Grandma Marsha – JTOK Chatter

JTOK Chatter > Grandma Marsha

I know she’d be thrilled.

Posted on November 8, 2015 @ 8:50 pm by Jen — No Comments ↓

So, while we were cleaning out Marsha’s apartment, I found two $50 QVC e-gift cards (from us and Tom’s brother, from maybe 2012 or so)—I took them with me to check if they’d been used. They hadn’t. So I had a $100 credit. The next day, I found a manila folder with three more QVC gift cards…dating back to—ARE YOU READY?!—2008!! I was sure they’d had to have been used because she LOVED the silver jewelry from QVC and had a lot of it…but grabbed them anyway just in case.

So fast forward to last night when I was putting away all the jewelry pieces of hers that I had chosen (for me and Katie) and I realized that my jewelry box just wasn’t big enough—I just didn’t have the space for mine plus hers (she had A LOT of jewelry and I had picked quite a bit, though it was still a fraction of what she actually had). I then realized that I have jewelry in a box, in a hanging case, in a drawer, and in random spots around the bedroom…and that that’s kinda silly and I’d actually get good use out of a standing armoire.

I ended up at QVC because I vaguely remembered wanting one from there years ago…and they had EXACTLY what I wanted…on clearance…with free shipping! It was more than I’d wanted to pay, but not bad considering what other ones cost and that it would last me the rest of my life. Tom agreed I could get it so I dug out the folder of QVC gift cards to check their balance. And none of the three had been used. NONE! So I had another $95 credit! So after almost $200 credit, I owed about $65.

So…Marsha unknowingly bought me the perfect Christmas gift—something I loved, wanted, and needed—that could house all the great jewelry I got from her…and I know she’d be thrilled.

They are both so sweet.

Posted on November 6, 2015 @ 7:20 pm by Jen — No Comments ↓

So we’re watching Inside Out and some scene comes on where the characters are crying.

Katie: What’s he doing?
Tom: He’s crying. It’s good to cry. It’s how we deal with things.
Owen: Like when Grandma Marsha died.
Tom and I look at each other and get teary.
Me: Exactly.
Owen: And we won’t forget her…
Katie: Because she’s always in our heart.
Tom and I look at each other again and just about lose it. The kids weren’t phased at all and just went back to watching the movie.

I’m glad the things I’ve said to them have sunk in, even if Katie doesn’t specifically understand yet.

Unfortunately we’re not going home for a fun visit.

Posted on October 24, 2015 @ 4:20 pm by Jen — No Comments ↓

For about three weeks now, we’ve known that Tom’s mom’s cancer had spread to her liver…but she was dealing with it…and the prognosis, while not great, still gave us hope. Unfortunately, I just don’t think her heart was in it. She didn’t want to deal with chemo the last time around and was glad when she didn’t have to do it. So when she learned that was in her future this time…

Tom got a call from his brother last night that she had fallen and was taken to the ER. The doctors seemed to think that she would rebound once they re-hydrated her but Tom wanted to head up anyway so he left Saturday morning. Unfortunately, about four hours in to the drive he got the call that she had died. So he turned around to come get us and we will all leave for Michigan tomorrow morning.

Kisses from Grandma

Posted on July 30, 2015 @ 2:41 pm by Jen — No Comments ↓

Katie’s last 3rd birthday party!

Posted on July 28, 2015 @ 1:40 pm by Jen — No Comments ↓

We celebrated Katie’s birthday at the Ramada again this year. She didn’t want to go in the pool, though—choosing the playground instead.

Of course Owen wanted to swim!

Caught mid-jump!

She finally decided she wanted to swim!

We FINALLY got her to jump in the pool again!

Owen also received a few gifts…Papa and Grannie gave him a roll of quarters to use in the hotel game room!

He shared his quarters with his sister!

A great time was had by all…

A day with Grandma Marsha!

Posted on July 24, 2015 @ 3:50 pm by Jen — No Comments ↓

Birthday dinner, cake, and presents!

