Wednesdays With My Mom

It's been awhile since I've posted my mom and dad's wedding photo. So for those of you who have tuned in late to 'Wednesday's With My Mom', here you go...for your viewing pleasure! : )
Below, big sister, little brother. So precious!
Below, little Andy is about 11 months old here, and Diana is almost three. "Daddy's Little Firecracker" has a birthday coming up on Saturday. Happy Birthday a little early, big sister. : )

Nothin' to write home about on this Wednesday, last week. This mirror hangs in my mom's livingroom. She told me that when the air conditioning comes on, that the mirror rocks just a bit on the wall and that she would like to find a solution.

Packing peanuts to the rescue. Hee-hee! I just happened to bring some packages with me on this day to get ready for the Post Office, so...the rest is history! Problem solved.

Yet another blood test to check Mom's iron and a couple of other things.

Always the good sport.

Well, there are big changes on the horizon for my mom. She had a little tumble (nothing too serious) in her apartment last week. Because of that and several other factors, my mom will be moving into a residential Home Care facility two houses down from my sister, who lives here locally by me. It will still only take me about 10 minutes to get over there. Mom's five children have known this was coming for some time now. We've been in conference with each other all week about the issue. She will live with four other elderly women in a beautiful, clean, organized home run by a wonderful Asian couple.

If I could enlist your prayers that things will go smoothly this week, it would mean very much to our family. I have not shared that my mother has Alzheimer's yet, because......I guess for lots of reasons. It hurts to even think about it. And it's not extremely bad yet, but we have watched it slowly progress over the last year and a half.

My Wednesdays With Mom will continue as before, with pix of what we do on those days. Thank you so much for your loving comments and interest in our sweet mom!

Mary Lou

How would you like to make every movie your children watch a 'G' or 'PG'?

We've owned our ClearPlay DVD player for over a year now and I can't tell you how much I LOVE it. I am receiving absolutely no compensation for sharing this, just the satisfaction of trying to give our children and grandchildren (and your family) a little better world to live in.

I love the fact that we can watch an entire movie with NO swearing, or "junk" that is so prevalent in today's world.

The only problem is that sometimes I forget to tell people, when recommending a movie we bought or rented, that we saw it with lots of the "junk" removed. Oops! : )

If you Google: ClearPlay DVD player, you'll see them for sale everywhere. When they first came out a couple years ago, they were sold at Target Stores. I'm not sure if they still are or not. I haven't checked lately.

Cut and pasted from the ClearPlay.com Site:
Q. How does it work ?

A. The ClearPlay DVD player seamlessly skips and mutes content based on 12 categories that you can set. ClearPlay Filters are hand-crafted by at team of Filter Developers who watch the movie and masterfully select where the player will remove content.
ClearPlay works with thousands of movies. New Filters are generally made available the same day as new releases.
Filters are then made available to members via a very easy-to-use download process. You can then copy the entire Filter library to your FilterStik™. Once inserted into your ClearPlay player any movie will automatically be filtered.

Our subscription (for downloading new filters to brand new movies out) is under $8.00 a month. And you get to choose how much or how little filtering you want. We bought ours on sale for $60.00, plus tax. When I looked into the links over at Google, I saw all kinds of prices. Granted, ours is about 1 1/2 years old, but it is just the basic black one they offer.

Love it, Love it! If you want more info, just click on the highlighted link in my first sentence.

Happy Sunday evening,

M.L.

Who Could Use a Giggle Today?

This little video lasts 7 seconds, but is guaranteed to make you giggle. I love to play it 2 or 3 times in a row because of the anticipation of the girls' giggles after their parachutes land at the bottom of the stairs. First, you will hear them saying, "Hi Nana", before they drop their parachutes, and then their giggles at the end are irresistible. : ) Enjoy!!!


And I put a few new things in the Shop today, FINALLY!



That's glitter and "pearl" eggs in there, in case you were wondering.

The back side of both necklaces, below.

Have a nice weekend and remember...laughing is good for the soul. : )

Wednesdays With My Mom

This photo below is of my mom and my grandmother (on my dad's side), who is holding brand new little Andy. I sure loved my grandmother. I'm sure she is a big reason why my dad was so precious. I was named after her. : )

The photo above was actually taken last Friday when my mom spent some time at my place. As she was leaving, little Miss G told GG that her necklace was pretty. SO SWEET!

