Luke turned 2

Such a sweet happy boy, who likes to watch TV from behind the sofa.

 

 Loves himself some spaghetti. I got the privilege of sitting next to this bundle of joy, so my sleeve was his napkin. His paper napkin was used to wipe the inside of his mouth. Where do 2 yr. olds come up with this stuff? That turned into a game of pull the napkin outa my mouth and get the giggles. His lost fork was found in my pocket.

 Younger brother Owen! He is celebrating his 4 month old birthday today!

 Luke's monkey cake.

 

Roger helped with the blowing out of the candles and of course he got to lick the bottoms. Luke is just happy for everybody to sing to him. That boy loves to sing and dance.

 

 I found this cute stuffed monkey and I sang the "Animal Fair" song at least 30 times.

"I went to the animal fair. The birds and the bees were there.

The old baboon, by the light of the moon, was combing his auburn hair.

The funniest was the monk, he climbed the elephant trunk.

The elephant sneezed and fell on his knees.

and what became of the monk, the monk, the monk...."

I would hide the monkey and he had to go find it - all the time I am repeating the monk, the monk, the monk....Most of the time I just threw it behind me on the couch and he would climb up and get it.

 

 Roger was also a big help in opening the presents, too. He would open them - show them to Luke and Luke would run around hugging and thanking everyone.



 Then the best, special bath, of all time.
Yup, he got to take a bath in his own bathroom upstairs for the first time.

Happy Birthday, Luke!!

Oh, Shute

Roger and Luke have this game that you mount slides on a board with Velcro and roll a ball down them. At the bottom is a lever that shoots a rubber pig into the air.
Sometimes it hold up and the ball will get to the bottom.  Both boys get frustrated with it. My thinking is it's too little a space.

When changing my paper towel I got this great idea - take the empty tube and save some toilet paper tubes and make a big shute. We can tape it to the wall with Mary's permission of course. Now my imagination has taken over and I see everything as a possible piece of "The Shute" toothpaste boxes (both sample size and big size). Wax paper tube, my box from my fireplace matches, and Roger's favorite, bathroom cups. I think he liked the cups the best because he had to cut a hole in the bottom of each.

So with materials in hand I visit Newburg St. and Roger and I set out to build "The Shute"!
While Luke shot hoops with Papa, Roger and I got to work.
We started at the bottom of their basement stairs with the idea that I would bring stuff  with on every visit to eventually make it to the top. I know wishful thinking on my part, but you never know.

Roger decided he wanted 3 cups at the bottom.

 Roger cutting the bottoms out of the cups and me taping them up.

 It took us a few adjustments to get the ball rolling.

BUT WE DID IT!!!!
I must warn you Bryan's butt crack appear in this video.

Snow Angels

It's finally snowing. A whole bunch. It's a whiteout, windy, beautiful blizzard....
Enough that it's building up on satellite dishes.

Sharen calls to find out if we had a signal. Dup was headed out to clear off his dish, pretty sure that's the problem. He wasn't getting the golf channel to watch the golf. Our is good!

Dup decides to play in the white stuff and Sharen posts a picture on Facebook of him making a snow angel. I can bet he is laughing telling her to hurry with the picture this stuff is cold.

45 minutes later Mike is getting his coat on - the hockey channel is not coming in - Time to clear our dish.

 And, according to Dup, after you clean your dish you're supposed make a snow angel....

Mike falls into the front yard snow and makes a snow angel.

Silly boys.

Movie in a Recliner

My husband loves to watch movies.
He enjoys going to the theater - most of the time he goes alone and he really is ok with that. Secretly I think he likes it!

I can watch a movie on TV. Staying at home in my comfortable seat. Pausing to get up and do something that I thought needed to be done right that minute. And having the sound adjusted to my taste - low, very low, in my pajamas if I want.

Then this happened.
Marcus theater put in recliners!!!

Then you add the fact that Tuesdays are $5 movies with a free popcorn for card members it's kinda hard to say no. You get assign seating and plenty of room and the seats are comfortable. There has even been some movies that I've wanted to see. I've been 3 times (the total amount of all last yr.) with Mike. Unbroken - Taken 3 - American Sniper.
This is how you watch a movie.

If there is a movie I want to see,  I don't have a problem going now. No excuses, that's until the seats get sticky or don't recline. But for now I like it.
The only draw back is that there is NOT many seats available and Mike has had to go and get tickets in advance for 2 of these. (Which you can also do online for $1 more).
I still will not go to a movie just to go. He can go to his dark, robot, vampire, madmax, action movies all by himself.

