After a lovely dinner of croissant sandwiches,
watermelon, and grapes,
I was called to the kitchen to behold,
sitting precisely in the center of the floor,
a strange
phenomenon:

 

 

 

~*~*~*~*~

And this is how Paul spent 2 full episodes of NCIS:

Sissy loves to cuddle.
It’s a boxer thing.

 

Outside my window…….
It is dark and 89 degrees at nearly 11:00 pm.  Better than the last time I wrote one of these, which was June!

I am thinking…….
About how totally natural it feels to be welcoming mother into our household for a long-term stay, and how delighted the children are at the prospect of keeping Oma.  (They would like to “keep her forever!” — but truth be told, she’s bound to get tired of us at some point…)

I am thankful for………
My dear brother Doug, and sister-in-law Sarah,

who are laboring with love to prepare Mom’s house for sale.  It is going to be beautiful when they are done, and we will all want to keep it instead of selling it!  I pray God will bless them for honoring her in this way.

From the Kids office…….
There are four desks and two shelves (and a vast array of miscellaneous wall art) to move out of what will become Mother’s new “retreat”!

From the Living Room…….
There is a piano to move to Mother’s room, a shelf and railings to remove, furniture to be shifted to make room for…

From the Main office…….
Paul’s desk and mine must be moved to the Living Room so the four kids desks can be lined up along the office wall in the main office.

I am wearing……
A bright and joyful smile in my heart, and most of the time on my face these days.

I am creating…….
floor plans in my head.

I am going…….
to try to sell a few things on Craig’s List.  I have never used it before, and have no idea how to get started, but I’ll bet Sarah will be able to give me some pointers – she’s a whiz at this re-sale stuff!!

I am reading……..
I’m going to try to make some serious headway in editing my middle daughter’s manuscript this week.  At close to 400 pages, I am well and truly daunted, but one can take it a page at a time, right?  Right.

I am hoping…….
To keep my head on straight in all the whirlwind of change.  It is joyful change, but knowing me, I shall doubtless lose track of something.

I am hearing…….
Not really much at the end of a blessed Sunday. 

Around the house……
Many sleeping people, whom I will soon join in slumber.

One of my favorite things…….
This is a pretty I saw at Pier 1 last week:

It really just screams to be in my house.  But I don’t have a place for it, nevermind the pricetag.  Therefore, I shall content myself with looking at the photo!

A few plans for the rest of the week…….
All the many usual plans for this week, with church classes, theater class, karate classes, shopping, and I believe somebody is due for the optometrist too.  Never a dull moment!!

Here is a photo I am sharing with you……

One of my favorite pics of Mom!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Tuesday Tradition:
Del Taco!

 

Peek!

 

Paul is talking to Duane and his lovely wife,
a sweet couple we see every Tuesday there,
who drive around in a Red PT Cruiser with a vanity plate that reads
“Santa”.

 

Three of four…

 

The “Book-ends”

 

Four Hilarious Heidmanns

 

Mother dear, enjoying the cool after a short, hot ride in the van.

 

Whenever you are ready to take a really cool picture,
some smart-aleck is always sticking his hand in front of the camera…

 

Paul doing the order thing.

 

The play land to which we’ve been coming since
Jacob was in a high chair,
and too small to climb up there
without being boosted by a sister. Time flies…

 

Oma taking a grand-kid pic.

 

My beautiful mother.

 

The Del Taco Medium Drink Motto.

 

It must be done.

 

Practicing facial expression for theater…

 

Praying with the kids.

 

My favorite.

 

Lime.

 

Yummmm.

 

There’s not much to say about this stop on our drive-about,
except that
Pier 1 is a very Nettie store.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That is all.

This morning I took the unusual step of declaring to the kids that they had the morning off
(so they could do some cleaning)
and I took my mother and went on a drive-about.

We ended up at the IHOP!

 

Mother saw one of these trees recently,
and couldn’t figure out what it was.
Well here if there wasn’t one right outside the door of the IHOP,
and once I saw it, I recognized it as an Oleander tree.
We see loads of oleander bushes around this part of the world,
but the trees are very pretty.

 

Mum in the IHOP!

 

My rather small coffee mug.

 

Slatheriscious syrups.
I don’t eat pancakes anymore, but I still remember fondly when I did.
Grandpa’s homemade buttermilk pancakes.
I always “helped” him make the Saturday night pancakes when we came to visit,
and he always gave me a little juice-glass of buttermilk to drink.
Dear Grandpa Evan, the dairy-man.

 

My entirely too large,
but quite picturesque breakfast plate.

And then….
Oh, my heart… palpitations!!
We were outside ready to go, and
as I was fishing for the keys to open up the mini-van,
round the corner came this
gorgeous thing!!
Literally, people.
Palpitations.

I leaped into the van,
restrained myself from peeling out
only because mother was along,
and drove at a moderately frantic pace
around the other side of the building,
pulled up beside
it,
leaned across mother,
and snapped one
all-too-inadequate photo
of the gorgeous 2010 Mustang.

