Another FIRST Haircut!

Valerie before the haircut.




Having a shampoo before the big event.




Partly finished.

The finished product! NICE!!


Results of our most recent 12" of snow



Where's my little buggy?




The sidewalk out front of Joey Cooper Photography and The News offices.

The funeral director/Yorktown's newest Nazarene pastor shoveling.
Doesn't that look like a great Christmas-y photo?

Two Birthdays, Three Books

My two oldest grandchildren, Matthew and Jonah, had their birthdays this past week.

Matthew turned five and started a new school. In Minnesota he can start kindergarten, so Bobbe and Justin enrolled him in a Waldorf school. According to Wikipedia, the Waldorf school "approaches learning through imitation and example. Extensive time is given for guided free play in a classroom environment that is homelike, includes natural materials and provides examples of productive work in which children can take part. Outdoor play periods are incorporated into the school day, with the intention of providing children with experiences of nature, weather and the seasons of the year. Oral language development is addressed through songs, poems and movement games. These include daily story time when a teacher usually tells a fairytale, often by heart. Waldorf kindergartens discourage exposure to media influences such as television, computers and recorded music, as they believe these to be harmful to cognitive development in the early years." Matthew plays outside in the snowy, cold weather, listens to stories, and, according to Matthew in a phone conversation with grandma, "plays hide and seek with 100 girls and two boys."

In the mail this week, Drew and I received our certificates showing our designation as Matthew's Godparents following his baptism.

Jonah turned four in the middle of the week in Lafayette. His celebration had to be postponed due to the fact that he and his father, Andy, were sick.

Over the past few weeks, I have been reading a series of books "Tales of the Forgotten God" by Dan Hamilton, a living Indiana author who Drew and I know from Bobbe's days at Taylor University and the C.S. Lewis club we used to belong to there. Mr. Hamilton has edited some of the Scottish author George MacDonald's novels into everyday English. Along the way he also wrote these books of his own. They are very MacDonald-ish and Lewis-ish in the way they are written and in the fact of them being stories with God interwoven into them. One needs to read them in their order of "The Beggar King," "The Cameleon Lady," and "The Everlasting Child." They were easy and quick to read. The plot isn't transparent so I didn't want to put the books down. There are a lot of characters but they are given names during the story to help one remember who they are and what their position in the story is. I bought the books in 1998 at the local Christian book store, four years after they were published, for less than $10 for the set. I am glad I finally got around to reading them.

Minnesota Miscellany

Grandson Matthew Paul C. M. was officially baptized on Sunday, January 11 at the 9 o'clock service at the St. Christopher's Episcopal Church in St. Paul. Drew and I stood up at the baptismal fount with Matthew, Bobbe and Justin; also my dad, Robert, and his wife, Ann (who live just over the St. Croix River in Hudson, Wisconsin) came to give support.

This is one of the gifts Matthew received after his ceremony.

Matthew before the ceremony with Great Grandpa Robert and Great Grandma Ann.

Matthew and his proud parents.

Matthew forcing a smile for grandma's camera.

Matthew and Bobbe showing grandma
and grandpa his new Wii Fit exercises.
Matthew is very balanced;
grandma and grandpa aren't.

Ann with her new dog, Maddie.

My dad giving the tour of his remodeled
mower/snowblower repair shop out in his garage.

We saw a lone picnic table at a rest
area on the way up to Minnesota.

Cold, Cold, Cold, and Snowy

It has been very cold and snowy in Middletown lately. The temperatures have been in the negatives and the wind chills have been in the -30s. At those temps one can get frostbite in under thirty minutes. School was canceled on Friday due to the extremely cold temps. Above is a view from our big room window facing southeast when it was snowing.

Dishwasher Ramblings

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my kids got together and gave me a gift card to Lowe's for me to buy a new dishwasher. Since I don't already have a dishwasher and since my kitchen isn't exactly set up to have one introduced, Drew and I put our minds together and decided that maybe getting a portable machine would be the best route for us. Portable dishwashers come with a top, back and sides already attached so we wouldn't have to build a cabinet for it to be installed, as opposed to the built-in models which just have insulation around them when you take them out of the box and are meant to be installed under a kitchen counter top with the cabinetry around them. Also, most portable models can be installed permanently, which is what we planned to do after trying out different locations in our kitchen with the machine still on its wheels. Handy, huh?

Well, Saturday we traveled to Lowe's to look at the portable dishwashers with the intention of buying one. Of the ten or so portable models listed online at lowes.com, only one machine was available to look at in the store. I guess portable dishwashers aren't as popular as I had imagined. I was disappointed. We decided to look at the built-in models to see if they compared to the portable ones we saw online. We figured out that the portable ones cost $150 to $300 more than their built-in counterparts and the models that turn into portable units are the lower end models. This was also disappointing.

