In Memory of Courtney F. Snyder, My Grandma

Sunday morning we learned that Grandma Courtney passed away. We've been anticipating this for a while now, especially within the last week, but when it actually comes, it's still hard to handle. She had been in a nursing home for about 3 years, and after Grandpa passed away in November, her health steadily declined. I guess that's only natural after 72 years of marriage!

Courtney Snyder, my namesake, was 96 and definitely lived a very full life. She spent the majority of her life in Ohio and enjoyed some of her childhood years in Washington, D.C. when her father worked closely with President Harding, a long-time family friend. Grandma told stories of how her dad would play poker with Harding and the boys, and how she and her family would have picnics on the White House lawn. What fun that would have been!

Grandma grew up playing tennis and was apparently quite the player. She even used a real cat-gut racket. She gave it to me about 13 years ago and I hope to put it on display in our new house.

Grandma was also a wonderful poet, wordsmith and "Grammar Queen," in my book. Whether we liked it or not, she was always on the look out for proper word usage, and thankfully, some of that rubbed off on me and aided in my love for writing and proper grammar use. (I'm not sure what happened to that grammar in my speech sometimes ... but that's another story.) Thanks Grandma!

Come to think about it, Grandma was actually very skilled in many things, even as she aged. She was quite the shark with a hand of cards, Bridge in particular, and she played the organ so beautifully! Birdwatching was a dear passion of hers and you might have even called her a "hummer-charmer". She would take the hummingbird nectar that she would make and stand in the bushes as she held it and the hummingbirds would come right up to her and eat. She helped me do it once and it was very cool! And I believe on one occasion she even nurses one back to health. A baby had broken its wing or something like that, and she made it a little nest in a box and fed it with a syringe until it was healthy enough to return to the wild.

She was even quite a good cook and baker. Mom recently passed down her infamous chocolate cake recipe and gooey chocolate/pecan icing ... emm, so delicious. (But gracious, it definitely wasn't easy to get a hold of that recipe ... I think mom only got it in like 1995 or something like that!) But the meatloaf that I make is her recipe, as well as her peanut butter cookies, cut-out cookies and I'm sure there are many more. The thought about compiling her recipes into a cookbook has crossed my mind ... hopefully if I have time one of these days, I can begin that project.

And wow, Grandma really enjoyed traveling. She did most of it alone, later in life either because of Grandpa's OB/GYN practice or because of Grandpa's bad back, but I believe that she traveled to China on several occasions and brought back all kinds of beautiful memorabilia that decorated their home.

I'm sure that I could go on and on, but when I really think about it, some of the fondest memories I have with Grandma (aside from taking showers with her when I was a little girl and getting to use her scrub brush, and shrieking when Grandpa would "sneak" in and pour cold water on us ... time and time again) were the times late at night, right before bed, when she'd thumb through old pictures or trinkets or jewelry, and share the stories that went with each item. She spoke so sweetly about her life and about her love for Grandpa and her family. Thanks for such sweet memories, Grandma! I love you. I miss you. And I'm so glad that you had the opportunity to meet Caedmon last December. How you lite up when you held him and saw him smile!

Two Adorable Dudes

Erika, Mason, Caed and I went shopping at Target today. Check out what a cute picture I got of the boys:

Caed's Birthday Festivities

I posted briefly yesterday just to make sure that I had a chance to wish Caed a happy birthday on the blog, but now that I have a little more time, I'll share the fun that we've had over the past couple of days celebrating Caed's 1st birthday.

To begin with, we had a birthday party with some of Caed's little friends and our family Saturday. This is when he got his 'Blueberry Studmuffins' and enjoyed some fun in the turtle and hippo pools. What a special day for our special little man!


Then, on Tuesday, on his actual birthday, Brad and I took him to Marbles Kids Museum. (Brad took a half day so that we could enjoy Caed's special day as a family! How special!)

Caed hadn't been to Marbles before our trip yesterday, so it made this trip extra special. We'd thought about going on several occasions, but it never worked out, so in honor of his first birthday, we thought that it would be a fun place to go to celebrate ... and indeed it was! Caed's at just the right age to begin to enjoy all of the fun activities ... especially all of the "vehicles" that he can drive -- the bus, the ambulance, the boat and of course the little red car. Wow did he think they were something special! Take a look at this video:

Then, I would have to say that his next favorite activity was the little splash pool. He loved the funnels and turtles, but especially the water. He splashed and splashed and splashed, and we had to get him out of there quickly so that he didn't drench himself and create a pool around himself on the floor.