Posted on February 3, 2015 @ 7:05 pm by Jen — No Comments ↓

Even though we went to Red Robin this past weekend to celebrate Owen’s birthday… AND I took him a Five Guys burger on his birthday at school… We still went out to eat for his birthday dinner! 🙂 (Yeah, we like going out to eat.) 🙂 We tried a new pizza place that’s close to us and it wasn’t too bad. I’m actually getting sick of pizza so I had a Stromboli which was pretty good. And Katie was introduced to the Parmesan shaker. 🙂

When we got home we Skyped with Grandma Marsha and Uncle Rob, sang happy birthday, ate cake, and opened presents.

Then I gave Owen his gift certificate for the Magic School Bus monthly experiments. Before he opened it I explained it was from mom and dad, Gramma Jean and Grandpa David, and Papa and Grannie—and I was sure he’d be over the moon!! And of course he couldn’t have cared less, LOL. He just couldn’t understand that it meant 12 new experiments (like the volcano he just did) and kept looking at the paper like Aaaand?! I kept trying to explain it and I think he finally started to get an idea…but he probably won’t fully get it until the packages start arriving (it should be mid-month).

Things never turn out as you expect when kids are involved. 🙂

Watching Frozen with Grandma

Posted on December 18, 2014 @ 10:30 am by Jen — No Comments ↓

I had a few errands to run so Katie stayed home with Grandma and she wanted to watch Frozen. It was Grandma’s first time and probably Katie’s 25th time.

Christmas with Grandma Marsha and Uncle Rob!

Posted on December 16, 2014 @ 1:01 pm by Jen — No Comments ↓

We celebrated Christmas this morning because Owen was home from school…due to ongoing constipation issues (he had been heavily medicated but NOTHING was happening and I hadn’t wanted to send him to school just in case).

She LOVED her princess tutu, crown, and wand! After about 10 minutes, we were all tired of the wand because it lit up AND made noise! (The crown lights up, too, but thankfully doesn’t make noise!)

Uncle Rob helped Owen with the Legos after Owen got stuck and I tried and gave up. 🙂

Stockings from Grandma!

Posted on December 15, 2014 @ 8:30 pm by Jen — 1 Comment ↓

The kids were itching to open all the presents they saw Grandma and Uncle Rob bring in, but it was a little late in the evening…so we just let them open the stocking stuff.

Katie LOVES Yoda!

Love a Grandma!

Posted on December 15, 2014 @ 10:55 am by Jen — No Comments ↓

Santa Visit (Fail) 2014

Posted on December 13, 2014 @ 11:03 am by Jen — 1 Comment ↓

I didn’t want to wait in any long lines so after requesting advice from a local facebook group, we decided to visit the Santa at the new Gander Mountain. Both kids hadn’t been able to stop talking about seeing Santa and they were SUPER excited leading up to the day…until we actually saw him, at which point neither kid wanted ANYTHING to do with him. Owen hid in a clothes rack and Katie begrudgingly got carried up by daddy. (And this is precisely why I didn’t want to spend any amount of time waiting in a line.)

This was their best shot. Not too bad. It was actually neat—they took the picture with an iPad and then emailed it to you right then and there.

After Katie was done, Owen decided he wanted to try again…so we tried to get them both on Santa’s lap. Ha. Ha ha. This time, Owen was pretty good, but Katie was still being a poop. This is the best one they got.

This was the best one I managed to get. Good times!

Then they had a green screen photo shoot and this is the background Owen picked:

Then the girls headed out to Target while the boys went on their super special trip to Chuck E. Cheese!!

Our last night at Gramma and Grandpa’s house

Posted on July 19, 2014 @ 8:07 pm by Jen — No Comments ↓

After the group photo, he commandeered the tripod to use as a cannon…and then actually as a tripod and was pretending to take pictures.

Sitting by the fire!

Not a bad spur of the moment family picture!

Making s’mores!

Eating s’mores—or in Katie’s case, eating the chocolate bar off the graham cracker.

