The Wilsons

File this one under the “special times” section, or maybe, things Papi and Mami like.  It’s been a week since this happened, but I haven’t had time to post it.  I think one of my favorite days/times of the entire year happened last week at Grandma Jo’s house.

We spent our Sunday out and about - we took the kids sledding - and Melodia for her first time - then we took them to McDonald’s and let them play in their big indoor play structure, and a little later in the evening, we took them to look at some Christmas lights at an amazing house we dubbed, “Winter Wonderland.”  But all of this, Melodia commented on in an earlier post.

What really made that day so wonderful was what happened when we got back home that night.  Grandma Jo was sitting in front of the tv, holding Izzabelle, watching the Hallmark channel, and it was showing made-for-tv movie after made-for-tv movie themed around Christmas. We climbed onto Grandma’s couch with a few bed pillows and finished watching one with her.  Then another came on.  So we kept watching.

Now, I should interrupt and say this - we don’t have a couch right now.  We have 3 amazingly comfortable La-Z-y boy recliner/rockers.  We invested good money to get them, and love them.  Comfy.  But there are times when I miss having a couch.  This reminded me of that.  And it had me wondering about our kids’ need for a couch.  They seemed to treat that thing like a play toy; climbing up and down it often.  And I was reminded of how nice it is to sit in the same space together, rather than in our individual chairs.

We made the kids some toast for an evening snack, and then they climbed onto the pillows on our lap. Soon, they were deep in slumber as we continued to watch this Christmas Hallmark movie. There’s something about the warmth of a child emanating from his/her sleepy body sprawled out on top of you - something special. And sleeping kids are just magnetic to watch - it’s hard not to sit there and stare at them, and kiss those soft cheeks a thousand more times!

So the Hallmark movie played on, and it accomplished its goal - the goal of all those tear-jerker, heart-warming Hallmark flicks - remind us of the everyday wonder that is love, family, kids, and sharing life together.  Melodia and I enjoyed a little hand-handling on Grandma’s couch (shh, don’t tell her!).

Words can hardly capture that time, but it felt like we were in a Hallmark movie.  It was the perfect, slow, appreciative winding down to what had been a wonderful family day.

Last night, I told Melodia that I was still thinking about our time on the couch, and she admitted that she, too, had thought about it and how wonderful it was.  Definitely on the top 10 list of days/times for the Wilsons this year.  It’s things like this that we want to enjoy now, lock into our memories now (for later times), and celebrate. Kids grow up so fast. I think often about the fact that it won’t be long and our kids will no longer sleep in our laps or ask, “Papi, carry me.”  I have to hold and “hug” these times while I can.  We all do.

You know, when you get married you inherit a whole slew of things.  Not just your spouse, but the entire kit and caboodle.  In-laws, some out-laws, and if you are lucky you get a Grandma Jo.

She lives in Michigan which is where Lonni’s family is from.  She is in her mid 70’s and lives alone but has a great daughter living right next door who looks after her.

Anyway, Grandma Jo is Great! Literally and figuratively.  She remembers all of her families birthdays and anniversaries.

This is no small task.  Grandma Jo has eight children, each of those had at least two children, and now all of her grandchildren have given her (some are about to pop) a total of 20 great grandchildren! (Wil is the 10th in the mix.)

And she remembers us all!

We were able to finally make some time to visit her this past weekend which just happened to be our 5th anniversary.

It’s about a 7 to 8 hour drive. She was thrilled.  We had not seen her since a year ago last August.  Wil was only 2 and McMac was just starting to walk.

Grandma is famous for playing Scrabble, so we made sure to make time for a couple games.  (She beat us on the last one.)

Wil and McMac fell in love all over again and Izzy was quick to  con Grandma into spoiling her all weekend.  Wil started calling her Jo Grandma, which we thought was cute.

The first thing Wil asked her was how many toys she had. Grandma has tons of great toys, all inherited from the growing number of great grandchildren.

Wil and McMac spent the whole weekend without watching one lick of TV.  They entertained themselves with all the great “finds” at grandma’s house.  They made sure to make a great mess as only Wil and McKinley can.

We did get to play out in the snow.  Actually, we had planned to leave on Sunday morning and ended up staying the extra day.  We were able to go sledding with them on Sunday, which was my first time. While Grandma watched Izzy for us. Needless to say, my new winter gear came in pretty handy. (More on our sledding later.)

All in all, we had a wonderful time.

We will actually be heading out to see her again on the 24th because this would have been her first Christmas Eve without family around.  We wanted to be there for her since she is so great at being there for all of us.

The kids keep asking if we can go back to Jo Grandma’s house and we are glad we can tell them “yes, we will be there next week.”

Off to Grandma’s we will go again…

Whew!  It’s been forever since we posted.  We continue to use the ol’ real life + 3 kids + facebook time = little time to worry about the blog.  Lately, we’ve been letting facebook keep our family updated. But I’ll try to take a few minutes to recap the Thanksgiving break.

We headed down to Adam and Danelle Padd’s in Bemus Point (near Jamestown), NY on Thanksgiving morning. We’ve spent the last 3 Thanksgivings with them at their place and it’s been quite fun.  We also bought 4 acres just up the road from their 27-acre place this last summer, and are thinking about building a small cabin there next spring/summer so that we can continue to enjoy weekends near them and/or even move there.

