Georgia Lucille

Proud PaPa

E&M wanted to see all the parts

Family of FIVE

Check out all the curly brown hair

It's all pink and girly-girl now. Our precious baby GIRL has arrived. The scale has taken a shift in the Keeling household with the arrival of a sweet baby girl yesterday afternoon; now the GIRLS in the family are in the majority.

The grandparents and E&M met Georgia this morning. This little girl is no skinny newborn. At 10.5 pounds, she is filled out and cuddly as a teddy bear. E&M were quite taken with the wee one. Emmett just couldn't take his eyes off her and kept going back to be close to her. Maggie was interested, but she soon started noticing things around the room and was eager to get the BIRTHday party going. The kids came up with the idea to have a BIRTHday party for Georgia, complete with cupcakes Grammy (Heather's Mom) helped them make and hats for all of us to wear. Emmett was too busy with Georgia to eat his cupcake right away... we stopped in the lobby of the hospital so he could eat it. What a joy it was to watch E&M meet their new baby sister. It's a memory I will cherish.

Congrats to Heather for delivering this BIG baby the good old old-fashioned way -- all natural! (OUCH!)

Moose

Nothing like seeing a Moose to get me back to my blog. We saw this young guy munching away on the willows , northwest of Fort Collins near Hwy#14. We were returning from Steamboat Springs on June 7. Chuck said we were about 60 feet from him, but he didn't even give us a glance. He was too busy eating. Moose look quite mangy this time of year, but you might notice he has a good start growing his antlers.

Moose from Pam Keeling on Vimeo.

Our Canine Hosts

Brandi and Davy (sister and brother)

Over the past weekend we visited Chuck's cousin and wife in Mountain Home AR. They live on 140 acres of timber where they built their own log cabin -- I should say "beautiful home." They have always had St. Bernards and right now they have Brandi and Davy -- 10-month old "pups." We are talking HUGE pups. And they are quite the frisky pups, too. Davey is quite a bit larger.

There is a nice stream running through their property and we walked there each day so the dogs could get cooled off. We didn't get a photo of our "human" hosts, but we did get quite a few of these two. (She has a "dry mouth." Davy -- not so much - ha!)

Springtime at last

Springfield Mansion

Lu Anne

Still haven't found the background that I prefer, but at least this one looks a bit like Springtime.


We are traveling in the motor home with the car on the dolly behind us. We started out Sunday morning and were literally "blown" eastward through Kansas. We are not surprised that Kansas was chosen for "The Wizard of Oz" movie. We stopped in Salina for a couple of days and enjoyed the Dwight D. Eisenhower library, museum etc. and then an afternoon on a tour of a mansion there. More about that in another post.


We stopped in Stockton to see my HS friend, Lu Anne and her husband Fran. We reconnected about a year ago via Yahoo IM and never thought we would see each other. But we chose a route that took us close to her home, and spent an evening together. We had so much fun, remembering our HS years almost FIFTY years ago.

We are on our way to Alabama -- our first stop there at the motor home manufacturer to get a few things fixed on our rig.

New Link to Gary and Emy Wedding

Sorry about that link. Try this one.

http://web.me.com/macfunrjw/Our_Trips_and_Blogs/Gary_and_Emys_wedding.html

Mr. & Mrs. Gary Keeling

Check out Roger's blog for photos from the wedding. I will post more here later... probably MUCH later - ha.


http://web.me.com/macfunrjw/Our_Trips_and_Blogs/Gary_and_Emys_Weeding.html

And then it melted...

The driveway at 2:30 pm.

Maggie's Video

I found out it's much easier to upload a video to my Facebook page. Here's the link;
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1786224771#!/profile.php?v=wall&id=1786224771

No, I don't know why there is so much background noise. I DO know it's annoying.

Spring?

Clothesline gets a blanket

Chuck helps the tree limbs

Already starting to melt

Wind "closes" the fences

A couple of broken branches

The gate before the sun came out.

Less than an an hour later

These fir trees were in the worst shape

Chuck to the rescue

Sumac

We are never sure whether to believe the weather people or not. But this time they were right on. Our storm started yesterday afternoon -- first wind, then rain followed by the REALLY heavy snow. It started to stick immediately and it was still snowing hard when we went to bed. This morning there was plenty of it -- and absolutely beautiful. Lots of drifting so I am not sure how much we really got -- somewhere around 6-7 is my estimate.

Chuck went out to help the tree limbs recover. We did have some broken ones, even though there are no leaves out yet. It was just too heavy. And the wind was blowing out of the northeast about 25mph.

We are going to Steamboat Springs tomorrow. Gary and Emy get married Saturday. We are SO looking forward to this weekend. Roads should be clear by tomorrow, as it's going to be in the 40's today, and 50's tomorrow.

Going to go out and get some exercise -- that would be ME and the snow shovel.

Visiting the GRANDS

We decided it was time to visit Maggie and Emmett, as we had not seen them since Christmas. Wow, have they ever changed. They are both taller, they talk all the time, and they are much more independent than they were at Christmas.