Kaliseum, Day 2

Posted on July 19, 2014 @ 1:25 pm by Jen — No Comments ↓

Since we had the time, Tom took the kids back to Kalkaska to the Kaliseum for another day of swimming with Uncle Rob and Grandma Marsha! (I stayed back and went to a Parade of Gardens and lunch with my mom!)

This is how she’d navigate the water when it was too deep for her.

Heading up for the waterslide! He hadn’t wanted to go on it the last time, but then was sad he didn’t do it…so he was excited to go back so he could try again.

Unfortunately, it didn’t happen, and he came back down within a minute (the time stamps on both photos are 1:06pm). Oh well.

Fire, Fireworks & Stones, Part 2

Posted on July 18, 2014 @ 8:21 pm by Jen — No Comments ↓

I got some of mom’s pictures of the day, but not until after I’d already posted…so I’m just putting her pictures in their own post!

Fire, Fireworks & Stones

Posted on July 18, 2014 @ 8:06 pm by Jen — No Comments ↓

Gramma Jean wanted to try out her new fire pit…so we all headed outside. The kids loved running around and of course Owen had to get out his new water gun. 🙂

Uncle Rob was nice enough to go in and fill up the water gun…but surprised Owen by shooting him! It’s blurry but I love Owen’s body!

She stayed pretty far from the fire once daddy yelled at her for getting too close. 🙂

Watering Gramma’s flowers.

Smoke bombs! They certainly didn’t last as long as I remembered them to…

Katie liked the pooping dog—except for the popping and crackling at the end.

In addition to Katie’s first fireworks (MUCH earlier than Owen’s first fireworks!), she also got her first sparkler. She was okay with it…but not thrilled.

And then we all went out to the front yard looking for Petoskey stones in the landscaping.

Katie’s pool and pizza birthday party.

Posted on July 15, 2014 @ 7:16 pm by Jen — No Comments ↓

Unfortunately, Gramma Jean was sick so she didn’t make it to the party—and we didn’t get a group picture—but Grandpa David, Grauntie Marge, Grandma Marsha, Uncle Rob, Grannie Lin, and Papa were all there! Even our dear friend Paul stopped by!

He bonked his nose diving in the shallow water.

Katie was having a blast splashing EVERYONE. We kept trying to redirect her to splash Owen but she kept coming back to us.

Tom turned the water on and she stuck her foot right in!

She has no fear—she jumped right into Tom’s arms!

She loved daddy pushing her around the pool!

Owen was not comfortable in the big pool and stuck to the steps and the side of the pool. He would NOT go out any farther, even though we showed him it wasn’t any deeper AND Grannie promised to hold him tight. Eventually, after maybe 30 minutes, he FINALLY let go…and of course had fun racing with daddy and Katie!

And then it was time for the party! Grannie Lin and Papa bought all the plates/decorations, the cake and cupcakes, and the pizza—and brought Burger King crowns for both kids!

Grandpa David would put a cheeze ball on Tom’s beer and Katie would eat it off. We did this a handful of times.

Papa and Grannie had bought this scooter for Owen for his birthday but then they weren’t able to come visit…so they brought it now, but he’s just a bit over the recommended weight limit so it went to Katie instead. You can see she liked being pushed on it. 🙂

But then we let Owen try it, just to see if he’d like it and would maybe want a bigger scooter for himself. He did like it, and Katie took to running in front of him saying “WATCH OUT! WATCH OUT!” to clear his path. 🙂

Then it was back to the house where it wasn’t long before the kids were ready to crash. A good day!

A Wet Day in Kalkaska

Posted on July 14, 2014 @ 7:28 pm by Jen — No Comments ↓

We took the kids to the Kalkaska Kaliseum for open swim. Owen was there last year (and I wasn’t) so this year we ALL went. 🙂 Grandma Marsha came to watch and Uncle Rob came with us in the afternoon (as did Papa and Grannie, who happened to be in Kalkaska meeting people for dinner).

Katie had no fear of the water and kept wanting to go into the 3′ deep section (which is, of course, over her head). She’d hang on to the edge or bounce up and down to keep her head above water. Or Tom would hold her and she’d do this. 🙂

Owen likes to float (he’s about two inches above the bottom here).

