The Cookie Bakers

I have a good helper when I bake cookies. Gabe shapes the cookie and then places it on the cookie sheet. Sometimes he eats a chocolate chip. We have fun!

Some Pictures from Last Weekend

Steve, Marta, and Gabriel came last weekend. We went to our favorite Chinese restaurant and Gabriel and I baked cookies.


Gabe enjoys potstickers. He's fairly adept with chopsticks too!

















Steve and Gabriel before our dinner was served.











Here's Marta!












This is Beef and Peapods. So good!

5 Months

Matthew was 5 months old on October 12. Isn't he cute?
More Matthew pictures can be seen here.

Last weekend we went to Cathy and Sasha's house. Scarlett was very happy to see us and enjoyed having attention from two grandmothers. Sasha's mother has been visiting for a month, returning to Korea on Monday. She is a lovely gracious lady so it was lovely to see her again. Saturday we took Scarlett to the park.The day was cloudy but warm so we had a good walk in the park together plus lunch and shopping.




Saturday evening Sasha's mother prepared a wonderful Korean dinner. Tony and I enjoyed it so much, continuing to eat after everyone else had finished. Tony's favorite was the bolgogi, thin sliced beef cooked with vegetables and a little spicy sauce. So good!






On the way home we stopped at Steve and Marta's house. We're always so happy to see Gabriel. My grandchildren are so much fun.














Marta made a wonderful lunch and we had a great time together.

Here are a couple of pictures taken last week in our living room.

Our Weekend

We've been having a heat wave with temperatures that I don't recall seeing at this time of the year. A little time at Lake Michigan sounded good so we drove to Manistee on Saturday. The beach there was beautiful and there were very few people. We enjoyed walking along the beach and out onto the long piers jutting out into the lake.



Manistee is a quiet little town with the beautiful addition of a wonderful lake front park. So many of the cities on Lake Michigan, such as St. Joseph where Steve, Marta, and Gabriel live, have beautiful lake front parks.







Please notice Tony standing on the pier on the left. The structure that is built there is to allow access to the lighthouse in the winter. The pier is ice covered and dangerous on a cold snowy day.



Ludington is a slightly busier town with more people on the beach on Sunday. It was such a perfect sunny day. Children were playing in the water. I took off my shoes to wade for a little while. The water was cool but comfortable. It was a pleasure to spend some time on the beach before winter comes. Our cool down will come on Wednesday if predictions are correct.

Birthday Girl

Today is my daughter Cathy's birthday. Days have gone by and the little children I used to know are adults. Now my daughter is a mother herself. How quickly the years pass. Cathy and I have a couple of strong interests in common: reading and knitting. For her birthday I sent her the novel "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini, about women's life in Afghanistan. Usually ranked at the top of the best seller lists, it is one of the best books I've read in a long time. We'll be celebrating Cathy's birthday with her next weekend.

Weekend Fun

We went to Steve and Marta's house to help with Gabriel while they completed a painting project in the house. Saturday morning we went to the Lake Michigan beach, which is very near their home. Gabriel loves the beach; he chased sea gulls, threw sticks in the water, and played on the play equipment. It was a beautiful warm day with good sunshine, so we had a lovely time.





















Then Sunday we went to the apple farm where the apples were big and beautiful and ready for picking. You can see Gabriel holding the first apple he ever picked! He enjoys climbing trees to pick the apples, so with his father's careful supervision, he was able to do that.

A Weekend Trip

We arrived at Tom and Kelly's lake house in the Poconos Mountains of New York, driving here from Michigan on Friday. Because we are in the mountains, it is cool with sunny and beautiful days. We are happy to see Matthew who is now 4 1/2 months old, changing and developing so rapidly as only babies can do. He smiles easily, especially when his grandfather talks to him. Somehow babies always respond very well to Tony, thinking him funny, and smiling a lot.





