Nana Power

 

That is the "key" to the room I am wearing on my wrist.  We all got one when checking in, and if we lost it, we had to pay for another one!!  You just held it up to a spot on your door and it opened it.  It was cut off when we left the resort, though the guy let the kids keep theirs.

The kids got a red one and I saw a green/blue one on older kids.  If you didn't have one, you couldn't get served, as it showed you were a guest of the resort.

Now youngest grandson (age 4) decided his bracelet had special powers, so of course I decided mine had special Nana powers as well!!  We would touch ours together and say Nana power, just like the Power Rangers!!!!

We had great fun using those powers.  I must admit I did like this bracelet idea, as they were waterproof and you didn't have to worry about losing your room key.

Christmas is changing........(Spolier alert about Santa!!)

 albeit slowly in our house, but it's changing.  

This year I am giving Christmas cards out to only immediate family, and people who we will see in person.  Years gone by we would have up to 50 or more cards from various people.  Our kids only send cards to immediate family as well and I think that's under pressure from me!!

I am normally organized and have everything done and wrapped by this time.  Not this year, and instead of a pile of presents, it's a couple of small gifts and money, other than for the two boys, as they are only 4 & 7 and don't understand the concept of money yet, not like the older ones.

If I hadn't of had that party on the weekend, I know I would be not doing as much decorating around the house.  I think it would have just been the tree and a couple of other things.

Now we have grandkids, we have not had Christmas Day at our house in years, and I love it...LOL  At the end of the day Christmas is for kids, not for us oldies!!  These past two years it was one or the other of our adult children and their family away over Christmas, and again that's fine.  When there are inlaws involved, you have to share, which I am totally fine about.

The older we get the less we are bothered about Christmas.  However, I do love to see the kids' face when they open their gifts and I love the excitement they have about Santa coming.  I also enjoy threatening the two little ones with, "If you don't listen, I'm going to have a word with Santa and tell him you've been a naughty boy!!"  As that threat still works!!  Listening is a major problem with the boys.....just saying!!

The next bit is a SPOLIER ALERT ABOUT SANTA!!!

With the girls, the 12 year old, does not believe in Santa, sorry to disappoint you if you still believe in him!  However, she hasn't actually come out and said it.....just in case Santa does not come!!  The 9 year old is on the cusp of not believing, but again doesn't want to come out with it, just in case!!

So yes, Christmas is changing around here, but my memories of Christmas's past will always remain.

How about you?

Today's Goal's for a 4 year old..........

 This is what I told the teacher at the gate to the Kindergarten entrance.

1. Bring home both his mitten's.......
2. Leave the sand pit at school......

Her response, "Good luck with that!!"

Who knew my life would revolve around mittens and bloody sand all week!!!  LOL

Do you know how far sand travels around a house?  I do, it gets everywhere!!

Time to pass on the baton..........

When God was handing out talents, I skipped a few lines; how to mend a car, how to use power tools, you know that sort of thing.  However, I was front and centre when in the "shop until you drop," line😁

The other day I met up with daughter and grand daughters at the mall around 40 minutes from home.  I rather enjoy that mall, Vaughan Mills.  Got a variety of stores and a pretty good food court.  Plus it's a straight drive for me, no going on Highway 401, which is a nightmare I find.

Any how, we got there for 10am and fueled up at Tim Hortons, before we started.  We all had things we wanted/needed to do and I will say we all were in a great mood.  

I came to the store I needed to go into, Kate Spade first.  I have splashed something; coffee maybe, onto my suede handbag.  I am not happy, so wanted advice on the best way to clean it.  Their advice; google it?????  We had a look around, admiring all the bags and deciding, I would drag hubby back there when he is off next to see if he feels like buying me another handbag 😉

We carried on and got more shopping and more shopping, and more shopping!!!  By 12:15pm, my feet were killing me and I left the others in a store to go and find a chair to sit down on.  They came and found me and said lets go to HomeSense.  I said no we're going to eat and dragged them to the food court, so I could sit down for a bit.

After lunch we went to HomeSense and bought a pile of stuff, and headed towards Bass Pro to look at the fish; but after that I was done.  I could walk no more.  I left the mall at 1:45 pm and was home by 2:30pm.  Which means I was shopping for only 3 + hours, but I was pooped.

So I am now officially handing over the shopping baton to daughter and grand daughters, they can get on with it now; I'm getting too old for all this wandering around!!  But let me add, despite how tired I was I thoroughly enjoyed my day, the girls are great to shop with, especially when they have there own money!!

Sharks in the Water! 🦈

So we were babysitting on the weekend.  Babysat the boys, Saturday into Sunday while their parents were away.  The weather was awful with a lot of rain and Liam picked up a stomach bug so was in bed early poor thing.

Evan will be 3 this coming Saturday and he LOVES the video below.  I mean really, really LOVES this video.

Now to be fair when you first watch it, it's quite catchy don't you think?  However after watching it 100 times (slight exaggeration!!), it does start to get on your nerves; just saying!!!  

This guy is the Australian version of Blippi.

Now between me and you I don't know who is worse.  Blippi's voice gets on my nerves, so maybe Go Danny, or is it Danny Go(?) wins.

Remember when Barney was the hit for all younger kids?  Sesame Street has stood the test of time.  

The one thing I do enjoy is being able to watch kids movies with the kids.  I would never think of doing that other wise!

Is there a particular kids character you enjoy?

Vertebrates, , invertebrates and Egyptian burial tombs

Those are just some of the subjects I discussed with my soon to be 6 year old grandson the other night.

