Reflections in the Rain, and More

Last week we had day after day of rain. I admit that it grew tiresome, but one day I decided to just look and enjoy it. I saw reflections in the wet sidewalk and that caused me to stop and reflect a bit. In the picture there is a rather sizable puddle in the front yard, not far from the street. When the children were little they loved that puddle. It would form every year when we had enough rain. They used to slosh around in it, but one year they had some unusual fun. Peter and Betsey found a big rock, put it out in the puddle and set a rubber lizard on top of it. This is a great area for people to walk in the evening, so we knew there would be some people walking by. We peeked from the window to watch. More than one person did a double-take as they walked by. It was just fun!!

And then there's the tree. "She" is a Norway maple that Peter planted as a cub scout project. I think he was ten at the time. I remember that we took some pictures of him scrunching down in the hole that he dug. That was fun too. We named the tree "Judy" after a girl who stayed with us for awhile. She once lived in Norway for awhile when her dad was stationed there, and this was a Norway maple, so the name seemed appropriate. Fun memories…

As I write this I am getting really excited because in a little over a week our children start arriving with their spouses and children. Our family was blessed to have three babies in 2008, so they all wanted to get those babies together. They will all be together from June 10-16, with one family arriving a week early, and another family staying a week later. SO we'll be busy from June 2-June 24.

The picture below adds to my reflections: Same tree, same front yard. I don't know what year this was, but Helena was the only one married. Here are Peter, Barbie, Betsey, Helena and her husband Doug. They were playing a snapping/clapping game called "The Minister's Cat." Seeing this brings back memories, and also makes me anticipate June even more. Since this picture was taken this group has added 6 people--2 spouses and 4 children. What a blessing!
Our oldest "granddaughter" is a funny little yellow dog named Angie, who had her 15th birthday on May 12. Betsey, her "mommy" helped her celebrate by giving her some canned dog food complete with a free-standing dog biscuit. Angie was SO excited that Betsey almost couldn't contain her for me to get the picture.

At last! Yum! Happy Birthday Angie.

We have some really funny cats at our house. They love to bring us presents, as all cats do, but they specialize in one particular item that most cats wouldn't bother with. Some years ago they started rooting around in my gardening materials and "catching" garden gloves. Usually we would find various gloves strewn about the front yard with the cats looking very nonchalant as if to say "Who me? I would never do that!" Well, the other day I heard Petercat just yowling outside our front window. It was a "Come Quick! See what I caught!" kind of yowl. I peeked out of the window and saw her with her catch of the day--one yellow garden glove. She seemed very proud of herself. (Yes, Peter is a female. Her mother gave birth to 4 kittens, which I named Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter, not realizing that they were all girls. We kept Peter because she had the nicest personality. Our son Peter enjoyed sharing the name with a beloved kitty. She is about 14 years old now.)In April, Jim and Kirsten took me to Nashville to attend a Healing Codes seminar called LT3. (What are The Healing Codes? Click here.) On the way there he took us to see the Grand Ole Opry Hotel and Convention Center

I had never seen anything like it, and we didn't even see it all. The hotel itself has over 2,800 rooms, 6 restaurants, ballrooms, and I don't know what all. Jim took us on a tour of some of the garden rooms. There are ponds, and fountains and waterfalls and lots and lots of plants. My friend Wendy said it's one of her favorite places to go. She said that one of the paths actually goes behind one of the waterfalls. One time she took a book and sat on a bench under the waterfall and read for awhile.

The place is so huge there is even a quarter-mile long river, complete with boat rides. We didn't take the time to do that, but I think it would be fun. The place is truly amazing.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Quite a few years ago our church (pictured in the background in the picture below) was remodeled. Modifications were made to the entryways which required the addition of some brick structures. I had a bright idea of collecting left-over or rejected bricks to use in some way in our landscaping. By the time the church project was finished, we ended up with quite a pile of bricks. Well, over the years they sat there, and sat there and sat… Finally we decided to pass them on to someone who could use them because we obviously weren't. I thought it would be most fun to give them to someone from the church.

