March 4 - Kenzie's Scrapbook

Before Christmas, my 5-year old granddaughter Kenzie took a lot of pictures around my place. She loved using my little digi and took some very good pictures. I printed them out and put them in a mini scrapbook for her. She took it to school for show and tell and just brought it back home today.

Here's a couple pictures of her showing some of her favorite pages.

She shows promise of being a scrapbooker herself...loves to play with my papers and stamps and inks.

Monday, March 3 - Who's Cuckoo?

When I was 12 Dad (a career soldier) was transferred to Germany and the whole family went with him. While we were there Mum bought a cuckoo clock from the Black Forest and I really loved it. I don't know what ever happened to it. I know we had it after we got back to Canada.

When Emily went to Germany as an exchange student for three months in grade 11, she went to the Black Forest with her host family and bought me my very own cuckoo clock. It doesn't have a cuckoo bird that pops out every hour, instead it plays Adelveiss and the wood chopper 'chops' the wood and the mill wheel turns. The pendulum is a girl on a swing who bops up and down on her spring as long as the clock is running. I love it, and the grandkids are fascinated with it too. It is one of my best treasures.

March 2 - Jammers and Family

James Anders Quist (Jammers) is three months old now...doing really well after arriving a month early. His nickname, Jammers, as well as a short form of James Anders, is also a word Jenn created from the first initial of each of my seven children: Jenny, Amy, Mike, Mary, Emily, Rob, Sara.

We had a nice visit with them today - always so nice to see Jenny and her boys. Her husband, Anders, is over six feet tall and is on his knees in the picture so looks a bit out of proportion. Besides Anders, Jenn is flanked by Jonah (11), Micah (2), Nathan (6), Sam (9) and James, all in their Sunday best.

March 1 - Westminster Chimes

I've had this clock longer than any of the others. It was a Christmas gift from DS1 and DD1, Rob and Jenny, in 1989. It plays the beautiful Westminster chimes on the hour.

Lloyd and the kids used to get frustrated because I always seemed to know what they were getting me for Christmas and they couldn't figure out how to keep me from knowing. They didn't realize that I picked up on things they said and questions they asked me, and was able to guess correctly most of the time.

That year Jenny was so sure I would have no idea of what she and Rob were getting me. She kept it in it's box and wrapped it up very nicely. Then she brought it upstairs to put under the tree, showed it to me and said "you'll never guess what this is". At that very moment, the clock, still wrapped and in its box, started chiming the hour. Jenny was so mad. She thought she was being so good to put the batteries in and set the correct time, but she forgot that the clock itself would give away her secret!

February 29 - The Grandfather Clock

I've always wanted a big old grandfather clock - I love the rich deep tones of them. For Christmas of 2005, Sara and Quincey gave me a modern-day version of the old style grandfather. It has a lovely sound. You can see that they wrapped it up so I would never guess what it was!

My little granddaughter, Sydney, loved the clock but was afraid to walk past it to leave our place unless someone was holding her hand and guiding her past it. Now that she's two and a half she's not so scared of it any more, and hardly ever notices it.

February 28 - Tick, Tock

It was brought to my attention by my children and grandchildren that I have more than the usual person's collection of clocks. I don't know how it happened. Actually my children themselves have given me at least four of my best clocks. Over the next couple of days I'm going to post pictures of some of the clocks that I have and tell the story, if there is one, about them.

We'll start with my newest clock. Lloyd and I sort of accidentally fell into a retro mode in this place we've lived for the past year. With that in mind, I knew I needed a black cat clock with eyes and a tail that move for my kitchen. After a lot of searching, I finally found one on ebay - not a 50's or 60's original, but close enough for me. Here's my Felix.

February 24 - Wrapping It Up

After a couple days of house hunting, this is the one we decided we want to make an offer on. Sara and I both fell in love with it. We saw some pretty sad looking places over the weekend and ended up going with the first one we saw, which was pretty exceptional. Now we start the paperwork and not-so-fun stuff. We have an early flight tomorrow morning so are having an early night tonight - hate to miss our flight home.