Crazy Cookies with Livvie!

Apparently my grandchildren love to cook! Today was Olivia's turn- our project was making cut out cookies for St. Patrick's Day!

We started with just shamrock cookies, then added a couple leprechaun hats.
Then Livvie got creative and decided to use some leftover dough to make "Dessert Pizzas".
I got silly too and we made a giant alien cookie!

Olivia decided to make a special cookie for her daddy...........she frosted a cookie and put a "J" on it in rainbow sprinkles for Joe.

The kitchen is a disaster; the sink is full of dirty stuff, there is sticky frosting prints on everything, sprinkles and green sugar are EVERYWHERE.
We had a blast!
It's all about having fun and making memories!

March sleepover

I got a phone call yesterday from Olivia's mom telling me Livvie was sick again and wouldn't be coming to sleep overnight. Since it was Olivia's turn to pick what's for dinner (she'd picked pizza) and she wasn't coming, I quickly called Sammi to see if she would like to pick. She told me about a recipe in her kids' cookbook that she wanted to try - Zesty Fish Tacos! I wrote down the ingredients and went to Wegmans for the second time that day.

This was the weekend to set our clocks ahead one hour for Daylight Savings Time. In an effort to make sure the kids got enough sleep, we set our clocks ahead BEFORE they got here. It was a dark, dreary day anyway and they didn't notice.

Sammi and David were both in a musical mood and took turns playing the piano.
David also tried out a rhythm box that Uncle Joe had made in high school and Grandpa's maracas.

Dinner time came quickly! Sammi followed her recipe and pretended she was doing a cooking show. David and I were her assistants. David wasn't amused when I started talking like Julia Childs, lol although Sammi did talk about the joy of cooking! I was assigned to oven duty and chopping lettuce. David handed Sammi whatever she needed.
He quickly got bored and decided to color.
Sammi mixed up the special sauce (with a secret ingredient added), cut up the fish sticks and tomatoes, and assembled the tacos when everything was ready.



And I must say the fish stick tacos were delicious! Even Grandpa (who had wrinkled his nose when told we were forgoing pizza since Livvie wasn't coming) enjoyed them!

Ten Years

It's been 10 years since my mom died of lung cancer. Losing a parent changes your world forever. In 10 years alot has changed. Mom died right after the turn of the century! She never lived to see her greatgrandchildren although when I told her Jeff and Tara were expecting she said "Now I have something to look forward to!"

Mom spent two weeks in Hospice before her death. One of the stones in the memory walk at Hospice says "First you cry, then you go for ice cream." Exactly! Ice cream made everything feel better when we were growing up. Mom had ice cream almost every day of her life until she got sick.

Yesterday on the 10th anniversary of her death, a bunch of the family went to Friendly's for ice cream in her honor!




Mom DEFINITELY would have approved!

One-on-one with Olivia

Starting today, I will be picking Olivia up from school every Monday and keeping her until 6:00. It's been a long time since I've had "alone time" with Olivia. Usually the rest of the family is here or Aunt Megan (and I'm invisible) or Sammi and David (again making me invisible). But this afternoon I had her all to myself.

Olivia has to read for 30 min. every day. She read "Green Eggs and Ham" and a couple other books to me, making editorial comments along the way: "He sure doesn't take No for an answer. He just doesn't get it!" about "Green Eggs and Ham". She loves reading and read for 40 min. She is a very good reader!

As I made dinner, she got out the crayons, did some dot-to-dot and then made me a Holiday Ghost for the frig. She tried to include ALL the holidays on this ghost: a heart for Valentines' Day, shamrock for St. Pat's, egg for Easter, cross for Christmas, pumpkin for Halloween, and fireworks for the 4th of July. Time went way too fast...........

Dinner conversation was interesting and varied. Looking at "The Last Supper" painting she asked "How come all the guys at the table are happy except that one guy?" John explained to her about Judas, who he was and what he did. Livvie thought about that and said "Then why did Jesus even invite him?"

Livvie asked what "courageous" meant. John told her it means brave. She commented :"My Papa (her other grandpa) is courageous. He went to the hospital on Thursday or Friday to get that round thing put in for his medicine (guessing a medi-port) but he still helped me build a snowman."

She decided that most boys are goofy or loco. On the way out she said this about John "He's a kid in a grown up sized body." How true.....how very true!