The Dunn family in our ward (congregation) recently bought a house in the country, so we asked them if they would like the bricks. Last week, Eric and his 4-year-old son, Wayne, came to pick them up. Eric carried them to the truck…And Wayne stacked them and stacked them, and…stacked them. I had the impression that he was having a great time. I enjoyed just hanging out, watching them work, and visiting with Wayne. I decided that I needed to take some pictures and send them to the Dunns. I hope they save them for Wayne so he can remember the Great Brick Adventure that he had one fine spring morning with his dad. I'd like to show you what a treat I get to enjoy as I look out my window in the early morning. I dearly love this next picture. I quite enjoy textures, and I especially enjoy the effects created by dappled shade. Combining the two is fantastic in my book. Many years ago the neighbors behind us planted a row of evergreen trees which created a lovely screen at the back of our yard. The Colorado Blue Spruce, little bits of which show on the right, is actually up near the house but in the picture everything looks close together. The swing house and the other trees are actually in the "back 40." I think it makes a cool picture to do it this way. We get this effect as the sun creeps up over our house in the early morning and peeks through the maple trees to cast playful shadows on the greenery beyond. It's pure eye candy for me.The clematis have also been spectacular this year. Actually they've bloomed much more than is shown in the pictures here. The lower clematis has been COVERED with flowers as never before. In the picture it looks like the two groups of flowers are one on top of the other in the same place, but actually the top one is about 10 feet behind the bottom one in the yard. It's a fun illusion, and sure looks great from my window. Well, that's it for right now. My heart is full as I look out on all the beauties and bounties of nature, and as I anticipate all our children coming to visit. Good things are happening indeed.

And What Did I See…?

I looked out the window and what did I see?

The sun shining brightly on a little white tree.Spring had brought me such a nice surprise…
Blossoms popping right before my eyes!

The little white tree on the right in the picture above is a Royal Star Magnolia. We have several in the yard. They were spectacular this year, as always. The tree on the left, however, was a surprise. No, the tree didn't suddenly appear during the night, but the flowers did.

Spring in these parts of THE OHIO has been unusual. I LIKE it, don't get me wrong, it's just been a bit different. Our Cleveland Pear trees actually bloomed this year. Every other year the leaves and flowers came out at the same time, so the flowers didn't look like much. This year the trees were COVERED with blossoms for over a week. I'll take it, I'll take it! So pretty. The above picture was taken out my bedroom window. Royal Star Magnolia flowers are at the front, with Cleveland Pear blossoms in the background. Once those blossoms started to fall, the ground was covered with white petal snow. That too was different, and quite pretty.

WHAT ELSE AM I SEEING TODAY?

Well, the next shots are not exactly seen out my window, but that's OK.

Here are Helena and Kate and Andy on Easter Sunday. It would appear that they are reading a note from inside a plastic egg. How exciting!

And here's baby brother Andy at 14 weeks. I like looking at him too.

AND PRESENTING!!!! Drum roll please… ELIZABETH

Peter and Karen's little one is now 15 months old and just as cute as ever. She walks, she runs, she carries animal friends in an Easter basket!

The big news from their family is that Peter got a job working for Brandon Sanderson so they are in the process of moving to Utah. YAY! (Goodbye LA freeways.) They are packing up this week and will leave on Sunday night.

All ABOUT HAZEL
One day last week I received the following messages from Barb and Hazel:

I had to bring Hazel with me to work for a little bit, so I'm letting her type you an email.

Love, Barb

Dear Nana,

.kl;/ukgy gggggg mmmmmmmmvbggggggggggggbvvvvvvvvvvf fcvbjhngffvddcssssssssssssssssss \4410 010000000000000000000000000000000000021000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000bnn bv nb Love, Hazel

I wrote back: "I LOVE IT!"

And Hazel wrote back:

b jh ,bvbvv fmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm iunn gvvvvvvvvvvug vbh dddddddd,kmm,kjm

to which her mom provided the following translation:

"I'm glad! I can't wait to see you in June!"

Love, Hazel

How fun!--K

That was the first ever e-mail that I received from a 6-month-old. And speaking of Hazel: Here she is: Her mom tells me that she loves sweet potatoes. It looks like she also likes to wear them.

6 months old 19 lbs. 15 oz, 28.75 inches. Hazel has outgrown her infant car seat. With parents like hers she is destined to be a bit tall. Perhaps she will enjoy basketball or volleyball. It wouldn't surprise me at all.

Something I Really Did See Out My Window

Last Friday: I saw Mollie stalking a pair of mallard ducks in the middle of the street. The brave, intrepid hunter turned and slunk into the woods as soon as the ducks started walking towards her. :-) It was too funny!

The buds on our maple tree continue to grow and change. On March 21 I wrote about Bud Break. Today I added another picture showing the progression from buds to maple seeds. I think it's fun to see. Perhaps you would too. Click here or scroll down.

WE HAVE BUD BREAK

I see some interesting/fun things from my window. Last week I noticed that the buds on our silver maple trees had swelled quite a bit. They must have been really tasty because the squirrels were going out of their way to munch on them. I saw several furry acrobats creep precariously far out on tiny twigs to taste those tempting tidbits. YUM.Then this week the little maple tree flowers burst through the buds. Apparently the flowers don't taste good because the critters haven't been after them this week.

