Tea Party with Granddaughters & Valentine's Day - originally posted 2/14/09

This coming Thursday the local Family Children's Theater group is putting on Beauty & the Beast. Today they hosted a Tea Party with Belle. Was supposed to be A's special time with Grandma by herself, so originally I had asked if she wanted to go - but then, being as how it was a one time event, I checked about taking C as well - A is staying longer & I originally was to have (4) 26 mile round trips to pick up & drop off the girls this weekend. I decided to see about cutting out at least 1 of those trips, by letting A stay until some time tomorrow (Sunday) and brought C with us last night. Then was saved 1 trip today when I got a text that they (parents) were on their way to town if I wanted to meet them & save myself the trip. So we did.

I was a bit disappointed, but not totally surprised, considering that D is a single mom of 3, that the girls neither one really had a nice dress to wear - much less a fancy dress. So first thing we did today before heading out to the tea, was to go to Wal-Mart and buy them each a nice spring dress to wear! We had also set their hair on hot rollers & took them out before going into Wal-Mart, so their hair was curly. A had told me she wanted her's to be ringlet curls rather than whatever way it was her mom had done last time - which we did.

At the party, we had a choice of hot tea or apple juice - both girls chose apple juice while I had tea. We also had cookies. Ten dollars each for the girls, and $5 for me, but they got a rose that has a fiber optic light in it to use during the performance later this week and it seems they will also get a free picture with Belle. They spent the 2 hours+ being called Princesses!

My original plan was to take them to the Friday or Saturday evening performance, but it seems their paternal Grandfather & his 2nd wife want to pick them up for the weekend. Their original plan was to get them Thursday since the kids don't have school on Friday, but D has said that considering all the times we have had to change plans at the drop of a hat because they cancelled or something, it won't hurt them to delay their getting the kids by a few hours so that the girls can now also go to the performance! So we are going to the Thursday evening performance.

Sure never had anything like this when I was a child!

We out to one of my favorite restaurants this afternoon. Right after dropping C off with D, A & I went to Carlos O'Kelly's to meet D. When one of the grandkids are with us for their special time, they get to chose where we eat at least once & our activity. A wanted to go somewhere where she could go in & sit down to eat rather than drive-thru. But with it being Valentine's Day, I was sure that if we waited too long, we would have a huge waiting time - sure enough - the lines were forming really well by the time we finished - so we timed it just right!

Tomorrow is D's 58th birthday - not really planning to do anything special. Did get him a couple of gift cards today for the 2 days. Got them to Hasting's where he likes to buy books, rent movies, etc. With him having the 2nd cataract surgery Monday, he is to be off work for another 2 weeks and after about 2 days, he should be able to drive during the daytime & it will give him something to do with himself. Probably will also try to get him to go to class with E again - in fact, it seems, E is looking forward to that idea!

Well, I don't know how interesting this is, but I am going to quit here and get back to watching the movie with A and doing some more knitting! Hope everyone is having a wonderful day!

Original comments:

2 comments:

1. 
   Mamma has spokenFebruary 15, 2009 8:19 AM

   Sounds like a fun day with the grandkids!!! I've gone to our local children's theater on school field trips. They are fun:D

   
   
2. 
   Cindy/KSFebruary 15, 2009 3:45 PM

   The girls did start to get bored towards the end of the 2 hours, but I really think if they would have gotten up & mingled with the actors, they would have been happier.
   
   I still need to get the pictures on the computer, so that I can add one here.

Monday or the day after Father's Day

It's Monday!  Not sure if this is my least favorite or my most favorite day of the week!  I have always hated having to get up & go to work on a Monday morning since I started back to working in 2002.  But on the other hand, if I don't have anywhere I have to go, then it is my first day of quiet after a weekend of activites!  Which kind of makes it my favorite day.  I can kind of ease into the week that way!

Today it is a nice breezy morning!  Weatherbug is telling me it is about 76 degrees F right now, I am sitting in front of a south facing window with a cool breeze coming in!  It sure beats the 90+ degrees that it got to yesterday & every now & then I get the impression of a droplet of water hitting my skin, so maybe we will get some more rain!  I would love a nice slow rain.  Not the fierce rain we got Saturday morning about 5 am, but one that just drizzles so that it really has time to soak into the oh so very, very dry soil around here!

