Oklahoma Part 4 - Random Activities

One of the nice things (and let's face it there aren't many) about sharing a hotel room with the kids was that the kids could just crawl into our bed in the morning and I didn't have to move.

For weeks, or possible months, (I started to tune her out after a while) Lily was preparing to learn how to sew at Grandma's. Lily would ask my mother to teach her and my mother's stand-by response was "you've got the wrong grandma, talk to your Nana." So Nana was prepared to teach and a bunch of us women settled in Grandma's sewing room to watch.

Yes, she's wearing a Snoopy shirt over a dress that's over a long sleeve t-shirt. It was her own creation. Eric and Rene gave her the shirt for Christmas and I'm pretty sure she wore it for two days and slept in it the night in between.

After more patience than Lily could muster she finished one side of a pillow. I could tell that she was disappointed that sewing was not something that could be learned in 20 minutes. The next day she sat down with Nana again and they finished it. Two of her dolls are now sharing the pillow in a baby bed.

Later Grandpa got out his riding lawn mower and trailer and gave the kids a ride. Apparently Brian received the same tractor ride when he was the kids age.

While it was a little loud for Jamie that did not stop him from trying to walk around the trailer while Grandpa was driving it. At one point I actually closed my eyes because I thought he was going to fall out and crack his head open. Grandpa turned around and gave him a talk that made an impact and he sat down the rest of the way.

Oklahoma Part 3 - Thankmas

Very similar to what we did last year we again celebrated Thankmas while in Oklahoma. Luckily our hotel had an empty breakfast room that we were able to use as a private living room. The only thing we were missing was a Christmas tree.

I only took pictures of the gifts that the kids received - but don't think this was one sided! We all had previously been assigned another relative to buy a gift for. Happily, Eric had me so I received a Louisiana cookbook (looking forward to the Turtle Soup...if only I could find Turtle meat).

I did get one shot of a gift that Aunt Rene got, I'm sure she's perfectly fine with me posting it.

Eric and Rene also gave Jamison Superman shirts. Obviously, Jamie was thrilled that his muscles returned after mysteriously disappearing November 1 when his Halloween costume went in the wash.

He was thrilled to get a puzzle that made noises - I love the look on his face and I'm so glad I caught it.

Here he is happy again for getting a Little People airplane. What's funny is that we already have this airplane, so you wouldn't think there would be much excitement for getting a gift you already have. But he was and ever since we've had two there has been ZERO arguing between them over who gets the airplane.

And then there was Lily. Lily is a serious kid as it is but she took it to another level for Thankmas. You would think that her huge imagination would make her a little more lighthearted but that's a big no. So her happiness after receiving each gift was buried deep (way deep. as in, almost absent) in her heart. It gets to the point of being rude and I'm hoping that it's a phase that she snaps out of.

Uh oh. You're almost smiling Lily. Keep. It. Inside. Do not show your love of your new stroller that you've been begging me for.

Oh good, you have it under control. Absolutely no emotion is showing. What a lovely Christmas!

That's right! Show your complete apathy in your eyes as well as your facial expression! Way to bring it all together.

Wait a minute. What is this? I think I saw this at the end of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. A SMILE! A cheek-bursting smile! Later that week she proceeded to practically finish all that glitter glue on one project. Grandma's dining room table was almost sacrificed in the name of Lily's art but luckily it was saved.

Karan and Jim gave Lily a beautiful locket that she loved. Sometimes she doesn't doesn't show her excitement over something because she is completely overwhelmed by the situation. Most of the time I can discern if she is being rude or if she is just overwhelmed and when she received the locket, she was just overwhelmed.

True happiness!

Oklahoma Part 2 - Grandma!

Part of the reason we all flocked down to Okmulgee was to celebrate Grandma's 80th birthday. Her birthday was actually earlier in November but it was easier for all 34 of us to get together the week of Thanksgiving.

While their house would certainly fit us all it was decided that we would have more room in the fellowship hall of their church building. Plus, it had a kitchen so that would help make the Thanksgiving meal easier to prepare.

