Opening Day and an Award

Yea, it's the Cincinnati Red's Opening Day today! Why am I so excited? Because the start of the baseball season is a really big deal here in Cincy. There's a parade and people take off of work to go to the game, it's like a holiday around here. I do not have tickets for the game today but my youngest daughter is going. The weather on opening day is a little iffy sometimes. Two years ago, my sweetie and I went and lasted all of one inning because it was raining and very cold. There's something weird about drinking hot chocolate at a baseball game. LOL Anyway, it also means it is one step closer to warmer weather. Let's hope the Red's win today! And my good buddy Kat from justabeachkat gave me this great award the other day. Kat has been a great blogging friend. When I first started blogging and didn't know how to do certain things she was more then willing to help me with things. Thanks Kat! You guys know I have a hard time giving out awards to just a few so I am passing this great award to everyone. I have to update my blogroll again because there are a few new blogs I need to add, so if you are reading this post, I want you to have this award. Anyway, have a great Monday.

A few more photos

In honor of the Cincinnati Red's opening day on Monday (yea!!!!) I put Cameron's photo in a baseball border. I took these photos last night when we went over to visit the new Mom and Dad and little guy. Mom and Dad are tired. Cameron looked ready to play ball. We brought him over a little Red's ball and bat since our son Jimmy is a big Red's fan. He already looks so different from his photos in the hospital. Anyway, did you really think I wasn't going to post some more photos this week? LOL Also, Melissa got her gallbladder tests back and basically her gallbladder has sludge in it when she's pregnant. Sounds yucky, but they suggested a fat free diet for the next 7 weeks and it should clear up when she delivers. It did when she had Maddie. I don't think they want to put her on any medicine at this point, but thanks so much for the prayers. Have a great Saturday!

The Princess Grandma and the Young Whippersnapper

Once upon a time in the fair land of flying pigs and German sausage lived a beautiful grandma princess. One day the grandma princess decided to decorate her castle so she went in her black carriage to the castle depot in search of the perfect item. She searched and searched and finally found the item she wanted to feather her little castle. She took it up to the young whippersnapper to pay for it and she was very excited because the item she wanted was 50% off. As she was paying for it the young whippersnapper declares "we never sell any of these, no one buys these things" and then he waits for a few seconds and looks at the grandma princess and then says with emphasis "no one, not ever." Well, the grandma princess thought for a moment and she even thought about buying all that they had left just to show the young whippersnapper a thing or two, but then she thought that the grandpa prince might not be too happy if she did that. So she took her goods that "no one buys, not ever" and went to her black carriage and laughed and promptly turned the young whippersnapper into a toad.


Okay, so maybe the beautiful grandma princess is a slight exaggeration and in the coming weeks I'll explain the flying pig reference to everyone not familiar with Cincinnati, but that kid really did say that to me. I was buying the stencils pictured below. You can go to here to see the items I am talking about and how to do them.


Here's the stencil I bought with the purple flowers. I planned on framing a doorway with it. Now if I had some artistic talent and could draw, I would do it myself but since I was not given that talent this will have to do.
And wouldn't this look so cute in a laundry room with the clothes on the clothesline?
Here's one of the stencils I did a few years ago for our powder room. It's a grapevine framing the doorway. It's a few years old but I still like it. If you look inside you can see the other stencils I put in the room and below is also a stencil from the powder room. So I'm asking you, does this look tacky or something?
Actually, I don't think the kid was being deliberately rude or I would have really turned him into a toad. LOL Anyway, I thought it was funny in the end. I once read on Kari and Kijsa's blog to decorate your home with the things you love. I thought that was some of the best advice on decorating. I love their blog. So I am going to frame that doorway with the thing that "no one not ever" buys because I like it! Have a great weekend!

Easter Memories

Before and during all of the excitement of Michael Cameron's(MC) birth,we did manage to celebrate Easter. It was a little chilly in Ohio this past weekend but it's been warming up nicely this week. Here's a taste of the holiday.

After church on Saturday, Maddie came back to our house with her Mommy and Daddy to color eggs. I'm not sure what she thought about this but she had fun. Actually, Papa and Daddy were more into this then Maddie. LOL
And here's a little taste of the brunch we went to. I'm not sure if you can see the detail in the ice sculpture and the watermelon boat. Click on this photo to see it a little bigger. There were 25 of us at lunch so it was hard to get a photo of that many people. Of course Allison and Jimmy didn't make it because they had gone to the hospital at 4am that morning after being up all night and the hospital sent them home at 7am, telling them it wasn't time yet. Then they were back at the hospital at 11am on Sunday.

I love this last collage of Maddie and her Easter egg hunt. She had a ball. Actually she thought the eggs were balls because she would pick them up and say ball and throw them on the concrete. She could not figure out why they wouldn't bounce. And then she would hold them so tight in her hands that they would break. She thought all of this was very funny. LOL Papa loves hard boiled eggs so he was trying to save them.

