Thanksgiving 2010

My grandson came to grandma's for Thanksgiving.  What a joy to have a little guy in my home.  He explored every nook and cranny.  He is walking so well and talks up a storm.  He knows sign language for some of his words and he eats quite well.  I sure enjoyed having him around.  I also look forward to seeing him at his home for the Christmas holiday.

Exploring

Grandma, can I get in this cabinet? 

Look at that grin, he knows he is looking inside a cabinet he shouldn't be into.

Baby gifts

In preparation for my trip to St Louis next weekend, I made the above blankets for a friend's baby girl.  The fabric is a nubby fleece on one side and a poly satin on the other.  These two fabrics are difficult to work with, one is stretchy and one is slippery but not stretchy.  I made several similar ones for my grandson and have finally mastered the pinning and stitching.  These went real quick, but I have had to rip many apart and start over. 

These two pictures are the ring toy I meant to complete by E's birthday as seen here.  It is Heather Baileys Happy Stacker  I was just too busy during the month of August so now E has a present coming this week.

One week count down to St Louis

Gosh the last two months have flown by and that is how long it has been since I saw my grandson.  This weekend I have dedicated my time to create for my favorite grandchild and a friend of his, Violet.  I will update hopefully by Sunday some completed projects.

For now all I have is a photo from two months ago of Eli studying my Blackberry

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Zona Rosa Art Festival

I meant to post this last weekend, but better late than never.  We had nice weather for this art fair last weekend.  Below people were relaxing by this fountain waiting for a young girls dance event.

Many people were drawn to the bright colors of this booth.

Jim Aden from Salem, Oregon  had beautiful unique glass work at his booth.  I wanted one of these vases he displayed.  The bright colors really drew people in.

Having been a silversmith in a younger life, I still play with jewelry and am always drawn in by someone with unique work.  Char Hunt crochet's her jewelry, her use of beads blend beautifully to create the below one of a kind pieces.  She has an absolutely beautiful turquoise piece on her web page.

Some of you may know I have knitted Christmas trees with silver wire and beads and I can attest to the beauty of Char's pieces.  Double click photo to see the detail.  

Reduce Reuse Recycle  I loved these Record Purses. They also had great license plate bracelets (including ones of my home state New Mexico)   The 3 Sisters Design Co. motto is 

Recycle-Reuse-Reclaim-Reinvent

 The below Graffiti Art was also a favorite.  I loved the tribute to John Lennon.  I looked but did not find a business card in booth???

The Plaza Art Fair is this weekend.  I sure wish I were an Artist.  But thankfully there are lots of talented folks creating art for all of us to enjoy.

Regina

Dippin Dogs

Sadie and her best friend Mattie (below) loved this end of summer tradition

Above Mattie waits for her toy to be thrown into the water.  Mattie loves to swim in the deep water, she could spends all day at that pool.  Sadie has a funny dog paddle and prefers to have her back feet on the floor of the pool and is not fond of the deep end of the pool.  Below Sadie keeps lookout as Mattie retrieves her toy.  It was beautiful weather and great fun with the girls.

Elliot's First Birthday

E's First Birthday Party was held in a park, the splash pool was a hit with E and all his friends.  The weather was beautiful and it was shared with wonderful people.  E was styling in his shirt and tie and had his hair done for the special occasion.

E knew this looked good and he wanted to eat it

E figured out how to taste it.

More fun at the Party

Opening presents

Happy Birthday E  Love you!!!!

Regina

Making a toy for Eli's upcoming birthday

I am making a Heather Bailey's Happy Stacker   Joining the rings together sounded a little tricky per instructions.  In fact Heather says to read twice before attempting.  She also said you will be proud when it comes together.  And I am proud, but it was easier than first thought.  Actually quite simply.  

I have a ring that needs more stuffing and I have 4 more rings to make.  I am still using scrap fabric that I have used to make his baby quilt, embellish pants and shirts and toys. As seen here.  One more week and I have a 1 year old grandson....  Can't wait to see him.

Regina

My Grandson's visit from July

I must say I look at this sequence of pictures a couple times a week, does anyone else look at pictures like that?  They were taken one day when E's parents were out on a walk or somewhere.  They tell a story.

E sees something he wants

What have you got Grandma?  How can anyone refuse such a look : )

I want that Grandma

What?

This sequence always cheers me up and brings a smile to my face.  Love that boy!

