Little Tiddlers Road Trip

We just had a second Christmas, a second helping of *happy*!   We have been away to see the grand kids and spend time just soaking them up in all their sweet, noisy glory!    Then, we came home exhausted and our ears ringing but a very happy Nana and Grandad.

Madison has grown and is now ten months old and has personality plus.  I know I'm somewhat biased  but she is a quiet, happy baby.   She babbles and talks but in a calm way.  You can see her concentrating on your words as you talk with her.

I thought I'd try my luck at getting her to say "na-na"...... and she nailed it!   For the rest of the visit, I was clearly "Na-na"!

Ethan, who is four in April, is a whirling dervish. He simply does not stop moving.  Consequently many pictures just didn't pan out as he was too blurry.   He's the opposite of Madison.... action filled, loud and boisterous.  I heard the phrase "inside voice Ethan" a lot!   To be fair, he was excited and happy to play trains with his Grandad.

Ethan is train crazy and has all the Thomas the Tank engines and miles and miles of wooden railway track.  He just received more track to add to his empire.  He builds his railway out of the play room (formerly a dining room) and down the hall way..... around through the kitchen and back again.  It all gets picked up and put away as their rhoomba vacuum cleaner will "eat it all up".  (It doesn't, but Ethan doesn't know that yet to his mother's delight! )

There was one special moment with Ethan when we asked him who runs the train.  The engineer.  Did you know that Grandad used to run big trains?  No, don't be silly Grandad!  Then we showed him this picture:

What is this Ethan?  a big locomotive. Then we spread the picture with our fingers on the iPad and asked him who the Engineer is?      His eyes went wide and he gasped   GRANDAD!!     He stuck pretty close to Bruce after that and Bruce spent much of the time there on his hands and knees building track and having crashes  off the big hill they made.

We had a grand time....


Now, I do have two finished scarves waiting for some sunshine to snap some pictures for you. I also have two more that are waiting for fringe twisting and a wash..... and the loom is already reloaded again.   Towels are being woven up next and I have silk being wound on the warping mill.  So there will be weaving related posts very soon.   Its been darker than Hades even with all the lights on and anything I have taken have not been very good.  The scarves are dark to begin with and the flash just washes things out as it bounces off the tencel.    Its been raining steady for some days now.  Our little stream on the property was up and over its banks a few days ago and close to the underside of the bridge decking.

We have a hand made stone wall on the back yard built many years ago by one of the former owners of this property. The land goes uphill just beyond it and so the run off fills the flower beds.   I took this picture just as it was getting dark(er still) outside and the flash shows the draining water flowing out of a small hole in the wall to its best advantage!

This is normally my herb bed in better weather. I'm not complaining as I at least don't have to shovel it !

We'll show this picture to Ethan next time.....  I think he might be impressed.