Decorations Installment #6

First a Mom update for those interested. Mom had her surgery, but what was suppose to be out patient surgery turned into a two days hospital stay. There were a few complications that caused the sidetrack, but we're back home now in time for Christmas festivities. Lesson learned: avoid elective surgery during Christmas holidays because services are slower and be very assertive in managing your own health care while in a hospital.

So here is another Tree Decoration installment. Thank you to all of those interested in my decorations documentation and apologies for not getting more up there in a more regular fashion!

This decorations is a sewing machine with trinkets related to sewing hanging off it. I got that in Germany a couple of years ago and it's for my own hobby of sewing and quilting.



I wanted to include more than just this one ornament, but the rest of my pictures are very blurry. I hope I get a new camera tomorrow for Christmas and if I do, than I'll take more pictures and try to get many more ornaments up before the new year.

I'm sure I'll be too busy for blogging tomorrow what with cooking, family, etc.... so Here's wishing everyone a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Decorations Installment #5

Mom is here at my house for the Christmas holiday and to recuperate from back surgery that will happen tomorrow (12/22/06). My dye studio/laundry room has been transformed into a guest room/recovery room. It's a bit strange, but Mom says it's better than climbing my stairs to get to the second floor.

So while Mom is here she gently chastised me about the lack of decorations posted on this blog. Well that's what happens when one becomes a new grandmother and tries to get ready for Christmas and changes her dye studio into a guest room. Too much to do and not enough hours on my clock!

So here is another installment. Perhaps the plan of getting all the ornaments posted before Christmas was a bit too ambitious, but we'll get some more up and then perhaps finish with more next year??? Hows that for a cliff hanger to finish the season, almost as bad as television!

Ok, so here are more decorations in no particular order.

This first one is for the year I got Holly, my Springer Spaniel. She was actually born in December 2000 and thus her name, Holly for the Christmas season. We didn't actually bring her home until February of 2001 and in the ornament she's one year old. This year she turned 6. I was always told that she'd calm down after she was about 4 years old, but she's still a very rambunctious puppy. Always ready to play and she should wear a sign that says "Will work for Tennis Balls" - thrown tennis balls that is. She's actually not too particular about what item is thrown for her to retrieve!

(Sorry about the glare on these ornaments, most were very shiny, and probably should have been photographed without the automatic flash.) I'm learning.

Next is an ornament that my brother and his family gave us. (I'm sure Renee actually did the shopping, - thank goodness for female in-laws!) Back in 1998, we had only four in our family. This year we're up to 7 !

The final ornament in this installment is a small cable car from San Francisco. It's for the year or more that Don had to travel to San Francisco every week for work. That was rough being in separate time zones and still raising teenagers. I can't remember the exact year. Also the year Jason got married we took a trip to California. Several years ago I started collecting ornaments that would remind me of our travels. This ornament actually came long before the trip. Maybe that's an idea. I could start collecting ornaments for places that I'd like to go to sometime. Does anyone have an ornament for Alaska? Also the Grand Canyon.... Um... where else do I want to go??? Oh yes, Norway, Denmark, Finland.....

So I'll try to find some time to take better pictures of the ornaments without the glares and get more posted as soon as possible.

Any good Grandma has plenty of baby pictures!

Faith just keeps getting cuter and cuter! Here she is in her matching outfit! The clothes match the blanket and there are even matching socks!





Here we are and Faith's only about 22 hours old at this point. Oh the joys of being a grandmother! After I finish with posting on this blog I'm going to work on her little baby quilt for a while then go to bed and basically sleep through the night. Her parents on the other hand.....


Faith definitely looks very much like her mother, Rachel, so far!

She even had the exact hair color, auburn with a touch of red. We're still waiting to see about the eye color.

I'm a grandma!

Today at 5:49pm I became a grandma for the first time! Jason and Rachel's daughter, Faith Elizabeth Harwell was born. She weighs 8lbs 2oz and is 20 inches long.
Here are a few pictures and if you have my personal email address and would like an invitation to view my personal online album send me a request.

