A little late, but I’m here now to recap my favorite moments from the first month of 2024!

FAVORITE #1

I’m not a high-maintenance kind of girl.  It doesn’t take much to make me happy, as evidenced with my first favorite right here.

I can’t tell you how many times I have cut into an avocado and seen way too much black.  Yuck!  So I was thrilled when I cut this one open early in the month, and it was PERFECTION!  Enjoyed the best avocado toast that morning!

 

FAVORITE #2

I’m still enjoying building my collection of houseplants!  Ordered two more from Famous In Oregon during January.

First one to arrive was this Birdsnest Hurricane Fern on the 9th. Can you see why this is a perfect name for this plant?

Then at the end of the month, I ordered this snake plant.  I think it’s also known as mother-in-law tongue.  A pretty common plant, really, but I didn’t have a tall version like this yet.

Now my problem is that I need to get some more decorative pots!

 

FAVORITE #3

Ahhh, favorite #3…a little bittersweet, but still a favorite.  You see, the plan was that our son Danny, his wife Erin, and their infant son Leo would fly into New Orleans and spend a few days with our daughter Cara and her family.  Then we would join them for the MLK, Jr. weekend.  It was to be the first time our whole immediate family would be together again since 2018.  But Big Eagle and I both came down with COVID and were unable to make the trip.  Ugh!  We did still enjoy seeing pictures of THEIR reunion, and that really made us happy during our recovery.  So I am sharing a few of those with you here!

I LOVED that Edie made this sign for Leo to welcome him to their first time to meet!

 

Was not aware of the joy I would feel to see cousins meeting for the first time!  It made me so happy to see pictures of them together!

 

FAVORITE #4

Okay, probably picture overload right here.  Because on the 17th of the month Danny, Erin, and Leo arrived at OUR house!  As much as we missed experiencing the whole family together at Cara’s, we were still super happy to finally be able to be up close and personal with Leo and his parents.

The evening they arrived, after dinner we had a belated Christmas gift exchange.  And to begin, we had a belated Father’s Day gift presentation from Erin and Leo to Danny.

Danny loves to disc golf, and Erin had ordered him a special-made disc.  But since they live in Lithuania, logistics made it necessary for Erin to have the disc sent to our house to wait for an opportune moment to present him with it.  This was the opportune moment.

In case you can’t see it, the picture on the disc shows Danny with Leo, and Leo is sitting on top of a disc golf basket.  Great gift!

Leo really liked the Buccaneers mug Big Eagle and I gave to Danny!

When Big Eagle and I were in Vilnius last August, I bought a bird wall hanging.  When I got it home and hung it, it was just the top piece and the lowest bird. It seemed like it needed more.  So I asked Danny if he could go back to that shop, and get two more birds to add to it.  I was thrilled when he and Erin gifted me with those two more birds during our exchange!  Here they are displayed on the wall looking SO GOOD!

 

The next day we went to Fort Worth to do some shopping, and before heading back home, we went for a walk on the Trinity Trail.  It was a beautiful day!

 

At the furthest point on our walk, we came upon an awesome playground!  Leo got so excited as we approached it!

 

This was like a little spinner dish.  Erin set him in it and spinned him around, but he didn’t seem to get much of a thrill out of this one.

We moved on to the swings, and they had these really cool swings in which an adult could swing WITH their baby!  As Daddy pushed them, Leo LOVED it!

It was funny…while he was swinging facing his mom, he laughed and squealed so much!  When they turned him to face away from her, he just got absorbed in watching what else was going on around them on the playground.  My very observant grandson!

He also had some good fun on the slides with Mom and Dad making sure he stayed safe all the while!

On the way back to the truck, I got this picture of Hollywood with his dad, which is no easy feat.  As soon as they put the sunglasses on him, he pulls them off!  It looks like Danny may have been holding his hand down.  😂

The next morning, we made an HEB trip.  HEB is our favorite grocery store, and any time either of our kids visits us, they HAVE to make a trip to the HEB!

Leo had just recently started waving, and I think it’s so cute!  I got this picture of him waving from the living room area to his dad who was sitting at the dining table.

It’s actually a still shot from a video, so slightly blurry.

Love seeing him and his dad play!  Looks like he loves it, too!

The last day they were here, we were so happy that Danny’s long-time friend Adam was able to come for a visit!

We invited Adam to stay for dinner, but he already had dinner plans.  He did stay long enough, though, to see Leo in dinner mode!

Ugh!  The day they had to leave came too soon.  Here’s a pic of Big Eagle and Leo the last morning they were here.

And we realized we hadn’t gotten a picture of the two of us with Leo since they’d been here, so I asked Danny to take one.

And why didn’t we get one of the five of us?  Good question.  Ugh.

Now they’re back home in Lithuania, and we’re looking forward to the next time we can be with them.  In the meantime, thank God for the phone and video chat and the internet.  That’s how we keep up the best we can.

FAVORITE #5

Since we updated the addition to our house, we are now in the business of putting on finishing touches.  One of the things I wanted was a table to put behind the sofa.  My thought was that it could be used as a sofa table/desk. This was the inspiration picture that I saw on Pinterest.

When I told Big Eagle what I was thinking I wanted, he proceeded to make it!  He used fir, cut it to size, stained it, and ordered the legs.  We waited a long time for the legs to arrive, but they finally did while Danny and Erin were here.  He attached them, and Danny helped him carry the table in.  Here is the final result, and I LOVE it!

 

Life in January wasn’t perfect, but whenever IS it?  It was still a great month, and I loved looking back on it!  I’ve been typing a lot of this while the Super Bowl is on.  Took a break during half time, since that’s really the only part I’m interested in.  Ha!  Then finished up.

If you’d like to share about your January or the Super Bowl or anything else at all, I would love to hear it.  Hard to believe it’s almost the middle of February already!  Won’t be long before it, too, will be in the rearview mirror.