Celebrating - Spring, Birthdays, Family

It was a day of celebrating with 4 generations of family. Our oldest son and his family came up from Seattle and joined our youngest son and his wife, my sister and my Dad for a great day. There were so many wonderful pictures taken that I've had a hard time choosing which ones to include. I'll start with this picture of Baby B. Everyone took their turn holding him and he delighted us all with his smiles.

We decorated a cake and cupcakes, celebrated Birthdays, read stories, played in the hot tub and shared a great meal together.

We celebrated the March birthdays with a special focus on our Grand princess,
Before dinner, we took a walk through the Cheam Wetlands - This regional park is just a few miles from our place and is great place to watch swans, geese and ducks and a wide variety of other birds. We were also on the lookout for signs of Spring on this the first day of the season. We are all pictures takers in this family and our two sons in particular, have SLR cameras and have an eye for what makes a great photo.It was fun to watch the different generations enjoy each other's company. My Dad loved being with his great grandchildren and we were so happy he spent the day with us.
The weather forecast had been for a cloudy day with possible showers but as you can see we basked in the sun and relative warmth and enjoyed every minute of it with gratitude. We missed our daughter and her family from Sask. but were grateful that those that could come did. What a great way to welcome Spring!

One More Birthday treat

Harv and I were invited to his brother's place last night for supper to celebrate my birthday. I just want to acknowledge how much I appreciate all the time and attention my SIL put into making the meal a special Birthday treat for me.

She is as addicted to trying out new recipes as I am and she put on a terrific Greek meal. She'd made Pork Souvlaki, Greek Potatoes, wonderful lemon flavoured rice and a colourful Greek Salad. There was a big pitcher of Sangria (I need to try making that!) and a gorgeous Pavlova for dessert.

To add to the treat of having supper made for me, she bought me a marvelous serving dish as a gift - isn't it striking? I will use this alot.

Thank you, thank you Irene; you are one special Sister-in-Law! You have a way of making me feel loved and valued. We are so blessed in having family who are also friends and are grateful to God for parents who taught by example how important the gift of family is.

We are really looking forward to sharing a place in Palm Springs with you as we vacation together at the end of the month. We will have a blast cooking and trying new recipes together!

Thanks again for a great evening!

Looking for Spring

I went out in the yard today looking for Spring.

Sky blue, sun bright, birds on the wing;

Tentative leaves their promise still furled,

Sedum's small cups, bright green, tightly curled.

Green shoots emerging from deadwood so grey

Bright Iris surprising, in full bloom today.

Peonies poking red spikes through the sod

All proclaiming with joy the greatness of God.

ABC Books

I've just finished a project I've been working on for quite a awhile and thought some of you might like to see what I've been doing.

Here is the first page of 2 "ABC" books.

I got the idea from a friend of mine and as I don't knit or sew, I thought this would be something special I could do for my grandkids. So I made a book for Grandboy E several years ago.

Of course that set a precedent and now I am committed to making one for each grandchild. Grandboys N and K have birthdays one month apart

- Feb. 29th and Apr. 1st.

Grandboy N got his this past weekend and the book for Grandboy K was just finished this past week. I'll put it in the mail very soon.

Here's the idea behind an ABC book. I collect pictures of the child in which a letter of the alphabet is featured. (Mom and Dad are asked to help with this.)

I print multiple pictures on one sheet using my Digital Image Suite program so I can make the pictures the size I want and then I cut, mat a few of the pictures and paste, adding stickers and small drawings featuring words using that letter.

Here are a couple of pages from N's book.

I put them all into a 7x7 inch Creative Memories album (unfortunately they don't carry this size any more) and cover each page with a page protector. Then on the last page I print up the ABC song.

It is a lot of work, but lots of fun too. Hopefully they will enjoy "reading" it now and later will find that it triggers happy memories of their childhood.