Helping Hands

It always feels good to help when you can.
With dinner and dessert in hand we head into the city.
While Mary is off taking Roger to daycare, Bryan to work, and Luke to the doctor (her car is on the fritz and she needed Bryan's wheels) Mike and I worked on laying the flooring in their basement.

It was a hard job, but Mike and I worked well together and knocked out the main room. There is still lots to be done, but it's a start. I really liked the wood plank vinyl flooring and now want it in my laundry room.

We wrapped up around 3:30 so I volunteered to go get Roger. This time he had to show me around his daycare room. There were only 4 kids left. It seems everybody came early with the snow and all.

Mike took off to go get Bryan from work.
Mary nursed Luke and I played with Roger.
This is what he looks like when you take his camera away. That lasted about 4 seconds, because Grandma caved in and gave him the camera.

Turns out another grandchild can't get enough of my mostaccioli. He likes the hand to mouth approach and to heck with the fork.

Roger proudly showing me his baby brother and let me have the camera to take some pics. Roger wipes his own mouth now and as you can see still needs to work on getting his cheeeks. Don't worry Dada stepped in and finished the job.

You wrap this little guy up nice and tight and warm and he will sleep.

New Wheels

Mike has been talking about getting a new vehicle for awhile now.

Every time it's the neighbors turn to drive to golf on Thursdays Mike comes home talking about Bob's truck.
"I think I want to get a pickup!" I think he misses our "little red truck".

That's ok by me. Then we won't have to continually call Brian every time we have something large to move. His pickup has been a life saver way too many times to count.

So Mike has been online searching pickups for a few months now. He narrowed it down to a Chev Silverado. He saw one at Biggers.
I told him to just go down to the dealership and get it. I will figure out the financing, just DO NOT agree to any financing from them. Been there done that, and I will not do it again.

I knew he was serious about one when he came home and started to clean out the garage to make room.

Welcome to the family!

Anniversary

Valentine's Day was our 27th Anniversary.

Mike would always send me flowers to my work. One red carnation for every year we have been married. I loved to get them. I could look at them and smell them and they would brighten my day. Getting them at the house just isn't the same so he stopped sending them and I was ok with it.

This year he asked me if I wanted to do anything special. Last year we were in Mexico for Jon and Erica's wedding and had dinner at an ocean side table. How do ya top that?

I told him that he could take me to a Hawks game. The last time I went was in the old stadium. He was all for it so I jumped on Stubhub got some over priced tickets in the first row on the 300 level and we saw the HAWKS WIN!!!!! The start wasn't as spectacular as the bulls starting lineups, but WOW that national anthem was something else. WOW!
 I also thought it was pretty special whenever they showed people from the military on the big screen. The whole place would erupt with noise and most everybody would stand. Way Cool.

He did come in the front door with a dozen red carnations - for Valentines Day!

Luke Gerald

Our new grandson made his entrance into the world 2/12/13.
It started out almost like Roger's birth day.
We got a call in the middle of the night (for some 1:15 is the middle of the night - Yes). Mary's water had broke and they needed to head up to the hospital. Only thing is this time we needed to get up, get dressed, and get on the road because we needed to get there before they could leave.
FYI - there is NO traffic that time of night.
Roger's birthday in July BIG rain storm. Luke's birthday in February clear skies.

In the morning we got the big brother up and off to daycare and headed home to get cleaned up and wait by the phone to here the news. The plan was for us to get Roger from daycare and take him up to meet his little brother later.
Can I just say it feels really, really REALLY good to have that little one look up, drop his toys, and come running to you yelling gaga, gaga when I walked into his playroom at daycare.

Grandma meets Luke. Roger was all about pointing at the baby - until he spots "his" camera.

The Flory Family!

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I do have a picture of Mike and Luke, but it is really fussy. Roger has changed all the settings on "his" camera. I am for sure signing up for that class on how to use that thing now.
That only means another visit with #5.

Finally

The weather is finally what it should be in the midwest in the winter.
SNOW!!!
Growing up we had WINTERS. You ran home from school, quickly did your homework, and then you grab your skates or sleds and ran to the park. If we were really lucky we got to go back after dinner for a night time skate. Granted the park was only a block from the house.
We didn't have snow suits. We would layer tights and pajamas under our jeans. Long stocking caps (picture the types in A Christmas Story) wool mittens that would collect the snow and at least 3 layers of socks under our rubber boots and skates.
We had a door on the side of our house that led directly into the basement. The only time I can ever remember using it was after playing in the snow. We went directly down to the basement with our wet clothes. We hung them on a clothes line to dry.
There were times when we would have a raw snow rash around our wrists where the snow weighed down our mitten enough to bare our skin to the elements. Sharen and I called them our snow bracelets. They would scab and bleed, but that didn't stop us. Mom cut off the tops of socks to pull over the sores and off we went.
I still love to shovel, because it reminds me of helping Dad. We lived on a huge corner lot and those sidewalks had to be clean!
Even when Bryan was little we had more snow.
We bundled up and headed on over to Grandma house. She lived across the street from a park with a hill. We drove to the forest preserve to tackle the bigger hills. We made snow forts out of the piles of snow at the end of our driveway. There was always a snowman in our backyard. I would put the doggies sweater on our Cheesecake and even he would join us in the snow activities.
Snow is FUN!!!!
That's what I tell the grand kids. I feel sad that our winters have become milder. That they don't get many chances to play in the white stuff. I hope they take advantage this weekend cause this is what it looks like here.

SNO BEAUTIFUL...