We had two purposes in our visit here: most important, seeing Tom, Kelly, and Matthew, and second, to help with a house project. The lake house has a balcony on the upper floor that extends across the house on the lake side. The balcony had large open spaces making it very unsafe for a small child soon learning to walk. beneath it. Tom had a very good plan to make this safe for Matthew next year when he'll be walking and wanting to be outside. My job was to do the painting so you can see me here in my paint spattered jeans with the lake behind me. The wooden spokes you can see me painting were assembled, painted, and then carried up to the balcony to be attached securely onto the railings of the deck. We worked steadily on the project and got a majority of it done during the weekend. It is very satisfying to undertake a project and see it go so well.

Matthew enjoys books, listening to the rhythms of the words and curiously gazing at the pictures. There is nothing better than spending time with my grandchildren.

Friday was a beautiful early autumn day. I picked up my little friend Ann Marie at school and we spent a little time at the park. Then we went to my house to make cookies. Children are always very interested in cookie baking! After the cookies were in the oven, we spent a little time on a sewing project. I was teaching her how to sew a button on fabric. She did pretty well but was a little worried about the point of the needle. Next I showed her something that I had made for her: I had knit her a bright green sweater, which I gave her and she promptly tried on. We decided it looks really good on her plus she modeled it well.
Ann Marie is a very nice little girl and it was a pleasure to have some time with her.

Change

Just now we've had a change of seasons. A few days ago it was too hot and we needed the air conditioning. Suddenly the cooler weather is here. This morning the temperature is 46 degrees. I've started thinking about long sleeves and jackets. Trees are starting to change color and a few leaves are beginning to fall. My garden, though still full of red tomatoes and green beans, is starting to wind down. School began a couple of weeks ago. And I notice I'm feeling really good! I can work much better and think more clearly in the cooler months. I love to wear fleece. It's a great time of year!
I have a few projects in mind now. I always have a couple of knitted items on my needles. Right now it's a lace shawl and a Baby Surprise sweater. I have some sewing projects in the works. A wonderful novel I'm reading right now: A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini, about women's lives in Afghanistan. Such an excellent book, the best I've read in a long time. I'm back to exercise classes and have even joined pilates where all the students (and teacher) are half my age! From Monday through Thursday I'm seeing my students, kind and eager to learn, such a lovely group of people that I am privileged to teach. My little friend Ann Marie will visit me tomorrow and we will bake cookies together. Is there anything better than baking cookies with a child? We have a trip to New York next week to visit with Matthew and his parents plus we will get to see the other grandchildren as well in the weeks to come.
Life is good.

A Blogging Break

Without planning, I have taken a blogging break; it's been quite a while since I posted, but here I am again. A flurry of activities near the end of August came and went too quickly. There was a wonderful family get together on August 25, with barbecue overseen by Tony, the greatest day with all my children, grandchildren, and so many other very dear family members. It was a time to catch up on the latest news, admire the new baby, remark on how children had grown, and plans for the coming year. Here are some random pictures. I didn't get pictures of everyone and I'm very sorry about that! I want to experience that time over and take tons more pictures. I wish I could see everyone more often!

Time with Scarlett
I spent last weekend at Cathy and Sasha's house and enjoyed some days with Scarlett. We went to the park, went out for lunch, and did a little shopping together. Scarlett is lots of fun and a very easy child. Mostly she can play by herself, especially with her toy animals. She walks everywhere carrying as many toy animals in her hands as possible. At the park she is very cautious about trying new things. I don't have to worry too much that she will try something risky. She loves books and spends a lot of time either listening to stories read to her or else turning the pages and saying the story to herself.




Above you can see her walking around in my shoes, pretty big footsteps to fill!




Next you can see Scarlett playing at the park.




The last two pictures show Scarlett with her favorite things, animals and books.

The Baby Surprise Sweater for Scarlett

I just finished this sweater for Scarlett and presented it to her this weekend. I used cotton yarns, Fantasy Naturale and Cotton Ease, starting with a random skein of the Fantasy Naturale and then added white and orange Cotton Ease plus orange buttons. Using size 9 needles resulted in a very stretchy fabric so it should fit her for a long time to come. This is a very fun pattern to make and I've probably made 6 or 8 versions of it in the last couple of years. Hopefully it will be useful for the cool autumn days coming soon.