One on one time with grandma

How important is one on one time with grandma?  My grandchildren love one on one time with grandma. During Thanksgiving, some of my grandchildren were with me in Disneyland.  Because there were several of them there, it was a little more challenging to spend the special one on one time with grandma. At the end of each day, I took them shopping so they could pick out one special thing that would remind them of our fun time together in Disneyland.  The time I spent with them was special.

My oldest granddaughter Ady (8 yrs old and in 2nd grade), liked to play games while we stood in line for the rides.  We would play math games, and spelling games.  I learned she is a very creative little girl who is very,very smart.  She and I talked about holograms and how they are used in Disneyland, then we would see if we could pick them out in the rides.  We would also try to find the hidden Mickey heads that are hidden around Disneyland (and yes we found several much to her delight).  She sat next to me on the airplane coming back home, and we shared headphones so we could both enjoy the movie “Alice in Wonderland”. Special one on one time with grandma.

Nyxon my 4 yr old grandson’s special one on one time with grandma consists of spending the night at my house, and going to Target.  He loves for me to build legos and play them with him.  He loves to cuddle on my lap and read books, watch shows on youtube, or just ask me questions.  He loves to have chocolate milk (which he likes to help make).

Ellie my 2 yr old granddaughter loves to come to my house just to play.  She loves to dress up in the princess dresses and shoes and play around the house.  She loves it when her mom drops her off at my house.  Even though she is only 2, she loves being with me. Special one on one time with grandma.

Sometimes it’s hard to get that one on one time with grandma, as some of my grandchildren live a little ways away, however, that shouldn’t stop the one on one time with grandma, so this year for each of their birthdays, each of my grandchildren will be allowed to choose a special day for one on one time with grandma where they will be able to plan the day however they see fit, and we will spend quality time doing whatever they would like to do.  I love the time I spend with my grandchildren, but this year will be a little bit more special.  The first birthday is in January with Alaina getting the first special one on one time with grandma “date”.

Stay tuned for an update on the fun things that happen this year as we emphasize one on one time with grandma.

Sunday dinners

Sunday dinners growing up almost always consisted of a roast, mashed potatoes, gravy, a cooked vegetable and either a tossed salad, fruit salad, or a jello salad.  Sometimes my mother cooked Sunday dinners and sometimes my dad cooked them. When I got married, I continued cooking roasts on Sunday, however, it took my a long time to master the cooking a roast. Many were burnt.  When I started having kids, I would change up Sunday dinners to a turkey, ham, casserole, or something that was a little different and easier.  I have never proclaimed to being a good cook as my mother was, but I was an OK cook.  My family survived and didn’t starve.

I do not love being in the kitchen, so I try to find things that are easy, good, somewhat healthy, and satisfying.  The crockpot is a good tool.  I gone through many of them.  So I’m going to share my mothers Beef Stew recipe, that can be cooked in the oven for 8 hours or in the crockpot for 8 hours.  I have done it both ways.  I put this in a big magnalite roasting pan that has a lid.

Erma’s Beef Stew

2 1/2 lbs of stew meat

6 carrots cut into pieces ( I use a small bag of baby carrots and cut them in half)

6 potatoes cut into pieces ( I like to use the small red potatoes, and use a 2 lb bag of them)

1 can Cream of Mushroom soup

1 can Cream of Celery soup

1 8 oz can of tomato sauce

1 cup water

1 envelope dry onion soup mix

2  bay leaves

Put all ingredients in a large oven safe pot, stir, put a lid on the pot and bake at 225 degrees for 7 to 8 hrs.  Remove bay leaves before serving.

I have also cooked this in a crockpot for 8 hrs.  It is a yummy recipe.  Some of us (my kids and I) love to stir a little horseradish in our bowls before eating.  This is good served with french bread, or sourdough bread.

Just remember you really don’t need to slave in the kitchen all day long unless it’s a special occasion to have a satisfying Sunday dinner.

