You Capture – Fun

This was hard, even though I had fun this past week, but I did not capture too many good photos. Oh well here goes.

It is fun to eat good food.

It is fun to watch your granddaughter open birthday presents. Happy 9th Birthday my Butterfly!

And, it is fun to blog, on my pretty, red Dell laptop!

I did not have much time to edit, but hopefully you will get the idea.

Stop by I Should Be Folding Laundry for some more fun.

Happines Project – Butterfly’s Birthday

Happiness is watching my granddaughter, Butterfly prepare to lick the icing off the candles on her birthday cake. She is nine years old as of June 5th. We had a Hawaiian party at my house on Saturday complete with leis, grass skirts and plenty of Hawaiian decorations.

Four little ladies feasted on sub sandwiches, macaroni salad and of course, cake. They also beat up a pinata and scrambled for candy. Sweet day!

Happy Birthday my sweet Butterfly!

You Capture – One Shot

I am going to admit right out front, this shot was not taken this week. Sometimes life gets in the way, so I looked through my older shots and came up with this one. Sorry Beth, but I hope this passes muster.

This was a few years ago, I went on a girl’s camping lake trip with my best friend, Lady Red and my granddaughter, Butterfly. This shot is a silhouette of me and Butterfly looking at the lake one morning. I like how she is looking up at me and holding my hand as I am taking the photo.

Precious moment.

Field Trips For All: Educating Kids One Class at a Time

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Lunchables. All opinions are 100% mine.

I was very pleased when asked to write about Field Trips For All. As a child, I loved to go on field trips. When my kids where small I would jump at the chance to go on school field trips with my each of my children’s class. I remember one particular trip near Halloween. My youngest son and his class went to a pumpkin farm. It was fun, but I ended up carrying three huge pumpkins all by myself. But, that is another story for another day.

Right now Lunchables Lunch Combinations is sponsoring a contest to help kids all over the country experience an incredible, educational program called “Field Trips For All.” With so many budget cuts in schools these days, it is estimated that more than 30,000 schools will eliminate field trips altogether.

Do you know a deserving child that would benefit from this program? Well, if you do you can nominate that child and his/her classroom. Check out this video of a group of children visiting the Columbia Memorial Space Center. The video is called Alien Field Trip and it is priceless.

Was that not a great video? The kids were so fascinated with the aliens and that experience will last a lifetime! This could even inspire some of the kids to get a career in science. One of those kids might even grow up to become an astronaut. So please, you can see so how beneficial this program is. I plan to nominate my granddaughter Butterfly’s class. I know she would love to go on a field trip. Also, please come back here and leave me a comment on who you nominated. If your child’s class wins, please come and tell me about it. I would love to do a follow up post about the class experience.

Once again, it is truly my pleasure to blog about Lunchables Lunch Combination’s Field Trips For All.

You Capture – My First

I found a great blog, I Should Be Folding Laundry, that I have been visiting on a regular basis. I love reading about Beth and her family. She is mom to three, she recently had a baby. She loves photography and design. Of, course these appeal to me too since my degree is in design and I am just starting to explore photography.

She came up with the idea of You Capture. The goal is to post pictures that reflect a theme that changes each week. You Capture happens every Thursday. You post your pictures on your blog and then link your blog on her Mister McLinky.

I am happy to be participating in my first You Capture. I hope to improve my photography skills and photo editing experience. I am a real newbie people, so bear with me. I welcome any pointers and/or criticism. I really want to learn! I am using Photoshop Elements because I just can not put out the money for the full version at this time. My main focus is getting a DSLR camera.

This week’s theme is Sweet. I can not think of anything sweeter than my grandchildren, so here goes.

These are my twin grandsons, Fuzzy and Wuzzy.

The one on the left is my granddaughter, Butterfly. She and her friend are trying on my Marine son’s gear.

This is Butterfly with her brother, Lolly Pop Kid. Butterfly is a cancer survivor.

This is Lolly Pop Kid enjoying a marshmallow bunny. Lolly has been an angel in heaven since June 23rd, 2009. We miss him.

Sweet!

Climb to Conquer Cancer 2010

When my granddaughter was barely four years old, she was diagnosed with Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). This is a bit of a summary of the disease. ALL is a fast-growing cancer of the white blood cells. Lymphocytes are a type of white blood cells that the body uses to fight infections. In ALL, the bone marrow makes lots of unformed cells called blasts that normally would develop into lymphocytes. However, the blasts are abnormal. They do not develop and cannot fight infections. The number of abnormal cells (or leukemia cells) grows quickly. They crowd out the normal red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets the body needs.