Regina

Weekend in St Louis

E is very conscious of what he is eating.  He wasn't so thrilled with his peas.  His parents have always said the name of the food they feed E, like apples, cheerios,  green beans, black beans.  E has started talking lately with Dad, Mom, duck, dog, ball, turtle.  While I was feeding E some black beans I said "black bean", E picked up the food, looked at it and said "black bean".  It was so cute.

I had a great time playing with E, listening to him laugh and just being around him.  It was a wonderful weekend with my son's family.

Sadie's ongoing training

As mentioned in a previous blog, my dog, Sadie hurt me a couple of times because she pulls me.  We are in our second month of training at The Dogs' Spot.  Sadie loves to go to school.  In fact she evens knows the day we are to attend and as it gets to that time of day she follows me around with anticipation of school.  Sadie is doing much better, when we pass people on our walks she usually doesn't pay attention to them.  She is so much happier attend school.  What a dog's life she has, day care and school : )

Sadie performing her stay.

Raj working with his owner

Regina

Green Fair at Work

Yesterday was the 2nd Annual Green Fair at my work place.  We have lots of events at my office, but the Green Fair is one of my favorite.  My work promotes Green living throughout the 14 floors of office space.  We recycle paper, plastic, and compost left over food in our cafeteria.  Our cleaning crew uses green cleaning products.  We have a green team to identify and develop additional green options throughout our building.  Recently we had a Farmers Market in our cafeteria during the afternoon break hour.

Greenability Magazine was at last years Green Fair.  After learning about Greenability and previewing a couple of issues, I started to subscribe to this fabulous magazine!   I always look forward to the next issue.  The stories inside are about individuals and businesses sharing their green lifestyles.  It is a great resource for green products, how to become more green and events throughout Kansas City.  Today I had a wonderful visited with Mary Lynn Coulson and Janie Chen with Greenability.

I told Mary Lynn about my green projects I have posted on this blog.  I repurpose T-shirts for my grandson as in 4th of July T and although I didn't mention in the Dinosaur blog, I repurposed an old T-shirt to make the shirt of this dinosaur T.  In this blog I have lots of grandson pictures but I also display a Tennis T-shirt that was repurposed.  I have made toys from left over scraps of fabric and have also made napkins out of older button down Abercrombie shirts.  It has been fun to finally find a purpose for  clothing I felt was too good to give away.  I am constantly on the look out for additional ideas.  My best ideas come from my daughter-in-law.  

Our Green Fair

We had window vendors, home auditors, car dealers, foam insulation specialist, solar products, and Ripple Glass, plus many other Green businesses.   

After visiting the Green Fair, I decided I needed to add Green Links on my blog.  So will start with a couple but will continue to add more.

Sunday Morning Bliss

I sit here this morning being inspired by blogs, fashion, daily photos and crafters.  I wish I had more time or maybe it is more organized to accomplish everything it seems these bloggers accomplish.  How do they do it?

I work full time in an automation support environment.  I am involved with projects that will eventually downsize my position.  I hope once this next year and a half is completed, that I will still have a job.  The work pace is fast, I mean extremely fast.  I learn, write scripts, do test plans, am a tester, lead teams, take training, get certifications, attend meetings, develop and provide training and then all too quickly get involved into the next project.  My last project went into production yesterday morning.  Even though the last two days were my days off, I have worked from home.  I can't say that 100% of my time was working but my mind was on work 100% of the time.  I ran testing scripts (using QTP) and ran errands, went to dog training and attended conference calls.  Today is the first morning in over a month that I have not had many things about work on my mind.  I was going to go to National Tire and Battery for tires first thing this morning (to minimize the wait)  But I cannot think or make any decision this morning.

I took a 2 mile walk and started the laundry, but I am relaxing in a state of peacefulness with a cup of coffee.  As much as I hate sitting and waiting at a car repair shop, I am putting it off one more week and maybe another morning I will try to beat the wait.  I am exhausted.

I did the thing I love to do, browse blogs and am adding to my bookmarks and will update my blog list.

Regina

Liberty Memorial - Kansas City, MO

My drive to work each morning takes me right by the Liberty Memorial.  The National World War I Museum is housed at the base of the Memorial.  I am fortunate to work right next to the Memorial inside Penn Valley Park  There is a 1/2 mile drive up to the Memorial and trails all throughout the Park.  (Also a very popular dog park.)  During spring and fall I enjoy these walks during my lunch hour.  Summers are just too hot...  Speaking of heat, I will spend this weekend running around in the heat, but will try to beat it indoors.