Thanksgiving morning we all gathered together and celebrated Grandma's 80 years. Since she has four children each of them took 20 years and talked about the world at that time and Grandma's life. Family stories are so important and let me tell you - the Reeves have plenty! I am very thankful to be married into a family like this.

Grandpa gave Grandma a little tiara to wear during the celebration. Lily wished she had brought one of hers.
There were two pictures that were shown during her first 20 years. I missed taking a picture of three year old Aline wearing a replica of a dress that Grandma wore when she wasn't much older than that. I was either making sure that Jamison was busy watching a Diego dvd or that Lily was sharing with the other great-grandchildren (she was).

Here is Audra wearing the replica dress. (I know, I'm not a photographer. I used the wrong setting of some sort and the picture does not do the dress justice.)

Here is the picture that they based the dress on. Those are chickens behind her in the picture. A lot of chickens. I missed the reason as to why there was a herd (gaggle? colony? pack?) of chickens around.

Grandma relaxed and basked in the attention.

My mother in law, Karan, made this pillow that has everyone's name on it. All the children are in yellow, the grandchildren in blue, spouses in green and purple, and great-grandchildren in red.

Brian's Aunt Linda made the cakes. Among many things, Grandma is an expert quilter. She made quilts for each grandchild when they graduated from high school. Four of the quilts were screened onto cakes.

The cake in the middle was a pin cushion cake. Adorable!

All the great-children helped Grandma blow out the candles. In the foreground you can see all the red roses. Each of us gave her a rose when we either came into the family or was born into the family. Due to my reluctant children I got to give three roses to Grandma.

Here are all the grandchildren minus Philip who had to work Black Friday and lived too far away to get to Oklahoma and back in time.

And here is where I would have put the picture of all 34 of us if Brian hadn't left the cd in the office. Of course, if I had asked him to bring it home that would have worked too.

Oklahoma Part 1

We're back! It has taken me forever to recover from being out of town for so many days and the unpacking and re-organizing of everything. On top of that, I was now behind on setting up the house for Christmas. So blogging took the backseat to all of that. I'm sure you all were suffering.

Our flight down to Tulsa was happily uneventful. We arrived early and got to Grandma and Grandpa's house earlier than we thought. We made up for that on the return flight.

The day after we arrived Lily and Auntie Demeree decided to make Thanksgiving cookies. Demeree was not prepared for Lily's love of frosting and attention to detail while decorating. This was very intense.

If any of you have met my sister in law (and friend!) Demeree you know she is beautiful inside and out. And I have so many fantastic pictures of her. As I was going through all the shots I took while in Oklahoma (over 200) I found two that showed a different side of Demeree.

This one cracks me up. She is giving the snake eye to something and I suspect it was that blue cup sitting on the table. Either that or someone else out-decorated her in a cookie decorating competition. You'll get them next time Dem!

While Jamison is the focus of this picture I noticed Demeree snorting at something in the background. She is so lovely.

And back to the cookies. Lily and Demeree did a great job and I'm thankful for Demeree keeping Lily busy for an hour! Their festive cookies were gone by the end of the day. But then again, there were almost 30 people in the house looking for sustenance.

More Oklahoma pics coming up!

Letter

Those of you who are up on news might be aware that there is a certain holiday coming up. I know, it's not very popular so it's possible you don't know about it. We call it Christmas. Ever hear of it?

Lily's been slightly obsessive about Santa. She needs him to understand, in no uncertain terms, exactly what she wants. So much so that I've had to answer multiple questions on the reliability of Santa's helper in the mall and my own reliability to remember each item specifically.

On Wednesday morning I mentioned in response to one of her cross examinations that some children write letters to Santa so that he sees everything in written form and no mistakes can be made with the top-notch quality control at the North Pole. She was amazed and stunned that this was a possibility. Her eyes took on an odd light which I realized was relief that finally, this whole asking Santa for gifts problem would be solved.

So she took the her pictures from the bigillion toy magazines that have bombarded our mail box and circled all the key items. Brian was enlisted to write the letter which, oddly, was incredibly brief. She then stuffed the items in an envelope and (following the pattern I gave her) addressed the letter.