A month later I took the following picture. I just thought it would be fun to add it here to see how the "buds" have progressed. Now they are turning into those pesky maple tree helicopters.Speaking of squirrels. Something funny happened the other day. I was looking out the window towards the back yard. It was early morning so the sun was shining from the front of the house. A young squirrel was having the time of his life running up and down Tiny Tree. (Tiny Tree is a Colorado Blue Spruce which is planted too close to the silver maples. When we first moved into this house, in 1980, Tiny Tree was only about 14 inches tall. Helena could jump over him. Tiny is now about 20 feet tall, but he will always be "Tiny" to us.)

Suddenly in mid-run, the squirrel stopped and scooted over to the maple tree. He scampered up a good distance and just started scolding for all he was worth. He was looking my way, so I thought perhaps he didn't like me spying on him. Then I saw the real problem, for a shadow passed by! It was a shadow of one of the cats walking by on the roof! I suspect it was Mollie, although I could not see her. (Mollie was above me on the roof, and the sun was behind me, so the shadow was cast in front of me.) In a second or two the shadow went back the other direction, and then I heard a big THUMP on the roof in the same direction the shadow was going. Who knows what it was.

Every year when we have bud break, our deck gets covered with maple tree bud scales. Yes, it's a bit messy, but it's a sure sign that spring is on the way.

We also had some colorful crocus break through.

And speaking of budding--Here's Andy at 10 weeks. He's getting bigger, and cuter all the time! Hey 'lil buddy! what's up?

HAZEL TAKES A TURN

Hazel is growing up. She will be 5 months old in a few days.
The doctor said it's time for her to take a turn at eating cereal.

So far she hasn't liked it much.

AND--Speaking of taking a turn, she turned over for the first time earlier this week. She had been really close for awhile, and she finally made it! She looks like she is saying, "How did I get here?"

YAY Hazel!

A SPOT OF PURPLE, AND A LITTLE BRIDGE

Yesterday it was 74 degrees out and actually felt like 74. Yay for spring. Jim even took advantage of the nice weather and pruned the mimosa tree in the front yard, and the monster Mock Orange bush in our back yard. The Mock Orange was threatening to take over the world, so now it's much tamer. It feels nice and open back there now. And speaking of nice and open… We discovered our first crocus were indeed open! Glad to see them. It's amazing what a little warm weather will do.

I sat in the swing house, petting a nice warm purr box, by the name of Mollie, in my lap. I was just lazily watching Jim work, and not watching, and thinking and not thinking. It was lovely, and nice. I was thinking about something I saw the other day. We drove Kirsten to school and happened to pass a house with a little bridge in the yard. On the bridge was a small paper which looked suspiciously like it might be a For Sale sign.

For the last two years I've been wanting to go to the garden center and have someone draw up a landscape plan for around the swing house. Design has never been my strong point, so I thought it would be safer to have someone else draw up the plan. It's especially not good when bushes and things are involved. Once we stick something in the ground, it's a bit hard to move it if I decide I don't like it there. I want to include in this plan a weeping pussy willow, and some kind of small tree or bush that blooms. Outside of that I don't really know, or didn't until I saw the little bridge.

Now I'm thinking that it would be great fun to add that bridge before our grandchildren come to visit this summer. I can see a little path leading from the swing house to the bridge and out the other side. Perhaps some little feet could trip trop over the bridge. There might even be enough room for a real live 4-year-old troll to hide underneath.

But as I was sitting there, something interrupted my tranquility--rather loudly in fact. The freeway was especially noisy today. When the wind blows from the south, it not only brings warm weather, but the noise and sometimes the fumes of the freeway. I wonder… I wonder if it would be possible to make a tiny stream go under the bridge, and if we could install a little waterfall, then perhaps the sound of the freeway wouldn't be so loud. We could even attract birds, and perhaps a frog or two. I wonder how that would be?

I don't want a lot of water--just a happy little addition to that cozy corner, with just enough of a flowing stream to play Pooh Sticks now and then. Wouldn't it be fun? Nice memories are made of things like that.

Addendum: Well, that was yesterday. Today, Sunday, Jim suggested that we go for a drive. We don't go out and buy things on Sunday, but he agreed to take me to see if we could actually find the bridge. After all, I had seen it so quickly as we passed by, and he didn't notice it at all. Was it really there, or if it was for sale, was it still there?

