I have a new addition to my kitchen.  Well actually my African Violet has new additions.  I've never had good luck with getting them to bloom.  I always buy one with blooms and then when those blooms are gone they never bloom again.  I bought some African Violet plant food and when it didn't bloom with me putting in two drops every week, I stepped up the regimen.  For the last three weeks I've been giving it 7 or 8 good drops each time I water it . . . I guess I've found the right formula.  I'm so glad I've FINALLY been able to coax an African Violet to bloom on my watch.  It currently has 4 blooms with 8 more waiting to open up.  It sits in my kitchen window.

While my granddaughter was visiting we (my husband and I) made sure we had "High Tea" at least once.  We ordered our "tea" with tea sandwiches and a scone instead of with cookies.  Oddly enough Trin didn't like the scones . . . too dry.  But then she didn't lather on any of the clotted cream on her scone like I did on mine, so no wonder hers was a little dry.  They had the cutest little tea cup and saucer for Trin while we adults had much larger cups.  Now I'm just wondering how much she'll actually remember of this, because I know how very few memories I have from when I was 3 or 4 years old, although I do remember a few brief glimpses from that time.

Another one of the things that Trin and I did while she was here was we visited the Heritage Farm and Museum.  It's one of the oldest houses in Plano and is still a working farm (on a very modest scale).  She loved looking at all the animals.  I thought it was a petting zoo, but not so.  But that didn't seem to bother Trin.  She was happy to poke her little finger through the fence and let the chickens peck at it.

There was an old one room school house on the property too and Trin had to try out the school desks and especially the slate board and chalk. She thought that was nifty.

But this old car was even more exciting to her.  She was under the rope and up in the drivers seat before I even noticed she wasn't by my side.  I was taking a picture of a scare crow and Trin can move pretty quickly when she wants to.  I should have gotten her down immediately, but I just had to snap a picture before I made her get down. 

One of the things I really wanted to do while Trin was here was make cookies.  I can remember making cookies as a little girl and wanted Trin to have some fun memories like that too.  I was a little worried though, because my husband and I had already decided before she came that we weren't going to feed her a bunch of junk food.  I thought I might be letting myself in for a lot of grief from Trin if we made cookies and then she didn't get to eat a bunch of them.  I did let her eat two cookies.  But if the only sweets she had all week were two cookies, well I don't think that's too bad.   Anyway, she loves to help me in the kitchen and so we decided to go ahead and make the cookies.

Orange Sugar Cookies are my husband's favorites so that's what we decided to make.  Here's Trin adding the orange rind to the Sugar Cookie dough.  It took 3 times as long to do everything, because Trin kept saying, "Can I do it myself, Grandma?"  And after all, time was not an issue here . . . we had all the time we needed.  And doing it all by herself (with supervision of course) is what learning is all about.

I took the cookies out of the oven and let them cool a little on the counter top before I'd let Trin take the cookies off.  I wanted the pan to be still warm enough that it would be too hot to hold onto, but yet not hot enough to actually burn her.  I warned her that the pans are very hot when they come out of the oven and that's why she'd have to use a pot holder and make sure she didn't touch the actual metal with her fingers.  She did great.

Then we both iced the cookies.  I think I iced about 10 for every one she iced.  She had a little trouble with the back and forth wrist motion needed to spread the butter cream icing, but we'll make cookies again I'm sure and she'll get the hang of it.  Boy do I wish she lived in Dallas.  

I'll get myself in gear here in a day or so, and I'll post a few photos from Trin's visit.  We had a ball.  Exhausting, but very fun too.  The picture above is a house in Eureka Springs, AR taken on one of my "Sister Trips" with Alice. 

I'm so excited.  I can't hold it any longer.  I don't think anyone from work reads my Xanga posts, so I'm letting the cat out of the bag.  They're offering a really attractive early retirement package at work and . . . I'M TAKING IT.  My last day working will be October 14th.  Think of it, just 3 more months.  Then . . . I'M OUT-OF-THERE!!   YEAH!!!   

I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking it took me a whole week to recover from having our granddaughter stay with us for a week.. . and that's why I haven't posted since July the 1st.  Really, that's only half true.  It WAS a lot more exhausting than I had anticipated.  By the time I got her in bed each evening (by 8:45) I was totally spent.  It had been my intention to work a couple hours each evening on a diary or scrap book  after getting her down for the night, but that proved to be too optimistic. I had hoped to send the scrap book home with her.   I took plenty of pictures each day and it was all I could do each evening to dump them onto the computer.  And by the 5th day of her visit I still hadn't even started on her book, so I decided I'd work on it AFTER she went home and just mail it to her instead.  It took me one entire afternoon and 3 evenings after work to get it done, but I think it was well worth the effort.  So I guess in a way, it did take me nearly a week to get back to normal after Trin's visit. 

We had such a wonderful time with her and I think she enjoyed it too.  She says she did. My husband and I tried to make sure that her days were filled with fun and interesting things to do and see.  And it's all in the scrap book for her to read again and again if she'd like to.

Here's her scrap book open to the pictures of the day we made sugar cookies for her grandpa.  I think I can honestly say that this "Grandparent" thing is wonderful !! 

The picture at the beginning of the post is a close up of the Calico Cat Tee Shirt I appliqued for Trin today. I hope she likes it.  

I know I've shown you my Oxalice before, but I do like it.  It's probably because it has large clover-like leaves that are purplish and tiny little pale pink flowers.  The green is a sedum that Alice sent home with me years ago.  I planted it at the old house and it flourished.  Then when we moved to this house almost 3 years ago, there was some of the sedum in a couple of the large pots.  I planted it in my current yard and it's really taken off here too.  It's a prolific little plant. 

The kids arrive late tonight with our only grandchild.  We'll have her for a whole week.  I wonder how spoiled she could get in just one week's time. As my son says . . . we've earned the right.