Anyway, hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. I am off this morning to the hospital with my daughter Melissa and Maddie. Melissa is getting some tests done. She has problems with her gallbladder when she is pregnant. It is very painful and she did have the same problem with Maddie but it went away when she delivered and now it's back with a vengeance with this pregnancy. Not sure what they can do about it when she is more than 7 months pregnant but hopefully they can give her some relief. If you can say a little prayer for her, it's harder this time taking care of a toddler and being in pain and not getting enough rest. Have a wonderful Thursday!

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME PHOTOS?

Okay, so maybe Grandma got a little carried away with the camera yesterday. LOL Here are a few photos from our time with our new little grandbaby yesterday. I know it's alot of photos but I just couldn't decide which ones to post out of the hundred or so I took. :-) Everyone is doing great and should be coming home today. Gramps and I finally got caught up on our sleep, what a difference a good night's sleep makes. Thanks for the well wishes!

Here's my two girls and Maddie and the new little guy. I just got off the phone with my son and the little guy's new name is Michael Cameron though he might go by Cameron.
This photo is so cute. My little granddaughter Maddie was petting little Michael Cameron's head like she does our kitty Cleo. She was very gentle and sweet with him but somewhat unsure about what was going on. In about eight more weeks we will be back at the same hospital for Maddie's little sister's birth so this is good for her to get used to a new little one around.
Here's the little guy getting ready for his official hospital photo. It's interesting to watch how they wake the little ones up to take a photo.
In Grandma heaven in this photo!
Grandma with her new little buddy and my best little girlfriend!

More Grandma heaven! Maddie petting Michael Cameron's head. I think she also tried to give him a kiss but couldn't quite reach him.
All dress up and ready for his first photo shoot.
Grams and Papa with the little guy.
And last but not least, the proud parents. Jimmy, Allison and Michael Cameron. I hope they figure out which name they are going to use soon because Michael Cameron is a long one to say all the time. LOL Hope I didn't overload with so many photos but I wanted to share some of this very happy time in our family. I am behind in my blog reading with everything going on but will slowly make my way around this week. Thanks again for sharing this special time with me.

THE NEWEST MEMBER OF OUR FAMILY!

Okay, I am taking a deep breath and introducing our newest member of our family. Here he is, not sure of his name yet but he is healthy and beautiful. He was born on Easter Sunday at 9:58pm and weighed 8.2 pounds. The photos are of Allison and my son Jimmy and my sweetie and Jimmy and of my new grandson and I. Blogger put these photos in a weird position and I am too tired too mess with them right now. I hope to get better photos later on today. I had all these wonderful photos planned from Easter today of our Easter egg hunt and Easter brunch but this little guy decided to make an appearance. Not sure if Allison would want me to post photos of her right after her giving birth but I thought she looked good for just giving birth to an 8 pound baby. LOL We are all tired today but so happy that he is here and healthy. Look at how alert he is in the photo of just him! I'll have more photos later and I'll also tell more about his birth. It was the best Easter!

HE IS RISEN!

Happy Easter!

I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe Easter. I am going to be busy the next few days with family, church, and all the things you do for a holiday but I wanted to send out Happy Easter wishes! It is early this year so I hope the weather cooperates for Maddie's first Easter egg hunt. We are going to put the eggs in the most obvious places for her because she is only 19 months old. Instead of candy we have gotten her the 101 Dalmatians DVD and a little dalmatian stuff dog. I did buy a little bag of M&M's to put in her eggs for the Easter egg hunt but not those dangerous dark chocolate ones that caused me to gain 3 pounds. LOL. Anyway, as I reflect on what Easter means to me, I am hoping you all have a wonderful one.

The Easter Gorilla, Maddie and the Easter Bunny and Good Friday

What, you've never heard of the Easter Gorilla? This is one of the gorillas at our Cincinnati Zoo. The Zoo keepers give them baskets filled with hard boiled eggs and plastic eggs filled with raisins, peanuts and treats. They do this every year and I love seeing this photo in our newspaper.
Here is Maddie(my granddaughter) with the Easter bunny last year. This year she wants nothing to do with him. If Maddie had her way, the Easter bunny would be road kill. LOL Actually, he is kind of scary looking for little ones.
And last but certainly not least today is Good Friday. I hope everyone and their families have a wonderful Easter. My Dad is taking all of us out for Easter brunch on Sunday. There will be around 25 of us this time unless Allison goes into labor before that and then we will be missing my son and her. The doctor told her this week that she could go early. She is due in 11 days so we are all waiting for the new little grandson to come. I am getting really excited to meet him. Have a wonderful Easter!

WOTUSAYN?