The nice (ok, this depends on your personality) thing about where they live is that their area gets even more lake effect snow than Buffalo (ours).  They had about 1.5 to 2 feet on the ground when we arrived.  We can still see grass up here.  I much prefer to be somewhere the winter’s white.

I’m not sure if it’s the whole global warming thing, or a product of where we live, or a child’s memory… but I grew up in Harrison, Michigan, with a nice size sledding hill across the street, out in the country, and it seems that once the snow started about mid-Nov to December, we had snow on the ground until early April. Our snow up here, at least in the Buffalo area, seems to come and go, big lake effect blocks of snow, then bare grass on the ground for a couple weeks.

Now me, I prefer the snow.  It makes a winter. Look, if I’m going to be somewhere cold, then I’d rather have a blanket of white on the ground.  In addition to making winter, it also brightens the sky’s gray up a bit, and on the whole, just makes my mood a little more cheery… causing me to reach for the ipod and click on the Christmas playlist.

But I’ve digressed, what I was saying before that little sidebar is that we arrived to much snow, which completely pleased the kids, and Wil made sure he was out in it with Zechariah in no time.

Thursday lunch was great and the day was just relaxing.  Of course, I say that, but I have to give a hand to Danelle, her mom, and Melodia who really put some time in with food preparation.  Their gracious work allowed for a really peaceful and joyous time of sharing and reacquainting ourselves with the happenings in each others’ lives.

At night, after we put the kids to bed, we pulled out a boardgame we had brought to play with them, “Trailer Park Wars.“  We had a good time with it, even if the girls did gang up on us and usher in a win for Melodia.

We spent the night at their house - as we have often done in the past.  Wil and McKinley were great, and Izzabelle? I think she wanted to just sleep the whole trip away.  Wil surely enjoyed having Zechariah to play with, and another boy was there as well, albeit a little bit older, Matthew.

In the morning, the kids were up early, but our hosts graciously watched the kids and let Melodia and I sleep in a bit longer. Hey, we’ll take it wherever we can get it!  Sleep seems a lost commodity these days.

Once up, all the boys were talking sledding.  The girls had decided to stay in and make some Christmas ornaments with the bulbs, paint, and other supplies Melodia had brought. McKinley sided with the boys at the thought of going outside in the snow - she hadn’t previously made it outside on Thursday, so she was itching to go.

So we loaded up, Adam and Zechariah, John (Adam’s cousin) and his son, Matthew, and myself with Wil and McKinley, and headed over to a hill 5 minutes from their house.  We arrived as the first group, but we quickly got up to about 5 groups - most of whom were the Padd Families friends.

The kids loved sledding.  This was their first “true” sledding experience beyond two years of Papi’s preparing them by pulling them around in our purple, “Kiddie Boggin’” sled.  But having an actual hill to go down really fast, and then walk back up - well, Wil walked up a few times; I pulled McKinley back up in the sled every time, and Wil at least a half dozen times with her! lol.

Papi was excited to get sledding again.  I grew up on this.  And it is exactly the sort of thing I’ve wanted my kids to be able to experience with the snow. Now only if I could get Mami out in it.

But — sort of sidebar here — I did finally do something I should have done 3.5 years ago when we moved here. On Saturday, we went out shopping to pick up some necessities from Target and then a couple things from the mall. While at the mall, I went into Dick’s to buy a new sled (we’d borrowed one of Adam’s).  Once there, I thought, you know, it’s about time to just do this right.  So we went over to the snow gear section and bought mami the full gear (and if you know anything about snow gear, pants, jackets, etc., you know it takes a bit of $$ to outfit a person in some good waterproof gear.

We spent about 2 hours at Dick’s trying it all on for the right fit, and I made sure she bought everything she needed despite her concern over cost.  I wanted her to feel prepared for going out into the snow with her kids in the future.   So, we picked out the red waterproof pants, which led to the black waterproof jacket with gray zip out fleece liner, then to the white, down, quilt-stitched vest for under the jacket, then to a set of new waterproof gloves, and what the heck, why not a new beanie (with ear flaps) for a cute way of topping it off?!  Good stuff.

I walked away feeling good about helping Dick’s bottom line there and wondering why I hadn’t done that sooner, for Melodia’s comfort and fun.  Now I just need to buy her a couple more sets of quality under garments (smart wool) and some new snow boots, and she’ll have it all.  Me?  I’ll still be wearing my Jeans, rubber boots, down puffy jacket, beanie and leather gloves. The scarf keeps me warm. LOL.  Besides, I’ve put on a few pounds, so I can weather the outdoors a little better.

But, rest assured, after seeing how good she looked, and knowing how good our kids look in their snow gear, I was starting to feel the itch for some new gear for Papi!  Course, that’s a few paychecks away!

Sidebar over — It was a super fun time sledding with the kids, and I only hope to be doing it again soon, with Mami present and having lots of pics of her enjoying it too.  Only issue is, who’s watching Izzabelle while we’re zooming down the hills?  Any takers?!

Cool thing is, Izzabelle is getting bigger all the time, and not just bigger, but starting to become a little “person.” She’s really able to push and hold her head up for longer periods when she’s on her tummy; and she reacts to us a lot more these days… all smiles, of course!

Well, that about sums up Thursday, Friday and Saturday for the Wilsons.  Happy Thanksgiving, now onto a Merry Christmas!