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Archive for Family

We are Now Entering the Camp Grandma 2 Zone

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Renee Spindle

One of my newly acquired responsibilities this year is taking care of my beautiful, sweet granddaughter on Thursday’s and Friday’s each week. Oh, and I also make sure that the grandson gets to and from school safely on those days.

Last Thursday and Friday was the first week of “Camp Grandma 2”. Our camp name, of course was coined by Evan. I asked him if we should call it “Baby Camp Grandma” when his sister is here, and he was quick to point out that he comes along too, and he is NOT a baby. Then he suggested we call our camp, “Camp Grandma 2” for himself and Madison. “Two kids equals the number two Grandma”, from the smarty pants patrol. It made sense to me, so I went with it.

So, Camp Grandma 2 got off to a pretty flawless start. Although I have to admit it has been awhile since I have taken care of a baby all day long. I remember those days well, one in diapers, one telling me how to change the diapers (My girls are 5 years apart.). What great memories! The funniest thing was how contagious those little baby naps can be. The kind where you finish a feeding, burp the baby, and then she snuggles with you and you both fall asleep. Now, I am not normally a napper, but last week I found it quite easy to take a few quick snoozes with a certain little Miss.

The Little Miss has such a good disposition, as long as she’s not hungry or wet. If either of those two items are not aligned correctly she will let you know very quickly. And Evan is also quick to translate her crying modes. She’s hungry, or she’s tired. He’s very good at deciphering the different cries. In the picture above Evan was anxious to feed his sister, and he is very patient with it. Once she was done with her bottle I said, “Ok, now it’s time to burp her.” Evan started to ask me to help him do that and then he said, “No, it’s ok Grandma. You can burp her.” And that was that.

We had a good couple of days together, and I am glad to be able to help my daughter and her husband. It will be fun sharing a few Camp Grandma 2 stories with all of you, and giving you a little glimpse of my Grandma world.

5 comments Posted in Family

A 50th Birthday and All the Surprises!

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Renee Spindle

A few Saturday’s ago my loving, wonderful family celebrated my brother’s 50th birthday, Party House style. The theme for this party was, You’re Our #1 Son, Brother, Dad, Oinkle (uncle to those of you who have never been here), and Boyfriend.

This theme was originated by my Mom because of this picture. And we made these cool decorations to go along that theme.

Each #1 had pictures of Son,Brother,Dad,Oinkle,Boyfriend

Everyone signed this for the #1 Birthday Boy!

We also recreated an elementary school event that my brother always enjoyed called “Hot Dog Day”. He had told his girlfriend, Elaine, what a great childhood memory this was quite awhile ago. Elaine made sure to email my Mom and I so we would not forget the idea. We all agreed this would be a great theme to include for this festivity. Here’s the awesome banner our resident Cricut department created (thanks Erica & Mary!):

Hot Dog Day happened once a month or so. On Hot Dog Day we did not have to bring our own lunches to school. We would get fill out our own order blanks for hot dogs, chips, and a cup of ice cream. Of course you could order as many as you could pay for, and that was a treat unto itself. The hot dogs and buns were steamed, and tasted oh so good.

For our party we got a nifty hot dog steamer, some authentic Jays potato chips, and the vanilla ice cream cups with wooden spoons. And my niece recreated the little order blanks for all the party goers to fill out so they could get their dinner, served by an original “Hot Dog Day” lady, my Mom.

When my brother walked in and saw the hot dog day sign. He let out a whoop!, and filled out an order blank! 3 hot dogs and 3 ice creams. He was so surprised, and it was so much fun to see how excited he got.

We had a terrific party filled with lots of laughter, fun, pictures, and wonderful DVD montage that my sister and her husband put together. Then there was the sweet, loving toast from my Dad to my Mom. My sister and I got all teary eyed. (tissue please)

This was also a weekend filled with surprises. Let’s see it went something like this; my sister and her husband from Montana arrived here at the party house Friday night (total surprise, no clue they were going to be here). So when we were getting phone calls from family members on Friday night we had to keep this all hush, hush. Then Saturday came and the surprises kept on rolling. My sister and her husband surprised my parents, my nephew from San Luis Obispo surprised his Dad (aka the birthday boy), and then we came in the house, and my brother got surprised by my sister and her husband. Jim jumped so high in the air when he saw Laura it was like he just started as the center for a Millburn Mustangs basketball game!!

For me the best surprise of the day was when my brother arrived. He was the last one to arrive (he planned it that way), and when he got out of the car he had on a tuxedo with a bright blue vest and bow tie. He made a grand entrance. There was lots of clapping and whoops and hollers. He really made his party day special. I’m not sure how this can be topped.

We’ve had lots of family surprises over the years, but the surprises that happened at this party will go down in the history books for many years to come. The only thing missing from this page in the family history book was my Travel Man. (A tissue for me please.)

My sister wins the prize for the most family surprises. She always shows up at a family event when you least expect it, but you’re wishing she was there with you. Thanks for making the trek Laura and Steve. An epic party like this would not have been the same without you here.

4 comments Posted in Around the House, Family, Travel Man

The Sweetest Gift

Posted on January 25, 2013 by Renee Spindle

This little Miss gave her Papa (aka Travel Man) such a sweet gift today.

He is in Thailand, and tries to Skype with us whenever possible. We got a Skype call this afternoon, and Miss Madison just happened to be here with me and she was also awake.

I brought her over to the computer with me and she focused right in on her Papa. He was talking and cooing to her of course. And then it happened. She broke out into the biggest, sweetest, most precious smile. I know it made his week, and helped just a smidge with the fact that he is so far from home.

