I was just thinking...

Name:

I've become addicted to "A"s (I've gone back to college), love eating and cooking everything but goat cheese, I always try to please everyone and laugh without wetting myself or snorting. I love reading and keeping up with current events, I value my friends. And most especially, I'm a proud mother of four and an excessively proud grandmother of five.

Monday, May 17, 2010

...I haven't written about my granddaughters lately...



Mallory and her boy friend George spent two weeks out in San Diego. In this photo, are my daughter Meeghan, her husband, Mike, and my three granddaughters, Sarah (the oldest), Ariel (middle), and Rachel (youngest). They went on a whale-watching cruise, and all except Mike felt a little seasick. This was the "before" photo.

The three girls, and my grandson Shamiq all have birthdays in June, and Sarah's 8th grade graduation is the following month (she's in a school with year-'round classes). We hope to have enough money (don't know from where) to fly out there and surprise her (Mallory and Michael too), but don't know if Matthew will be able to afford the trip and our money can only stretch so far.

Thursday, May 06, 2010

...that since Michael is sleeping, I should keep writing.


More pictures of Michael. Is this family obsessed with this little butterbean or what? Meanwhile, our oldest granddaughter, Sarah, graduates from middle school in July. Ariel emailed me to say she's saving money for our tea room that she wants to co-own with me ($57 so far). And Rachel just went through testing, and was identified as "gifted" with a score of 99.4%. I guess you call it a score. It means she's further along (I'm not sure in what subject areas) than 99.4% of her classmates. She lives in California, so does that count? She still has a little attitude, however.


...about what we did today...



So right now Scott is feeding his fish, Michael is drinking a glass of chocolate milk, dozing off, and watching The Nightmare before Christmas (which he calls "Habadee"). Toward the beginning of the movie, the main character, Jack Skellington sings a song about, "This is Halloween." Michael understands it as "This is Habadee," and now refers to the movie as Habadee. His head is tipping over and his eyelids are fluttering until there's a loud sound. Wish I could reach my camera.

Today we took Michael for his second haircut (see the photo). And afterward we went to lunch at the Olive Garden, where Michael discovered he likes calamari, garlic bread dipped in olive oil and fresh basil, pasta fagiole soup (not sure of spelling) and then he ate half of my tiramisu.

It's about 90 degrees out, so as soon as we got home I came inside where it was cool, and Mallory and Scott ("Grmpa") took him out to play in his pool. See the photo. He's so frigging cute we can hardly stand it.

Okay, so I'm trying to get back on track...


So, yesterday was Cinco de Mayo; I think this has to do with a battle...it's not Mexico Independence Day. BUT, it is an excuse to eat Mexican food, which I love. My mom's side of the family is from far, far southern Arizona, and so she grew up eating this stuff. All of my relatives cook this kind of food, and so I naturally look for any excuse to fix and eat it. For three days I've been preparing meat and green chili & cheese tamales (not hard, but time-consuming), cooking chicken to put into flautas, soaking pinto beans for frijoles, making guacamole, pico de gallo, Mexican rice, and pasteles con tres leches. I know I'm forgetting something. Anyhow, I put out a *few of the decorations I could get my hands on since someone shoved a bunch of stuff into my catering storage shed (in front of all of my rubbermaid containers, and actually had the BALLS to move my bins around so that the things I use more often were all the way in the back). *There were piles and boxes of Halloween decorations, boxes of Mallory's things, and her boyfriend George's bulletproof vest from when he was in the Marines, among other things. So, anyhow, Mallory and George, Matthew and Crystal and her son Tonic, and Scott, Michael and I ate until we could barely move. Oh, and Michael's favorite babysitter, Allie came too. And I just remembered the other food...ceviche (marinated fish), and to drink--Sangria. I'm going to try to post a picture that Mallory took with her phone camera of the food. Let's see how that goes:

Wednesday, May 05, 2010

cheese & crackers!






Cheese & crackers, it's been a long time since I entered something on my blog. Thanks to someone who remains unmentionable for reminding me just how long. Something to do with Moses crossing the desert.

Michael is now two years old and is growing fast and becoming more articulate each day. He listens to everything and likes to repeat trash talk he hears from his Aunt Mallory.

Just the other day he went to swipe a piece of candy from the dish on the dining room table, and found that I had moved it. He pounded his fist and said, "Damn it, Grandma, I want candy NOW!" Just like his aunt.