ah,,,,home.

Miss Lydia came to visit this evening. She's very popular here.


Such a cute Grampa! Paul is smitten with Lydia too.


Happy 31st birthday to my oldest "child", Miss Emily Anne...tomorrow...she was over today, so we celebrated! Four of my teenage daughters are in Ohio for the weekend, so the house seems relatively quiet...just Paul and I, Joseph, Jonathan, Char and Cam here...then Emily, Mali and baby Lydia, and Mirielle. Em helped prepare her own birthday dinner, chicken fajitas, which came out so good. The princesses wanted to make cupcakes, and they voted chocolate, so they helped measure and stir, from scratch...and then I filled the frosting bag for them, and let them have at it. Not too shabby. Too bad I'm on the road to recovering from a week of vacation, and am not eating sugar anymore, again.:)

I took Suri with me to the small town this afternoon, as I had to get some things from the store, return Redbox movies, and get Emily a gift...I already had some headbands and a solar light for her yard, so I got her some snap peas in the supermarket...they taste like summer...and a gift card for DunkinDonuts...I took Suri because the little girls were with Em, and Jon was at his friend's house...it was weird not having an assortment of kids to choose from, to accompany me to town.

Our birthday celebration was lovely, they had ice cream from a local dairy, called, "Up All Night", which is coffee ice cream with chocolate espresso fudge ripple...oh I wanted some. But no, I am not eating sugar anymore. I didn't even taste the frosting I made. It's not easy, but hey, it's my lot in life.

Now that I'm home, I miss Aaron terribly. He's so far away. Two kids in Norway, one in California, one in Washington D.C., and one in Washington state...good thing I love traveling! I will be visiting the girls in Norway in March. Paul's leaving on Thursday to visit Ben and Ashley and Anya in Washington state, then going to a church conference with Benjamin. He's leaving straight from there for a week in France. Anyway, I miss Aaron, California is too far away. He has taken a traveling nursing job there, the pay is good, he likes the hospital...he's happy...

I'm tired...the snow is swirling out there...Mali texted me that she was home safe and sound, but there was a bad accident on the highway. This lake effect snow is intense, we're right in the middle of it, and tomorrow the kids are driving back from Ohio in it...no fun.

Oh, here's something fun: Paul cleaned the house up so nicely for me for when I got home yesterday! He swept and mopped and scrubbed sinks, the new stove was all installed and gleaming, and there were flowers on the counter...he made dinner, too....