Sunday, December 11, 2016

November 2016

George cut the beans the first weekend in November.  This will be our last harvest because we want to turn this into a brome field next year.


Early November was still warm enough to go to the park, so we picked Jax up early and off we went!  He looks pretty happy to be going to slide and swing!

Tall enough now to begin exploring in a new drawer! His usual drawer is the one below this one!  Love how he is standing on his tippy toes to get access to the drawer!


Gering girls night out!  
For my birthday Josh and Susan planned and paid for a November night out for us to get our creative on!  Susan supplied wine and appetizers and we had a great time working on our snowmen paintings!


Thanksgiving luncheon at the daycare, he and his Mama are listening to the older kids sing Thanksgiving songs!


The daycare sent this picture to his parents and titled it 'Laugh Attack'.  Love how it captures his personality and the look on his friend's face is priceless!

A boy in his bomber jacket!

Thanksgiving!

Touchdown!

The engaged couple!

First look at the Christmas lights!  Dada is teaching him how to point and don't touch.

Bundled up for the Lawrence Old Fashioned Christmas Parade! 

Watched the parade from the street corner by the Rapp's house with Colby and Brody and the rest of the gang, best seats in town!  Met an older lady there whose family has had an entry in each parade from the very first parade twenty four years ago! Amber and Wendy joined us for the parade and then we picked up a Papa Murphy's pizza for lunch.


Aunt Sara and Gunkle Evan gifted Jax his very own Christmas tree for his bedroom!

The Sunday afternoon before Thanksgiving I was returning home from running errands and turned the corner to see this field ablaze with sunlight.  The fluffy heads on the grass reminded me of a toddler's messy hairdo when you remove their snug hat. 

As usual, the pictures don't do the scene justice. 


Sunday, November 6, 2016

The Wonderful Thing About TIggers

Jackson was old enough this year to participate in all of the Halloween festivities beginning on Friday with a trick-or-treat parade at his day care.  Each classroom of kiddos took a turn visiting the other classroooms to trick-or-treat, even the babies came through in their costumes but didn't take candy!  

Jackson was pretty adorable in his Tigger outfit and enjoyed walking through each of the classrooms! He didn't seem to notice or care that the candies in his bag never made it home and was quite content with his cracker instead!  I'm thinking that may not be the case in the next few years!

Daddy and his Tigger boy!

How cute is that Tigger bottom and tail ?!?!?

 Grandpa and Tigger.

Tiggers love crackers!

And fruit, especially watermelon!


Is that a whole cracker in Tigger's mouth?


Sunday was the 5th annual Gering/Rapp pumpkin carving party and Nichole brought a sangria filled pumpkin to get the party started!  It was a hit!

Uncle Evan tickling Jackson with his beard!

 Aunt Sara working on a sticker craft pumpkin with the kids.


Dave's 'Napoleon Dynamite' pumpkin; before and after!

 Evan's 'Simoneau Sports Performance' logo pumpkin, he loves his job!
 Dave carved this 'Batman' for Brody.
 My ghost pumpkin.
 Yvonne and Ben's 'Power Cat', this pumpkin was huge!
 Yvonne's 'Haunted House' pumpkin.  Love this one!
 Susan carved this 'Piglet' pumpkin!
 Josh had pumpkin carver's block and made this 'Not Creative' pumpkin!

 Sara carved this 'Snoopy and the Great Pumpkin' that she drew free hand!  


Susan carved this one for Jax, it's the Alien from Toy Story!
 And Nichole carved this one that Colby had drawn the face!

Also there were hot dogs, chili, tomato salad, Oreo balls with bat wings, and pumpkin crumble for dinner!

Pumpkin glow!  Love this part of the tradition!
Notice even the blown up pumpkin got a candle!


Monday night was Halloween and we (including Sara) headed to Josh & Susan's.  Tigger had so much fun answering the door for trick-or-treaters and after observing for a bit he led his parents out to visit a couple of houses!
 Tigger's love Kit Kats even better than crackers and watermelon!  
Especially when Dad opens them for you!


And the fun continues a few evenings later when Jax and his Mama decorate one more pumpkin with stickers!  We love receiving photos and texts of what's happening over at their house!

Tiggers are wonderful things!

Friday, October 21, 2016

Falling into Fall

The last Duck update was posted on August 6th and here it is late October already!  
Major blog slacker!!!!  
I had to go to My Photo Stream to refresh my memory of what's been happening since August.

Attended a bridal fair with Sara, Susan, Yvonne, Nichole and Colby.  
This is Colby demonstrating the light show offered by one DJ!


The neighbor planted a small field of sunflowers and we captured some pictures of Sara and Evan in case they wanted to use them for Save-the-Date announcements.




In other wedding news, I spent a very special morning with Sara as she tried on wedding dresses at J.Lynn bridal shop in downtown Lawrence.  She looked beautiful in all of the dresses but her favorite was the first one she tried on!  She tried on five other dresses and then put the first one back on for one final look.  She was pretty sure that was the one but we went to lunch to talk it over and think on it a bit.  At lunch, she looked back on her phone at dresses she had marked as favorites back in July and three of the dresses she had tried on were ones she had saved including the first one.  
She decided to say 'yes' to the dress.  
So honored that I could share that time with her.  

No pictures allowed.  :)


Sara is working on her Masters in Education Administration and has class on Wednesday evening plus Evan works late so we pick up Merle on those days and bring him out to the Duck to expend lots of energy.





The highlight of most weeks is spending time with this little guy.  Here he is after feeding himself some yogurt! 


 'Ball' is still a favorite activity!


More self feeding!


Susan had a birthday and we celebrated with dinner at Six Mile Tavern.




My Mom's family had a mini-reunion so we hosted them for dinner one evening.



Storing his juice in the trunk of his scooter!


First haircut!  Bye, bye baby curls.  Makes him look so much older!


Donna Hume came to town for her nephew's wedding, I hadn't seen her in ten years or more and we spent a pleasant afternoon catching up. 
(must learn to take better selfies!)



Robin and her cousin Julie and Julie's dog Nala stayed with us a couple of nights on their way from Colorado to Florida.  It was so nice to have them here and have time to visit.  Can't believe I didn't get any pictures of Robin and Julie, did get this pic of Nala though!


Sunset through the trees!


Wynonna concert with Sara at Ameristar Casino.


Afternoon at the park!


Such a serious fella that day!  
He carried his new ball with him everywhere.


Birthday presents from Sara and Evan.


Ride 'em cowboy!


Driving in his car!



Snowmen made at Susan Smith's craft class.


A mama deer and her twins that we have seen frequently in the backyard.



 I've been wanting to go to Good JuJu in Kansas City for a long time and finally had an opportunity to go with Susan and Sandy.  Found this piece to use as a nightstand.  It was exactly what I was hoping for and reasonably priced!

Sara and Evan are playing in an adult soccer league on Sundays.  It was fun to be on the sidelines again!


Jackson at Target with his Mama and Dada!  
Love technology that allows for group sharing of these kinds of moments!


A boy and his remote = happy times.


An evening drive to Clinton Lake, deer everywhere!


Making this blog entry has served two purposes, one, the blog is now up to date, two, reviewing all of these memories has put me in a state of mind where I can now go to sleep.  Prior to making the blog entry I had spent entirely too much time reading press reports about last night's debate and getting more aggravated.  

I'll just stop right there so I can get to sleep while the happy mood persists!!!!