Gramma moments

Isn't she so cute?! Grandma Shirley Anderson, what a hoot...silly, funny and sweet.


Gramma's nurse today, she gave him a nickname.."Hubba Hubba"!
Gramma would spend time just looking at Grampa, smiling, so sweet!
Gramma still spending her time looking at Grampa...Mom on Grammas other side visiting her today.

Well, what a couple of days this has been. Several months ago, or maybe even a year or more now, my grandma was diagnosed with Alzheimers. She has been progressing over time more or less as expected (what can you expect with a disease like this?), but a couple of days ago things took a dramatic turn. Due to dehydration, and an infection gramma experienced a dramatic change in her health. She was taken to the hospital and is there currently. Today was a wonderful day, filled with laughter and joy. What a blessing! Although gramma doesn't really remember me, she sure remembers grampa! "My husband" is what she says, where is my husband? So sweet! Grampa and mom had to leave the room for a while so I stayed in to visit with her, we chatted a bit then I thought it would be fun to get some pictures of her and I together. I asked her if I could take our picture and she was delighted! After I took it, I showed it to her and it had her in stitches! She could not stop laughing when she would see the pictures of us together! Gramma had a new nurse, I would like to share with you his real name, but gramma just called him "hubba hubba", what a hoot. Everytime she would see him walk by her area she would start saying hubba hubba. We even took to calling him hubba for short! Today gramma also enjoyed some of her breakfast, she drank some chocolate milk and loved looking at pictures of the beach in a magazine. Mom, Sheryl, Grampa (of course) and myself had a wonderful morning/afternoon with gramma. What a blessing today was!

I am learning that with dementia type diseases, you really have to live in the moment. One moment things could look pretty bad, and the very next those memories could be fading away through the laughter.....and I suppose the next moment could include tears of sadness as well.....I do know this, the Lord has her safely in His hand and there is no greater place she could be.

Sunset to Snowy Days

Unbelievable! We have had more snow this week than we have had in many, many years. We started out last week with that amazing sunset...before the snow. This week has been quite a change! Colder temperatures and snow, snow and more snow! The kids have been out in it everyday, sledding, building and we have all gone on several walks. Thankfully, yesterday was pretty clear on the main roads so Scott and I headed out and reloaded the house with groceries. By nightfall, the snow had been coming down so hard that the roads were again completely covered and continue to be so today. Our yard is covered in about 12" of snow at this point and it has been snowing off and on all day long. It is beautiful and quiet and we are blessed to have heat and power. It will be nice to get Scott back to work as it takes a pretty hard hit on our budget, but time as a family has a dollar value so high it cannot be measured. We have decided to just enjoy this time and make wonderful memories, soon we will return to life as usual.

Yellow to Blue

Well....Jordan is certainly growing up. So much faster than I could have imagined! He has now moved up to the adults class and to help make it affordable for us he volunteers in the children's class twice a week for a discount. What an amazing young man he is! With this move up also comes a promotion in rank. His second adults class consisted of an hour and a half of sparring....switching partners every 10 minutes, so they were fresh while he was busy getting whipped! It was GREAT! He had a wonderful evening, met lots of good guys and earned his blue belt. The best part is, when he returned to the children's class a couple of days later, his teachers in there had missed his belt ceremony and decided he would need a pummeling from them too if he were to officially move up! So, he spent that class getting whooped too! FABULOUS! Love this place! Congratulations Jordan!

Family

My grandma Shirley is my moms mom. We went to visit her and my Grandpa Larry a couple of weeks ago. My grandma has Alzheimer's, so these visits are quite special. While there I decided to pull out these pictures she has in her living room. One of them is of her, her mother Sylvie, her grandmother Thyra and her son, my uncle Larry. It's amazing how the brain works, although my grandma can no longer remember who I am, she could tell me about the people in these photos.

The wedding photo is of William and Sylvie Laine, my great great grandparents. And the two little girls are Sylvie and Her sister Aura, although I'm not sure who is who.

I have never met my fathers parents as they passed before I was born. The rest of his family does not live around here and although I've met many of them, we really don't communicate, which is sad to me. I treasure these pictures and bits of information about my family. I hope I get to learn more soon!

Hanukkah and stuff

Neato bandito! My touch now has a blogger app! So I can blog a pic as soon as I want without uploading. This is fabulous!

The pictures i am posting are shots from during the week of Hanukkah that were taken on my touch. We enjoyed an evening of making paper snowflakes, you will see the picture of Scott and the kids bent down working. This was a fun night, we found a template for Star Wars themed snowflakes!

Enjoy the pics!