Back story; I babysat the boys while their parents went out for dinner.  Got the boys bathed and tucked up into bed.  The nearly 3 year old went to sleep within ten minutes, but the 6 year old is allowed to read for half an hour.  He reads at the same level as someone years older, and loves animals.

I go upstairs 30 minutes later to tuck him in and of course he starts talking, to delay the actual time he has to go to sleep, as he reckons he is smarter than his nana!!  

He's reading a book on snakes and proceeds to tell me how snakes are vertebrates and how worms are invertebrates.

I can feel the cogs in the depth of my brain turning to try and remember what I know about this subject, but don't really have to worry as he has plenty to say about it all.

Then he switches gear, because he then talks about skulls and snakes brains.  Okay, so we talk about that for a minute.  Which then proceeds into Egyptian burial tombs and what the Egyptian's did or did not do with brains..........honestly I have forgotten what he said.

I did ask him how on earth he knows about all of this and he has a book on interesting facts. Okay.

I go downstairs later and my brain is tired from over use.....LOL

I have to admit the grandkids keep us on our toes!!

Then the other week my daughter calls to tell me our soon to be 8 year old grand daughter has decided to be a Pescatarian  I had to rack my brain to remember what that was.  

All I could say to daughter was; "Which one of her "delightful" friends has decided they should all do this!!"

Any how, a month later she's still not eating meat and seems quite serious about it all.  So I am guessing it will be fish and chips for supper when they come to stay this coming weekend!!

I could go on and on with stories about my bunch of grandkids, and I am sure you all have lots of stories to tell as well.

I think I need to go to the pharmacy to see if they have any brain enhancer as I am going to need something to keep up with them!!

Which one will last longer?

 I know it's pretty obvious!!

The girls brought us two bunches of tulips on Saturday as a gift; which was so nice of them and our daughter.  Then Nora and I, with a little help from Paige 😉, made up the other box of Lego flowers.

I really enjoy tulips but they tend to droop early on.  By Monday afternoon I had, had to tie a string around them.

I looked up why Tulips droop and I am guessing my vase was too short.  I thought I had heard long ago that if you stuck a pin through the stalk just below the tulip head that would stop them drooping?  Have you heard of this?

It took us 2 hours to make up the second box of Lego flowers.  I will say we both enjoyed doing it, Nora and I.  Nora is 9 and she found it relatively easy to make them.  Plus I don't think there will be any drooping with these ones!!

I am missing a pink petal off the Gerbera Daisy though!

We're living in crazy times that's for sure.........

It's been a few months since I last did a blog post.  Between now and then all sorts of things has happened, but none as dramatic as the Covid-19 crisis that is exploding world wide.

I have been in two minds about jumping back into the blogging bandwagon but I feel I may have useful information to help us through these trying times, that could help out in a small way?  Some things people already know what to do, others may not.  Also each country has set up different systems to deal with this crisis.  Also each person/family is dealing with this crisis in their own different way.

In our family we are fortunate that so far everyone is still managing to work; either from home or still at their place of work.  Daycare's and school's are closed but the grandkids are lucky to be able to be at home with one or both parents.  I must admit I am missing them like crazy, but thanks to modern technology I can see and talk to them frequently.  However it's not the same as being able to give them a hug, but that will happen soon enough.

One thing I think that has affected probably everyone is the panic buying of food and supplies.  It has happened all over the world and I think some have suffered more than other's.  Personally I think things are beginning to settle down; at least in my area, as the shelves in the stores are a little more fuller.  I know I have had to alter the way I do things and for the first time in my adult life I was concerned about whether or not we would be able to get fresh fruit and veggies...……...and no I wasn't one of the crazies that bought all the toilet paper...……….never did understand why people were bulk buying toilet paper? 

As I said so far everyone is still working in the family, but no job is 100% secure and if we were to rely on the government to support us we would be unable to cover all our bills and still be able to eat!!  So over the next few days I will do various posts about various topics to help us through these trying times.  If there is anything you want me to cover please ask.

I already make 90% of our meals from scratch and now it's up to 100% so will share some cheap and easy meal ideas.  I will go over how to budget and save money doing various things.  Also I am hoping between us all we will be able to come up with various ideas that will help us all not just now, but in the weeks and months after this crisis is over with.

Finally:

And please stay safe and listen to what your government is saying about social distancing!

A $14.68 fix........

Dd and the girls popped up for a visit on the weekend.  Amongst the things we did we had a trip to Homesense for a look around.  Miss N. felt very grown up carrying Nana's handbag.

 Miss P's hands were full with "Scarf Bear!!"

As soon as we walked through the door we saw this display.  I LOVE those milk boxes, really cute.

The girls took Timmy the Turtle home and here he is in their garden.

I found a new ironing board cover.  This is why the title of the post is $14.68 ($12.99 plus 13 % tax = $14.68)

 So on Monday I too off my old ironing board cover and underneath it I had put tin foil, which had rusted through.

 When I removed the tin foil, it was even more rusty, but very serviceable.

 So covered it with new tin foil.

 Added the new ironing board cover and everything is good too go.

 Remembered to cut off any usable hardware.

 Then bundled it all up and threw out the old cover and tin foil.  It looks nasty doesn't it?

Should be all good for a few more years.

Trouble x five!!!

These guys all try to get together for a play date once a month.

I didn't go as the weekend traffic is horrendous during the summer.  Will be seeing them all at the beginning of September.

Haven't they all grown?  When dd told me she had taken a couple of photos of them, I commented that they must have all been eating, as that's the only way you would have got them to sit still.

There is a splash pad at this park, so that's why they have their bathing suits on.

I do love them all, along with our little Liam.