One week into the break...

I can't believe that my break is nearly half over! Where did the week go??? I had such big plans to quilt all week, but the best laid plans.....Mom took a tumble in their front yard, ending up with three stitches in her left hand to repair a pretty nasty gash and 3 broken bones in the hand. Amazingly, it has slowed her up very little! The wound seems to be healing nicely, and the swelling is going down in the hand and wrist.

I did start on a quilt for Sophia. It was from a flannel quilt kit that I bought in Bozeman last year and had never taken it out of the bag. I'm not overly fond of working with flannel (makes my nose itch!), but this is so cute! I'm anxious to get it done. I'll post a picture here when I get it quilted.


Maya had her 18-month checkup, and the doctor was totally amazed at her ability to talk - in complete sentences. She was amazed that she could put things together - like the little disposable black thingy that goes on the otoscope (the instrument used to look in the ear). The doctor said Maya was very very smart, and she was glad that she was born into the family that she has. She knows that Jeannine will provide the necessary stimulation to keep her challenged.

Charles had his graduation ceremony today!! Woohoo! I know he is soooo glad - and Jeannine, too! I wish we could have been there. His dad was able to come for a visit. Charles has a great job waiting for him. This will cause a change for them that they have never experienced in their almost 9 years of married life.

It won't be long until I get to make my trip to Bozeman. I've been watching for an airfare that I thought I could afford. So far, I've not found one. I hope I don't have to bite the bullet and just buy. I may have to get a part time job when I get there to pay for the ticket!

I miss seeing the boys. I tried all week to meet up with them after preschool, but things kept getting in the way. Hopefully next week I'll get to see them. Dylan keeps asking to come to Vovo Sheryl's house. When you think about it, our house was his house for about 6 months, so I guess he just wants to "come home" for a visit.

Here is a picture of them a few weeks ago when they loaded up the last of their toys to take to their house.

Semester is nearly over!!

The spring semester is nearly over. I just have to give their final exam tomorrow. I don't know who will be the happiest - me or the students - when it is all over! The last faculty meeting is Thursday. Then I'm taking off for Gatlinburg, TN to enjoy our annual church ladies' retreat. When I return, I'll seriously start looking for an airfare to go to Bozeman. I probably won't go until some time in June. I'll be teaching the first three weeks of the summer term, just to get my subsititue started. I hope to do a little quilting in my time off before I go to Montata. This has been such a horrendous semester; I haven't even had time to THINK about quilting. Working day and night, seven days a week, just to stay ahead of my students with this pediatric material wasn't exactly my idea of fun. I need some time off!!!



Jeannine keeps sending little video clips of Maya that make my day. This one is called "Maya singing opera." (Click on the arrow twice.) I can't believe she is talking so much!! She gets on the phone and says, "Hi, Grandma!" just plain as day. I know when I get there, I'll see a very different little girl from when they were here for Christmas.

The boys seem to be adjusted to their new house. Dylan called the other day and said he wanted to come stay all night at Grandmas. Last night Mark and Fernanda had a wedding to attend, so they brought the boys by for supper and to stay all night. Then we took them to church with us this morning. We had a lot of fun. There certainly is not a dull moment when they are around!

Coloring Easter Eggs

Today we colored Easter Eggs. As you can see, they really got into this. Dylan said, "We never did this at our "skoo." I love to hear him say the word school! It was just too cold today to hide them. I'm not sure tomorrow will be any better. We may just have to hide them in the house. As I recall that is where we always hid eggs for Mark and Jeannine anyway. That must have been because it was always too cold in Kansas at this time of the year, too.













Later in the morning we went over to Mark's house. Fernanda had just dried the boys' sheets so we made up their beds. Dylan's room is all sports related.














Chris' room is more tropical related.

Happy and Blessed Easter!

I don't know where the time has gone. This semester has been such a whirl-wind! I've been spending day and night, 7 days a week, working on these pediatric lectures, just trying to stay a jump ahead of the students. So far, so good, but it has not been particularly fun! It's called "surviving."

I'm so looking forward to the summer and being off. I'll teach for about a week - just to get them oriented and started. Then, I'm out of there! I don't know exactly when I'll head for Bozeman yet. I'm just watching the airfares. So far they are way too expensive. Every now and then there is a sale, but not for June yet.