Puzzle Fixer

My sister, Linda, saw my last post and said that her and sister Nonnie fix puzzles in January also. Both of them use the computer too, which I don't get. I love to feel the pieces in my hand and have to turn them over and touch them as I fix them. I like to walk up to the puzzle put a piece in and walk away, knowing that's it's always there to come back to.
It's no surprise they like the computer though, they also read books on their kindles.

I told her I had some really cool and not to difficult winter scene puzzles to share, so I took them over to them. She tells me about her exercise group and the women who share puzzles with each other.

I told her if she wants to get rid of some I would take them and then I can pass them along to Sharen, who also is fixing puzzles in January.

Turns out one of the woman is a Professional Puzzle Fixer. They send her puzzles in the mail and she gets paid to fix them and give feedback.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
To me that would be like a 14 yr. old boy getting to play video games and rate them or a kid that gets to taste candy and rate it. She actually gets to, fix a puzzle, time herself how long it takes her, and then rates them?
AND she gets to keep the damn puzzles.

I want to do that.  Where do I sign up?

A few of the puzzles that she gave Linda for me.

I'm thinking on how I can get another card table set up and maybe take 2 puzzles and throw the pieces together. Mix them up some. Fix 2 at once.
 I can not wait to dive in! So Excited!

Jigsaw January

Winter has arrived.
It's cold out and I don't want to go out in it.
Ok, maybe to visit with the grandkids, I will bundle up and venture out.

My spare time in January is time for me to exercise my mind, sharpen my memory, and push my patience, and fix a puzzle or 2.

This year Mike gave me 2 puzzles for Christmas - They must have been on sale. They were easy, so I fixed them one row at a time for a challenge.

I made short work of them and now got out a enormous, winter scene puzzle he got me a few years back. I have the table strategically placed in front of the picture window, where the tree was, for full daylight. I also can see outside and watch it snow. Win! Win!
Mike made a cover for the table for oversized puzzles. I clearly need it for this one.

 Then when I am not fixing a puzzle I am curled up under my new puzzle quilt, I just finished, reading a book. Maybe I even have a fire in the fireplace. Really not caring that it's cold outside.

I know I should be getting off my fat a** and try to rid myself of some of the holiday pounds, but it's cold outside and it's Jigsaw January!!!
Sharen just called - it's 34 outside, we are going walking.
I knew I shouldn't have gotten her that thermometer for Christmas.
Sorry puzzles, your gonna have to wait.

Little Helper

The Holidays have come and gone. I took no pictures. I decided to just enjoy watching the older grand kids play their new board game and the little ones jump over and over again on their new bean bag chairs, while I cuddled with the baby. I may regret this decision later but...
I must say that I am fine with it now.

For you out of area readers - It's true we had NO snow in December. NONE! The weather man said that's it's been over 100 years since that has happened. The sun was a little absent too, but the temperature climbed into the 50's because of it.
Mike even managed to get a couple rounds of golf in and I actually did some yard work.

While I write this post it is snowing outside and the trees look beautiful.

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Now on to the little helper.
I told Bryan (more than once) that I like to paint and I would gladly help him with the painting of the upstairs when the time came.
Well the time is here. Finally YAY!!!!

We (me, Mike, Bryan and his Father) got the upstairs painted in one day. 3 bedrooms (2 with dormers), 2 bathrooms and 1 walk in closet. It went super fast because there was no trim to paint around, Just cutting in around the ceilings!
AND we had a super little helper.
Roger and Luke wanted a green bedroom and of course Roger had to help paint his own room.
Luke stayed downstairs with his Mommy and Owen, and a Cat in the Hat movie, while Roger helped me paint his bedroom. I love the little dormer area. Roger tells me, him and Luke are going to "Use it as a hide out."

He shocked me. He actually did really good as you can see. He had a hard time with getting paint onto the roller and asked for help with that part. He rolled the bottom and Mike rolled the top half while I climbed up and down the ladder cutting in the ceiling.

After lunch, Roger would only lay down for a nap if we left him some of Mommy and Daddy's room to paint when he woke up. 1 hour later the "Little Helper" is back at it painting their walk in closet.

He tried the brush, but figured out he can cover more ground with the roller. He didn't stop till the job was done.
And it was a "Job well Done"!