I told Drew that I just wanted to stop thinking about the portable units for a while; I wanted to look at each built-in unit and see what I liked. As I took time to look into each dishwasher and scrutinize on its features, Drew waited in a little demo kitchen and thought. I didn't even look at the $198-$300 models. The $300-$400 models were ok but I didn't like the latches on the doors or the soap dispenser doors. The interiors seemed cheaply made and the racks were flimsy. I found a $400 model that was ok; the silverware rack wasn't in the middle of the bottom rack (I think that takes up a lot of space that could be used for bigger dishes and pans), and it had a mesh-type drain at the bottom. Then I got to the $500 Bosch model and I really liked how the door opened and how the racks were adjustable. I continued on to the $600 machines and stopped. I didn't want to spend more that that. Did you know you can spend $1,200 on a regular dishwasher at Lowe's? No me.

Then I introduced Drew back into the perusal of the machines. He found that he liked the $400 Fridgidaire and said it looked a lot like Joey's machine in his newly remodeled kitchen. He looked at my preferences and then we decided to go home and think about the purchase some more. On the way home Drew suggested we stop by Joey's and see what machine he has. We did and it turns out to be the $600 Fridgidaire. Drew said he would build a cabinet for the machine and we should stop looking at the portables. I agreed that he could build something for a lot less than $300, and we would get a better machine for our money.

So the search continues. I will look at some reviews online this week and continue to look at more options on the machines that we liked at Lowe's. Will let you know when we decide something.

Daughter's First Haircut

Saturday, Hannah (16) had her first haircut in a salon. For Christmas, Santa bought each of the kids (boys and girls) a gift certificate for a haircut and style at the local hair salon.

Curls the day before the haircut.

Right before going to the salon.

Hannah made her appointment for early Saturday morning before basketball practice. She had decided to donate 12" of her hair to Locks of Love, "a public non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children in the United States and Canada under age 18 suffering from long-term medical hair loss from any diagnosis," according to their website. She also printed out a photo with the type of bangs she wanted.

First Jackie, the stylist, straightened Hannah's hair and cut her bangs.

Then she gathered the hair into a ponytail and cut off 12" or so.

The ponytail for Locks of Love.
(See the photo of the haircut she wanted in the background?)

Finally she styled Hannah's hair to finish the hairdo.
What a cute haircut, Hannah! And, mommy didn't even cry.

Wintery Scene in Madison, Wisconsin

Fruit Bouquet I Made Today

A Late Christmas Celebration

Amber helps Lucy and Jonah open a present while they visited our house after Christmas.

Joey's Mini Club Man

Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year to all my friends and family. Wow, we have made it to 2009! I can't believe that we are in a new century already. When I was a kid I thought the year 2000 would never come. Now we are almost into the teens. My children range in age from 27 to 11 and my seven grandchildren are all under 5.

We had a small Christmas this year. On Christmas morning Drew and I and the four kids hopped in the car and drove across town to watch the twins open their presents. Last year they were almost five months old (three from their due date since they were preemies) so they didn't have any idea what Christmas meant. They ate their breakfast (and we ate cinnamon rolls) and then we sat watching them while they opened wrapped boxes from Santa. Their big toy was a play kitchen which talks. They loved the pots and pans and the food.

We headed home to see if Santa had left any presents at our house. He had; lots of gift cards, gift certificates and movies. The boys received Guitar Hero for their PlayStation video game. It has been very popular with all the kids, as well as Drew. William has especially excelled at the game. I received a gift card to Lowe's Home Improvement Center from all my kids for a new dishwasher. Kate organized the gift for me as she knows that now that the girls are in school and Michael works full time I do many of the dishes by myself. I want to get one of the new Fisher & Paykel drawer dishwashers but I don't know if that will be what we end up with. I can't find a store with an F&P demo in stock so I will keep looking. Thanks kids!

Fisher & Paykel two drawer dishwasher.

June Cooper, Drew Cooper, and George Cooper at the Charleston Nursing Home where George lives. He has very limited vision and didn't really know me but was very polite by saying how glad he was that I came to visit. Drew and Sue visited them the Sunday before Christmas. Drew gave his mom a digital frame with photos already installed for her to look at. Each month when Drew visits he will bring a newly loaded memory card with new pictures for her.

Joey, Carrie and the twins were in an automobile accident with a pickup truck the day before Christmas. The Edge was hurt and Joey went to the hospital but everyone is ok now. Well, ok, the Edge is in the body shop to be repaired. Fortunately Joey recently bought both a used van and a new Mini Club Wagon, so they still have the use of two vehicles.

Audrey and Addison watching a movie during December.




Kate on the London Eye. She and I visited London for a couple of days by ourselves. We flew on the London Eye, saw the musical "Mamma Mia," spent the night at a nice hotel, and shopped at the famous Camden Town Market. We also rode the train to and from the greater London area where we hopped on the tube for the rest of our transportation.

In Piccadilly Circus (the theatre district area), we ate at the Al Anon restaurant for lunch. I had fish and chips which came wrapped in newspaper.

A raspberry dessert we found late in the day at a bakery/cafe. Yum!




The tea tray at the hotel.




Lily waiting for lunch.




Logan liked to draw on grandma's notepad while he waited for food.