And this one is silly, really...but it was from last Wednesday. We walked down to the mailboxes to get some exercise and I didn't have my camera with me. So I took this one with my phone. I said, "Let me take your picture Mom, because you look cute no matter what you're doing." I wish I would have been quick enough to get her laughing at what I'd just said. : )

Header Fun

First things first...I didn't make this adorable little girl below. I purchased her from this charming Etsy shop: http://RememberMeEmily.Etsy.com/ . I also went over and told the artist what I was doing here. I hope she won't mind that I changed her up a bit for the 4th of July.
Sara wants me to change her back after the 4th, because she likes her better in the original outfit. Emily's work is meticulous and beautiful!

We're you wondering if I was going to change my Header for the Summer? I stayed up till all hours last night playing. Too fun!

I have been collecting Williraye figurines for years. Notice my new addition from Cari Kraft below, being held by my tall Santos figurine? I've had my eyes on this since I saw it in her Etsy Shop last Summer. Now I'm the proud owner of one of her pieces.

Well look-ie here!!! Jack decided to come to my house and join Jill. Since my oldest daughter gave me Jill for Mother's Day, I decided to spend my first earnings from my Shop, for Jack. Just doin' my part to feed the economy. : )

I think I'm in love! I added the little Americana pinwheels just for the Holiday.

Good News! I will be adding some fun new items to my Shop soon. I was busy last week with two special orders (thanks girls). Can't wait to get in my Studio and start causing mischief, of the good sort. ;-)

Faux Lasagna

I thought long and hard about the title of this post. Perfect, right? : )
If you're ever in a pinch, try this. It's fast and delicious!

A funny little tip I learned from my SIL, Layne, a long time ago: Put grease from cooking ground beef in a metal can, put it in the freezer, when it's full , throw out as a solid. Thanks Layne.

Simply cook noodles. Then layer meat sauce , noodles, cottage cheese, and two cheeses. Cover with foil and cook @ 350 for 45 minutes- an hour. Let sit at least 15 minutes, uncovered, before cutting.
Guess where this dinner went that night? Remember this story? Well, after a long and challenging pregnancy, Ally, (my new little neighbor), finally made it safely here.
The sweet gals at church provided two more meals to Ally's family last week.

Welcome to the world, Ally. Your brother and sisters are so happy you're here safe and sound. And of course your mommy and daddy!

Wednesdays With My Mom

Look who received a baby brother. Welcome to the world, little Andrew!! My mother actually looked this beautiful after each and every one of her five births. I don't know how she did it.
Diana is being Daddy's Little Helper in the yard here. : )

The pic above, is Diana of course. But the photo below, is actually my baby...Sara, in front of Grandma and Grandpa's house on one of our vacations. The porches look so similar, but these are not the same home.

Okay, so she's not a baby anymore. Do I HAVE to admit it? Sara is my number four and the "baby" of our little family. : )

Silly girl. When my mom opened her mail (on this Wednesday, last week) there were more beautiful pix from one of her Granddaughters. I taped it to another water bottle, at least temporarily, so she could enjoy them all. Guess what? I talked my mom into letting me color her hair. She was such a good sport. Afterwards, I said, "Mom, why don't you put on your new blouse, some lipstick and earrings and I'll take some pix of you to show [my siblings]. "

Beautiful Mom! : )

How to Make a "Legal" Firecracker!

As promised, I wanted to show you what the cute little firecracker belonged to. Isn't this fun? Supplies: 1" diameter dowel, blue glitter, gold pipe cleaners, one drill I gave to my husband for our first Christmas back in 1892 (not a type-o, a joke...but some days it doesn't feel like a joke). :-)

Mark it at 3" and either cut it with a hand saw or Bandsaw. I blew the dust off of my Bandsaw and used it for these. Maybe I'll get out there and start cutting wood again. I've missed that.

Drill a hole on the top to glue in the pipecleaners. As you can see below, just glue the scrapbook paper around, add glitter around the stars, and glue in the pipecleaner "sparks".

I only had the supplies to make two of these. One for us and one for the Etsy Shop. I put the one in my Shop on Friday night, but it was gone Saturday morning. Thank you to the "person" who patronized my Shop yesterday. : )

I hope this helped in any way. I've seen firecracker groupings of three in graduated sizes tied together, before. Maybe that would be fun to try. : )