 

New Years Eve Celebration

What do you do for your New Years Eve Celebration? I have loved watching how the different countries around the world celebrate New Years Eve as it starts the evening out with some interesting celebrations.

We have some fun friends who live by us that host a New Years Eve celebration party at their home every year and invite many, many, many people.  It is filled with good food (potluck style), white elephant gift exchange and a fun game that some people really don’t like to play but are good sports about it.  This game brings out interesting information about your friends and neighbors.  They pass out index cards and pens to everyone. You then write 3 informational things down on the index card.  Two of the things are truths about you and 1 is a lie.  When everyone has their 3 things written down, you take turns reading your 3 things, and everyone else decides which thing about you is the lie.  We have also played this same game a little different, after everyone gets there 3 things written down, 1 person collects the index cards, shuffles them and then passes them out randomly, we then try to decide who the person is AND which thing is the lie.  You can really learn a lot about your friends and neighbors.  The hard part is that we have played it several years, and trying to think up new things is becoming quite challenging.

Our white elephant gift exchange is very simple.  All gifts are put in the middle of the floor, and it goes by birthday month.  For example, January birthdays go first, and each person with a January birthday pick a gift one at a time.  The first person opens their gift, then the second person can choose a gift from the pile in the middle of the floor or steal from someone who has already opened a gift.  After 3 steals the gift is safe from any future steals.  We have had some funny, funny gifts and some gifts that return year after year to be regifted.

Since we are all of the “getting older” generation, we usually end the part quite early, leaving plenty of time to enjoy the rest of your New Years Eve celebration as you wish.

Family Christmas Traditions

How many of you have fun family Christmas Traditions.  Traditions takes on many meanings, but I’m going to let you in on some of my family traditions, specifically family Christmas traditions.  I will talk about other traditions in other blogs, but for today, I’m going to talk about our family Christmas traditions.  I think we have started several traditions, but some haven’t been continued due to family getting married and moving away.

Before my boys married, we used to drive around on Christmas Eve and see what eating establishment would be opened. In the “olden days” as my boys say, restaurants used to close for Christmas Eve, they no longer do that, and stay open at least for the dinner hours.  One year, it became a laughing matter, and my boys still reflect back on it, and have a good laugh.  We drove to many establishments that year, but they were all closed.  I honestly don’t remember if we ever found a place to eat, or if we just went home.  Sometimes now, we go out on Christmas Eve, but make it an early night, so that the grandchildren that are close can go home at a decent hour. This year however, Christmas Eve was a quiet evening spent at home just me and Papa Ron.

Also one tradition that we started is a fun gift exchange that we really enjoy.  Not your normal gift exchange, but one we like to do that for now just involves the adults as the kids are still a little young to understand the concept.  In the beginning, we would buy a $15-$20 gift, wrap it, and then bring it to the family Christmas party and do the normal pass the gift games.  However, they last couple of years, we have done “themes” for the gifts.  Last years theme was “homemade”.  The rules were simple, it had to be homemade and you could only spend $15 in supplies.  What a creative family I have.  My oldest made a clock out of a cigar box and his wife made flavored olive oil and bread.  My middle son grows wonderful roses from cuttings off of the roses in my yard, and that was his gift, his wife made a wooden Christmas sign.  My youngest son made a fleece blanket and his wife made a JOY sign on a wooden board.  I made a step stool out of 2X4’s and my husband tied a flannel quilt. One of my daughter in laws is from Hungary and her parents are also with us on Christmas and join in the fun.  Her mom made Hungarian cookies and her dad made a candy and nut mixture. We then did the normal pass around the group game. This was really fun.  This year for 2016, our theme was “as seen on TV”.  Your limit was $15 dollars and you had to purchase something that was advertised on TV.  What fun we had.  We didn’t do your normal, left, right game, but instead I wrote a game from an idea I had seen on Pinterest to pass and exchange the gifts.  We wrapped each gift 3 times, so we had 3 rounds to open the gifts.  I made the instructions for each round rhyme, and round 2 I personalized for all the adults that would be involved. Each person would trade their gift with several others before there turn was through.  The ones that ended up with their own gifts had the choice to keep it, or trade with someone else that ended up with their own gift.  I thought it was really fun.  I’m not sure the kids were totally on board, but they were really good sports.  We are all going to use our products for a month, then I will do a product review for each of our “as seen on TV” gifts.  We haven’t come up with a theme for 2017 yet.  I’ve got some good ideas though so stay tuned.

