Playing Catch-up

At the end of my last post, I told y’all I’d be in Pennsylvania for a few days. I left on Monday and got back around midnight on Thursday. It would’ve been earlier, except I stopped at Amy’s to help shuttle kids from sports practice and celebrate our August TTT (the first official one since Shannon got back).

Friday afternoon, Amy dropped the kids at our house and went off to Pittsburgh for the weekend for some military-related conference. It’s been an exhausting but fun weekend.

Here are a few pics captured over the last six days…

Here I am with a few of my co-workers on Tuesday night.

To truly appreciate the next shot, you need a bit of back story. Hubby knew I had a bunch of work to get done on Friday. So after he took Amy to the airport, he took all three kids to the pool. All by himself. They didn’t get back until just before 5:00 PM. Since Joey missed his afternoon nap, he fell asleep with Hubby on the recliner. He woke up in time for snack and, since he’d already napped, he didn’t think he needed to go to bed.

This boy makes the funniest “I’m REALLY mad now” faces I have ever seen. He still says “my” instead of “I” when speaking about himself.

"My not want to go to bed."

On Saturday, we had to get Gaige to a football scrimmage game and Brianna to her soccer opening day celebration.

Joey and Pop driving a pretend car.

Hubby did a great job keeping Joey busy while Gaige played his game.

Runaway Pop.

Speaking of Gaige… look at the size of the helmet this little guy has to wear. I bet it weighs about 25% of his body weight.

Gaige in his scrimmage uniform.
Look at the size of that helmet.

Most of Brianna’s morning was spent standing around waiting for team photos. I didn’t get many shots of her on Saturday.

Brianna having her face painted at the opening day shindig.

Sunday was really Brianna’s big day. I had to drop her off at an end-of-summer camp for kids with deployed parents. Gaige and Joey are too young to attend. She was SUPER excited.

Brianna in her bunk.

I told her I had to take plenty of pics to show Mommy the drop-off because I know Amy was not happy to have missed it.

Brianna the happy camper.

The thing that amazed me was the kid was not even the slightest bit nervous or apprehensive. Here you have a nine-year-old girl who has never been to sleepaway camp and doesn’t know if she’ll know anyone there. That’s just her personality, though. She’s a very friendly and outgoing kid.

The boys in our backyard.

When I got back to the house, Gaige, Joey and I tossed the football around a bit. Gaige was a bit surprised that I know how to throw a football. How many grannies do you know who can do that?  🙂

Hubby and Joey relaxing in front of the TV.

We fed the boys dinner then got them bathed and ready for bed. Amy’s flight, which was supposed to arrive at 6:40, was delayed until 10:05. Hubby actually just left to pick her up at the airport. They’ll either all spend the night here or she’ll wake them and drive them home tonight.

An Occasion Worth Celebrating

Last night, Shannon and I made the trek north to Amy’s house to assist with sports practice.What do I mean by “assist”?

Remember, Amy’s husband is currently deployed. She and her hubby are both of the mindset that the kids shouldn’t miss out on anything just because TJ is away. So they’re still playing sports.

Gaige (age 6) plays football. His team has two-hour practice sessions FOUR nights a week at a field about 30 minutes from where they live. Brianna (age 9) plays soccer. She only practices two nights a week for an hour each night. Her field is only about 5 minutes away, but in the opposite direction. Joey (age 3) is too young for organized sports. So he just makes Amy crazy as she drives back and forth between fields and stands on the sidelines while the kids practice.

On Thursdays, both kids have practice at the same time. I told Amy I’d try to help once in awhile by taking one or the other kid to their respective field. Last night, Shannon came along. We had just the right number of adults. Amy took Gaige to football. I took Brianna to soccer. Shannon stayed at the house with Joey.

I did take my camera along, but it was raining off and on, quite heavy at times, so I left it at the house with Shannon. Which is cool because she caught a couple cute images of Joey.

Joey showing off his work boots that are just like Daddy's.
Joe Cool (Note the work boots, work gloves AND the fact that his foot is propped on his motorcycle.)

Of course, I didn’t get any pics of the other kids. Maybe we’ll have better weather next week.

Speaking of next week, Shannon, Amy, and I spent a bit of time trying to determine if last night was our August Thirsty Third Thursday. We were all together, after all, and it was Thursday. But it was only the second Thursday of the month. Yes, we could celebrate early, but we eventually decided that next Thursday should be our August Thirsty Third Thursday.

Why does all of this matter? Because, since Shannon was off traveling the world, our last Thirsty Third Thursday was in September 2009. ELEVEN months ago!