She's so cute! She looks like she has blue eyes and dark hair at this time.



I'm thrilled to be a grandma! Now the real spoiling can begin!
Jason is doing a great job holding her. He looks like an expert.


I think she was sizing her daddy up and deciding it was going to be easy wrapping him around her finger!


Elise is an official aunt and couldn't wait to get her hands on her!



If you want more pictures go to www.mombrinton.com
And keep watching I'm sure there will be many more pictures to come!

Decorations Installment #4

If I'm going to get most of the decorations posted by Christmas, I'm going to have to pick up the pace. So this post has two decorations and it's very difficult to know which one to post put first.

These two decorations were bought when my children were very young. E - elephant for Elise and J - jet for Jason. I would like to find more similar ones for the coming grandchildren, but I've never seen these since. Oh well, I'll have to find something else special for the grandchildren.

Each year as we all decorated the tree the kids each tried to get their letter the highest or in the most prominent place on the tree. I sort of forgot that until Elise was over and had to change where we had placed her E so that it was in a better spot than her brother. My goodness does the sibling rivilry ever end?




My little kids are all grown now, but my mind still holds the picture of them climbing on chairs to get their ornaments up as high as they can on the tree.

NOTE:
The pictures can't be posted side by side, so for the record in case either of my children is reading, I decided to post these alphabetically.

My Baby Still Needs Me!

I woke up Friday with not too much on my schedule, so it seemed as if I was going to have a relaxing day until I get the call. My daughter, a kindergarten teacher at a nearby school, calls with panic in her voice. She starts out with, "Mom what are you doing today?" My answer of "not too much" brought relief to her voice and then the details. The school system had a wonderful science kit that was being passed around from school to school. She already had a unit on fish which included small 1/2 gallong plastic boxes that served as aquariums. That wasn't too bad, she'd grown up with us having a huge 55 gallon aquarium so that was ok, she was fine. But now the next unit had arrived. It was BUGS and WORMS and SNAILS! My response of "Oh My" followed by giggles and then outright laughing was not funny to her. She saw no humor in it at all. I just could see her opening the box and seeing those bugs. Now to fully understand the situation, you have to understand. Elise, my daughter is a phenomenal teacher and especially in kindergarten. She was created to teach and connect with young children. She makes them each feel special and infuses them with a love for learning. She loves those children and loves teaching. If she had to pay to do the job I think she'd do it. But there's one thing she doesn't do and that's bugs, and worms and snails. She's terrified of them.So she called her Mom to the rescue. (Her husband was busy working and couldn't be bothered at the time and her dad was out of town.)

So of course I have to go - She needs me!

Here I am preparing the more permanent aquarium for the surviving fish from the science observations.



Here are the two goldfish in their new homes along with some small guppies that can't be seen.



The white things at the bottom of the aquarium are sticky notes with the names of the fish, there until they receive proper labels like everything else in the classroom has.

Life in Kindergarten

Everyone needs to visit a kindergarten classroom at least once a year. It brings you back to the basics of life and what's really important. So while I was there helping my daughter I had to snap a few extra pictures.

Here's a display on the wall that caught my eye. We should all be proud of our accomplishments!


This wall has the names of the students who can do various task such as "open their milk", "know their addresses", "know their birthdays", "can count to 100".
We should all be proud of what we can do! Delight in the simple things and most of all hope that you can still do all of that when you're 90 years old. They should have a wall like that at the senior citizen center. Maybe we'd try harder to keep going!

And here is Elise going over important things with her class who listens indently to the instructions. It was Friday so the staff wore jeans that day. The students all think the tree is very fancy and very expensive. Oh to have the eyes of a child! (The tree was free from her in-laws.)



Now I just had to snap a picture of this. It was on a very high shelf out of the reach of any child, but I couldn't help but wonder what in the world it is used for.

I'm not sure what kind of leaks they might have in a kindergarten class, and I've never stayed long enough to witness any leaks. Maybe it's good that I haven't! So maybe my daughter can post a comment to explain what this is for.