There seems to be a language barrier between my kids and I and I'm not talking the English language. I am talking about the language of texting. Am I some kind of dinosaur or does anyone else have trouble with texting? So the other day I get a letter from my wireless carrier explaining the language of texting so I thought I would share it with you. They divided it up into three different categories, the first being the basics. Here are some examples of basic texting:
YT? = Are You There?
4E = Forever
F2F = Face to Face
GR8 = Great
LMK = Let Me Know
N2K = Need to Know
U@? = Where are you?
Intermediate Texting
DHYB=Don't hold Your Breath
FFR=For Future Reference
ILBL8 = I'll be late
kThxBye= Okay, thanks goodbye
PTMM =Please tell me more
*vin = Starving
SC$ = Sucess
Okay now for the advanced texting people. I sent a few of these to my youngest and she had no idea what I was talking about. LOL Here's my favorite :
B3 = blah, blah, blah
FTBOMH= From the bottom of my heart
GD&R = Grinning, ducking and running
HB2U = Happy Birthday to you
TTYL = Talk to you later
Y3 = yadda, yadda, yadda
MHOTY = My hat's off to you
If you want to learn more about this texting language go here . Okay so tell me am I the only one left who doesn't get this form of communication? I just have a regular cell phone with a normal keyboard so by the time I figure out where all the letters are I want to use, I could have punched in the person's phone number and told them what I wanted to text. Oh well ,Y3 and B3. LOL BTW, my title says What are you saying? My point exactly! Spell check loved all of this today! :-)

You are what you eat, so eat well!

You are what you eat, so eat well. A stupendous insight of civilizations past has now been confirmed by today's investigative, nutritional sciences. They have shown that what was once called "The Doctrine of Signatures" was astoundingly correct. It now contends that every whole food has a pattern that resembles a body organ or physiological function and that this pattern acts as a signal or sign as to the benefit the food provides the eater. Here is just a short list of examples of Whole Food Signatures.

A sliced Carrot looks like the human eye. The pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye...and science shows that carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes.

A Tomato has four chambers and is red. The heart is red and has four chambers. All of the research shows tomatoes are indeed pure heart and blood food.

Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of the heart. Each grape looks like a blood cell and all of the research today shows that grapes are also profound heart and blood vitalizing food.

A Walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrums and lower cerebellums. Even the wrinkles or folds are on the nut just like the neo-cortex. We now know that walnuts help develop over 3 dozen neuron-transmitters for brain function.

Kidney Beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and yes, they look exactly like the human kidneys.

Celery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb and more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23% sodium and these foods are 23% sodium. If you don't have enough sodium in your diet the body pulls it from the bones, making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.

Eggplant, Avocados and Pears target the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female - they look just like these organs. Today's research shows that when a woman eats 1 avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight and prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is this? .... It takes exactly 9 months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods (modern science has only studied and named about 141 of them).

Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow. Figs increase the motility of male sperm and increase the numbers of sperm as well to overcome male sterility.

Sweet Potatoes look like the pancreas and actually balance the glycemic index of diabetics.

Olives assist the health and function of the ovaries.

Grapefruits, Oranges, and other Citrus fruits look just like the mammary glands of the female and actually assist the health of the breasts and the movement of lymph in and out of the breasts.

Onions look like body cells. Today's research shows that onions help clear waste materials from all of the body cells They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes.

"The news isn't that fruits and vegetables are good for you, it's that they are so good for you, they can save your life." David Bjerklie, TIME Magazine, Oct. 2003

My sweetie sent me this in an e-mail and I thought it was so good I wanted to post it. Our family business is in fruits and veggies so eat your fruits and veggies, they are good for you.
We are water logged here in Cincy. I just looked outside my front door and my lawn looks like a swamp. It's been raining hard for days and there is widespread flooding and the fire and rescue have been getting to people in boats because of streets being underwater. I am curious to see what my park on the Ohio River looks like and I hope to get down there to take a look and get some photos tomorrow. My basement has a little water in it but not so bad considering the amount of rain that has come down. Have a wonderful evening!

Happy St. Patricks Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day! You gotta love a day devoted to all things Irish. I personally don't think I have any Irish in me but that's the beauty of St. Patrick's Day, the Irish don't care if you're Irish or not. They just love to have a good time and welcome everyone! I loved this little dog, which really has nothing to do with the holiday but it's cute!
On a totally unrelated subject, did anyone watch the beginning of the series that HBO has about John Adams last night? The series started last night and will continue for a few weeks. My sweetie and I watched most of it and are recording the whole series. Pretty good stuff and really good acting. We both love history and have read David McCullough's 1776 and his book on John Adams so we were both interested in how this series would turn out. It's sometimes hard to watch how brutal it was to live back then but it is good so far.
Anyway, I hope that today you have the luck of the Irish all day and everyday.

Glittering Moments

....each precious,

glittering moment

of your life


We are coming down to the final weeks of the first of the two grandbabies to be born this Spring and it is indeed one of life's precious, glittering moments. I woke up this morning and heard the sounds of Spring outside my window. Birds are singing each morning again, trees are starting to bud. It is the birth of new life and what is more precious then new babies? So this Spring while new life is bursting all around me, I am giving thanks to the ONE who gives all life and who has for now blessed me with all of this. And I am holding on with both hands to these glittering moments.