Yes, Amy and I did do some TTTs without Shannon, but it just wasn’t the same. When I told Amy we need to make up for lost time, she said, “Does this mean I can expect you both here every Thursday for the next two months?”

I guess we’ll have to wait and see…

But look, we DID manage to capture a nice pic of the three of us, together for the first time since September 2009.

The TTT Crew.

Definitely an occasion worth celebrating, eh?

Guess Who Turned Three Today?

As hard as it is to believe, our youngest grandson, Joey, hit three years old today.

Those three years have FLOWN by…

Joey was suddenly bashful when we all started to sing.
Joey blowing out his candles.

His party was actually on Saturday. Amy planned it in shifts so as not to overwhelm everyone. “Everyone” in this case being us old folks. Family was invited early in the day and the friends with their hordes of children came late in the day.

I wanted to get a picture of the three grandkids before the other children arrived and chaos ensued, but I didn’t. So I had to settle for pulling them outside and making them sit. Of course, by then they were all sugared-up and acting goofy, so this is the best I could do.

Gaige, Joey and Brianna

It’s not a great picture, but the others were much worse. Although I must say, I love the look on Joey’s face and the sparkle in his eye in the picture below, so I just cut the other two out. It is Joey’s birthday after all.

Joey at his third birthday party.

Happy Birthday, Joey!

Friday Flashback

This week has absolutely flown. Which is good and bad, I guess. Good because post-vacation work weeks typically tend to drag on forever. Bad because I have quite a bit of work to get done before day’s end. Reality bites…

Even Donovan is Watching

I’m still disappointed that I didn’t see the game-winning goal in the US-Algeria World Cup match the other day. But, thanks to new media, the Internet and my favorite CNN reporter, I still get to enjoy the celebrations. Now let’s just hope we’re successful on Saturday when we face Ghana.

Say What?

Speaking of football… there’s not much happening on the American football scene right now. That’s why I was surprised to get a Facebook “like” recommendation for Ed Reed (Baltimore Raven).

Curiosity piqued, I followed the link to Ed’s Facebook page. I was a mere seven status updates in when I decided Ed’s page wasn’t for me. Why? One little comment he made in response to the news that he’d been named top safety of the 2000s. “Ain’t no nigga like me.”

That comment rubbed me the wrong way for some reason. Because it’s so “hood” sounding? Maybe it was the cockiness? Or perhaps I have not yet fully recovered from my late evening/early morning return from Amy’s house?

Does anyone else find his statement annoying?

Something is missing...

Something is Definitely Missing

I drove out to Amy’s after work yesterday. I hadn’t seen her or the kids since well before our vacation. Plus, she redecorated her kitchen/dining room and I wanted to check it out. (It looks awesome!

I was tickled to see that Gaige’s front tooth had finally come out.

Brianna, who I did not manage to capture a photo of, grew about seventeen inches over the past few weeks. Okay, maybe not quite that much, but she’s definitely getting taller. She’s losing that baby look, too. And, oddly, she doesn’t talk really loud anymore. Yep, she’s finally found her big-girl, inside voice.

Isn’t it odd how little things like that just happen? It was weird at first, but oddly refreshing.

The Makeover

In addition to the new look in her kitchen/dining room, I was delighted to see the super-cute new “do” Amy is now sporting.

This isn’t the best picture of her (I only had my point-and-shoot camera along which just doesn’t do indoor flash pictures well). It’s not the worst, either, which is why I went ahead and posted it here for all the world to see.

Amy's new "do."

Her hubby said he thought the color was too blonde. I told Amy she must have sent him a picture with bad lighting.

Now that I have seen the photos she sent him, I know I was right. It’s not too light at all, it’s perfect. And it looks very natural. I may need to enlist her stylist to give me a new do, too. No color for me, thank-you-very-much. I am still struggling to find just the right cut.

Speaking of struggling… one of my goals for this weekend is to finish sorting and posting pics from our vacation. I am in the process of going through the shots from our time in Benelux with Annelies and Yves. There’re quite a few good ones, in my humble opinion, so stay tuned!

Oh, Ow!

Just two days after I captured this image of my super-cute grandson, Joey, he fell and hit his head while at daycare.

On the sidewalk.

Knowing Joey, he was probably moving at a pretty good clip at the time.

Joey Before the Fall

Check out this poor boy’s forehead…

One Bruise + Road Rash = One Humongous-looking Bruise

I am SOOOOOOO glad this didn’t happen when he was in my care. I would have freaked. Those daycare people are used to this sort of kid accident. Not me. I’m still a Rookie Grandma!

