So much for a little boy to do!

While it may be obvious that Grammy is taking all the pictures, it has become equally as obvious that Grampa is doing his fair share of giving Blake treats at every turn.

but isn't that what grandparents do?....yep!

Arrival in Seattle

This is how one very active 14 month old Blake arrived in Seattle after a much too long flight from Ohio.

Hello Sweetheart!...we have such adventures waiting for you....sweet dreams :)

They are on the plane!

They are on the plane....and headed to us!

Time to finish up the final details and wait patiently while they make the flight.

Oh to have the wings of a bird and have flown to greet them...someday, someday....

But for today there is much left to do and then they will be here...

Close enough to hold and hug...yes, a little slice of heaven is just hours away :)

So adorable!

One more day!

There is much to do to be ready for you, but even if I don't get one more thing on my "To Do" list done you can be certain that my heart is ready for you :)

The snacks are stacked on the counter, the juice and milk are in the fridge. The safety gate sits at the ready at the top of the stairs and the outlet covers are in every "Blake level" outlet. There are diapers and blankets neatly stacked and ready. The books are in a basket, waiting to be read.

The toys and travel games are in the car waiting to be packaged for presentation. The clothes are on the chair...and gifts are waiting to be wrapped. There is still the idea for a door plate ratteling around in my head, the plans for that project will no doubt materialize in the eleventh hour as they so often do. And as it so often happens the tasks will all be completed when today's early morning turns into tonight's evening.

So I will be diligent and finish my list. And I will be patiently waiting for just the right moment when the plane lands and Grammy Time begins again :)....

The countdown begins...

The countdown begins...okay, so the countdown started the moment we left Wooster, but now that August 27 is in site, we can begin a respectable countdown..a realistic countdown, a countdown that can be captured in two hands!

...and that countdown is now inside of one week...true it's only inside by minutes, but when it comes to Grammy Time every minute counts.

I have been gathering toys...blocks, books, pull toys, bath time toys, cars...basically anything else that seems to be labeled appropriate for a one year old. I am convinced that we found the last pool in the Seattle area! and we are ready to play.

We have passed the need for infant spoons, bottles, and jars of baby food; we have crossed the threshold into the land of toddler utensils, sippy cups, plastic plates, safety gates, outlet plugs, faucet covers, and bubble bath.

And soon, though not soon enough, the office will be transformed into a sleeping room for Blake. And soon, though not soon enough, we will be together.

How wonderful to have begun the countdown!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Happy Birthday, Blake is ONE!

Happy Birthday Blake!

...and just that quickly the year has passed.

You have learned so very much this year...and in your sweet innocence you have also taught much!

You have made parents out of children, and grandparents out of parents...the circle of life does indeed spin on.

You walk, you chatter, you smile and you tease...and above all, you capture our hearts.

I love you Blake :) - Grammy

You've got the cutest little baby feet...

There's something wonderfully sweet about baby feet:)...from the first moment of life we count the little toes and play "this little piggy went to market with them"...and why do we do it? Who really can say, but I know that I do it because you really do have the sweetest little baby feet.

The first gift I bought for you was the newborn pair of loafers...the white ones with the brown fringe and tassels. I couldn't help myself, they were just too cute to pass up. Funny thing about shoes, I never bought all that many for my sons...they liked being barefoot, and I was of the the opinion that shoes were only for being practical outside, but inside...ah the inside was for bare footin!

Still with you, well, with you it's somehow different. I think it's because I'm the grandma and I can think about the frivolous stuff for you, while your mommy takes care of the necessary!...After a lifetime of taking care of the necessary and the practical, it's my turn to bring the "extras" into your life...so shoes it is!

I like feet too because they remind me of my dad. The first thing dad would do whenever he saw the boys was to wiggle their feet...I like that. And I must admit, wiggling little feet is a pretty sweet way to start the day!

From the beginning of life, our feet just sit there at the end of your legs, just resting up for a lifetime of movement. But one day, those same feet will take you anywhere you want to go!

That also reminds me of a song we used to sing as children: Oh be careful little feet where you go, oh be careful little feet where you go...the Father up above is looking down in love, Oh be careful little feet where you go.

May God bless your steps and may you always stay close to the foot of the cross. I love you Blake :) ~ Grammy

Granny's Lion

I must admit , one of the sweetest memories that I carry in my heart is of Birthday cakes :)

With the exception of ice cream on Sundays, and watermelon in the summer...I think that birthdays were the only times we really even had dessert as a child.

With five siblings, and birthdays scattered throughout the year, we, of course had ample opportunities for birthday desserts.

I know that my little brother's dessert of choice was always mom's blueberry pie...what an adventurer Tommy was, who chooses pie? when they could have cake complete with icing and icecream, but every year...he chose pie!

I remember my favorite birthday cake, though I don't recall the exact year...the memory of the cake remains fresh!

My favorite birthday cake was an ice cream cake! Oh, not the kind of ice cream cake that you can buy from Dairy Queen...this cake was around long before theirs ever was on the menu.


My ice cream cake was made COMPLETELY of ice cream...tiny little scoops of all different kinds of ice cream...mostly sherberts, which made for a completly colorful slice of ice cream perfectly melting on my dessert plate on that beautiful August evening....

and here is where the beauty of this little lion comes in....

This little lion, celebrated with me that day now so long ago...high atop a mountain of icecream and whip cream topping, he once heard the last fading notes of my happy birthday song.