We’ll see you next week Papa! Happy Weekend everyone.

5 comments Posted in Around the House, Family, Travel Man

Planning a Party – Facebook Style

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Renee Spindle

For the past two weeks the ladies/girls (sorry twenty something’s you will always be my girls, even though I know you are fine young ladies) in our family have been planning my brother’s fiftieth birthday party. It has been such a fun time.

First I need to give you a little back story. The ladies/girls in our family have a private group on Facebook. We call it Renee’s Revelers. Girls only, no boys allowed. We use this page to encourage one another, vent about life, and just generally have lots of chatty, girly fun.

So this turned out to be a perfect location to do our private party planning so my brother could not find out what we were up to. Tee-Hee!

My role for this party was Project Manager. Once we had decided on a date, and the theme it was time for the brainstorming to begin. There were separate posts on our page for decoration ideas, food ideas, and entertainment. I will be the first to admit that the threads of comments got a little crazy after the first couple of days, and it got kind of crazy to follow. The other girls will attest to this too.

Then I plowed through all of the comments and made a to-do list, and a who’s doing what list. That was a Word document, and it got posted back to the Renee’s Reveler’s group so everyone would have an easy read of what was happening. Also that way I could have an accurate checklist to keep us all in line and on track. This was a really fun way for my sister in Montana to stay connected with what we were planning, and throw in her two cents.

The other fun project that evolved on the girls page for this party was photo posting. My sister was putting together a DVD montage for my brother to document his first 50 years here on planet earth. We used the Reveler’s group to post pictures for my sister to download and add to her collection. She would let us know a specific time period she needed a picture from, and the research group( i did not do much picture hunting) would peruse their photos and post it for her.

We had a great afternoon of making party decorations together once all of the to-do’s were in place. The group effort by the ladies/girls was tremendous.

We had such fun we’re looking for our next project to plan together! The party planning and decoration creation, and food planning was a great success. More on the party later.

How did your last big party planning go?

2 comments Posted in Around the House, Family

Does your Family have a Christmas Project?

Posted on January 13, 2013 by Renee Spindle

My parents started a wonderful holiday tradition well over 15 years ago. They print a family photo calendar for the New Year filled with pictures and memories of the past year, or even from many years ago. I have blogged about this project in the past, but it becoming such a time-honored tradition it’s a story that bears repeating. When this annual project started, in 1997 my Mom was the editor, and set up girl. She would collect pictures that had been taken by family members for the prior years happenings, and use those to put the pages together for the New Years calendar. The calendar also includes all of the family member birthdays and anniversaries. So there’s no forgetting any important dates.

Over the years the process of putting the collected the pictures, and scanning, and building the calendar pages has transformed into a completely digital process. Now a days the pages are put together using Picasa’s collage feature. Pictures for each month’s page still have to be collected, but the process of putting the pictures on the pages is a much easier process and allows for a greater number of pictures to be included.

This is a page from our 2013 calendar:

Credit for this collage collection goes to Travel Man.

The printing process of the calendar is another piece of family history. For many, many years my Mom would put the calendar together in “old-school” fashion. Cutting and pasting each picture to the page and then scanning it in for the final copy. My Dad was in charge of printing all of the copies. They did all of this, including the printing, at home, and I’m sure they were printing 10 or more copies. Quite a venture. And with your parents being the “project managers” on this type of project, you knew you had to meet the picture deadline.

Of course pictures submissions have always been strictly voluntary, but everyone likes to be included on this project. And even more exciting for the 2013 calendar, a few of the pictures that Evan took during the year made it on the calendar too. That would mean that this year’s calendar was put together by four (yes that’s 4) generations of family members. Wow!! I just realized that fact. Isn’t that amazing?

In the younger years of our family calendar, the kids would all count how many times they made an appearance in the calendar, and of course compare their counts. (I think my Mom went a little nuts with this one.). And they were also quick to let their grandma know if a picture had been duplicated.

For quite a few years we only included pictures from the previous year. Then in 2004, my mom surprised us all and threw in old pictures of some of us, and it was a great blast from the past. From that year on we have had pictures from the here and now, and a few from the past mixed in as well.

We have now been doing the calendar for so long that someone will take a really great picture or a really funny one, and we’ll say, “That’s a calendar shot!”.

A few years ago my Mom commandeered help from everyone who wanted to help put together the pictures for the calendar. So, around Thanksgiving time my mom will post a message on Facebook for what month people would like to be responsible for. Once the months are all assigned then the picture collecting frenzy begins. I always tell myself I’m going to collect the great calendar shots as we go through the year, and then life sets in and I forget,and the first week of December I’m scrambling to find pictures. Oh and there is also someone assigned for the picture on the cover of the calendar. This is a coveted position each year.

The updated printing process has now been assigned to Staples. Once the editing is complete the calendar goes on a flash drive and a few days later, voila the calendar is finished. I think my parents print around 20 copies of the calendar each year now, and they’re always ready for our family’s Christmas day get together.

The calendar has created a wonderful pictorial of the family history. Watching the kids grow up, and ourselves getting older. I have all the picture portions of my calendars in binders, so we can page through the years, and enjoy all of the pictures quite easily. The binders become a great conversation piece at family parties. Travel Man will carry a calendar with him this year, as he loves to share pics of his family, and we’re hoping he’ll feel like he has a little piece of home with him.

Our 2013 Family Calendar is a sight to behold, and welcomes the newest member of the family, Miss Madison. Hats off to my parents for keeping this tradition going. It is a memory that I’m certain will be treasured for years and years to come.

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