I must not covet.

I must not covet.

I must not covet.

I must not covet.

I must not covet.

I must not covet.

I must not covet.

But stealing a photo is ok, right?

Sunday morning bright and early,
I was awakened by Paul’s cell phone ringing
with a call from the Gonzalez family.
They wanted to come to church!
That was a great wake-up call.

So it was that he left early in the minivan with Laurent
to trek down to their place by South Mountain,
and I came along later with
the
other three and Oma
in CEL.

(So grateful to God that it was fixed in time for Sunday!)

We got there early enough to take a few pictures
outside before heading in.

Mother with Geneva

 

Mother with Megan and Geneva
(Jacob was still sitting half in-half out of the back seat of the car, putting on his shoes…)

 

A view of the other part of the cathedral

 

Looking back at the parking lot,
you can see the brand new Loreto Center in the background.
(It’s an addition to the Ss. Simon and Jude school,
and includes science labs, classrooms and a performance auditorium.)

And turning back around, we saw Paul and his bunch walking up the sidewalk.

Such a joyous thing to see all these happy faces in church!

 

This was taken before church –
(apologies for the lighting – mom’s camera flash is insufficient for the space)
our seven and their seven would not fit in one row,
but fortunately there were two adjacent empty rows.
It was wonderful having them worship with us.

After church
on the way to McDonald’s for brunch with the crew,
Megan and Oma both went crazy with their cameras!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I took this shot of Mom from the driver’s seat while sitting at a stop light!

 

And here’s one pic from McDonald’s that wasn’t
somebody making a face that
“might stick that way”

Jake, with soda in his mouth.

Hope your Sunday was as blessed as ours!

Saturday Evening Pizza Party!!

We were so-so-SOOO happy that Jeff was feeling well,
after a rough week of being under the weather,
not only because we love to see his
smiling face
and hear him laugh,
but because he is the
Bringer Of Pizza.
aka…
the big BOP!
(I just made that up.  But it’s true, he is.)

 

This picture needs a caption… something like -

“Anthems of Anticipation!”
or
“Peans of Pizza Praise!”
or
“Choruses of Culinary Contentment!”
or
“Etudes of Epicurean Enchantment!”

I can’t decide.
Anyone else want to try?

 

The Pizza Tape.

 

Pizza with Peppers

 

Pizza with Peppers and Pineapple

 

Pizza with Pepperoni

Sensing a theme here?  

The great thing about pizza parties with the
Big BOP
is that there are always plentiful leftovers.

 

Paul went on a Pop Run.
We are stocked.

There was a brief and largely unsuccessful attempt at a family photo
prior to the prayer.
It went something like this:

These people are impossible!!!

But I love ‘em ta bits!

 

In a slightly modified Saturday morning schedule,
Paul and the girls left for shooting at the usual time,
while Mom, Jacob and I came along
behind an hour or so later.

The idea was, Paul needed to run to various junk yards looking for parts for the suburban,
and all the junk yards are down in the south part of town,
so he thought rather than bringing the girls with him
(not terribly nice places to be bringing girls, anyway)
I could come pick them up toward the end of their session,
and show Mom the gun club as well.

(By the way, I was corrected on a point from my previous blog entry.
The Suburban is NOT sitting on “cinder blocks” –
it is sitting on railroad ties.

So nice we had a few of them lying around when they were needed! )

So here are shots of our morning out at the gun club:

Mom, with Geneva,
in “The Chair”
(its BYOC out there.)

 

Meg with her VERY heavy gun.

 

The mom-view of the action.

 

Jacob getting some pointers from Dad.

 

Nettie doing a little shooting.
(Got several bullseyes.  The scope helps. )

 

Waiting.

 

Then it was Mom’s turn!!

 

Nice form!

 

Looks like a pro!

 

That’s my mama!!

 

Jake waiting around.

After everything got packed up and
the guns cleaned and put away,
we headed back home,
via McDonalds,
since nobody had eaten breakfast yet.
However, the Muks where we stopped was absolutely swamped —
I’ve never seen that many people in a McDonalds before.
We were not prepared to deal with that,
so we continued on our travels northward,
until we finally reached a relatively quiet Carl’s Jr.

They weren’t quite ready for their closeup here…

 

Ah, so much better!

 

Goofy sibs…

 

More goofy sibs.

 

A beautiful pair!!

And now we are home for the day,
well fed,
and ready to hit the chores.

~*~*~*~*~

P.S.
Paul was finally successful in finding the parts!
That means he will have to go to the ranch.
Daggum.
He just hates that.

 

I keep my hands busy while overseeing the schoolwork in a variety of ways.
Sometimes with yarn,
sometimes with colored pencils or markers.
Lately, it’s pencils.

 

 

Jacob, working next to me on history…

and distracting himself by lining up pencils…

This took two or three days, a little here, a little there.