Amy says it looks far worse than it actually is because of the road rash. That is not only her opinion, that’s also what the ER folks said.

Speaking of Amy, she says she’s used to getting calls from daycare while she’s at work reporting that Joey has had one little accident or another. You know, just to give her the heads up (no pun intended). So when they called to report the fall and told her she needed to come, even she was a bit freaked.

Crazy stuff like this always seems to happen when her Army Husband is away. He’s been deployed for about 2 weeks now, so she was due…

You Capture – “One Shot”

I’ve only been participating sporadically in Beth’s You Capture meme for various reasons, none of which are very interesting. So I’ll spare you and just move on to this week. The theme was “one shot.” The point of that being, show off the one picture you have taken that you think is best.

I didn’t shoot with this theme in mind. Instead, I looked back over the pictures I took last week and picked the one I wanted to share.

Not an easy task, I assure you. Especially with all the grandkid shots from our long holiday weekend!

But I did it. You know what’s weird, though? There’s nothing particularly artsy about this image. I didn’t crop it or anything. Although I did make it a tad bit darker.It’s not even one of the images I deemed good enough to share with the other images in the aforementioned post. But every time I look at that directory full of pics, I keep stopping at this one shot. So I decided THIS must be the one to share.

My youngest grandson, Joey, who is almost three was sitting outside our WV cabin in the woods with a small cooler, two buckets full of water, a wooden spoon, a ladle, and an empty plastic box. It was pretty hot that day, so I just planted myself in one of the rocking chairs on our shady porch and watched.

Who knew watching a toddler play with water could be so much fun? I am NOT being sarcastic either. I had a blast! That must be age creeping in on me.

After putting some small gravel and one large rock into the plastic box, he began very methodically transferring some of the clean water from the cooler into the box using the soup ladle. The whole time he was doing this, he and I were chatting. After a little while he declared that he was making soup. (As you can see in this image from that other post, he was having a pretty good time.) When I asked him what kind of soup he was making, he thought about it and shrugged before telling me, “just regular soup.”

“Not rock soup?” I asked.

“No. Regular soup,” he insisted.

This image says so much to me that you probably don’t notice. The boy is methodical, I tell you. He did this whole water transfer thing very precisely, using only his left hand to manipulate the ladle while his right elbow rested on his knee.

He’s got quite a sense of humor, too, as evidenced by the impish little half-grin you can see on his face here, which is another reason I like this shot. That’s one expression that can only be captured on the fly. (Remember, this is the boy who has been trained for practically his entire life to say “cheese” when a camera is pointing at him.)

His collar is up for a reason. Not because old G (that’s me!) is stuck in the 80s when wearing polo shirts with upturned collars was cool, but because Joey was riding his “motorcycle” before cooking class with his heavy weapon hanging around his neck using a whistle lanyard (the only appropriate rope I could find). I put it under his collar so the string didn’t bite into his neck. Every time he pulled the weapon off, the string lifted the collar. I got tired of folding it back down. Plus, I think he looks he looks sort of cute with that upturned collar.

Maybe I am stuck in the 80s… (gasp!)

Anyway, before going through the hassle of finding something he could use to carry said weapon, I tried to be practical and suggest he just leave the gun at the house while he rode. That conversation went something like this:

“Joe, how about leaving your gun here while you ride your motorcycle?”

“No. My need it.”

“But we’re going to ride your motorcycle. Why do you need it?”

“My want to kill bad guys.”

If you’re confused by the “my” thing, read this post. I am only supposed to share one shot, but if you haven’t already seen the holiday weekend grandkid shots, you’ll probably get a chuckle out of this image, which shows the “taste testers” that were frustrating him only slightly during this soup-making process.

Finally, a totally unrelated story I have to share. Well, sort of unrelated. Remember that “my” thing? It cracks me up.

Saturday evening, Joey and his siblings were sitting in lawn chairs around the fire pit while Mommy and I gathered a little more wood about fifty feet away. (The fire wasn’t burning at that point.) We heard Joey yell and turned to see that the collapsible lawn chair he was sitting in had fallen over on its side with Joey still in it. We chuckled, kept talking, and walked slowly toward him (he was obviously uninjured).

“Unnhhh!” Joey groaned loudly.

“We’re coming, Joe,” Amy said. “Hold on.”

“Unnhhh!” he groaned again, squirming in frustration.

“My stuck!”

If only I’d had my camera in hand for that one…