!  Dry clothes for all!

Jeremy is off flying, and Jamie is off to work so we play.   Noah has loved his little animals we brought....one of the "found" stocking presents.  In the box, out of the box, in the cup out of the cup, it's so cute!  I suppose by the time we see him again he'll be at the"line it up" in a row stage.

 We've had a blast , maybe doing things that Mommy and Daddy don't allow...like playing with Mommy's K-cups ( shhhhhh don't tell) We had a blast in a box sorting k cups!  In and out and in and out.  Finally the box tore but who would think for an hour you could do that!

 Yep it's fun to be the Grammy and just "get away with it!"

 So Robby and Anna and Ellis came over for dinner, Jeremy's requested green chili burros.  We hadn't seen the new little guy so that was fun.  We actually all got to eat too, at the same time. Amazing with 2 babies.

 And I know now that "I've rated" in Noah's world as I was holding Ellis and Noah spied that immediately, yep, pretty soon I had him too, guess that's his claim....that's MY Grammy!

 So this little guy is having a good nap, Papa is packing the china in a box and I"m being lazy on my computer!  Catching up time!  We've got to be ready when Jamie gets off work to go on an adventure....a first haircut!  Grab a few groceries and things like that!  Jeremy's doing a cross country trip with a student....just so happens to be to their future moving area so he's going to be looking things over!  So here's to wet days in Miss. hot coffee and this cute little bundle!

Mississippi update

So I keep hearing from people in "blog world" saying oh you are back!  So here is today's little update. Weather is warm and wonderful, long sleeve shirts are plenty first thing in the morning!  I hear tho rain is on it's way....what is that????    We had Noah on our own this AM while J&J went to work.  We went for a nice long walk down a street next to theirs, see how rural,  a few fall leaves still hanging on, the ground is covered, wind blows and down they come, I"m so glad to experience even the tail end of fall!

 Odd photo I know but our fire hydrants are big and fat....look at theirs!

 Here is Ken doing some "dimpling" today....I have no idea if I spelled that right in airplane world but  that's what he's doing dimpling the holes in the metal!

 This is an airplane tail.  Should have taken a photo before he took the rest of it apart.

 We had great fun with Noah and played inside and out, had a snack, had lunch, just got him down for his nap after lunch and Jamie came home so we all ate lunch and relaxed in the afternoon doing a few chores and visiting till Jeremy got home.  Here he is out "sandblasting an airplane part but it wasn't with sand...walnut shells....I use those to stuff pincushions! ha!

 And here is my little charmer!  He was having a Popsicle after dinner to sooth those gums....we had him giggling and could see all 4 molars are 1/2 thru and so is one of his eye teeth, the other one is bulging, oweee!  He's fast asleep now after his bath and raiding my suitcase!  So fun, he's figured out my suitcase has surprises in it so he runs right to it and looks!  He's 5 things short in his stocking but who cares!  Less to have to get wrapped yet!

A doughnut picnic!

So we squeezed in a picnic one morning with our 3 little grandsons!  We went and snagged the boys one morning before I had to be at work at Kohls and took them to the park.  We brought doughnuts and bananas and orange juice and it became a breakfast picnic!  An hour to play on the toys and inhale a dozen doughnuts, short and sweet !  Except for Ken bonking his head 3 time on the big toy chasing 3 little boys around....they just don't make those big toys tall enough for Papa's!  Crazy but fun!!!

Day 2 with Noah

We've had a great Sunday with Noah and his parents!  Noah loves his Christmas present, he thinks having his own chair is wonderful!

 Yesterday afternoon we went outside to play, took a long walk, he jumped in his little jumpy house...

 Which he gets so excited when it gets blown up! It was fun to be outside and watch the leaves falling, the pineneedles are also falling so it's very "fall" out, neighbors are starting to rake their pineneedles, guess then everyone wants them as Pine Straw for around their bushes....where we have rock they use bark or pine straw.

 love the big steps with Papa!

 This morning we had time to play outside for a bit...in our jammies!  and then get ready for church, Noah had fun in the church nursery and then we stopped for sandwiches on the way home.Today is Noah's 1 1/2 year birthday so we got to help take his 18 month picture shot...lots of jumping around with Mickey on Papa's head and we got some cute shots!

 Home to play a bit and Noah is having his nap.  I got in on some Airplane-ing, I know how to remove the vinyl from sheets of aluminum airplane parts and I also now how to deburr the gazillions of holes that are on each part. It sort of sounds like an airplane factory, I almost feel like Rosie the Riveter!

 Still waiting on this little guy to wake up, His Mommy and Daddy have left on an adventure to Tuscaloosa ( closest town that has any kind of shopping and eating about 1 hour away) so they have plans to shop and eat real food in a real restaurant!  We'll be having a fun afternoon evening too!