ALLERGIES!!!! AARRGGHH!!! I will be so glad when this spring is over. Ordinarily, this is the most beautiful, wonderful time of the year in Alabama. But this year I have not been able to enjoy any of it. It has been the worst year for allergy sufferers. I'm on shots, oral medication, nose sprays, and eye drops. And still I'm miserable. It's the eyes - I can take sneezing and a dripping nose, but when I want to take my eyeballs out and scratch them with a wire brush, well..... you get the picture.

It turned warm really early this year. Everything has been in full bloom, and then a huge cold front came through last night. I'm not sure what it got down to, but the forecast was 26. Tonight it is supposed to be 24 - that will set an all-time record if it gets there. They are saying at that temperature the entire peach crop will be totally destroyed. That will be devastating. Peaches are a very big product of Alabama. About an hour south of us is Clanton. They have a water tower in the shape of a peach. We usually get a good number of peaches from there and freeze them, so we have fresh peaches all winter.

Mark and Fernanda closed on their house last week, but the furniture they bought doesn't come until Monday and Tuesday of next week, so they are still with us. Their things from Brazil are not due to be shipped out of Brazil until April 17th. It will be at least 2 weeks after that before they arrive. We'll loan them some kitchen supplies until then, but their summer clothes will be on the ship. I may get pretty warm here before their ship comes in.

I've got such mixed feelings about them moving. It will be bitter sweet. We are so settled here with them. Fernanda is such a big help with the house. The boys are a bit confused because they are used to visiting us and then going back to Brazil. I'm making a big poster for them with pictures of houses and people to try to help them get the concept of where Birmingham and Brazil are, how you get from one place to another, and who lives where. We'll see how it goes.

Jeannine seems to be doing better with the migraines. She is into her 3rd trimester now. Maya is talking up a storm now. She says, "Hi, Grandma," just as plain as I do. You can see in the video clip that she really knows her animals. Be sure to notice the little "spit" at the end of "sheep." I've laughed until I nearly get asthma.

Well, the boys are waiting to color Easter eggs, so gotta run. Hopefully, I'll not wait so long to post again. Things are about to get a lot quieter around here!

Valentine's Day in Alabama

Here is our Valentine's Day snow storm!! OK, I know some of you are thinking, "Yeah, RRRRIGHT! She doesn't have a clue!" Well, hey...it's a big deal here!! When I came out of my room Wednesday morning, they boys had their coats on and couldn't wait to take me outside to show me the snow. This is the first time the boys have ever seen snow. Fernanda had asked Jeannine to send some video clips of it snowing there, so the boys would know what it looked like coming down - thinking that they would never see it here. Now I must admit that the flakes were very tiny. One talk-show host said he had seen bigger flakes on his shoulders! At one time it was really coming down - for a very short time. If fact, it is a good thing I took the pictures when I did, because by the time I turned around twice, it was only a few drops of water on Mark's car.


I got the boys cupcakes with pink and red sprinkles on them. I think Chris enjoyed his the most - or at least we enjoyed watching him eat his the most. (You can click on the picture to really see his face.) I never made it a habit of having dessert for our meals, but since the boys have come, I try to have a little treat for them. I started by telling them that if they ate all their food, I would have a surprise for them. Now, after every meal, they want to know if I have a surprise. Dylan will always ask what the surprise is. I always say, "Well, it wouldn't be a surpise if I told you!" They have come to think that the words "surprise" and "dessert" are synonomous.

Here is the video of Chris and his Valentine cupcake. When Grandpa takes a bite, you can hear Dylan gasping in the background.

It's going to be a girl!!!

Jeannine had her 20-week sonogram yesterday, and it's a girl!!! She was just sure she was carrying a boy, because this pregnancy felt so different from when she was carrying Maya. I asked if the baby was in a good position to see. She said that she was not in the best position, but the lady said she had only been wrong once in 16 years. You know, sometimes these girls turn out to be surprise boys. Boys are seldom misdiagnosed, but sometimes the girls are boys that are just hiding. But being wrong only once in 16 years is pretty good.

I was all set to get out my blue fabric and start on those baby quilts this weekend. But I guess I'll hold onto it a little longer. I've made so many quilts for Maya, they hardly have room to store them. Jeannine is very excited. She said that it truly didn't matter, because she just adores Maya, and thinks that little sweet cuddly girls are wonderful. She didn't think she was quite ready for a rowdy little boy anyway. I reminded her that sometimes little girls can be rowdy, too! :) Mark told her she wasn't a real parent until she had raised a little boy. :) Either way, we are just thrilled!!! We're glad to finally be able to refer to the baby as "her" now rather than "it."