Because gifts are opened so quickly, we played games this year  to incorporate the unwrapping of gifts.  We also had other games with prizes to keep the grandkids occupied.  They LOVED this, especially the wrapped prizes.  I’m already working on next years games and prizes.  Keep reading Ordinary Grandma throughout the 2017 year for our ideas and more fun things to come.

 

Thanksgiving in Disneyland


Thanksgiving in Disneyland?  How about Thanksgiving dinner with the characters?  WELL, that is exactly what we did this year.  This magical vacation had been in the planning for 3 years as a whole group of family members were going to be descending on Disneyland.  We saved, planned, saved, planned, saved and planned some more.  My granddaughters even made a list of what they wanted to see and do.  We anticipated this trip, couldn’t wait for the months/years to pass by.  FINALLY, the time came for us to pack our bags and head to the airport.  Some of us arrived many days before the others as we had other things that we had added to our trip.  I will cover that in another blog.  Eleven of us in all descended on Disneyland.

Our first day at Disneyland it rained, rained and rained some more.  It did’t hamper us at all.  Disneyland is so fun and magical a little rain can’t stop us.  We are a Disneyland family.  We rode ride after ride, waiting in lines, eating our pineapple spears and dill pickles, still delighting in our magical vacation.

On Thanksgiving day, we had reservations to eat Thanksgiving dinner with the characters at Paradise Pier in the PCH Grill, where we feasted on a fun buffet and had Minnie Mouse, Stitch, Micky Mouse, Pluto visit our table and sign autograph books.  The grandchildren were in heaven.  Their faces were lit up as they waited patiently for the next character to join our table.   Even the 18th month old wanted a “hug” from all the characters and was shouting it out with such love.  We adults smiled from ear to ear watching the kids have so much fun.  This wasn’t your traditional Thanksgiving dinner.  The buffet had pork roast,turkey,salmon,potatoes, pumpkin ravioli, just to name a few, hotdogs for the kids, corn on the cob, and I’m not even sure what all the deserts were as I was too busy enjoying the fun my grandchildren were having.

We have eaten at PCH Grill in the past, and it has never let us down.  The atmosphere is so friendly.  The waiters and waitresses are so friendly and willing to get you whatever you need.  A huge shoutout to them as they are always working really, really hard.

Our last day in Disneyland was loaded with trying to fit everything in that we wanted to do.  HOWEVER, in the later part of the afternoon, the rain decided to come again.  This time we bought Disneyland ponchos for everyone to wear, so we could keep going.  Which we did for a little while until we were too cold and wet.

We are a Disneyland family, and visit it quite often, some of us more than others, but some of us try to get there at least once a year.  Disneyland you have been so good to us and will visit you again.

IF IT ISN’T YOURS, DON’T TAKE IT!

IF IT ISN’T YOURS, DON’T TAKE IT!  If you didn’t buy it or if it wasn’t given to you as a gift, DON’T TAKE IT! IT ISN’T YOURS!

Life really should be that easy.  What has become of our society today, that individuals have to take something that isn’t theirs, something they didn’t purchase or wasn’t given to them as a gift?  What would make someone take a baby stroller?  YES, A BABY TWO SEATER STROLLER!  I’m totally appalled.