We got in the car and began to retrace our path. We kept going and going and going. We passed one little community and lots of empty space and headed into another group of houses. Nope, it wasn't there either. Finally I had a hunch we were getting close, and suddenly there it was!Jim thinks it's about eight feet long. We don't know the cost, or if it's even realistic, but at least now we know exactly where it is. Something interesting is that we rarely drive Kirsten to school, and when we do, we never go that way… We shall see!!!

I AM READY FOR THIS--Feast Your Eyes on a Bit of Spring

Dreary-Ohio-Almost-March is not my favorite time of the year, so I thought I'd re-introduce a bit of spring from our yard last year. First the back yard…
And Now the Front…

AND just for fun, here's ANDY at 8 weeks. ^o^
Love, Kathey

ANDY, VALENTINES, Look-Alikes and a Fun Concidence

HERE'S ANDY!

He is 7 weeks old here, and just keeps getting cuter by the minute. ^o^
And here's a drawing that his big sister, Kate (age 4) did of her daddy for his birthday earlier this month. Kate says he is holding a pet snake.

WILL YOU BE MY VALENTINE?

Here's Andy on Valentine's Day. This bib is one of a set his Aunt Karen made for him. ^o^

Kyle gave flowers to Barbie and Hazel for Valentine's Day.

Miss Hazel is now 4 months old, and this was her very own bouquet!

I got flowers too. Jim gave me the Gerbera Daisy pictured below. I LOVE Gerbera Daisies. I sincerely hope I don't kill it. I'm not very good with house plants, and I'm especially not good with outdoor plants that happen to be inside. I noticed that this one doesn't currently have any more flower buds. I plan to feed it a very mild solution of banana peel water to see if I can encourage it to produce more buds. It worked extremely well with the geranium I tried it on outside last fall, but it was too late in the year for the flowers to bloom. (It died after I brought it inside.) We'll see how this works. But as I said, I hope I don't kill it.

LOOK-A-LIKE GIRLS

Barbie recently posted pictures on her blog of Hazel at 4 months. She mentioned that Hazel's face looks older and has really filled out lately. That's her pictured on the left. I thought the shirt she was wearing looked familiar. We have a picture of Peter's daughter, Elizabeth, at about 6 months wearing the exact same shirt. Now that Hazel's face is fuller, she looks much more like Elizabeth (on the right) than she did before. I think it's really fun. ^o^

A REALLY FUN COINCIDENCE

Yesterday Jim and Kirsten and I went to a baptism at our church. The President of the Columbus Ohio Mission, Robert F. Jensen, was there. I was interested in meeting him because his last name is Jensen, which is my maiden name. I found out that his Jensens are from Denmark, and his family settled in Idaho. I told him that our Jensens were from Norway, and settled in Chicago in the late 1800's. I also told him that Jim and I are converts to the church. He asked when we joined the church and Jim told him we were baptized in 1967. He asked where, and when Jim told him Lompoc, California he told us that he was a missionary in that mission at that same time, although he never made it to that part of the mission. We asked him if he knew Elder Douglas Fuqua, and Elder Adrian Gauntt, who were our missionaries, and he did! He said he knew them well, and that Elder Fuqua was quite a legend in that mission. I would love to know where they are now and what is happening in their lives.

It's a small world. It was so fun talking with him.

ANDY UPDATES AND A BLESSING

Here's Andy at four weeks. He gets cuter by the minute. At five weeks he's still a tiny little guy, but he's growing fast. His mom said: Andy's newborn-size sleepers are getting a little harder to put on. I guess we'll be moving to the 0-3 month size soon.

Jim had a very quick trip last weekend to visit Helena's family. The pictures that Jim took didn't turn out very well, so I am going to blatantly plagiarize Helena's blog. Andy was blessed on Sunday. (Here's a brief explanation about blessings.)

Grandpa and Andy hadn't met before.
Andy wasn't so sure about this big man who was holding him.
And here's Kate too. What a delightful lapful. ^o^

Barbie made this blessing outfit for Andy. She made the dress that Kate, and cousins Elizabeth and Hazel were blessed in too. (See pictures here.)The outfit was a bit big on him, but it worked out just fine.
Isn't he just the cutest…?At the church after the blessing: Doug, Andy and Jim.
I wish the rest of us could have been there too.

Mama and Andy.
That evening they all went over to Doug's cousin Lonnie's house for a grilled trout supper. Yes, I definitely wish we could have been there. ^o^ This picture of their family was taken at Lonnie's. I really like it.

Jim left early Monday morning and got home safe and sound even though 2 of the 4 planes he was scheduled to fly on were broken and had to be substituted at the last minute.

We're planning to get everyone together this next summer so all 4 cousins can meet each other. Won't that be a blast!?