Eat Drink and be Scary

We will be making this Halloween Calendar at Across Time and Page on Tuesday, September 26th at 6:00pm.  The foundation is a Kaiser Kraft wood picture frame and lots of Halloween paper from several companies.  It took me a while to figure out how to do this, but I am very happy to see the way it turned out.

The Princess (Again)

I am sure I have posted pictures of Princess Andi.  Two things are different now.  First she is closer to fitting in her gown that she got for her birthday in January.  Second I found a tiara, scepter and heeled shoes to go with the outfit.  To say that she was pleased is an understatement.  She is at such a cute age, Ray and I are enjoying spending time with her a lot.

Andi and the Baby Animals

Ray and I took Andrea to the State Fair in Hutchinson yesterday.  Now the State Fair for me is like going to Branson, once every ten years and I am good.  My feeling hasn't changed, but this was the first time for Andi and I think she enjoyed it in spite of the rain.  Yes folks, it rained yesterday, all day.  The fact that we desperately need rain is what keeps me from complaining about being rained on  while we were traipsing around the soggy fair grounds.
When we left Haysville, it was just cloudy, but by the time we got to Yoder it was drizzling steadily.  I am also grateful that it was just a drizzle and not heavy rain.  We cranked up the umbrellas and walked around and looked at stuff.  Our main interest was the animals.  We looked at everything.  The biggest hit as always was the birthing barn.  There were lambs, a new calf, chicks and piglets.  The vet student who picked up a piglet for Andrea to visit with managed to choose the surliest one in the litter.  If you look closely you can see an evil gleam in his porcine little eye.  I have always loved piglets, but this dude would change your mind.  After this we sloshed back to the car.  Andi fell asleep immediately but woke up in order to put down a good lunch at Carriage Crossing in Yoder. 
OK, I admit it,  I had fun too.  But I still won't need to go back for ten years.

Back to work

I use the blog as a journal, so I decided I needed to write a bit about my new part time job.  I am a traveling notary for PDQ Notary.  It is the best part of mortgage closing.  I meet with borrower and witness the signing of their loan documents.  I don't have any of the aggravations of being sure the documents are correct or if the underwriting conditions are met before hand.  I don't have to worry about balancing the accounts and recording documents.  So far I love it. 
The biggest thing to learn is the required detail in notarizing the documents.  When I was doing lending notarizing was just stamp and sign.  As a NOTARY there more attention to detail, but I think that I am getting that under control.
I really feel lucky to have gotten this job.  It will be just that little something to do and extra money to keep life interesting.

Little Red Wagon

 

We bought Andrew and Nicole a Radio Flyer Wagon about twenty five years ago.  The steel ones were still affordable then.  They played with it and then grew out of it.  Over the years, it was used to haul stuff around the yard and got rusty and old looking.  The rehab of the wagon started as Wyatt just messing around with an old sanding belt he found.  He started sanding the bed of the wagon, and before you could say fire engine red, the restoration was in progress.  Wyatt and Andrea both were interested and helped Papa with the project.  If the truth were known, they probably liked pulling the tape off the letters the best.  The work was not professional,  but everyone had a good time and now the wagon has more good years ahead of it.

Grandparents Day

We celebrated Grandparents Day at church this morning.  We were asked to take a picture in about being grandparents.  After a lot of procrastination, Nicole took several yesterday afternoon in the back yard.  I was really pleased with them.   We took the first one to church, but I love the second one.  Andi just cracks me up.   Ray really was the driver behind the whole project, I would have just forgotten it, but he wouldn't forget and now we have some photos of us that I really  like.

Helping Papa

Ray painted the lawn furniture last week.  He had an avid helper in Andrea.  At three and a half, she has  discovered men and wants to spend time with Daddy, Papa and even Uncle Andrew.  No amount of discouragement would stop Andi from helping scrape the chairs so Ray gave her a brush and she worked right along side him until the chairs were ready to paint.

Halloween is coming soon

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I read a while back that people do as much decorating for Halloween as is done for Christmas.  I know that we put out decorations, but I have never been much of a sender of cards.  On Saturday, September 8 at Across Time and Page I will be leading a class making these six Halloween cards.  Several of them are derived from designs in the current issue of Card Maker magazine.  When I was finished, I was just tickled about how cute they are.