Regina

Grandsons visit

Little E and his parents visited last weekend.  E has grown and matured so much since I last saw him over Memorial weekend.  He is such a happy go lucky fellow.  His eyes never stop looking at all the different objects.  He absorbs them all and quickly identifies which he wants to touch and feel.  He was a joy to have in my home.  He would walk between the tables, sofa, floor lamps and patio windows with such ease but always made sure he was holding on to something.  I would hold and lean the floor lamp so he could use as support (although little did he realize it moved with him)

These were my parents aluminum coasters, one of their wedding gifts from 1951.  They are dented and not used but I like having them around.  E loved the sound they made, they quickly became his favorite toy for the weekend.  

I love, love, love this little boy.  Just want to smother him with hugs and kisses.

Regina

Happy 4th of July

Today is rainy in Kansas City but the barbecues and fireworks will still liven up the day.  What a great day when our countries celebrates it's birthday.  For weeks the celebration has been under way.  All the communities around KC have their own festivals and celebrations.  We live in a great nation!

For my grandson, I repurposed a T shirt that was a bit baggy and sloppy on me.

 Using an Octobre pattern, I cut the flag out of the original T shirt, I reused the sleeves and ribbing also. I have fabric left over for another T.    I should have gone to the store and bought a lighter shade of grey thread.  I have been trying to use up thread I already have.  But the zigzag around the ribbing stands out more than I had hoped.

Regina

Start a New Novel

I have started reading Winter's Bone: A Novel by Daniel Woodrell.  This novel has grabbed me from page one.  The movie came out recently and is forecast to receive Oscar nods.  I prefer to read the book first.  I usually find movies do not depict the story as well as the novel.  For example how could you ever expect a movie to pull off The Time Travelers Wife by Audrey Neffenegger.  I saw the movie and who could have followed it without having read the book.  Another example is White Oleander by Janet Fitch.  That movie did not at all come across well.  The novel was so good, but there is no way a movie could detail the life of Astrid who's mother was imprisoned for murder and she bounced from foster home to foster home.  Such a gripping novel.

I have yet to watch the movie, The Lovely Bones.

But I have heard good reviews about the movie Winter's Bone, although still have to read the novel first.

Regina

Raccoons

There are raccoons in our neighborhood.  A few years ago, I had issues with them getting into the bird food I stored in containers on the back patio and upper deck.  Needless to say, I now keep my birdfood in the garage.  Recently I changed a bird feeder from an open mouth feeder to little slots for the birds access to the food.   I had seen the squirrels and grackles eating all my bird seed so wanted to change it just for the finches.

Shortly after I changed the feeder, I noticed a plant had been trampled.  I didn't pay it much attention just figuring the birds had been using it for landing.  I moved the plant.  Then about a week later I found a pile of poop by my sliding glass door.  I had stepped right over it and sat down on my chair to enjoy a nice early morning cup of coffee.  My dog, Sadie, immediately picked up the scent and followed the path of something on the deck that lead to the pile.  This was not the pile from a little squirrel.  At first I was confused about how and what had happened.     There are no stairs leading to the deck and it is at least 10 feet off the ground.  I knew raccoons and squirrels could get on the deck.   Then a week or so later I found the cushion on my lounge chair destroyed.

I felt so violated.  I cannot prove it was raccoons but can't figure out what else it would have destroyed the cushion.  Would a squirrel be able to do this?  

Regina

Dog-N-Jog

Sadie and I went to the Humane Society of Greater Kansas City Dog-n-Jog this morning.  We used her new Easy Walk Harness and love, love, love it.  Since the D-ring to attach to lease is on the dogs chest they cannot pull.  Every time Sadie got ahead of me or tried to pull, she was turned toward me.  She still received plenty of opportunity to sniff and visit dogs and people but it was so much easier for me and welcoming for others.  We start personalized training next Saturday.

Regina

It is June - humidity, art festivals and my Golden Retriever-

Summer is here, the heat and humidity of Kansas City, not my favorite time of year.  I grew up in the desert southwest and have been in KC for 15 years.  I am still  adjusting to the humidity, but still hate it.


I went to the  first annual Liberty Arts Squared last Saturday, June 5th.  It was so humid, standing in the shade, sweat was rolling into my eyes and burning.  But I am happy to support a local art festival in my neighborhood.  I saw some great pieces of art, one of my favs was Cinderelish, a potter, who I visited with and found out she has a blog.  I love her pottery and could see pieces that I believe my daughter-in-law would love.


