Family Fridays

Now that I am back from vacation I hope I can blog a little more. I'm joining Family Friday today. This is a great meme, but I've been so busy lately I haven't had a chance to join in much.

My post today is about my grandma. The is her (and me when I was little).



She was a great cook. I loved going to her house to bake with her every Saturday. (That's what I'm doing in the picture.) She lived next door so I was over there a lot! One of the special memories I have of her was drinking Strawberry ice cream sodas. She always bought the Barq's strawberry soda in the glass bottles with the long necks. She'd make us ice cream sodas in her glass glasses. (at home I always drank out of a plastic cup so this really made me feel special!)

She passed away a few weeks after Chris and I were married. She had cancer and they had given her only a couple of months. I called her when I found out. While talking to her she told me she was ready to go, that she had had a great life, and she was happy she got to drink all those strawberry sodas with her grandkids! That has always stuck with me and I don't see a strawberry soda without thinking of her! On our vacation last week we ate at a little Route 66 diner in Williams, AZ and guess what was on their menu...that's right...Strawberry ice cream sodas! Of course I had one!




While I was drinking it I thought, "This one's for you, Grandma!"

Family Fridays is Hosted by Amy at Keeping up with the Schultz Family and Lori@ The Peterson Family. (I know my links aren't coming through. Sorry, I don't know how to fix it.)

Postcard Friendship Friday #49

We just got back from a wonderful vacation in Arizona. And I bought lots of postcards on our trip!! Here are 2 of them. I'll be posting more in the weeks to come for PFF. It was really a beautiful state!







Postcard Friendship Friday is hosted today by The Best Hearts Are Crunchy

Postcard Friendship Friday #48

We will be celebrating our 14th wedding anniversary on Monday so I thought I'd post a postcard of the church we were married in. Its the Corpus Christi Cathedral. It a very beautiful church!





Here's a snapshot of the altar...



I have a new printer/scanner so sorry about the pictures...I'm still learning how to use it.


Postcard Friendship Friday is hosted today by The Best Hearts Are Crunchy

Wordful Wednesday

Today I'm showcasing one of Claire's pictures.
She got a camera for Christmas and she LOVES it! She takes it everywhere. At first her pictures were really bad, but she is getting better. Here is one that she took on our last visit to the zoo. Pretty good for a 7 yr. old, I think. It was taken through glass so there is a little bit of a blur on it, but I love that she got the picture in mid-yawn!



Here it is after I cropped it...



To join in on wordful wednesday visit www.sevenclowncircus.com

Cash Back

Have you ever tried ebates? I use it every time I need to order something online. The way it works is you go to their website and type in the store you want to shop at. If it is a participating store all the offers for it will show up. Sometimes there are coupon codes or special % off by going through that link. When you go through the ebates link it also opens you ebates order. There's nothing else you need to do. You just order from that store and you will recieve a percentage back (the % varies from store to store) into your ebates account. Ebates sends out checks quarterly, I believe. So far, I've earned $41.44. Most of that was just the cash back from Christmas shopping.

If you use the link below I will automatically get credit for referring you. If I refer 50 people they will give me an ipad! So, feel free to share this link with anyone you would like! :)

http://www.ebates.com/rf.do?referrerid=UgMSeNd149GBv4ykS0JGVw%3D%3D

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there! I'm having a great day. Went to church and lunch and spent the afternoon relaxing. :)

My kids also got me a snuggie! I've been wanting one. I even just made that comment last night when I wanted to lie on the couch and use the laptop. Claire made me 2 cards and she even made me a card from the cat..complete with paw prints in ink! She said "the first one was simba's, but she didn't like it very much so made the other ones with my fingers!"

Here is the card from Simba. Sorry it's sideways, I'm working on the laptop and I don't know how to use this photo program!



This is the inside.

It says, "I Loove ue Im gad that I hav ue Hppy Muths day Luv Simba"
Translation: "I love you. I'm glad that I have you. Happy Mother's Day. Love Simba." Look, she spelled Simba right!



This is the one she made me in art class. It says, "I love uw I cudint be with awt uw claire"
Translation: "I love you. I couldn't be without you. Claire"



I just love the sentiments in her cards! It's things like that that really make me feel blessed to me a mom. The other card she made me said, "Hppy muths day i luve ue much and i hope ue love me too Luve Claire."
Can you make that one out from seeing the previous ones? :) I'm actually really proud of her. She would have never even tried to write that much last year at this time. As you can see her spelling still needs work, but her reading is really coming along.

And not to leave out Nathan, he got me a really cute musical card that plays the charlie brown cartoon music. He's much more the buy a card, sign his name kind of kid! Not like Claire who makes 3 cards and writes a book in each one!



And...
In honor of Mother's day here is one of my favorite poems:

"The Reading Mother"



I had a Mother who read to me

Sagas of pirates who scoured the sea,

Cutlasses clenched in their yellow teeth,

"Blackbirds" stowed in the hold beneath.



I had a Mother who read me lays

Of ancient and gallant and golden days;

Stories of Marmion and Ivanhoe,

Which every boy has a right to know.



I had a Mother who read me tales

Of Gelert the hound of the hills of Wales,

True to his trust till his tragic death,

Faithfulness blent with his final breath.



I had a Mother who read me the things

That wholesome life to the boy heart brings--

Stories that stir with an upward touch,

Oh, that each mother of boys were such!



You may have tangible wealth untold;

Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.

Richer than I you can never be--

I had a Mother who read to me.



-Strickland Gillilan


How did you spend your Mother's Day??

Wordful Wednesday

Wow, its been a long time since I posted on my blog. Let's see, what have I been doing?

Well, we finished school last week. The last thing we did was a lesson on the Native Americans in the Arizona region since we will be visiting there in a few weeks. The kids made dioramas.

Nathan made a pueblo...



Claire made a Navajo hogan...



Then, on the official last day of school, I spent the afternoon at the spa! That was compliments of my wonderful husband. It was actually his Christmas gift to me, but I waited until now to use it. It was a very relaxing day. He even took off of work to stay with the kids and run them to doctor's appointments, physical therapy and gymnastics. Ahh, if only every day could be like that!

Claire also had her end of the year girl scout party at Putt Putt. Very fun!



And she had her state gymnastics meet. She did really well. 2 red ribbons, 2 blue-- and she landed the cartwheel on the beam again. :)




And yesterday was the kids' last art classes and PE field day. Here's Claire enjoying a cupcake at the end of the field day...



So much for having free time now that school is out!

If you'd like to join Wordful Wednesday visit sevenclowncircus.com

Happy Wednesday!