Just as he had heard the birthday songs of my family for the past sixty years, my hope is that he will hear the tunes for the next sixty years to come, and then some, and then some....

Thinking Pleasant Thoughts....

When I was a little girl we made our own fun...as a child of the 60's we really didn't watch much television and there certainly were no techno games to hold our attention. Our fun was classic kid's stuff, the kind of things that imagination dreams up and parents just smile at.

In the early years we were a military family. Living on base meant, among other things, that there was always an abundance of children to play with.

We would ride bikes, play with jacks, jump rope, play hopscotch, dodge ball, kick the can, make forts out of the sheets hanging on the clothes lines, play princess, play dolls and stay out in the streets until it was nearly too dark to see our way home. Upon arriving at home it would be time for supper, bath time, and bedtime. So went the ebb and flow of our days until 1965 when Dad retired from the Army and we entered civilian life.

Military life meant frequent duty station changes. With the exception of our tour in Germany which was three years, we moved every year of my early childhood. From California - to Maryland - to Germany - to Virginia - to California - and finally to retirement. Ahh, civilian life...live where you want...choose when you move.

We moved to be near my Grandmother in my mother's childhood town of Puyallup, Washington, and we never moved to another city again. My parents made one last move from the home at 1711 West Stewart to a home they had built on the back of the lot....but that story is for another time.

I can only now appreciate just what a chore our early life must have been for my parents. Five little children were hardly a moving company of helping hands. I can only guess at how often those games we played outside were at the nudging of a mother who was often on some point of what must have been an endless cycle of constant packing, unpacking, organizing, sorting and eliminating the excess.

When we settled into civilian life, the seasons of our year shifted. We no longer went with the "pack - move - settle in - adjust - pack - move - settle in -adjust...." cycle...we were now in the "school - summer - school - summer" - cycle.

We quickly learned not to say "I'm bored", "there's nothing to do", because mom was genius! She had two answers that there could be no arguing with..."Go weed", or "Go think pleasant thoughts".

...Weeding was a given around our house. Besides the flower beds around the house, we grew a fairly large garden just beyond the wagon wheel gate of our back yard. Oh, it wasn't the sort of garden that produced ample veggies that we could package up and sell at a local Farmer's Market, but certainly it produced ample veggies to keep a family of seven in fresh salads through the summer. Each of us kids had our own couple of rows (lo-o-ong rows!) where we could plant whatever we wanted to. It was our chore to tend to them. Plant, water, weed and harvest was the regular routine in tending to our little plot of land.

And then there were the family rows where we would share the tending chores. Those rows provided our early spending money...10 cents a row for weeding - and no stopping half way! (Did I mention they were lo-o-o-ng rows!) I would guess the majority of the potatoes, cucumbers and corn came from those family rows. My lack of a green thumb tells me that whatever it was I planted, I most likely tended to as a hobby. Surely had we been left to my produce production, we would have soon been in serious lack.

Weeding became pleasant for me. I could weed as I chose at my own speed...no time schedule and nothing much to do but pull out whatever wasn't a plant. I realized that any plant that was growing where I didn't want it was a "weed". If I left the errant plant to grow for a few more days it might became a brilliant blue bachelor button, then again, it could turn out to be a dandelion causing havoc. At that moment in time the plant I pondered was either a weed that I could pull, or a plant I could nurture to grow into what it was created to be. The choice was mine. When it came to weeding, I was able to let go of what "might be" and celebrate the "what is."

With life, the celebrating is a little more important. Concerns that are left to grow long after they should have been plucked, and dreams that are pulled too early so they don't get to mature into what they might be, are far more important than dandelions left to grow and bachelor buttons plucked too soon.

Thinking about what might be and daydreaming about futures, give our spirit something to hold on to...grasp hold of the pleasant thoughts and don't let the weeds of "what is" strangle the dream.

When mom sent us off to weed, we nurtured our soil. When she sent us off to think pleasant thoughts, we nurtured our soul...and gave our heart a reason to smile.

Weeding and thinking....I still enjoy both pastimes. But the older I get, the more I enjoy just thinking pleasant thoughts. Thanks mom!

Bubbles and Bathtime....

I can't deny it...I am smitten :)

There are certain moments in the day that I wish could last forever:

the moment when you first open your eyes from a nap and are happy to be held until you are ready to play

the moment when your sleepy eyes finally blink closed for the last time and you become the definition of "sleeping like a baby"

the moment when you are too tired to be awake, but too awake to go to sleep

...and bath time.

This is your first real kitchen sink bath! Until now you haven't been a sturdy enough sitter to place in a sink...but here you are...bubbles and bath time, rubber ducky and hooded towel :)

It won't be long and you will no longer be content with such a small pond. Soon you will want for the big tub, with fleets of boats, and sea creatures of all designs. Toys that will float, soap that will color the walls like paint, fish that will squirt water, and nets to confine them all when bath time is done.

...but for this moment in time, the sink is enough...more than enough!

Enjoy the journey, it's only just beginning :)

Blake has EIGHT new teeth...

Ah....there they are...after all the fussing and the fevers, the drooling and the chewing, there they are in grand display...EIGHT beautiful teeth...no they didn't all appear at once, and not quite overnight, but wouldn't it be nice if they did?

It wasn't so long ago that the first little tooth bud was making it's way through your gums and now, oh my! your little baby face is taking on the look of a little boy.

This is just another in a long line of changes...but this is the one that is going to open the door to carrots-real carrots-not the ones you eat with a spoon :)...and ice cream cones with grampa!

Hooray for Blake!