Grandma

I found a few pictures, it's fun to look at old pictures...it makes me feel like I can see the future. Can't we all when looking at the past? She said she was a tomboy, but she looks like more of a lady than I ever have :)

I love the contrast between these pictures, candids almost, compared to her parents where no one smiled... I love that technology started capturing emotion
Here is grandma, newly wed, living with her husband (grandpa) in Hawaii during the war. She was about 10 years younger than me in this picture...
And here's the grandma that I know and love. Always with grandchildren (or great grandchildren here) all around her. The hardest part about her getting older was that she couldn't pick up little kids anymore. Although she'd still let them crawl around on her lap even though those little knees and elbows are like daggers!
I love my grandma, I'll miss her terribly. I try to picture her now, reunited with loved ones, and I think of the top pictures...even though she'll always be like this last picture to me.

Snapshots

I've been looking through my pictures lately and realized that I didn't capture some moments. I wish I was better at capturing real life, although zoo trips are good...

and the first time I spiral curl Lydia's hair (it stayed in for 30 minutes)...
But I don't have a single picture of my grandma with these two kids. My grandma just passed away on Monday. She was old and it was her time, I know that she's happier now. But, that doesn't mean we don't miss her terribly already. We would go visit grandma once a week at her home, hospital, twice at a nursing home. I've lived within 5 minutes of her my whole entire life (excepting college). How could I forget to capture that routine of our lives on film? Luckily memories will last, and we've captured plenty of those.

Deacons bench

This is turning into a project blog, I promise I'll get more exciting when summer comes :) In the meantime... another project. We grabbed this beauty from Dave's mom's garage, it was headed to goodwill.

I didn't know what to do with it because it was already very 'antiqued'. It honestly looked like someone (probably Dave and Steve) took a bag of bolts and hit it all over. So, I sanded, painted, and glazed. Into this...
It turns out that I don't know how to use glaze, because I painted on black glaze and it turned the whole thing black. So, I painted it in stripes and then wiped with a rag, and now it has a faux wood grain look to it. I love it.

p.s. if anyone wants any black glaze I accidentally made enough for 25 more of these projects ;)

-isms

These are for me to remember, and you to enjoy :)

After a bath Lydia likes to comb her hair. She doesn't do a great job, but she does look in the mirror and sing "the little mermaid" while she does it....so cute.

Alex made me a beaded necklace at preschool, he has NEVER made me something without a teacher's prompting, so I was excited. In the middle of the necklace are beads that spell out my name...or close, it spells KENDAR :)

Lydia greets Dave at the door after work everyday. She hugs and kisses him and then asks him if he wants to see "his lover". Then she shows him where I am :)

Alex is semi-aware of the news, mostly the bad news. He has saved a few newspapers and worries still about earthquakes and tornados.

Lydia has just gotten out of saying "efelant" (elephant) and "clockolat" for chocolate

We're reading a Tall Tales book with Alex and now he talks like it. For instance he says, "you're as fast as a cat on a tomato bar" They don't make sense, but he says it in a western accent just like we read the tall tales :)