Our dear Grandma Payne left us this morning. :( She been with us for 9 weeks, although I have to tell you the time has FLOWN by and it feels like she just got here. I haven't taken a lot of pictures not because we don't love her but mostly because we know how much she loves having her picture taken so we've mostly just been enjoying having her here. There are many posts started but not finished we've been so busy with all the fun things we do and the adventures we've gone on.
Grandma Payne has introduced us to the fun new world of Sam's Club where they actually mark down their meat which has allowed us to do more canning. We've done canning of meat-both chicken and beef as she's taught me to use the Pressure cooker. We also experimented with the steamer making Mango Relish that we're both excited to find something to use it with. We've even dehydrated Bananas-which were Delish and didn't last too long! Now if we can just fix the thermostat I think I'll become a dehydrating fool. I can't put into words how nice it has been to have her around. She's a great listener, sounding board, and empathizer. She's one of the easiest people I have lived with-she cleans up after herself, is patient, tolerates and plays with the kids and often swoops in at the end of the day when my energy level has been depleted usually having the dishes done by the time we come down from putting the kids in bed.
Tyler has taken up most of grandma's extra time it began with her talking to Grandma and played in the rocker while Grandma laid in bed. It quickly progressed to game playing and puzzles and then just before Grandma left they were playing no less than 2-3 games of Candyland a day with Tyler usually winning those. Grandma has been very patient and taught Tyler not to cheat and to lose a little more gracefully than she has in the past. There have been many pictures colored and painted with the joint effort of the 2 of them. I think Grandma has even played her fair share of Polly Pockets and Barbies.
Tate took a little warming up to but eventually he too spent a lot of time visiting Grandma in her room while she iced her leg, although during that time she'd also be subject to his climbing and jumping on the bed. I tried to keep it to a minimum, but thankfully she was always a good sport. Especially these last couple of weeks he's learned when he needs his horse, a cookie or treat he knows where to go. He just grabs Grandma by the hand and leads her to whatever he needs or wants. He's also been found on her lap in the evenings with a blanket or two in hand and his binki for an evening snuggle while dinner is being finished. I think she's even learned his toddler ease language and understood quite a bit of what he says.
McKenna didn't get as much time with Grandma since she was in school much of the time and then doing homework or hiding in the room with Tyler playing dolls.
John was at work or with the missionaries much of the time, where 3 times a week he was able to push and pull as he tried to help his mom bend and straighten her leg. Those of us who have not been through a knee replacement don't truly appreciate the ability to do so without too much effort-most of the time. I'm happy to report that John and his Mom left on good terms and are still speaking too each other so he must not have been too bad. In the evenings when John was able to be home you'd find the three of sitting around the computer watching American Pickers, and then once we'd gone through all the episodes we discovered American Restoration, both on the History Channel.
Another bonus of having Grandma stay at our house is that we were able to chat with many of our family memebers we don't usually hear too much from. Communication goes both ways and everyone's busy but you always have time for Grandma-so it was fun for us to keep up on the lives of John's siblings and to have Uncle Steven and his family come and visit.
Grandma Thanks for coming all the way to Washington to get your knee replaced, we LOVED having you here and hope you'll come up for a couple of weeks every year. We'd take you another 8 or 9 but I'm pretty sure Grandpa wouldn't go along with that. From what John tells me coming home to an empty house gets old pretty quick. Grandpa thanks for letting us have her so long.