It is one of my most favorite things in the world to watch her work on something with all her effort. And this was serious effort, no joking around allowed. The amount of concentration that she exhibits when she really cares about a project is captivating to me.

So now I've just had to answer questions on if Santa received her letter and if he is working on fulfilling her requests. I told her that Santa doesn't like to be questioned and can hear every word so she better not speak about it again unless it's to the helper in the mall. Hopefully that will quiet her up.

Blankenbush

A few weeks ago Kristen flew up from Tennessee and she, mom, Lily, and I drove to Rochester for my cousin Denine's baby shower.

I love the place where we had her shower. It was the same place that we had her wedding shower a little over 2 years ago. It's a former mill called The Rabbit Room Restaurant in Honeoye Falls. (pronounced Honey-eye in case you ever need to say it out loud)

Introductions from top to bottom:
Lynn & Denine
Me & Kristen
Jessica & Jill

Lynn lived with our family when I was in high school while she went to pharmacy school. Someone in our family had to be a legal pharmacist to make up for the others who just think they know what you should be prescribed.This is Denine's daughter Myria. She was the lovely hostess of the shower for her mom. Myria will be 19 when the baby is born making her closer in age to Denine than to the baby. Bet that doesn't happen very often.

You know these two.

And this is my mom and my aunt Sheila (Lynn's mom). My mom is in the middle of a very important discussion on WHY IN THE WORLD WON'T DENINE FIND OUT IF SHE IS HAVING A BOY OR A GIRL?!?! This is driving me crazy and Denine is all - it's the best thing in the world not to know. She honestly feels that way. I honestly feel like she needs to have her obgyn give us the sex in a sealed envelope and we will keep it a secret. (as if any of us would be able to not let on in any way. please.)

And there's Aunt Linda (standing) who is my moms sister, Denine's mom, and Myria's Nana. Aunt Linda is what people call "a character". Some others might call her crazy but that's just semantics. She is definitely one-of-a-kind. I could post multiple entries on things that Linda has said or done that you would think I'm making up. She was under control the day of the shower so things were pretty calm. I do suggest this - if you are having a party or small get-together, invite my Aunt Linda. She will keep the conversation flowing for hours. I love you Aunt Linda!

I love the room!! Stone walls, huge wooden beams, glossy, wide wooden planks on the floor.

Whenever we are in Rochester we stop at my grandparents graves. My Nanny passed away when I was 17 and Pop Pops passed away just about 5 years ago. The cemetery they are buried in is um...special. Most of the newer graves are very well taken care of by their loved ones. There is plenty of LED lights, little statues, birdhouses, and random holiday flags. Or just flags of a cat.

Obviously my mother is not happy with something about the graves. Maybe the lack of tackiness that the other graves have?

Mom decided it was time to show Lily where her great-grandparents are buried. We've explained a few times that mom's parents are not alive and Lily gets it. Side note - my sister LOVES the cheesy french fries with extra cheese from Sonic. This picture captures that love in a way that only she, my mom, and I would understand.

I thought this was such a sweet picture. But later mom said that Lily wasn't very impressed by the graves. Of course, we don't make them pretty with gnomes or scarecrows so I can understand.

Autumn

Now that fall is almost over I thought I should get around to posting about it. Brian kindly got on the roof to clear off some stubborn leaves and debris. I had to stop taking pictures at this point because a certain two year old boy decided to climb the ladder.

Lily and Jamison wanted to help Brian with the leaves but only until they were bored. So they helped for a good 2 minutes and 12 seconds. And when they did "help" it was to create piles of leaves for themselves to jump into. Lily decided to rake leaves on the driveway because it was easier than raking the lawn. If only there were leaves on the driveway originally to rake. She solved that problem by just raking them off the grass and onto the driveway. So helpful. Now Brian got to move them back to the lawn to suck up with the lawnmower.

I caught this football action one Saturday. Unfortunately, I was inside so the pictures didn't come out so great. Jamie is very good at saying "Cowboys" so Brian has him going down the right path.

It's not about technique at this point, apparently.

But it is all about the effort.