It's Been A Little While....

Wow! How can it be June already and I haven't posted anything on this blog in 2025. Well, I guess there is no time like the present so here is a little recap of the first half of the year.

I spent many of the cold winter evenings putting puzzles together. This is a very relaxing activity for me. I enjoy the challenge of the 1000 piece puzzles but I like when they have a lot of variation of color and the pieces are different shapes. I call them easy 1000 piece puzzles. Here are a couple that I put together.

Also in January we celebrated Jake's 4th birthday.

It was a "Cars" themed birthday :)

In February we kept Hannah & Janae for a weekend while Jay and Kristen went on their annual cabin getaway. This was the first year that Alexis & Lydia stayed home by themselves. I have a feeling that next year the children just might all stay home together. How quickly they grow up. We enjoyed the weekend with the girls.

Playing games

Silly, sweet Janae :)

Hannah :)

I treated Hannah to ice cream since Janae got to go over to Cassidy's house to play and Hannah was stuck with me.

March 15 was a big milestone for me as I became an official Medicare recipient. As we get older we tend not to enjoy birthdays that much, but I must say that reaching the age of 65 felt like a joyous occasion. I was happy to start receiving my health insurance through Medicare.

In April this little cutie turned one year old.

Sweet Naomi - how can it be a year already?

Also in April I spent a weekend away at a cabin with three other ladies from church. It was such a good time of enjoying each other's company, eating, playing games and laughing. I am so thankful for my friends from Victory church.

April also brought Easter. We enjoyed going to church and celebrating our risen Savior and then spending time with family later in the day. The traditional grandchildren picture... 

Thirteen is the lucky number! We are so thankful for each grandchild.

May brought two more granddaughter birthdays.

Lydia on May 19

14 years old!

And Janae on May 27

The hat says it all -- she is 5!

Also in May we kept Jake & Kyle for a few days while Megan & Jeremy enjoyed some time away celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary. They kept us busy but we had a lot of fun with them.

They love trains

Jake loves playing with Legos

And Kyle likes his little trucks and cars

Picnic at Muddy Run!

Grandpa showing them how to skip rocks

Here are a few other pictures from happenings in the first part of the year.

Handsome Bryce just completed preschool and will be starting  Kindergarten in the Fall. I have been keeping him every Wednesday since he was a baby and will still have him in the mornings next year as he will be in afternoon kindergarten.

I am so enjoying these little boys who are just 2 months apart in age. They are just too cute!

Hannah quizzing. Alexis, Lydia and Mark also quizzed this year, but sadly I neglected to take pictures. We did enjoy going to almost all of their quizzes.

On separate occasions I took Awstin, Bryce, Jake & Cassidy to the Choo Choo barn just because I enjoy it as much as they do. Here is Cassidy posing for a picture.

And here is Jake enjoying ice cream after going to the Choo Choo barn

I also keep Cassidy & Seth on Wednesday mornings while Julissa works the store. Bryce is here too and they generally get along very well, but in this picture Bryce is telling Seth not to mess with his Lego creation! :)

That's it for now. My next blog post should be fairly soon as I want to write about the camping week that we had with the 10 oldest grandchildren the first week of June.