Back to Grandma Marsha’s for lunch…and a nap before the next open swim time.

Grannie and Papa were arriving and the kids were excited to see them!

Fish hatchery and fishing!

Posted on July 11, 2014 @ 3:44 pm by Jen — No Comments ↓

We wanted to introduce Katie to the fish hatchery—and I wanted to see Owen enjoy it (since I didn’t go last year when Tom and Marsha took him)…so our big group came in and asked if we could all get in on the free family admission coupon my mom had…and the guy joked that we were a circus and I said YOU HAVE NO IDEA. 🙂 He let us all in for free, so we bought five bags of food and planned to take Owen fishing…

Katie was fascinated and REALLY wanted to go in the water—so someone had to keep a hand on her most of the time. Owen had fun, too, but couldn’t wait to go fishing!

Owen loved fishing—but who wouldn’t, when it only takes a matter of seconds to catch one! We let him catch five (you pay by the inch) and he had fun with each one!

Katie thought she wanted to see the fish…until she saw them and then that was it.

Owen thought he wanted to hold one…until Tom held one out. 🙂

The family—and Owen with his catch!

Owen’s first fireworks!

Posted on July 10, 2014 @ 8:26 pm by Jen — No Comments ↓

We have been wanting to try some low-key fireworks with Owen for awhile now and just haven’t gotten around to it. I’ve had sparklers for a year now—planning on using them on July 4th or after a party or something—but again, we just never got around to it. Until now.

We went to the local fireworks outlet and asked for the kiddie section and they were having a B1G1 free sale so we ended up with a bunch of little stuff.

And Owen LOVED it. LOVED IT. And everyone loved watching him! We only used half of the stuff tonight so we have one more night’s worth coming up. (And when I say a night’s worth, I mean about 10-15 minutes max, which includes sparkler time.) We made sure Katie was in bed so we could concentrate fully on Owen and not have to worry about Katie… She’ll be out for the second night.

The lady said the ones we got would go “telephone pole height” at most. She was right. 🙂

And I found my pooping dog! I had seen it on Facebook and loved it—and thought the kids would, too. I was thrilled they had it at the store! (And yes, Owen LOVED it.)

Fun in Gramma’s Back Yard

Posted on July 10, 2014 @ 5:23 pm by Jen — No Comments ↓

Potty break when dripping wet = going in the woods!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Katie!

Posted on July 10, 2014 @ 12:34 pm by Jen — No Comments ↓

And a TBT birthday along with today’s version, both taken in Gramma Jean’s back yard!

Sibling Fun + Happy Birthday Grandma Marsha

Posted on April 27, 2014 @ 11:05 am by Jen — No Comments ↓

Then Katie wanted up.

They don’t always get along. 🙂

But he can be so good with her.

Then Skyping with Grandma Marsha for her birthday!

And singing!

MSU Girl

Posted on April 25, 2014 @ 11:00 am by Jen — No Comments ↓

A tee from Grandma Marsha, if I remember right!

Happy Easter 2014!

Posted on April 20, 2014 @ 7:39 am by Jen — No Comments ↓

So Owen was up early with Tom as usual and told Tom that there was an R2-D2 downstairs. That’s one of the “eggs” we hid, and Tom knew he hadn’t been downstairs so was perplexed as to how he knew about it. So he had a talk with him about lying. But Owen claimed he wasn’t lying so Tom finally said “Okay, show me.” And Owen took him to the landing which overlooks the entryway…and part of the toy room where Katie’s changing station is…where Tom had, in fact, placed an R2-D2 on the corner in plain sight!! Mr. Eagle Eyes strikes again!!

Then, surprisingly, when we headed downstairs, he completely missed the egg on the windowsill on the landing…Katie actually saw it as she was coming down (in video).

Owen sharing his eggs with Katie because we warned him not to grab all the eggs before she could see them!

He loved the R2-D2 containers!

She found about three eggs and then she was done—she was opening them and eating the candy as fast as she could!

