Christmas with grandkids

Christmas with the grandkids started out about a week or so before Christmas, with the twins opening their presents from JanMa. I got each of them a Lil' Harley ride-on motorcycle. They have to scoot it around with their feet and will be able to ride it around the driveway. Also, their Daddy and their Uncle Jason each had one as small boys, and they loved them!
Video of twins riding new motorcycles.


The next Christmas with the grandkids activity was a trip to McKinney, and John and Taylor opening their presents. Taylor got a Lil' Harley also, but John already had one from previous Christmas. So this year John got a football outfit, another item that was a big hit with his Daddy and Uncle Jeremy when they were little boys.

When John opened his present and saw the helmet, he excitedly hollered, "football hat, football hat."
Video of John in football gear.

Taylor liked the football hat too.

Mimi got a terrific present from Taylor, she was able to hold and play with Taylor.

Taylor and Mimi played dollhouse.

Mimi had also brought her Wii, which she is leaving for me and grandkids. She got a Cars 2 race game and Nickelodeon Dance game for the grandkids. John loved playing Cars2 and Taylor did some of the dancing.

Video of Taylor dancing to the Wii dance game.

The Friday before Christmas, the twins made an effort to see Santa at the mall. I got there and found out there was over 2 hour wait! So we went to Cheesecake Factory for lunch instead. The next day Bill relayed info about Santa in Old Town Spring, they went and had a few minutes wait, got to take their own pictures and it only cost $2. Much better deal!
I think John and Taylor got the best Santa deal, a bench on the old town McKinney square, no money required, just a chance to take as many pictures as you wanted.
Christmas Eve day I joined Bill and his boys at Jeff's house for Jeff's birthday lunch. Then that evening I went to Jeremy's house for Christmas Eve with Jennifer's extended family.

The twins and their cousins were there along with all the parents and other grandparents. Cousin Travis got a light saber, a big hit present.
Note the large baby doll in the blue chair. That is my old baby doll, Cindy Lou, about 55 years old now. She had just been released from the Doll Hospital in Old Town Spring, and I brought her over to let Claire hold her.

Claire got a lip gloss, and she proudly put on her lipstick.
Christmas morning I went back over to watch the twins open more presents.

They each got a light saber.

Video of Claire and Jake Christmas morning.

I joined Bill at Jeff's house for lunch,

then ended the day back at Bill's house exchanging presents with him. The cutest kid there was Taz the dog.

Holiday Activities

I went to the annual performance of the Nutcracker put on by the Giesinger Elementary 4th graders. I used to teach there, and helped with that event for 10 years, in fact Jason was in 4th grade and was the first Nutcracker at Giesinger the year we opened the school. This year was the 21st year for the Nutcracker. My little neighbor Emma is in 4th grade and was in the play this year, so I went to watch.
One day Lillie took Mimi and me to Tomball to a tea room for lunch and a little shopping in the old town. There is a street of older houses that have been turned into shops and restaurants. It was the first time Mimi and I have been there, but when we went into one store, Lillie was greeted like an old friend....hmmmm.
I did a little pool maintenance one morning, pulling this small copperhead out of the skimmer. It wasn't moving and I don't know if it was dead or alive, but I tossed it way over the fence.
Mimi and I drove to Memorial to have lunch with some of her old friends from the New Orleans/Houston bridge club. Their conversations are hysterical, cause they can't hear each other all that well, and so one lady will say "We went to Florida and stayed in a condo" and another will say back "I don't like tornadoes, we had some come through Birmingham last year" and then another will say, "I thought the weather forecast was for clear weather, not even any rain in Houston for another week" and another will start talking about the drain problems they have at their house, and on it goes. So they are all talking across each other, different comments and they are just as serious and intently listening to each other. And only I can interpret and distinguish the individual topical threads. Wish I had recorded it all.


We have seen the twins a couple of times, and plan to see John and Taylor next week in Dallas.

Mimi and I went with friend Karen to the Montgomery Choral group Christmas concert.

Bill and I went to Kemah to his office party. It was held at Landry's on the Kemah Boardwalk, in a room upstairs that looks out over the channel from Clear Lake to Galveston Bay. It was the night of the Kemah Christmas boat parade, and we watched a lot of boats go by, some with a LOT of lights.

Bill and I back at Kemah the next morning for breakfast of beignets at the Bayside Grill.

The twins enjoy music

Kids take to music, and Jake and Claire, John and Taylor all get into it. When the twins came to visit JanMa last weekend, and Jeremy found his old guitar. Jake immediately took it and strummed away!

Claire finally got a chance to try it out.

The twins also like to sing along to a dvd of nursery rhymes!



Claire shows off her ballerina dance, then she and Jake dance to nursery rhymes.

The dancing continues at Incredible Pizza gameroom. Claire is a natural!

More games at Incredible Pizza.


The next night I got to babysit the twins. They hung out in the toy basket for awhile.
Bill came over with his babysitting client, Sammie the dog. The kids had a great time playing with Sammie, Jake especially seems to like dogs.

Thanksgiving 2011

Mimi came to visit for Thanksgiving and is staying through Christmas. We started off her visit with the usual stop at the twins house (previous post) and then continued tradition by having a fire pit night, complete with jalapeno and cheese sausage and Head Country BBQ sauce.
The temps were cold, even the cats snuggled up at night.

I ordered the Thanksgiving family meal from Cracker Barrel, intending to have leftovers. We did and everything was pretty good. Not as good as home-cooked, but certainly OK, and I didn't have to cook or clean up.
On Friday after Thanksgiving, while many folks were Black Friday-ing, Bill and I flew the Archer to McKinney. There was a nice tailwind, and we made the trip in 1:49, pretty good for a 4 hour drive. We flew over the clouds at 6500 feet, beautiful sky at that altitude.
We made visits with grandkids John and Taylor, sister Diane and family, and Bill's son Brent and girlfriend Cindy. We left Sunday around noon after showing off the plane to everyone.
John sat in JanMa's lap, put on the headphones and wanted to take a ride on an "airpane".
Taylor just took it all in as she nodded off, it was her naptime!
Brent and Cindy got the feel of the cockpit, and maybe Cindy will be ready for an evening flight to view lights if she comes down for Christmas.
Now for the best part! The wind had turned while we were in Dallas, so we had a strong north wind on our tail for the trip home, which only took 1:35. And as we flew along I-45, we could see the southbound traffic backed up, even as far north as Centerville.
Gusty winds made the landing a little dicey, but Bill handled it well and I wasn't scared not a bit!

Twins on rocking horses

A noisy visitor came to the courtyard fountain and I got his picture from the bedroom window.

I got to spend some time with the twins last week. I had wandered into a spare bedroom and the twins followed me in and found their rocking horses, put there some time ago when they were too little to ride them. I was checking on a cat, and when I turned around, both of them were sitting on the horses rocking away. So we moved them into the game room and they had fun with them the rest of the evening.




I got a few pictures of the kids fooling around after bath time.


Later on we all watched the UT football game on TV, sort of... It was a night game and they were tired and about ready for bed.


Mimi and I stopped by the day she arrived in Houston for the holidays. They didn't cry or run hide from Mimi this time, but sort of hung back until Jeremy gave her the IPad with PeekaBoo Farm running. That drew Claire right in!

Jake stayed close to Mommy and Daddy, until he got going with the guitar!

Claire showed off her kitty ears for Mimi, but when Mimi put the other pair of kitty ears on, Claire disapproved, telling her they were JanMa's kitty ears, not Mimi's!

Presents for the twins and Taylor, sitting in JanMa's living room awaiting wrapping. John already got his for Christmas a year ago.