Needless to say our family was devastated with this news. I won’t go into all the specifics, but about 8 weeks after the diagnosis, Butterfly was in remission and after another two years of chemo and treatment she is now cancer free. I may be wrong on all the specifics, but looking back, the whole thing was a blur and I just operated every day making life good for both Cinderella and Butterfly.

Last year my daughter, Cinderella and Butterfly participated in the Climb to Conquer Cancer 2009. This year they participated again. So here are some great pics of them climbing the mountain for a cure.

The Wedding

Sorry I have not updated sooner. I have been busy taking care of Butterfly and getting her to and from school while Cinderella is on her honeymoon.

The wedding was awesome. Everyone looked great and Butterfly was a mini-me of Cinderella. And Cinderella was just that. The ceremony was perfect and the reception was so much fun. I enjoyed dancing with Corvette and spending time with my family and friends. My parents were the longest married couple there. 62 years and counting. My mother gave a wonderful speech about marriage and I watched my daughter dance with her father.

There are too many pictures to post here so you can go to my shutterfly page to see them. They are not in the correct order and some were taken by Tango’s uncle so I will have to wait for the professional pictures to see our family picture.

Congratulations Cinderella and Tango, and may you live happily ever after!

Cinderella’s New Tattoo and Butterfly’s Girly Bedroom

Cinderella got a new tattoo in honor of Lolly Pop Kid. The movie ‘Cars’ was everything to him so of course she got the Lighting McQueen car. Here is a pic of it. The artist drew it freehand and did a nice job. She already has Butterfly’s name tattooed on her back and it is only fitting Lolly is there too. I thought about getting one. I really have no idea what to get. I thought about his initial. Hmm maybe a lollypop with his initial intertwined. I am going to have to think about that one.

I also spoke with Butterfly yesterday and she was kind enough to send me a picture of her room. She told me she rearranged it all by herself and for the most part decorated it too. I love it. It is sooo pink. What little girl would not love this room? I especially love the pink butterfly curtains. Very appropriate if I don’t say so myself!

Also, notice the movie on the TV. Yes, it just happens to be ‘Cars’ and of course there is Lighting McQueen with his big, toothy smile. Just like our Lolly. We know he is still with us and many ways.

BTW, his tree has a brand new orange bloom. I look forward to watching the oranges grow.

Love you big boy. Thanks for sending the love from heaven.

Sunday Brunch

Yesterday, family and friends came together and we planted Lolly’s tree. The week before, I prayed for cooler weather and that prayer was answered. I was a little worried a major storm might interrupted the planting but that did not happen. The tree was a little bigger than I expected. I have a VW bug. The tree is about 5 feet tall and it actually fit in my car. I fell in love with it the moment I saw it. LCpl Honda dug the hole in the yard. Everyone arrived and we feasted on sub sandwiches and potato salad. Grandma M brought a carrot cake. Lolly loved baby carrots. Everyone took turns shoveling dirt into the hole. Then Butterfly and my friend’s daughter, Big Brown Eyes helped Lolly’s dad Tango make a well around the tree. Finally, we made a circle around Lolly’s tree and said a prayer and asked God to bless the tree.

It was a wonderful day.

After the planting, I gave everyone a picture of Lolly’s name in the sand.

I am posting our group picture, although we took many pictures that day. The rest I have chosen to keep private. I am also posting a picture of my dad, Grandpa DingDon, one of Lolly’s namesakes. No recipe today. Yesterday was simple, kind of like a picnic. Everyone knows how to make a picnic. Yes?

We love you sweet boy. Donovan. Our Lolly Pop Kid.

I had to add this drawing, done by Butterfly, Lolly’s sissy.

ps. The drawing was lying on my kitchen table today and my cat decided to walk on it. The blue background was done with pastel chalk. I just spent a whole bunch of time in my bathroom trying to wash the blue color off of my cat’s feet. Fun.

Yea, I think that is all I have to say about that…

Baptism

On Sunday, August 2nd I baptized my daughter Cinderella and granddaughter Butterfly. I was most honored and did so in memory of  my grandson, Lolly Pop Kid.

We are the thirteenth group in the video. It was a wonderful day. You have to wait a few seconds. But it is worth it.