Grandma & Me: Our Mother’s Day In Lockdown

Happy Mother's Day!  I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day in spite of the circumstances we are all living under now.  It takes a lot more creativity to make holidays special when most of us are still under quarantine, doesn't it?  It kind of reminds me of the "olden days" when more thought and effort went into a gift instead of money.  I know in our house, we all put our heads together to try and make the day special and meaningful.  We were hoping for nice weather so we could go to a state park, but unfortunately a cold front moved in so we decided to stay home and do some fun activities instead.  

Our day began with an amazing breakfast made by my husband.  He is the KING of French Toast!  I tell you, no one can make French Toast better than my husband.  So for my Mother's Day gift I requested French Toast with strawberries and whipped cream for breakfast.  Now, I'm normally a Keto/Low Carb/No Sugar kind of gal but hey, it's not only a holiday but it's the apocalypse as well so why not splurge?

Alethea has never had French Toast before so this was a treat for her as well.  She did not know what to think when she saw my plate! 

But she dug in and gave it a try and boy did she love it!  She ate the whole thing!

The special treatment for the day didn't end with breakfast.  My son-in-law did the dishes and I opened my gift from the kids.  I was so happily surprised to see a pair of walking sticks to use on all the hiking adventures I take with my husband.  I did sadly remark that I hope someday again I will be able to use those walking sticks and we won't be imprisoned forever.

My son also face timed me during this time.  It was sad that he couldn't be with us, but it was nice to see his face on a screen at least.  Hopefully we will be able to be with him soon.

My granddaughter Alethea requested a tea party for Mother's Day so I purchased some pretty treats, and brought in some cut tulips from my garden.

Just like Easter, we all got dressed up in our pretty dresses even though we didn't go anywhere.  We made paper crowns out of glitter paper and jewels.

Since Alethea had the prettiest dress of us all, we coordinated our outfits around her.  I wore a blue/teal wrap dress from Stitch Fix and I added a white cardigan for warmth.  I also designed my crown to match my dress!  A Mother's Day crown must coordinate with her outfit, right? 🤣

My daughter Ashley made some delicious herbal tea to go with our sweets.

We had a lot of gluten and sugar today, especially for people who don't normally have it in their normal diet.

To our delight, the store bought cupcakes and tea cookies were delicious!  I've been so busy in the garden, it was easier for me to buy them than make them.

We're expecting a frost tonight and I'm praying my beautiful garden won't be dead by morning.  All the crab apple trees are just about to open, and all the tulips already are blooming.  I always get so sad when we get snow/frost this time of year.  It seems to happen almost every year too.

I just love Alethea's dress!  It's so gorgeous.  We let her wear it most of the day, and I wore mine as well (except I put black leggings on underneath to stay warm!) since it was a special day.  I kept my crown on all day too!  I was queen for a day after all!

The tulips were closed up tight outside, but when I brought them inside the warm house, they opened up wide.  I actually prefer the look of a closed tulip, but I know so many people love to see them open.  Which way do you prefer?

I know I was so blessed this day to be able to spend Mother's Day with my kids, as I know so many other Mother's could not.  I hope and pray you all were able to do something special this day even if you couldn't be with your families.

God Bless!

Amy

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Grandma & Me: "My Little Valentines"

As much as I love Valentine's Day, my favorite part of the holidays is lovin' on these two little ones:  "My Little Valentines".  I usually see them shortly after Valentine's Day, but this year I have to wait until March to see them.  I haven't seen them since the holidays, so I'm going through some serious "Grand baby withdrawal".  I sent them a Valentine goody box and handmade cards so they would know how much I love them and miss them.

Little Alethea is 2 years eight months now and quite the character, as you can probably tell in these pictures.  I just love her spunky, outgoing, fun personality.  Atticus is 7 months old now, and as handsome, chill, and happy as ever.  His smile can light up a room!

They both have blue eyes, but Alethea is blonde and Atticus is a brunette.  It remains to be seen if the hair colors will stay or change, but if they don't, they will be my "salt and pepper" grand babies for sure.

This is one of my favorite photos of Alethea.  I just love this sweet expression.  Such a doll she is!

And have you ever seen a more handsome boy?  I know I'm biased, but....