Yesterday was Father's Day here in the US.  Both of my fathers are deceased, but my dh's father is still living.  He just turned 84 last month.  So we both talked to him on the phone.  I did send a card from us, but it is late since I didn't get to the store & get it in the mail until Saturday & he lives in southern FL.  Dad has hearing loss, so it is a bit difficult to talk on the phone at times, especially for things like giving him an email address for photos to be emailed to.  So I got off the phone & sent him an email explaining it that way better.  We have 2 email addresses that are interconnected through our ISP - 1 is a yahoo.com address that we have had for years & the other is a sbcglobal.net address that came about when we got DSL.  They are connected & at least when we first set up with DSL they said that the 2nd address would disappear about 30 days or so after we discontinued the service.  Which I may do eventually.  But in the meantime, I usually give out the yahoo.com address since it will definitely stay around.  And it is a combination of our names & our zip code, so easy enough usually to explain to someone & I feel easier for them to remember because of that.  But with someone with a hearing problem, the numbers don't always come across easily over a phone.  And I don't think I had ever explained how sending something to 1 of the email addresses meant that it automatically was being sent to the other as well, unless we do give up the DSL.  But recently, I noticed that it seems AT & T are saying that we can keep the other email anyway for free, even if we do give up the DSL.  But we did get the pictures from their recent trip to Chicago.  We do still need to get pictures from their trip to KS last month.  And I need to send them the few I had on my camera, which I haven't done yet.

Anyway, yesterday morning, I think before 8 am, my dh was out mowing our yard - on Father's Day even!  So even though I usually am not a morning person & not a breakfast person - as long as I never eat anything, I usually don't even think of food until late afternoon, which is a good thing, I think, since once I think of it, I want to nibble the rest of the day!  That wasn't an issue when I was younger, but since I had my kids, it has been an issue!  Anyway, my dh is a morning person & is a breakfast person, so I decided that since I had some bacon in the freezer, eggs in the fridge, etc., I would be nice to him for Father's Day & make him a good breakfast.  I made up bacon, eggs & biscuits from scratch.  I even cooked the eggs over-easy like he likes them!  Then he went back outside & mowed some more!  Later in the day, our oldest granddaughter A. called to see if we would want to come over for a BBQ supper that they were organizing.  Which we did!  D. & I stopped to pick up some chips to take for our contribution, while our daughter & the grandkids pulled together hamburgers, hot dogs, mac & cheese, beans & salad as well as taking my idea last month of homemade ice cream sandwiches a bit farther & making individual ones instead of bars to be cut later.

D. was tired after all the mowing, so didn't want to stay long, so we came back home a couple hours or so later & while watching TV, I decided to finally finish a macrame plant hanger that I had made a few months ago & was using, but which hadn't turned out quite right.  When I had changed from 1 place of knots to another making the portion for the pot to sit in, I had worked the knots too close together, so it wouldn't fit down into it.  So I had been using it since I needed it, but I had never cut off the strands at the bottom to totally finish it.  I finished it about midnight last night.

Last Friday was the day that I took the 2 newest granddaughters (their dad married our daughter nearly 2 years ago) for an overnight visit.  I don't keep them for the entire weekend like I do with the other 3 grandchildren, because I don't want to take up their dad's time with them, but so that they can feel included, I do take them for an overnight.  I am considering splitting them up though so that they can each spend 1 night with me.  I know it will mean that since I only do this every other weekend that it would be 10 weeks between each of the kids visiting & the other 3 kids are already feeling that they are losing time with me, it seems more fair to change it.  Yes, the 3 natural grandkids used to get to spend 1 night every 3 weeks with me - I took 1 at a time for 1 night every weekend, then when they moved farther away, I changed it to 2 nights every other weekend, so once every 6 weeks for 2 nights instead of 1 night every 3 weeks.  Then when we added in the other 2, it became every 8 weeks.  But I think the 2 other girls would love to have their own special time alone even if it's only 1 night & the other kids probably won't notice as much now that we have done it this way for a while.  Anyway, it was hot last Friday & I didn't feel like making pizza like we usually do on Friday night when I get the grandkids, so we went with homemade sub sandwiches & chips!  We also rented 2 movies from Redbox - Zookeeper & We Bought a Zoo.  The girls both loved them!  It may have been about the 3rd or 4th time I had seen these 2 movies though!  Then Saturday morning, our plan was to be up really early & have them back to dad for their ball practice, but I woke up to it raining really hard at about 5 am, so considering that & the fact that we had already had rain on Thursday as well, I knew there would be no practice.  So we took our time getting around & dropped them off about 10 am, I think.

So now, I am ready for a quiet Monday with the house to myself & the 2 dogs.  I will even be happy if all stays nice & quiet so that my male pom doesn't decide he needs to bark at everything!

Have fun & Happy Crafting until the next time!