Poor, sad, neglected little blog. :(

I am back! We are enjoying a lovely little snowy sabbath rest today. Enjoyed some time copying a portion of scripture, watched a good teaching from El Shaddai ministries as well. I then thought, perhaps I could take some time today and show my blog a little love. ♥

Between homeschool, home fellowship, bible study, jiujitsu, piano lessons and all the many things God has us involved in, I find it too easy to push this blog to the end of my to do list. The sad thing is, I really do love keeping this account of the adventures of our life. I love looking back and seeing the pictures and recalling the wonderful memories held here. Someday...I would love to have this blog made into a book, just to keep, to hand down to our children. A modern day journal printed out to be able to cuddle up with and enjoy a stroll down memory lane.

Let's get on to the catching up part....this pictures are probably not going to be in order, but I will do my best! Here goes!

We will begin our picture-a-thon with photos from our celebrations over Hanukkah. This year was especially sweet as we had some of our family here to celebrate with us! What a wonderful blessing and memorable time remembering God's incredible miracles He performs for His people!


Atira - our sweet girl, loving the purple and animal prints from her sweet Granny Sheila! ♥
Atira has her BFF playing dreidel with us....well her picture anyway is set up in front of a stash just for her!
Shaggy, the ultimate dreidel player!
Beautiful candles, a reminder to be lights in the darkness. It was so beautiful and bright when we had all of those hanukkah menorahs lit!

The family lights the Hanukkah menorahs.
Atira playing with her new dolly kitchen! She LOVES this toy!
Jordan is a boy through and through, enjoying his new airsoft gun from his Granny Sheila.
More purple! Atira loves her new coat from Gramma Joan & Grampa Curt! ♥
Um, this is a gift only boys want (most of the time anyway, and certainly in our home). It is a gadget to go on the end of a rifle to soften the recoil. The fact that I have that much terminology is almost frightening. And I think it is right too! :)
Gramma Joan and the kiddos, gift giving!!

HEY! That's me! Usually I am behind the camera, which i still am in this picture. I just like evidence that I exist to show up on this blog once in a while. hee hee.

OH! What a fun and special day this was! Atira, Scott and I headed out to the American Girl store! WOO HOO! Her daddy had never been there before and she was so excited to show him all about her passion.
Girl of the year just came out! Atira is posing with McKenna.....did I spell that right? I will double check....hang on folks....yes, I did. You can rest now.
Enjoying all the fun girly things in AG! This was 1/2/2012 We were blessed to have daddy home with us that day and took full advantage!

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Now to back up in time a bit....we finally had the opportunity ti praise God for Curt's life and the fact that he has brought this wonderful man into ours! His bday is in November...we made him a Grampa Curt Cake special just for him! Filled with all kinds of deliciousness that we think of when we think of him! Chocolate cake, reeses peanut butter cups in the filling, reeses pieces on top and a coating of potato chips on the outside! All I heard after the cake was cut was crunching and slurping and mmmmmmmm's all around! (Sadly, I am trying to figure out an allergy issue, so I was not able to enjoy a slice of this little bit of heaven! And yes, I am sure heaven is peanut buttery goodness with crunchy salty potato chips and roads paved with frosting!)
♥Family♥ Isn't this picture fabulous?! We are so blessed, each year for many years now, both sides of Scott and my family gather for Thanksgiving. What a tremendous blessing! Sadly, my grandmother is not doing well and was not able to make it this year. In the above photo we have something never captured before this night, all three of Geoff's children in one room at the same time! Another incredible blessing! So...let's see if we can label this picture: Upper row starting on the left: Grandma Joan, Grandma Sheila, Tina (me!), Atira (our daughter), Jazzy (Geoffs middle daughter), Monique (Geoff's youngest daughter), Kat (Geoff's wife). Lower row, starting from the left: Grandpa Curt (wearing Jordans hat), Jordan, Jeremy (Geoff's oldest child), my husband Scott is laying on him, and Geoff! Whew! I did it! What a wonderful memory this evening was!
Siblings....it's amazing, even if they don't grow up together, they still act, well, just like siblings!
our beautiful daughter
he kept moving, but still a nice picture of my dad.
Cousins! ooooh! I love this picture!


And here they are for the first time ever folks! Cousins all sitting together! What a wonderful sight!
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EEP! My son made it to his yellow belt! And guess what! He did not stop there...I will have another update soon showing you his BLUE BELT!! We are SO proud of him! What an incredible young man of God Jordan is!
This is what happens when you are a cat living in a house with a sister. Oh Shaggy, we love you.

Ok, my digits and my brain needs a blogging break. I will stop here for now. It is snowing out and is just beautiful, I think I will go and enjoy a cup of tea, some time with my family and return later to finish my updates......... Don't think that way, I will be back, sooner than later! :)