We tried to get a double bunny ear picture but it wasn’t happening. This was all we got. 🙂

She wanted her bubbles right away!

Dinosaur apron from Grannie Lin!

Chocolate bunny and Lego from Grandma Marsha and Uncle Rob!

Some of the eggs had barrettes and hair ties for Katie! She’s putting one on her wrist here.

Owen REALLY LOVED his chick!

Both kids ate a package of the Despicable Me gummies Grandma Marsha sent!

“Open please daddy?”

Now watch me as I try to shove all four eggs in my mouth at once!

This is daddy laughing at how piggy Katie is being.

A full mouth!

“Bunny!!!”

The aftermath!

You can see her hoarding her Robins Eggs. 🙂

Overall it was a great success! I think they missed a few eggs so they’ll find them throughout the day. And while candy and chocolate was their pre-breakfast snack, they didn’t do too badly!

Missiles!

Posted on June 27, 2013 @ 5:30 pm by Jen — No Comments ↓

Grandma Marsha bought Owen some Captain America missiles so Uncle Rob and daddy took him out to play before dinner. Grandma and Katie came out to watch.

A one-in-a-million photo: Grandma Marsha looking at the camera with her eyes open and nothing blocking her face! And as a bonus, Katie is ALSO looking at the camera with her eyes open! 🙂

Ring pop!

Posted on June 27, 2013 @ 4:42 pm by Jen — No Comments ↓

Owen, to Uncle Rob: You see that? It’s a cherry ring pop. [Points to the ring] It’s a jewel!

Lego Carnival!

Posted on June 25, 2013 @ 12:37 pm by Jen — No Comments ↓

We took Owen over to Traverse City to one of the museums because they were having a Lego Carnival! When we asked him what he saw, he said “LEGO HEADS!”

A carnival sounds quite a but more exciting than it really was—basically just a few rooms of big pre-constructed Lego buildings and then a play area—but he enjoyed it. The hardest part for him was not being able to touch the minifigs that were with the buildings…especially the one that had fallen over. 🙂

But then there was the big Lego tunnel with daddy…

And then he got to the big Lego building area…and his running commentary was about like this: “Awesome. Awesome. This is amazing. Lets get going. Holy mackerel. Wow!”

Yes, I realize that the last picture should be the first picture, but I didn’t feel like redoing the whole collage.

And his final product!!

Then it was off to build cars! We got the base ready for him and then he did the rest. Daddy also built one!

Then it was time to send them down the slide to see if they survived (both did!).

Then he just wanted to play with his cars.

Then it was back to the Lego building tables to rearrange his car pieces.

Then we told him it was almost time to go and asked how many more minutes he wanted to stay. We never know what we’re going to get when we ask him open-ended questions (How many M&Ms do you want? is a typical one) so we all had a big laugh when he said “Five hours.” I don’t think he knows time that well yet but who knows. So we said 15 minutes and set a timer and when it went off, he just asked to run his cars down the ramp one more time so we did:

Then it was off to lunch at North Peak Brewery. Owen decided he wanted to eat outside and us three adults all looked at each other like “Ugh—it’s too warm” but we did it anyway…and it ended up to be REALLY nice as it was mostly overcast and there was a nice breeze! Owen passed the time putting together a new Lego set that Grandma Marsha had bought him for being such a good boy! (I helped him but he did most of it!)

On the way home, we were thinking about stopping for ice cream but thought we could go either way…so we let Owen be the deciding factor.

Tom: Owen, would you like a treat?
Owen: No thanks.
Me: Don’t you want to know what it is?
Owen: Okay.
Me: Ice cream.
Owen: No thanks. Legos were my treat. [Remember, Grandma Marsha bought him the Legos earlier as a treat.]

This isn’t normal for a 4yo, right? To give up ice cream?! He constantly surprises us. 🙂

Overnight and the Kaliseum

Posted on June 24, 2013 @ 8:20 pm by Jen — No Comments ↓

Tom took Owen to stay at Grandma Marsha’s overnight and they went to the Kaliseum. Why does Kalkaska have something like this and Jacksonville doesn’t?!