Category Archives: Grandchildren

1st of Spring Favorites

The first of my early Spring favorites is our granddaughter Addy who turned 2 years old on the first day of Spring. We enjoyed a meal out this week with her and the people who love her most in Colville and Kettle Falls. Her birthday bash is on Sunday after the one’s who love her most and live on the other side of the Cascades fly in to celebrate.

Extra space that I’m enjoying with our new counter depth refrigerator is another favorite this week.

On Wednesday after working outside for several hours with Dear, breaking up ice, I came inside to wash some dishes . I heard Dear doing something on the deck and then he came inside and said, “would you like to join me on the terrace for drinks?”. He had brought a couple lawn chairs and side table out of winter hibernation and set them on the deck. It was so nice and refreshing to be in the fresh air enjoying our view. You can see the snow covered landscape in the reflection off the slider.

When we drove into Spokane last Friday we stopped at Sonnenberg’s Market and Deli, “the oldest meat market in town, since 1891”. We picked up some deli items, some house made sausages and one porterhouse steak. Dear and I cooked and split that steak on the first day of Spring and oh my goodness it was the best hunk of meat we’ve enjoyed in a long time. We used a new to us cooking method for it, too, which we’ll continue using when we are only making one steak for the two of us to enjoy. I lightly oiled the steak, seasoned it with Lawry’s Seasoning Salt and Pepper then put it in the oven at 220 degrees  with a meat thermometer probe in it until the meat reached 120 degrees. Took it out of the oven and out of the pan onto a plate and let it rest for 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes I put a little oil in the pan and heated it to smoking and seared the steak on each side and then we enjoyed it. Delicious, melt in your mouth meat!

Even though it hasn’t happened yet another favorite is the fact that we will be driving to the Spokane airport this evening to pick up 3 of our kids flying in for the weekend. It’s been a while since we’ve been able to see them face to face and we are looking forward to lots of time with them this weekend. We have two birthday parties and a baby shower this weekend. One party for a 60 year old and one party for our 2 year old granddaughter and a baby shower for our grandson who will arrive in April.

I am thankful to God for His kindness and generosity to us because of what Jesus Christ sacrificed for us.  I’ve already pulled out my Easter décor anticipating my favorite holiday of the year.

The son of a friend of ours made a drawing about Easter and she shared it on Facebook. It had a cross on a hill and these words written on the bottom of the drawing, “Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins. 😦 It was a sad three days without him.” then on the bottom right corner of this drawing it says, flip the page. On the other side of the paper he drew the stone rolled away from the tomb and wrote these words,  “It’s the greatest day in history… Death has been beaten and Jesus rose from the grave.”

Out of the mouth of babes! Love this little one sharing the Good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ!

Linking up with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story for Friday’s Fave Five.

Spring is Coming!

Spring here in Colville starts out as the season of mud from all the snow melting. Hopefully rain showers won’t compound the season of mud.

This is an exciting week with the start of Spring coinciding with our granddaughter’s 2nd birthday. Our little BBB (Baby Boy Bayles) is growing as he should and mommy is healthy. We never take this for granted and we are thankful.

We have a new fun game at our house that Dear and Addy enjoyed while we watched her one evening last week. It’s a mini kind of handball using small bouncy balls in the hall. It caused such joy and belly laughs!

On Saturday evening we enjoyed a meal with Addy and her parents of Corned Beef and Cabbage with Lemon Meringue Pie for dessert. More handball in the hall and the traditional things Addy enjoys when she visits Baba and Gramps were on the agenda, too. We are taking in and enjoying these days with young grandchildren.

We are looking forward to this week and next weekend in particular as all our kids will be here for 2 birthday celebrations and a baby shower for our soon to arrive grandson. Trips to the airport and nonstop fun are on the schedule. I’ll have to get my visiting to your blogs early in the week before all my attention is taken up with the face to face interactions I’ve been missing with our “Coast Kids”.

Joining Angie at Letting Go of the Bay Leaf for Mosaic Monday.

Cinderella

Our little Cinderella saw two of my aprons in the pantry and wanted me to put them on her. Then she found an old pot holder, 44+ years old,  and decided it was a cleaning rag. She wanted me to wet it and after a scrub here and there I had to lift her up to the sink to wet it again. Kept her busy for a while.

Oh how I love my little helper! And it’s great that you can’t see the mess on all my counters since I was focusing on her, below the counter line. 🙂

Four Wheeling…

On Monday Dear and I spent the day with Addy while her mommy and daddy did some shopping in Spokane. Addy loves to be outside so she convinced me to dawn my winter gear and put hers on so we could have a little drive down the driveway. This Little Tykes car worked well on the compacted snow and ice. We had fun and her mommy and daddy were able to shop unencumbered with car seats or strollers. I will admit that this Baba was pretty tired by the time we came home from nonstop play!

We had a little more snow fall on Tuesday afternoon and evening.

White Wednesday

We got these photos from our dear DIL from Addy’s fun in the snow. I love how her tongue plays a part in her concentration. She loves being outside in any weather. On Tuesday we got piled with snow. It started snowing in the morning and didn’t let up until 4pm. We will have a white covering for a while yet. Our kids in the Seattle area measured 16-17 inches of snow! That is quite the event for Western Washington. Some establishments ended up closing early to let their employees head home. School buses ran normally on our road. February snow isn’t the norm around here and we’ve had light snow until now.

New Toys…

We wrapped Addy’s gift with a plastic table cloth. She noticed something different in the family room.

Baba and Gramps bought Addy a pony and Laura captured Addy’s curiosity about what was under the wrapping.

Uncle Josh and Auntie Laura bought Addy a mini trampoline.

Mommy and Daddy bought Addy a four wheeler and a helmet! It is good to learn country skills early.

On Wednesday the 2nd of January I worked on packing up Christmas and re-organizing our storage area. Things look so bare now. I wonder if Addy will notice all the bling put away? We are being warned of some new winter weather coming in the wee hours tomorrow morning. I’ve been patting myself on the back for getting out there and driving on the winter roads here. Hope 2019 is starting out well for you!

Six Days Till Christmas!!

Stay calm and listen to Christmas music. Our new 6 CD changer arrived yesterday and we are happy to have our favorite Christmas music playing again. It’s not fun to have your trusty cd changer stop functioning at Christmas. We realize that Cd changers might not be around for long so replacing ours while only two models are available on Amazon was a good move for us. How about you? Do you still use a cd changer or have you moved on to some other source for music?

Half Way

Our little grandson has about 20 more weeks before we see him face to face. Our kids posted this photo last night on Facebook and I had to preserve it here on my blog.

Looking forward to this little girls reaction to a new baby in the house. She’s into the goofy smiles when she knows the camera is going to click.

Wanted to post the beautiful bouquet all our kids joined in sending us with a special greeting for our anniversary on December 6th.

It was a sweet surprise that we don’t take for granted.

Hopefully we’ll cut our tree down soon so I can decorate it. We’re getting closer and closer to the painting that we want done by Christmas to be behind us. We’ve decided we need to add some new Christmas music to our stash this year so we’ve added The Piano Guys, Lauren Daigle and the Three Tenors. One of our favorites is still Twila Paris, It’s the Thought. We also have to have the Messiah so we can hear the Hallelujah Chorus ring through the house. What are some of your favorites?