First day of vacation, minding our business, eating dinner in Downtown Disney we parked the stroller in the “stroller parking” where many others had parked their strollers, and when we came out of the restaurant, the stroller was gone.  Yes, someone had the audacity to steal a baby’s stroller.   A BABY’S TWO SEATER STROLLER!  What were they thinking or not thinking?  Were they thinking of only themselves because obviously they weren’t thinking of the baby that the stroller belonged to or how the mother was going to get the baby back to their destination.  What a horrible act to commit.  But why are there no video camera’s in Downtown Disney?  They are not expensive, and would hopefully capture the stroller thief or thieves. The Disney policeman basically said, “Well that does happen here unfortunately”.  They must have had a child with them, so it wouldn’t look funny that they were pushing around an empty two seater stroller.  What kind of example is that for a child.   A couple of days later, we were in Universal Studios, and ran into another family that had their stroller stolen from Disneyland also.  I’m just appalled that people would steal baby strollers.  Really?

Downtown Disney needs to take a page from Universal Studios.  Everywhere we parked the new stroller (that had to be purchased to get two little boys through a vacation) in Universal Studios was always under video surveillance.

Hopefully the saying “what goes around, comes around” or “bad karma will get those that took the stroller”.

People please if you didn’t buy it, or it wasn’t given to you, IT ISN’T YOURS!  DON’T TAKE IT!

Fuji mini instant camera-review

So I purchased this Fuji mini instant camera to take on our Disneyland family vacation last month.  The thought behind this was the grandchildren would have a character sign their autograph books, I would take a picture and we would put them immediately in the autograph books with double sided tape.  We called this the “magic camera” as the picture would develop right before their eyes.    In theory this was a really good idea.  However, it was a major FAIL!

We went into Disneyland with so much excitement with 5 grandchildren looking for the Disney characters so we could get autographs and pictures.  As we all know most of the characters are outside in Disneyland, and our first character picture came out awful as the Fuji mini instant camera flash went off EVERY time we would try to take a picture.   It didn’t matter what the camera setting was on, the flash went off causing all of the outdoor pictures to over expose. We would make sure the setting was for outdoors, and still the flash would go off. We tried this time and time again with no success.  This was pretty disappointing for my grandchildren showing them and explaining that the “magic camera” wasn’t working as we hoped it would.  The only time the Fuji mini instant camera worked, was when we were indoors at the restaurants where we ate with the characters, as the flash was needed indoors.

Hopefully there were enough phone camera’s to capture the moments to add to the autograph books later.

I will keep this little camera for indoor activities that we will take pictures for and hang them up on our family wall.  But for outdoor activities, we will have to depend on other cameras to capture the moments.

Unfortunately, I will not be recommending this product to anyone as it was a major disappointment to me and my grandchildren.  This is strictly my opinion and I am not being paid for this review.

 

When life gives you lemons

Does life ever give you lemons?  Have you ever thought about the trials you are going through or have gone through?  Do you say to yourself, “Why me”, or do you look on the positive side and say, “what am I going to learn from this?”  People deal with life’s lemons in many different ways.

My sweet, sweet sister Annette was recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  This isn’t her first round of cancer, as she is a breast cancer survivor of many, many, many years, but this is a different, maybe scarier form of cancer.  Within days of the diagnosis, she was given the good news, that she was a candidate for a surgery that is only given to people who have the right markers.  There is a specialist here in Salt Lake City that does this specialized surgery.  How lucky we are to live here.  Annette went through the long 8 hour surgery and came out with a great positive outcome.  Yes she does have to do 6 months of chemo, but she has a very positive outlook on life.  My sister is a a HUGE example in my life.  She is a HUGE example in her grandchildren’s life, in her great-grandchildren’s life.  She is known as “the grandma down the hill”, “the grandma with the smarties in her purse”.  How she is LOVED by her children, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, cousins.  She is a shining light, and  a friend to everyone.  She has Christlike qualities that I want to exemplify in my life.  I look up to her for her unselfish love. She is an amazing artist with her oil paintings, a great alto singer and the perfect sister.  We have many more years to laugh, share good books, sew, quilt, and party.  Your positive outlook is an inspiration to everyone.