Here are some other fun photos of him playing:

(Caed looked strangely at the little baby, but little did he know that he wasn't much bigger than this doll last year at this time :).

What a fun afternoon ... and to top it off, we concluded our afternoon of fun at Crema, where Caed got to try ice cream for the first time. How delicious! He thoroughly enjoyed sharing a vanilla ice cream cone with mango and banana with me. (I think he's a natural ice cream lover, just like his mama.)

I can't believe that Caed is 1 now! It seems like within just a few weeks he's morphed from a baby into a little boy! His hair is filling in, he's growing taller, getting more coordinated in his walking ability, and he's "talking" a whole lot more. *Sigh* I just pray that I can savor each moment, because I'm sure that he'll begin to grow and change even more quickly from here on out and before we know it, he'll be in his next phase of life. Oh, I am so thankful for this little boy!

Caedmon is 1 Year Today!

Happy Birthday Caedmon! Can't believe that it's been a year!

Look where we were last year at this time!




























Today's a busy day, so I'll have to continue this post later this week. But until then, take a trip down memory lane.

Proof

Last week I mentioned that Caed is making great strides in the walking department, but since our camera and video camera are on the outs, I didn't have a video to show the proof of his progress. But now, thanks to Brad's phone, we do have the proof! The quality is obviously low, but at least it's something. Enjoy!

Getting Back to Business

Brad called just a few minutes ago to let me know that we're back in business at the 909 House. The plumber, HVAC guy and I think a foundation guy (so technical, I know) were at the house today with our contractor to look it over before they begin another round of work tomorrow. (The weather is suppose to be great for most of the day too!) Plus, the house next door, which burnt down a few months back, was "officially" bulldozed and the construction crew will come to pick up the pile of rubble tomorrow.

One problem that we were dealing with was trying to figure out how we could economically dig out the scattered pavement and stone in the backyard without having to pay $1500 to get it hauled away (including the dump charge as well). Since the demolition next door and our next round of work will be happening on the same day, our contractor is going to try to pay the construction crew next door to haul it away with their rubble!!! Cross your fingers and pray that this works out. It'll save us a lot of money and trouble later on!! (It's amazing how God works things out like this!)

For those of you that haven't been following our house sauga off-line, here's a quick run-down: Not too long after initial demolition, we felt that God was leading us to change the scope of the house project and take the addition we had planned to add on to the back of the house out of the project -- giving us a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath house instead of 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths and an extra living space in the back. Typing this out makes the previous plan sound excessive, but the plan was to have this house be a long-term place for us, where we'd have room for guests and additional kids down the road. Now, our new plan doesn't change that hope too much, it just forces us to get a little more creative and ultimately trust that the Lord knows what's best for us. The process of changing this plan was tough. It took us going back to the bank, the contractor and the architect and pleading our case. (All of the paperwork had already been submitted for loans, contracts, etc.) But to make a long story short, God was good! He gave us favor with all of the parties involved, and although we still have a long way to go before we can have a final product and see how God worked everything out, we know that He will provide for us ... regardless of what that looks like. And through it all, God has strengthened our faith and our dependence on Him and has grown our marriage like never before.

Even though growing hurts, we're thankful that we've been able to go through this process. We hope that this will be the last road block in the completion of the house, but if it's not, we'll get through it and just trust God.

We'll look forward to keeping you posted on the house.

More Steps ...

Caed has increased his mobility by several steps over the last few days. We were at church for a little while last night, 1) To meet with our contractor about the house, and 2) To participate in the "Pray for Favor" evening. While we were in the back room talking with our contractor, Caed decided to step away from the comfort of the wooden benches and venture off into the middle of the room by himself. Then, he just stood with a slight wobble, saying "ohh, ohh" and sat down. It's so crazy how quickly he's progressing! Sadly, we haven't been able to get any of this on video because our camera is broken (we've sent it in for repairs) and I can't find the battery charger for our video camera (Caed and I are going to buy another one today). I'm hoping to capture some of this in the next few days so that we still have some 'first steps' footage. (Actually, I take that back, we do have some early footage of him lunging toward Brad or me a few weeks ago, when he'd take one step or two steps with his arms out wide and lunge for us. I'll have to find that one and post it soon. But it will still be fun to capture some of his latest developments as well.)