Beating Back The Winter Doldrums

Around this time of year, I'm sick of winter. Holidays have passed, it has snowed several times, everything is brown and frozen, and it's cold, cold cold!! I must confess Hailey, Makayla, and I are suffering from a nearly fatal case of cabin fever.

I decided to cure cabin fever, at least for today, by finding an alternative to the whining and weeping that has been going on lately. Thank you, Pinterest!!

You take shaving cream, spray it onto a plate, add paint

and swirl.

 Now the fun REALLY begins.

Carefully take one of the dozens of paper hearts Grandma has diligently pre-cut, and set it on the paint and foam without moving it around

then scrap off the extra with something flat.

Resist freaking out because they are curling.
Really, girls, we're going to glue them flat when they dry.

After you are done making beautiful hearts,

it's fun to make a beautiful mess.

In fact, some people thought this was LOTS of fun.

Thank goodness this is WASHABLE paint.

Hmmm, looks like that new smoothie Grandma was trying pass off as "a treat" 

to little people last week.

 Word is, it tastes just about as yucky

and smells even worse.

Remember how this is washable paint? yeah....

 Hailey and Makayla demonstrating how to make an even BIGGER mess while cleaning up.

Take goodness Grandma has t-shirts to wear while clothes go through the wash. 

Hmm. Yeah, putting on t-shirts two hours ago would have been the better choice...

Makayla, demonstrating the correct four year old pasta eating form. Sigh.

After we glued hearts flat to construction paper, Hailey punched holes

and Makayla threaded ribbon.

In no time at all, the day had passed

and we had so much fun we hardly noticed.

Our beautiful creation, effectively diverting our view from the dreary winter. Of course, it helps that the sun still sets by five...

Close-up of our lovely art.

Look! We made enough to take home and hang up!

 Now, who wants to volunteer to tell Amy this is what "washable" paint looks like after going through the wash???

Here We Go Again

Just as I predicted, Hailey lost her other front tooth.  I was relived not t be there when it happened, so she can't blame me this time. Apparently Hailey kneed herself while jumping on the bed at home. I wouldn't think of pointing out how she's gotten the "no jumping on the bed" lecture a dozen times.

Makayla, in a rather transparent effort to deflect attention away from Hailey and onto herself, declared today "Backwards Day". She spent the day with her coat zipped on backwards. Once again, I wouldn't think about pointing out how difficult it is to eat when your coat hood is in your face. 

Sorry about the food goobers on Makayla's hood, Amy.

Seriously, is there anything cuter than a six year old's toothless grin?

She May Be Smiling Now, But.....

There was blood.

 Lots and lots of blood. And maybe some guts.

There was hysteria.

and buckets of tears.

And there was blame.  Yep, Hailey's pointing her finger at me. Apparently, when I opened the door she was hiding behind to invite her to join us for supper, I slammed her face in the door and knocked her tooth out.

 Except that didn't happen. 

I think she just bumped the door in her rush to the dinner table.

There was lots of "I look weird!"s.

followed by dozens of "no you look adorable!"s.

It was touch and go for awhile, but I think she's going to live. She may even forgive me someday for that mythical door slamming.

I'm just not going to be the one to tell her the other tooth is days from falling out, too.

Doing The Grandma Thing

I've been anxiously waiting to go visit our newest grandchild. Since Jorden had a business meeting in Arizona last week, we decided that would be the perfect time for me to visit. After all, Jessica has never been left alone with two kids before--who knows what would happen??

Krew is perhaps the funniest kid on the planet. He chattered nonstop, and had both Jessica and I rolling in laughter all day. Here he is showing me how he rides is bike in the unfinished basement.

When I complimented him on his speed and agility, he said "Yep, I'm fast. We should put me in a race!!"  I learned over the next few days that Krew is rather proud of his strength, speed, and athleticism.

Krew is also fond of telling both Jessica and I "You're tiny!", meaning he thought we were thin.  We both kind of liked it. His wife is going to love him someday. He could even say it to me with a completely serious and sincere expression on his cute little face.

I've got to say, Jessica looks amazing. Hard to believe she had a baby less than three weeks ago. Jessica, you're tiny!

Here is another adorable Backman female: Myla J Backman. She is as cute and sweet as can be.

 

 While we sat around and admired Myla, 

Krew kept us entertained by playing a crazy game he called basketball, but I thought looked more like football. 

 Each game started with the instructions, "Ok, Grandma, you're the fan and Mom, you're the coach. I'm a Cowboy and I'm playing the Clippers. Clippers are the bad guys and Cowboys are the good guys." Then he ran around like crazy, chasing his basketball around. I was using my little camera, which made for a blurry picture as he sped around the living room.

Jessica and I had a great time, eating at Kneaders, hitting the mall for some much needed clothes and other necessities, meeting Crystal and Gabe and kids for lunch, going to Costco, and running a bunch of other errands.

You'll have to excuse Jessica here. Either this was the best picture I got at lunch, or she's a new mom and needed a nap.

Even though Krew missed his nap every day I was visiting, and was being dragged from store to store, he was endlessly cheerful and well-behaved.

Doesn't Krew look happy to be shopping for nursing undergarments with mom and grandma?

 The advantage of having grandma there was that we could sneak off and do fun things like visit the mall photo booth when mom spent too much time doing boring things at the store.

 Unfortunately, several days into my visit Jessica got a nasty case of mastitis. She went off to urgent care one night for a shot of antibiotics AND an oral prescription, leaving Myla and Krew with me. 

The minute Jessica walked out the door, Krew suggested he should have some candy Jessica had up on a shelf. How is it that kids always know to ask grandma for these things???

 

Shh!! Krew, don't tell Mama!!!

Myla was a real handful while Jessica was gone.  She did a lot of this

followed by a bunch of this.

Krew has quite the collection of Batmen, cars, and Batman cars. After spending so much time with little girls it was fun to see how differently little boys think and act. Krew was anxious to have me feel and evaluate his muscles several times a day, demonstrate his speed, show me how his cars crash and his Batmen fight. No sitting quietly at the counter doing art projects for him!

 

Excuse the bragging here, but Krew is just the most delightful little guy. His face would light up like a Christmas tree at the mention of his Daddy. In Krew's world, Dad is king.

He's so sweet to Myla, and is just generally a very active, but very happy guy.

Sadly, all too soon it was time for me to head home. It was really hard to leave! Who's going to say "let me check to see if you still have gold teeth" now that I'm leaving Krew behind?

Hard as it was to leave the Backman's it was good to see these two sweethearts. When Makayla saw me she said, "I really, really missed you, Grandma!"

Yep. It's been a great week to be Grandma.