We had fun with them as they showed us their new house in Portland, read books to them, and watched them play with their toys. Chuck spent some time the last few weeks getting reacquainted with his scroll saw to make them two trains -- one was a train with traditional cars and the other a train of zoo animals. The kids were really excited to pull them around and around the living room and dining room. They were quite the hit and Maggie just loved reminding us that PaPa had made them for her and Em.

We took Greg out to lunch for his big FOUR-O. I am quite sure he must be mistaken about that number; I couldn't possibly have a son THAT OLD. I must have been REALLY young when he was born, don't you think?

We spent four days in Portland and now we are gearing up for Gary and Emy's wedding celebration at the end of next week. More fun for us!

Getting my D's

We are enjoying a week of temperatures in the 50's and bright sunshine. So today I went out and started raking the front yard. There are thousands(?) of brown seed pods from the locust trees all over the front and back yards. I don't like them and I don't know why anyone would plant them but they were here when we moved here (1973). I usually rake them in October. But last year they didn't fall off the trees until December when we had a strong wind storm which blew them everywhere and then we had snow and cold. It was a nice day to rake but of course the hard part is picking them all up and hauling them away.

Circle Tricks

Way back in December, Emmett was doing circles. It was fun to watch him, and sometimes he got dizzy. This video was taken Christmas Eve at Denise and Roger's. Near the end of the circles, there's some marching going on too. Needless to say, they have learned MANY new tricks since then.

New Template

I have been looking for a new template -- believe me when I say there are hundreds out there -- but I haven't found exactly what I am looking for.  So don't be surprised if you see more of these "test" templates in the future as I search for one I like.

We are having a few days of light snow.  I am enjoying it, as the previous snows were starting to melt away and what is underneath the snow is ugly brown grass (weeds?).  So let's keep it white for awhile.  It IS winter, after all.

Sewing for Maggie

I like to sew in the winter when it's too cold to stay outside for very long.  So I recently made two dresses and a shorter-version "top" for Maggie.  Heather likes sleeveless versions so she can pair Maggie's clothes with a long-sleeved knit top in the winter months, and if it fits Maggie when the weather warms up, she can still wear it with a short-sleeve shirt or sleeveless.(As fast as that little girl is growing ...maybe not.)  Heather also likes modern/contemporary fabrics that are popular in kids retail fashions these days vs traditional "childrens" fabrics that I used to sew for kids.   So I shopped around on the internet -- I can't even guess how many fabric swatches I looked at -- hundreds at least -- to find fabrics.  Here are my results.    Now I am sewing for myself and it's quite a switch from 18-inch lengths and 22-inch widths, to .....
no, not going to divulge those numbers!

 

Christmas 2009

And here are pics from Christmas Eve at Denise and Roger's home. Roger's sister Garnet, her daughter Kendra, and Kendra's boyfriend Nick, Greg and Heather and the kids, joined us to celebrate. We had such a fun time. We wore the kids out with all the excitement. Maggie delicately tore off the wrapping paper on her presents in little 1-2 inch pieces, while Emmett learned quickly how to rip off the paper in record time. And once they opened a new toy, they wanted to play with it and not open anything else. As I recall, that changes the older they get.

More Photos from LAST YEAR

 

Emmett playing a song for us

Emmett "driving" an 18-wheeler at the Children's Museum in Seattle

 

Emmett sporting his sun glasses

Maggie learned to put her hands in her pockets (all by herself)

 

 Maggie liked riding the little horse

 

Hangin' out with Grandma

 

Playing with a new puzzle -- with SOUNDS

(what will they think of next?)

Who's first to see February posts?

I have been told that if I don't post regularly, I lose my audience.
So ... let's see if that's true. If you see this post, leave a comment below.

November in Loveland

Greg, Gary with Maggie (and Elmo), Emy, Emmett, Heather

Chuck and Emmett

Maggie studies the cold snow

Dressed for Colorado in November

Checking out the big front yard

SURPRISE -- A NEW POST!

I decided to go back and look at my photos from LAST YEAR and post some of them. When Emmett and Maggie were at our house in November, I went to Goodwill and found a really nice toy -- looked like new -- bought it for $3.50 -- and cleaned it up. It has all sorts of objects on it that make sounds and also a plastic book that plays songs when the pages are turned. Emmett liked the toy, but Maggie LOVED it and played the airplane engine sound frequently, always "asking" us to pretend we were flying an airplane through the air. We had such fun.

When we drove to Seattle in December, we took the toy with us so they could enjoy it a bit longer. The last video was taken at our rental house -- it takes Maggie just a few seconds to decide she didn't want to give up her turn with the toy quite so quickly.

Happy New Year

I can't decide whether to blog about LAST year or just move on to THIS year.  But I did take the suggestion from my friend to change the title of my blog from "Autumn in Colorado."  That's probably it for today.  Check back in a few days and there might actually be some new PICTURES  here...  Still trying to get everything put away from our holiday trip to the NW.  The progress is pretty SLOW.