So, when life gives you lemons, squeeze out the juice, add a little sugar, a little water, and a lot of love and pass the lemonade around.

What is in your grandchildren’s “bucket lists”?

Have you ever asked your grandchildren what they wanted to do during their life?  I was explaining “bucket lists” to them, and was telling them some things in my bucket list that I want to do.  I was amazed at what they came up with.  Here are a couple of the grandkids lists.

My 4 year old grandson’s bucket list:

Own a phone, go to school, water the flowers, be a Marine just like daddy, pick up dog poop (yes he really said that), drive a car, and do handwriting. That’s a pretty good list for a 4 yr old.

My 8 yr old granddaughter’s bucket list:

Go to Disneyworld, go to London, be a schoolteacher, and go to New York with me to a Broadway Musical.   That’s also a pretty awesome list.

My own bucket list:

DisneyWorld with my grandchildren, travel through Europe, publish a children’s book, learn to oil paint.  This is just a portion of my bucket list.

I can already see things in their bucket lists, that I would LOVE to do with them.  My 8 yr old granddaughter takes after me.  I LOVE to travel and would LOVE to travel with her to some of her destinations.  I know as they get older, their bucket lists will change and will grow.  But for right now it’s a good start.

As a grandmother, I will continue  to ask them about their “bucket lists” and help them to accomplish their lists. Share your bucket list with your grandchildren.  You may have several things that are the same that would be fun to talk about or even do together.  I challenge each one of you to ask your grandchildren what is in their “bucket lists” and write it down along with the date so they can remember.  It is a fun conversation to have and to look back at with them.

 

 

Books, books,books

I LOVE to read.  It’s trying to find the time to read that is the tricky part. I have always been a reader and love a good book.  When I was growing up, during the summers, my sister who was married with children of her own, would take the neighborhood children to the library every couple of weeks. We all got our own library cards which to us, was a special treat.  We would all pick out some books to read, then we would lay on blankets in someone’s backyard, and read, read, read.  To this day, I still have several books I’m reading at the same time whether it’s on my kindle, iPad, or just a book that you hold, I always have a book near. My children grew up having books read to them, and my grandchildren love to have me read books to them.  Not just one book, but several at a time.  Here is an author that I have really enjoyed, and her books that I have liked.

SHANNON HALE

I was introduced to Shannon Hales books by a girlfriend of mine that is a school teacher and would read “Princess Academy” book to her 2nd grade class every year. I then found out that Shannon is a cousin of one of my other girl friends.  It truly is a small world.  I have read several of her books, and have really enjoyed them.  I can’t wait to share them with my grandchildren.

Book # 1 is “Princess Academy” is about a girl that lives high on a mountain where, for generations, her ancestors have quarried stone and lived a simple life. Word comes to the mountain that the king’s priests have chosen her small village the home of the future princess.  In order to be “chosen”, they send all the eligible girls to an academy to learn to become royalty from which the prince will choose his princess.  Miri is chosen to attend the academy.  I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars.

Book # 2 is “Palace of Stone”  This continues the series and it also got 4 out of 5 stars.

Book #3 rounds out the series “The Forgotten Sisters”.

Another set of books that Shannon Hale wrote that I liked really well were “The Books of Bayern”.

Book #1 is “The Goose Girl”

Book #2 is “Enna Burning”

Book # 3 is “River Secrets”

Book #4 is “Forest Born”

All of the books can be found at your local library. Take a few minutes, sit down and read a book, whether alone, or with your grandchildren.  It might even be fun to start a grandchildren book club.  Take an interest in what they like to read.  You may like reading the book also.  Happy reading.