An English Grandmother...

Happy 88th Birthday to my Nanna!

I stole the description below off of my aunts blog - hope she doesn't mind - and I hope I look as fabulous as she does on my 88th!

My Nanna is an amazing woman! She has lived in several countries and traveled all the way around the world. She is an artist. She is very good at starting over and making a new life for herself. As a young woman during World War II she served in the Women's Land Army in England. The "land girls" did the farm work of the men who were away fighting in the War. She emigrated to the United States with her husband and children while expecting her fourth child. She is the mother of five children, whom she raised in northern Utah. She is always reading and learning. When you have a conversation with her, you realize how well-educated she is. This is through her own efforts to add to her British education, which ended when she was fourteen. She then completed a 3-year apprenticeship at a hair-dressing shop. She has a lot of "spunk." While living in New Zealand, she became an art teacher under her husband's tutelage. She has taught watercolor painting in Germany and has exhibited her watercolors and stitcheries in California. Now she lives in England, the land of her birth. Her posterity totals 15 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren.

First Attempt

Now that we are homeowners, we attempted a garden this year. We weren't quite sure what would grow if anything in our long neglected soil - but we took a chance.

It was quite beautiful by the end of the summer (of course I didn't take a picture) but we really didn't enjoy the harvest:

Reason #1: Being pregnant, the very idea of any kind of squash or vegetable being cooked in my kitchen sent me running to the bathroom.

Reason #2: Our zucchini turned out to be orange. Pumpkin Orange. So in addition to me being grossed out by veggies in general - the thought of orange zucchini made it even worse.

Reason #3: Jordan doesn't really like squash - and we had a lot of it.

Reason #4: We planted our tomatoes too late, and only got a few cherry tomatoes and one big one off the vine before it froze.

Better luck next year I suppose.

A Spiderman Obsession

No matter where we are or what we are doing - Harrison's left hand is ALWAYS shooting a spiderman web and he is making a swishing sound. Just last week, he made it through an entire gymnastics class without breaking form in his left hand. He was of course a little puzzled as to why he was not able to hang on the bars properly, and his somersaults were quite crooked, but he stayed true and shot webs the whole time. He got his teachers, his fellow tumblers, and most often aimed directly at my growing tummy and proclaimed "I'm shooting the baby!" Fantastic.

We build all different colors of spidermen each day with legos, when he drinks any kind of juice - it is of course spiderman juice and his red football is his spiderman football. And for Halloween? You guessed it - SPIDERMAN. That is, if the cheapo Wal-Mart costume can make it to the end of October, he naps in it everyday and insists on running around in it outside every afternoon. All the while of course shooting cars, dogs, trees and people with his webs.

Coloring

Finally he will sit down and color. Most of the time he just wants to destroy the house with his T-Rex and Spiderman. So when I saw this I had to snap a few pics from across the room. I love how he is concentrating so hard - the tongue sticks out just a little. Love this little guy.

Look Mom.......I'm Uncle Matt!!!

While we were home in Ashland this summer, my brother Matt had a bandana on his head a couple of times, so Harrison found a headband that Jordan received at a 5K he ran, put it on his head and shouted "Look Mom! I'm Uncle Matt!!"

A little while later, as I was hanging a green T-shirt of Jordan's on the drying rack, Harrison runs over and says "Hey......that's Uncle Matt's shirt!" And ran off. I love that he remembered these two things he saw two months ago in Oregon. Too funny.

Harrison at the Fair

Lizzy and Heath were so kind to watch Harrison while Jordan and I went out to celebrate my birthday. Not only did they babysit him, but they took him to the State Fair. Troopers I tell ya. He pretty much had the time of his life and didn't miss his parents one bit. He rode the carousel, ate his blue juice, sat in a skid steer and an excavator, looked at all the animals (he was expecting tigers but got chickens), rode a real pony and took a ride in a helicopter. Thanks guys for letting us get away on my birthday and for making your nephew love you even more!

Legos with Grumpa

Harrison has a new love - Legos. We play for at least two hours a day and he is obsessed with them. Each day we build new versions of tractors, cars, towers, and of course Spiderman. We have been lucky that Harrison has never really eaten or chewed on any of his toys - so Legos have been perfect even though he just turned two. Thanks for building Grumpa! (and giving me a break!)

Tech Saavy Toddlers

An evening of iPhone activities as only Claire and Harrison can do it.