My dog Sadie, is a stubborn, overly friendly Golden Retriever.  She is always so eager to see people, I cannot control her, she pulls, wags ferociously and stretches out to sniff and lick them.    In the last two weeks I have been hurt as a result of her antics.  The first I was walking her and friend Newton in St Louis, and two little dogs were barking disturbingly at a fence as we approached.  Sadie pulled to get to them.  I braces to hold her back.  I was doing pretty good until I felt my left foot slip and my big toe hit the front of my shoe.    I did get Sadie past the little dogs and finished our mile walk.  An hour or so later, I felt my big toe hurting like my shoe had been too tight.  Upon further analysis, I found toe swollen, unable to bend and very sore.   I still don't know exactly what happened.  Toe is slightly better, but still not too flexible.  That was two weeks ago.


Last weekend, I took a two mile walk with Sadie and as I approached a man on the sidewalk, I deliberated about whether to step into street or hold bring Sadie to my side and secure her.  I did the later, and that rotten little cute girl leaped out to see sniff the man.  I stepped off the sidewalk to control her and stepped right into a hole and fell, twisted my knee and scrapped and bruised my elbow.  This has got to stop!!!!

I have tried the Gentle Leader, but Sadie walks around with her head to the ground in shame.  I talked to my friend Laura, a dog trainer and owner of  the The Dog's Spot, she recommended a product by Premier the Easy Walk Harness.  It did take me a bit to fit her, but this morning she walked right beside me.  I am also going to take some classes from Laura to isolate Sadie's people social skills.  Sadie loves Laura and taking classes at The Dog's Spot.  


Has anyone else had the same trouble like Sadie?


Regina

The Girl who Played with Fire

Stieg Larsson's triology is genious.  Lisbeth Salander is the best unconventional heroine ever.  She is not well liked, does not make friends, but I and everyone that reads these books love her....  I thought the Dragon Tattoo was the best who done it book ever, but Larsson's second book in the trilogy takes you to another level.  The only problem is the last book, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest  will not be out in English until May 25th.  I finished the second book a couple of weeks ago and grieved that I could not find out what happened next.  I must reveal Stieg does leave you hanging at the end of the second book.  I need the third book badly.  Why am I not able to read a foreign language????

Regina

30 years old

My son turned 30 this week.  What an amazing 30 years he has given me.  Every year has gotten better and now this last year he provided my first grandchild.  How can a mother ask for more.  I remember the night he was born like it was yesterday, not the pain, but the light labor pains the whole day prior to his birth, the drive to the hospital, and having a son to hold.  I remember his first year of life, the first time he ate cereal, learning to crawl, his first fever, learning to walk.  The difficulty of leaving him for the first time at a day care center for the entire day when I went back to work.  Throughout childhood, I remember all the sports he was involved in, soccer, baseball, karate, basketball, tennis.  As an adult he has done triathelons and marathons.  I was present at most sporting events, missed only a few.  I never realized how much I would miss elementary school with the field trips, fundraisers, Halloween costume and pumpkin carving contests, ice cream socials and who remembers all the things we had to do, until the final end of the year ceremony with all the grades performing.  Middle school had tough moments with fitting in and trouble with friends but still fun.  Then we moved to a different city when he was in high school.  I thought he would never forgive me, it was his worst nightmare.  But that year I moved and he joined me come summer gave me more time with him.  My son, as I with all children, is special.  He found great friends in his new high school, went on to college and found more great friends.  He succeeded here in Kansas City.  I am not sure he would have succeeded had we not moved between his freshman and sophomore year.  He now does what he loves.  He married a beautiful woman who is a wonderful mother.  They are a great couple, they go together well.

Looking back I didn't know if being raised by a single woman who had two unsuccessful marriages and too many boyfriends would harm him.  If anything it made him stronger, I know family is the most important thing to my son.  He will dedicate himself to his own son, wife and other children.  I am so proud of my son because he survived me as a mother.  Yes he was my first priority and maybe that is what helped us get to 30 years.  I made way too many mistakes and continue to make mistakes.  I do not have a huge family (something he always longed for), he has found his family in his wife's parents, sister, grandmother, aunts and uncles.  My son was extremely close to my mom, dad and brothers.  Him and my dad were great buds, Kabe had to have a blue suit like grandpa's for his first communion.  I have a picture of the two of them when he was 3 and they have the same stance.  But my dad died when he was nine.  He was a extremely close to my mother, but she died the year my son graduated high school.  She didn't get to see the man he has become, but she would be so, so proud.

And then there is little Eli.  What a cute grandson I have.  He smiles and smiles, quite the charmer.  He may not see me for a month or two at a time, but he smiles when he sees me.  He is like his parents easy going and happy.