They checked out the rest of the baby, too - the legs, arms, spine - and all seemed to me just fine. I think we've all been a little anxious about that with all the medication she has had to take for her migraines. She is really battling them with this pregnancy. She can't take the preventative medication or the meds she takes when she usually gets them. Boths of those medications are incompatible with pregnancy. I just hope they don't continue the whole pregnancy. As the last pregnancy progressed, they lessened.

They have had a lot of snow in Bozeman, and it has been extrememly cold. Earlier in the week, she went out to drive the jeep and it wouldn't start. She hates to drive her Civic in the snow. She just doesn't feel safe in it. Today she got the jeep out of the shop after $400-$500 worth of work. She stopped at a store, came out to get in the jeep, and it wouldn't start!!! AARRGGHH!! I don't know how many times they have had that vehicle worked on, and nearly every time, it continues to act just like it did when she took it in. It is a 1994 and has over 200,000 miles, so I guess it might be on its last leg. She really depends on it though because they have so much snow there, and she just feels safer in a big 4-wheel-drive vehicle. With two little ones, a husband and a dog, she is going to need more than a little Civic. I know after driving my SUV for nearly a year, I don't think I can ever go back to a car. For one thing, they are soooo much easier to get in and out of. You sit up higher, so your view is better. Mine drives just like a car. Acura builds theirs on a car frame. I understand why the SUV is so popular.

Just Trying to Catch Up

Whew! I can't believe it has nearly been a month since I added anything here. I got several new pictures and thought at times I should post them, but just too much else to do.



These are some pictures Jeannine sent of Maya at 14 months. She got a big kick out of wearing her daddy's boots. I think Mama and Daddy got a bigger kick out of it!




Here she is reading again. She really loves her books. I enjoy so much the little videos of her reading. Of course you can't understand a word of it, but she sure is intent.





Here she is at 15 months, and Jeannine at 19 weeks.



Here is Jeannine and Maya (reading, of course) on their new leather sofa. I think it is the first new piece of furniture she has ever had. There is a love seat to match. They are beginning to see an end to this long tunnel of school and a job for Charles just around the corner. It was one of those 12 or 18 months of no interest things. That's the only way we buy things, too. Several years ago Guy and I were all set to order a new leather sofa, love seat and easy chair. Just as we were about to place the order, we got the results of our taxes for that year. We owed nearly to the penny what the furniture cost, so, needless to say, we are not sitting on leather furniture today!



A couple of weeks ago, Mark took the boys to enroll them in soccer. Here is Dylan playing in the park beside the enrollment place.

Here is Chris. It was terribly cold that day with the wind blowing, so they didn't stay long. They went into the outfield of a nearby baseball field and kicked the soccer ball for awhile.

Here are all four of them. Even though it was a very pretty sunny day, they were about to freeze.


Mark told the guy at the soccer signup that even though Dylan was 5, he had been playing soccer in Brazil for 2 years, so they signed him up to play with the 7-8 year olds. Then a week later they all went to this big field to try out. There were about a hundred boys there. The main guy over the whole program was really impressed with Dylan even though he was the smallest one out there. The man's friend, who is going to be an assistant coach, had his wife there watching, too. She said to her husband, "Did you see that little Dylan??!!!!" Apparently he made quite a showing. They won't start the actual practices until March. Hopefully it will be much warmer then. Mark is going to coach also. He is really looking forward to that. He went to all of Dylan practices and lessons in Brazil, so he knows all about how to coach. If you know anything at all about Brazil, you know that Brazil and soccer are nearly synonyms. Chris was too small to even play in Brazil, so he will jsut be learning to basics. I'm looking forward to watching them practice and play their games. I've heard of "soccer moms", but I guess I'm going to be a "soccer grandma."




This is a picture of Dylan and his soccer class in Brazil. He's the one on the left and as you can see, he is the smallest in his class there, too. This was taken about a year ago. I couldn't find the picture of him guarding the goal. That picture is so cute because his shirt is waaaay too big for him, and his shorts come down over the top of his knee socks. His socks are so big that the heels can be seen coming up the back of his lower leg above his shoes tops.