Peace

Christmas ~ All is Calm, All is Bright! (Mostly just the bright part)

Blessings

A wonderful family day.

"Calm"  ( pictures, however, can be sort of deceptive)

Board Game ~ Eldest vs. Youngest

Some of these photos are just too adorable to leave
in the small format of the collage in the last post. So here they are full size.

Great Grandpa entertains 4 yr. old Lola for a while on Monday while she is here. {I get to have her most Mondays while Heidi and the boys are at CC and this week Grandpa joins us due to his fabulous Thanksgiving week visit}.As you can tell Grandpa can play it up or down with a poker face of intense conviction and totally sell it. And she's clearly buying it, by the expression on her face! Lola tends to have a face so full of expression you can read it like a book. I love it.

.They changed the rules a bit to 'simplify' but what 4 year old wouldn't enjoy a board game which includes bunny game pieces, blackberries, and tiny baskets to put them in. Winning or losing berries, almost getting caught by Mr. McGregor and escaping under the fence! {To say nothing of having Grandpa all to herself for a while.} 

Thankfull

Today we put Dad on a plane for home.

How difficult that was.

And yet  we are so grateful....

That he could be with us for a week....

That he felt well enough to come.

And each of us now has a few more very special moments to treasure.

{John and Melody, thank you for making this trip happen!}

{My iPhone is not the camera that the Nikon is}
{Rainy, low light, Oregon winter! Maybe someone else got better photos of these two groups.}

Rilla, the littlest, gives hugs and kisses to "Pietsch" as she calls him.

Lola and Great Grandpa play the Peter Rabbit game with all the intensity of a high stakes chess match!

She was just known as " Baby Soft Sounds"

I knew I saved her for some reason! This doll was well loved by one or more of our 3 girls back 40 some years ago. Now Rilla has adopted her and carts her around relentlessly whenever she comes to our house. I didn't save many toys from back then, they were all pretty well trashed,(and the girls would probably say they didn't have very many) but it kind of makes me glad I did and I smile to see Rilla hold and play with a doll that her mother loved. (Shannon even cut her bangs once.)

 Cooking up some treats for tea, maybe?

Another Grand-daughter with Personality Plus

Lola's Mother has dubbed her little gal 'audacious'. That seems a perfect description of Lola,{ at least so far in her 4 year old life}. It will be interesting to look back in a few years to see if this prediction holds true. 

And she knows all about the the story 'The Princess and the Pea' so this outfit was a happy coincidences that we chose for her Birthday,{apparently}!

So that's our Lola!
Age 4
{Going on 14}

Rilla's~ Personality Showcase

Prim & Proper?

Maybe not so much.

Miss Enthusiaum

On an October Saturday Rilla and I just Play, play, play: 
Rilla at being almost 2, 
I at taking pictures, 
both of us at savoring this scrumptious Autumn day.

This excellent game goes like this ~ counting first ~"two, two, two"~ followed by  the leap. This is a very fun game and must be repeated  several times (fortunately without mishap)

My Forgotten Garden Post

Today Shannon pointed out that I forgot to continue a thread of posts about our first garden touring day with a few friends back in September. So here it is. (Way out of sequence, but oh well.) 
This is "The Bishop's Close" in Lake Oswego. (My Nikon camera's battery had run low by this time, due to poor planning, so I took these photos with my phone. Unfortunately many others turned out blurry.) In a few I managed to capture the wonderful color green,the contrast of light and deep shade  the amazing variety of trees and shrubs, paths and stone steps, woodland setting, ponds and ferns. All in all it was a marvelous and rewarding garden tour.

Rilla and Ivy were buddies all day.

In the Spring many shrubs and trees would be in bloom but we enjoyed just feeling the structure and play of light; the "bones" as they say.

Another Garden Touring Day

Since enjoyment of beautiful gardens is something we all have in common in this group of women we had a lovely day strolling two gardens together. One in Salem, which we saw with a smaller group a few weeks ago, and a new one[to most of us] in Portland; Deep Wood estate and then The Grotto. A wonderful little restaurant, The Konditorei, inserted halfway between for lunch.

  

Introducing the Newest Little Book-worm.

Oh dear,that last story must have had a tragic ending!