Sunday, January 11, 2015

Hello, hello, hello!

My current desktop photo is a little sparrow, sitting on a vine, looking over his shoulder at me.

 

<<<<<<>>>>>>

 

Mike has our new exercise room done, and if you know Mike then you will be as proud of him as I am.

“Why’s that?” you ask.

Because I didn’t have to hardly do anything! Gary helped with the carpentry work, I did some gophering, but other than that, Mike did the rest.

I am going to leave my extra cat litter and my recycle tubs stay in a corner, which doesn’t look all that attractive, but I don’t care. I care more about recycling than I care how my extra room looks. If I had a better place to put it, trust me, it would be there already.

 

<<<<<<>>>>>>

 

We had a new baby born into the family last week. This beautiful babe is Aiden Robert Mancha and he came into the world on January 6^th.

And before anyone gets their panties in a bunch over my use of the word family, let me explain something to you, and I’m going to take the long way around.

I’ll talk to anybody.

A long time ago, I was going out of a store and a family was coming in. I said something to the little girl and used the words, “your father”.

“He’s not my father! He’s my stepfather!” she corrected me. I could tell she was angry.

“You are so lucky to have a stepfather,” I gushed enthusiastically and she looked surprised. “Do you know why?” I asked as I put my hands on my knees and came eye level with her. She shook her head and I continued. “Because some people only have one father to love them and take care of them and you have two! Do you know what else?” I asked in a conspiring voice. She shook her head. “Now you have another grandmother to give you presents!” Well! That was the magic word and I could tell she was thinking about that as she walked away.

Personally, I don’t think you can have too many people in this world who care about you. Think about it like this. A grandmother is still a mother, right? So why then can’t a stepchild be just a child? You have another chance, no matter the label, to have one more person in this world love and care about you. Who doesn’t want that?

Aiden’s great-grandmother is married to my cute little red haired brother Richard. So even though there is no shared blood between me and this babe, we are still family.

<<<<<<>>>>>>

 

It has been awhile since I’ve talked about that little Star of My Show. Yes, Andrew.

“What’s up with that?” you ask.

By the time I got to page six last week I decided my letter was long enough. I would save New Year’s Day for next time.

So, here it is.

New Year’s Day the kids joined us for lunch at the Golden Corral, a buffet style all-you-can-eat restaurant.

In this photo Andrew is checking out what his mom brought back to the table.

You may notice that Andrew is transferring his fork from his left to his right hand. I don’t think he’s made up his mind yet if he’s going to be a lefty or a righty as he uses both hands.

The kids have their challenges with Andrew, that’s for sure. He is-as my father used to say-an easy keeper. That means you don’t have to feed a cow a lot of hay but they give you a lot of milk.

Andrew doesn’t eat very much and he is very stubborn about what he will eat. Even something like ice cream, which you would think all kids love!-Andrew only ate a couple of bites. But he is strong and he is healthy so we are not going to worry about it.

“We still want to…” Kevin started.

I don’t remember if he got distracted wiping Andrew’s face or if he just paused long enough for me to fill the gap with, “Me too! I have a Turtle Cake to make.”

“You knew what I was going to say,” he said and smiled.

I did know.

“How about Friday night?” Kevin asked.

“Great!”

So Friday night, Mike and I got to share another meal with Kevin, Kandyce, Andrew and Margaret. I told you back in December when I was talking about our dinner being postponed, how good the chicken casserole is that Kandyce makes. Along with that she made a green bean casserole and Cheddar Bay Biscuits (yummy!) a green salad, then cake and ice cream for dessert.

Afterward we settled at the table and played my new favorite game.

“Not dominos?” you ask.

No, not dominos. Although I still love dominos. This past summer, when Mike and I were at Our Mountain Home, our neighbors the Robinson’s introduced us to Skip-Bo. It’s a card game and even though I couldn’t remember how to play it, I remembered that we really enjoyed it. So early last week I picked up the game at Wal*Mart…

Oh! Those stinkers!

When I checked out they charged me a dollar more for the game then the shelf tag said it was. They gave me my dollar back, but you have to watch that kind of stuff.

Mid week I asked Mike to play Skip-Bo.

“No. I don’t want to play,” he said.

“Please-please-please! I want play it after dinner with the kids on Friday night and I have to learn how to play it.” It took a little begging but he finally relented and sat down and played with me. And you know what? It didn’t take us long to remember how to play it and we had a lot of fun.

The appointed day and the appointed hour rolled around and we went to dinner at Kevin and Kandyce’s house. No, wait. We went to dinner at Andrew’s house! Isn’t it funny how having kids changes things?

“I brought Skip-Bo to play after dinner,” I announced to no one in particular.

“I used to play Skip-Bo with my sister when we were young,” Kandyce said. “But I don’t remember how to play it.”

Once we sat down to play, Kandyce remembered with just a refresher on the rules. Kevin caught on quickly and Margaret, with the help of Kandyce, was even catching on by the end of our second game and we only played two.

Andrew played by himself for a while with minimal attention from us, but then he became bored and got up to the table on the bench beside his mother. We let Andrew play with the cards that had been removed from the game until we needed them again then he was very patient until another building pile had reached twelve and was removed from the game.

At one point Andrew did something to Kandyce’s arm. I don’t know if he wiped his nose on her arm or if it was a little bit of spit but Kandyce, who had been in the middle of a play, glanced down at her arm, said “Eww!”, discarded, set her remaining cards on the table and addressed Andrew.

“Did you wipe that on my arm?” she asked him.

He shook his head no.

“You’re in for it now mister,” she told him, then rubbed-

…love-

 

…all over-

 

…his face.

 

I laughed as I grabbed my camera and took these photos.

Looking at them now, I can’t help but wonder if this is a game they play often, and boy did I laugh when I saw this next photo on my computer. It was taken the very next second (just after the photo above) and look at the expression on Andrew’s face! He’s looking sideways at his mom.

<<<<<<>>>>>>

 

More news but no more room!

Lots and lots of love,

Peg and Mike