Remembering our Grandson, Natnael

Tomorrow we celebrate the short life of our grandson, Natnael. We know he is running free in heaven reunited with so many that went before him. Tomorrow we will cry some, laugh some, and enjoy the company of friends and family as we come together to remember this sweet, sweet boy.

The photo shows Natnael's gravesite in Ethiopia. The wonderful people on the picture are friends of Courtney and Paul's. They live in Ethiopia and are happy to visit Natnael's resting place. Such comfort in such a small act of kindness. Someday, I really pray that I will be able to visit this special place, too, but even if I never get to Ethiopia, I will see Natnael again in heaven.

See you soon, Little Natnael.

Stone Soup

First of all, I want you to notice my cute apron which was a birthday gift from Carlee, the little girl the left. I felt I needed to wear it today while we were making our stone soup. We made stone soup to conclude our unit on the Five Senses.

After reading the story, we acted it out. The children were all the mean towns people who wouldn't share their food with me. Finally, I tricked them into sharing. Everyone brought some veggies and took turns adding them to the soup pot.

And yes, there really is a stone in the soup. That is what makes it so tasty. The kids were all worried about who would get that stone in their bowl of soup.

Here is my afternoon class making their soup.

It was really yummy. We used lots of spices, the big stone, carrots, corn, onions, celery, broccoli, garlic, and spinach with a few chicken boullion cubes thrown in. Most of the children ate the whole bowl, while a few of them refused to even touch it. It was either feast or famine with them.

One of my comments on FB when I posted the pictures was, "Boy, they teach them to make "whop-a-toolie" early these days. I laughed at that one, because I enjoyed some great whop-a-toolie in college, but that is a whole 'nother post!

Is this really mid March?

First of all, I apologize for the quality of this photo, but I wanted to document that I was actually wearing capris on March 14. This has to be some kind of a record for me. I didn't even care about my pasty white legs today. When my weatherman, Charlie Shortino said it was going to be in the high seventies today, I just had to wear the capris. The only problem is that once I put them on, I find it hard to get back into long pants. Same thing happens to me with flip flops.
This weather is so beautiful, but we know it cannot be the start of spring or can it? We can only hope.

Who knew?

Today's photo is of the great new app I found on my smartphone. It is called Endomond and it tracks our route when we walk, then tell us how many miles we walked, calories we burned, and miles per hour. No need for my antiquated pedometer with this app.
We used it for the first time last night and it was awesome to watch those tenths of miles add up. We walked 3 miles last night in 45 minutes.

It also shows you the route that your travelled. Looking forward to using it on all or our walks.

We can also use it with our bikes so now I don't need the speedometer anymore either!

Who knew that a phone could do so many things?

Today my photo is a pleasant step into the past. Here are my sweet little girls having lunch at their little table in our townhouse on Bayberry Dr. In ways, it seems like only yesterday and when I tell people that in the blink of an eye these days will be gone and your babies will be all grown up, I really mean it.
Some days may seem never ending when you have little ones, but believe me, they years just zoom by.
Alissa was just shy of two here and Courtney was almost four. Such a fun age. Just look at that head of hair on Alissa. She had such a headful of hair.
This coming weekend I will be with both my daughters up in Oshkosh. I still love spending time with them. We always have fun.

Big and Little, care to venture a guess

We went shopping this past weekend and came home with a few cute dresses and skirts. We bought two of each, one in a size 5 and one in a size 12 months.

These are such cute Hello Kitty skirts.

Does anyone have a guess as to why we would buy two of each of these little outfits? Stay tuned to find out why.

Just a reminder that I am taking part in the 365 photo project so I am posting a picture each day. If you don't visit very often you may want to read the older posts.

March 11 and the windows are open!

Today is a beautiful spring day. The temps are in the high 60's. It is warm enough to go in short sleeves and shorts. The park is full of families enjoying this gorgeous day. John and I took our nice long 4 mile walk and the windows and doors are open.

I needed to document how early the warm weather returned this year. It has been a very unusual winter indeed and I realize there may still be some winter in our future, but for today, spring has arrived!