Kohls

So I mentioned I'm working at Kohls.  It's all part time, but will supplement things when I have no classes scheduled at our favorite place ETC.  We have found in the past it's not worth scheduling classes to teach by mid Nov. on as everyone is way to busy to come and their money needs to go for holiday things, so classes are done. We are hot and heavy planning all fun things for Jan- April!  The calendar is scheduled, descriptions are in, I spent the airplane ride east typing up class requirements and signs so believe me we are ready for all the fun at ETC! Wait till you see the good stuff comin! So in the meantime other than my design days at ETC and days getting the Block of the Months prepped I have been at Kohls learning all kinds of things.  It's been quite the experience seeing how a big store operates and how smoothly, you can tell it's not their first rodeo!  I was hired and have worked with crews at price changes, on the truck crew unboxing the mulititude of inventory that arrives 2 times a week, folding and hanging, it's amazing.  Wee hours of the morning some days, clocking in at 5am truck time.  Lately they have me at the register...and I do prefer it, close contact with lots of people and it's been fun. Not near as exhausting as the truck crew but still mentally and physically tiring   Black Friday came and went and I SURVIVED!  Clocked in at 11:30 Thanksgiving night  and got home at 10:30 the next morning.  I've never eaten so much junk food and diet coke thru the night to stay awake.  Doors open, people run, it's absolutely nuts!  Lines stayed huge until about 4am, lull until about 6am and then they were wrapped around the store again! Kohls takes good care of us tho, gave us each a bagger, every couple hours another POS ( point of sale) person came behind us and said take your break or lunch and then in a bit we were back ready to go again.  Firehouse sub sandwiches for all the hard working employees, lots of caffeinated drinks, chips, you name it, they kept us going for 10 hour shifts!  So since then I've been scheduled elsewhere as replenishment or such but they end up during those shifts putting me out on the register.  A well oiled machine so it's been interesting to see how it all runs.  Lots of nice people to be around, other employees very helpful as I muddle my way thru, been good to get the brain learning all kinds of new things with their system as we can do exchanges, bill payments, give discounts, sign people up for credit cards besides doing the normal sales. So the brain gets energized doing that when I'm not at the other job teaching people lots of other things! They've been gracious to work around my other job too.  Seasonal I suppose will end by beginning to mid Jan. but they've already said they want to hire me after so time will tell what happens at that point.  I sort of was surprised to hear that already but one manager pulled me aside soon after my one month review and said there will be a place for me so be thinking about it.  I think the one thing we've all enjoyed at Kohls that most people know about is their "stacking " of discounts.  If an item is on sale, you can still use a percentage off coupon and maybe another one or two $10 coupons you might find in the paper etc.  Then we give Kohls cash and this week it was bounce back coupons so they do everything they can to save you money plus we are encouraged to find those things for people and always make them happy!  Sometimes you feel very responsible having that sort of control but it's nice to share savings with everyone!  So as they all know, my family will be having a "very Kohls" kind of Christmas this year as I see the deals and snag a few and get all kinds of discounts, it's been fun!

Here we are in Mississippi!

Just a quickie so you can see how CUTE Noah is!  We got up this morning to his smiles and have had a blast all morning! I was wondering if he would be shy to us but he wasn't at all and was ready to come and play with his mickey and sit on laps and the whole thing!   So I'll try and post a few fun photo's I've been snapping!  Look at all those teeth he's gotten!

After that crazy trip here ( we finally got on a plane at 7:30 in St.Louis, then an ambulance pulls up and on come paramedics...they never did haul anyone off so who knows what was going on....so they leave and some guy gets rowdy and starts yelling get this plane moving ( course they all had been in the bars probably for 6+hours....the stewardess got in his face and immediately had control of that....on comes security, off goes the guy, finally about 8:15 we roll out of there, Jeremy arrives at 9:15 on the Birmingham end to pick us up, sandwiches in hand for the 2 hour + drive back to Columbus, we got here finally around 11ish and whew, it was all worth it!) We've played outside a bit, the weather is beautiful, all the leaves are almost down so they are everywhere....I'm thinking that might be something on the to do list this week is getting them all cleaned up!  We played in the big box ( it's actually from his Christmas present that we unboxed, J&J want us to go ahead and give it to him while we are here....it arrived ( thankyou Amazon) a few weeks back so for this morning we had fun in the box....both of us!

 There is some airplane-ing going on....I'm hearing I might get involved yet too... Last trip I learned to rivet and dimple, who knows what is next! Jamie and Ken went for a run/walk/jog.

 And this is lunch time, he's watching Micky Mouse Club and having his PB&J and some applesauce....he and Aileron! Came in from the front yard then seeing their friends baby who had stopped by and Jamie had Noah all ready and cuddling for his nap...Aileron was outside, guess the temptation at lunch got the better of him! extreme punishment there! So the crazy adventure of getting here yesterday was so worth it!  I guess I"ll go see what I can help with on the airplane, put chili in the crock pot so the sun is out in Mississippi!

Happy December!

Its that crazy fun time of year, everyone is scurrying around getting ready for the holidays.  Ken and I have been too.  The house is full of cheer ( truth be told I started right after Halloween to get it done with my crazy work schedule and being gone on a trip in Dec. and not hosting thanksgiving I figured why not....Ken thought I was nuts the day after Halloween when I said bring the trees in....) The lights are up outside, gifts are about 90% bought and wrapped.  I leave piles of tagged things every day when I'm flying out the door and they magically get wrapped while I"m away! Took my Mom on one shopping adventure.  At 81 she still loves to go out and buy everyone in the family something with much care and planning. So I"m hoping to tie up a few loose ends  when I get back and enjoy some parties and readying everything for the holiday season!  Still a few things to tackle....I got my name for our holiday exchange at ETC so that has me stumped. Things aren't quite ready for my quilt group's holiday party that is at my house but it'll happen soon enough! Amazon has been my best friend for shopping when I"m dead tired after work for my grandsons.  They all made holiday wish lists, if yours haven't tried it, I highly recommend it.  I push the button and two days later it's at my door!  Two suitcases of fun are in transit to Mississppi ( I hope we eventually get there !) It was Fun as little things appeared from family members remembering Jeremy and Jamie and Noah to take with us.   I hope you all enjoy preparations and enjoy the wonderful season full of family and friends.  If the gifts and things don't all get done or given I hope we all just enjoy our time together with lots of laughs and smiles!  Now that I survived Black Friday on the other side of the counter we can do ANYTHING!