For our Valentine shoot we dressed up in classic Valentine red, using black and white as our accent color.

I wore the same top I have shown you in two other posts already:  my Ageless Style post and my What I Wore posts.  In both of those posts I wore the red top with black, here I styled it with white jeans.

Atticus wore dark pants with a red vest and a black and white plaid shirt.

Alethea wore a red tee with a white cardigan and cute jeggings that have a heart on the knee cap.

 Have A Great Day and a Great Valentine's Day!  Be sure to show the loved ones in your life some extra special love on Friday!  Amy

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Grandma & Me: "Winter Blues"

I am back from Holiday Break!  I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years. We attended a wonderful Christmas Eve service at our church and we had a lot of great meals!   I had all my children and grandchildren home with me for a full week; we had so much fun just hanging out at the house.  It was the first Christmas that Alethea was really old enough to appreciate gifts.  I gave her a "Princess Jasmine" toddler doll.  Oh my!  If you could have seen the expression on her face when she opened it.  It was priceless!  She started singing "A Whole New World" once she realized who the doll was.  It was so cute!

  My kids gave me some nice gifts from my Amazon wish list I can't wait to share with you.  Hubby got me a new Mac!  After years of using a MacBook Pro lap top I went back to a desktop.  I still have my Apple iPad to use when traveling or when I want to lounge.  It's nice to have a desktop again because at my age I need the bigger screen! 🤣

We did two photo shoots with the kids when they were visiting:  today's  "Winter Blues" one and a "Valentines" shoot that I will show next month.  As usual, it was a challenge photographing both a toddler and a baby at the same time, but I think we got some cute shots! We used lots of props, and snuggled, giggled, sang a few songs, and made lots of funny noises to keep the kids entertained and smiling!

For our "Winter Blues" photo shoot, we all wore blue and white.  I wore a new cozy periwinkle sweater from TJMaxx with my white jeans and silver loafers.  Alethea wore a pretty blue T-shirt from JCPenney that has ruffles on the chest and sleeves and flecks of silver glitter scattered throughout.  She paired her blue top with a sparkly, white tulle skirt and silver shoes.  Atticus is wearing a new outfit I purchased for him for Christmas.  It's a super cute set from Carters that includes an adorable onesie, sweat pants, and a jacket.

The jacket has a hood and zips closed.  I think he will get a lot of use out of it as it's so neutral he can wear it as a spring coat with lots of other things.

I just love the little panda bear peeking out from the pocket.

On one of the legs is a lion, isn't he cute?

The onesie is white and says "One of a kind".  I love that!  

We used pine cones and these pretty snowflakes off my Christmas tree as props for this winter photo shoot.

Alethea always looks so beautiful in blue because of her gorgeous blue eyes!

 Atticus's eyes are blue too, but a much deeper, darker blue than Alethea.  He also looks great in blue!

When I looked at these photos I couldn't believe they were my grand babies.  They look so different than me!  They both have such pale skin and blue eyes, and I have dark hair, dark skin, and brown eyes, but they are my grand babies and I love them to pieces!

Alethea loves playing with the "magical pocket door" of this guest room.

Alethea is 2 1/2 years old.  She talks constantly!  It's so fun to converse with her.  The things she comes up with!

Atticus is 5 1/2 months.  He smiles, giggles, laughs, and is still the most content "chill" baby.  Whenever he sees you or you show any attention his way, he bursts into a huge smile!  He really started "babbling" the week he was visiting us too.  We wondered if it was because of all the extra conversation he was hearing.

It's always sad to say goodbye when we part, but I was happy to have a clean house again and have things return to normal too.  We will be seeing a lot more of them in the next few months than we usually do, so it wasn't as hard to say goodbye as it usually is.

I couldn't find my "new" sweater on-line, but be sure to check your TJMaxx stores.  It is such a soft and comfy sweater, and I love the shade of blue.  Alethea's clothes are all old, but I will link to similar items below.  Atticus cute outfit is still available at Macys!

Blue Sweater - TJMaxx, similar HERE, White Jeans - Charlotte Russe, old, similar HERE,  Silver Loafers - Macys, old, similar HERE, Carters Baby Boy 3-PC set - Macys,  Toddler Girl White Tulle Skirt, old, similar HERE,  Toddler Girl Silver Shoes, old, similar HERE, and Toddler Girl Blue Top, old, similar HERE.

