He Leadeth Me

Our neighborhood library closed 3 weeks ago and reopened in a new location that had taken 2 years to build. It is billed as a 21st Century Library and is very cool! Today I took the grandchildren. It was my 3rd day to be at the library since it opened 3 days ago.   The children's area had a dress-up center which was right up Aaron's alley.   David loved the train center. Both little guys enjoyed the animal center. Caleb enjoyed this magnetic counting maze. There is a wonderful reading area where there is a BEAUTIFUL  view of the mountains. Not pictured: The exciting ride in the elevator The ice cream treats in the Her Story Cafe. The actual checking out of books. When we got home, they enjoyed one of their favorite activities--drawing. At the end of the day, we joined their parents (and Cora) for some ice cream at a CS Downtown Ice cream parlor, Josh and John's. Aunt Mandy and Cora enjoying some snuggling a...

Let me take you on a tour of my very unorganized pantry. Now, I am an organized kind of  person, but this pantry defied organization. I am quite embarrassed to be showing you this, but just you wait! Yes, there were even things on the floor. And stacked willy nilly all the way to the top where no one could reach. But yesterday I emptied it out!!! Wait for it!!!!! And Neil, from Home Storage Remedies worked his magic. Each of the pull-out drawers holds 80 pounds of groceries.   The two top pull-out shelves make it easy to reach those hard to reach items and to see them at a glance. And I think this is my absolute favorite--the pull-out can shelves. I am in organization heaven, and thoroughly enjoying my late Christmas present.

It seems to me as if on Mother's Day, Sunday sermons extoll mothers and all their good qualities. On Father's Day, we  hear preachers  telling  fathers how  they can improve  their fathering. In my experience,  I have known many WONDERFUL fathers who love their children as passionately as those of us who are mothers. Let me introduce you to just  a few that I am most familiar with. Robert Leon Gibson David's dad Bill Aven my Daddy David Gibson AKA as Ducca Lynn Aven my brother Fili Hinojosa our nephew-in-law and the newest father in the family Randy Taylor my brother-in-law another of Ducca with his sweet Cora Adrian Rollett our son-in-law Jeremy Gibson our son another of Adrian Terry Aven my brother Michael Van Loenen our nephew-in-law Another of Jeremy Not pictured but equally good fathers in our family: Chris Bailey, Vann Evans, Andrew Evans...

Everything is ready for the second day of Nana's Summer Day Camp 2014. We are going to do art projects at this camp. This is Cora's first Day Camp. She loved it.  She loves being with all the "big" cousins. The first project was coloring on a shower curtain with permanent markers. Not the greatest success.  I bought a shower curtain at Dollar Tree, and I got what I paid for.  It was very thin and flimsy.  But they had fun with the process.   Cora loves coloring.   I can remember making crafts from popcicle sticks when I was a kid. I think my mom saved REAL popsicle sticks for this.  Now you can buy them in bulk at Dollar Tree and even in pretty colors. This purchase was much better than the shower curtain. I wish I had taken pictures of the finished products. Caleb and AK made very impressive towers.  They called them the Twin Towers. Sweet Aaron made a special popsicle stick airplane for his cousin David in David's favor...

Disclaimer: I love to write and record the journey with my grandchildren.  It is my hope that these blog posts will be looked back on fondly by  them and by me in years to come when they are too old to participate in activities like  Nana's Summer Day Camp. I appreciate that so many of you comment on how much fun it looks like I have  with my grandchildren, but I do NOT write the posts to brag about what I do for them. I have learned to be a grandparent from some of the BEST -- from my own grandparents,  from my children's grandparents, and from my sister-in-law Gail, who entered this grandparent world before me and always does such fun things with her boys that it made me want to "grow up and be like her". I am not a very good spend the night grandmother. For some reason, I can't sleep when my grandchildren are here for sleepovers. So I decided that this summer, we would have several "Day Camps" during...