Have A Great Day!  Amy

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Grandma & Me: My Two Favorite Presents Under The Christmas Tree

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  I had a wonderful week having all my children and grandchildren home.  We spent most of the week indoors as we had several winter storms move through the area but we did get out once to see a local park's Christmas Light show.  Alethea loved it!  I never saw her so happy.  But I wasn't sure what she enjoyed more:  the fresh fallen snow or the Christmas lights.

We took some time during the week to take our Christmas photos.  Since I now have an all-white-living room, I can decorate my tree any color I like instead of trying to match the colors in the room.  I love that!  I was going to do a red and white tree, but I didn't have any really bright red ornaments (I will be purchasing some AFTER Christmas!) so I went with white, cream, and soft gold.  You will see more pictures of my homes Christmas decorations in a later post.

And here are my two favorite presents under the Christmas Tree, my grand babies!  I would rather see these two under my tree than any other present in the world.

Alethea is now two years, five months and Atticus is five months.

Alethea is still my spunky, sweet, full of life grand daughter.  She was so excited to come to my house.  She hadn't been here for over a year (we always went to their home)  so she didn't remember it.  She had so much fun exploring all the different levels and rooms of such a large home.  She lives in a small apartment in the city, so it was quite the novelty for her.

Atticus is such a sweet baby.  All you have to do is look at him and say one word and he bursts into a huge smile.  He has such a sweet spirit.

I felt super blessed to have my beautiful grand babies home with me for a full week.  My birthday ended up on Thanksgiving Day so we threw a little Birthday Party for me.  I feigned to be tired from cooking all day and I went into another room to "rest".  While I was pretend "resting". Alethea and everyone else got out a cake, party hats, banner, and party horns.  Then Alethea came and got me and everyone blew their horns, and shouted and sung "Happy Birthday".  I don't know who enjoyed it more, me or Alethea.

My daughter Ashley wanted some Christmas Stockings for the kids this year. At first I was going to make them but when I saw these cute ones at Hobby Lobby for only $2.00 I thought "Why make them?"  I did hand make a burlap tag for each one.  Post on that coming soon!

I decided on what we would wear for our photo shoot after I saw Alethea's dress.   Alethea's Christmas dress is a hand-me-down gift from a couple in my daughter's Bible study group.  I believe Atticus' cute outfit is also used.  Once we decided on the children's attire, I started looking for a black or red Christmas outfit.  I usually don't buy new Holiday clothes, but I've been wearing the same Holiday attire for years so I thought it was time for something new.  Plus, after all the sales, rewards discounts,  and coupons, my dress was practically free.  So all three of us are looking pretty nice for almost nothing!

Atticus has such a curious nature.  He is always watching people, especially his sister.  I love how he is watching her open this present.

I wanted to get one good "Brother/Sister" photo but it was so hard.  It is such a challenge photographing a baby and a toddler together.  Someone is always moving!

I just love Alethea's dress!  The top and hem are black velvet.  The white skirt is taffeta with a black velvet design, and the dress is even more festive with the pretty red bow.

We wondered if we should put Baby Atticus is something more formal to match our dresses, but I just really liked this "Baby's 1st Christmas" outfit.  I thought it was so cute, plus I prefer babies in soft clothing for comfort.  And by the way, isn't he the most handsomest baby boy?  He is going to be quite the heart breaker when he's older!

Now if you're looking for a new holiday dress, I highly recommend this one.  As of Sunday, it is still available in both red and black, and it's half off!  My favorite thing about it is that the material does not wrinkle.  I ordered it on line and when I pulled it out of the plastic bag there were no wrinkles.  I also love the black piping and bell sleeves. And, it's a good length for my 5'7 frame.  Most dresses are always too short on me.

I paired my dress with all black accessories...everything is old other than the dress so I have no links for you,

The dress is by Liz Claiborne and you can find it HERE!  I'm wearing a size 6 for your size reference.

Oh my precious grand babies, how I love them so.  They are my two favorite presents under the Christmas Tree.

Have a Great Day!  Amy

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