Hi! My name is Grandma Kc. I live in sunny Southern California with my hubby, Grandpa Richard and our two three cats, Twiggy, Twursula and Shebee. We have an amazing granddaughter named Amara who is 9 years old. Amara lives one mile from us with the best Mommy and Daddy ever, four cats and two dogs. This blog is all about her and the fun all of us have together!
Thanks for stopping by AmaraLand!
This is a special memory from my own childhood.
Many of my childhood memories seem to revolve around food! I must have been at least 8 years old when my sister (7) and I and her best friend decided to make peanut butter fudge. I have no idea what possessed us to do it and we did it at her house! In my memory, her Mom had gone to the store and her older brother was probably supposed to be keeping an eye on us but you know how that can go! It was summer and he had better things to do.
We found a recipe in one of her Mom’s cookbooks and we set out to make our fudge. The recipe said to cook our fudge to the “soft ball stage”. Since we didn’t have a candy thermometer (did they have them back then?!) We would have to test our fudge to see if it had reached the softball stage by dropping a small amount from a spoon into iced WATER. If a ball formed, it was done. At least that is what the cookbook said.
We didn’t see any ball and so we just kept boiling and testing and boiling and testing and boiling and testing. Finally, we agreed that it had to be done so we put the pan of fudge into a big bowl of ice for a few moments and then let it sit for a while before we began to TRY and stir it! It had turned to peanut butter flavored cement. We were chipping it out with forks and gobbling it up when her Mom got home. I really wonder if that pan survived us!
I asked her recently if she remembered us making fudge. Her reply,
“No but I do remember making mud pies with you guys!”
Monday the PTA at Amara’s school sponsored an amazing Italian street painting workshop for the 6th—8th graders. The students began their day in the media center where Melanie from We Talk Chalk introduced them to the history of street art and showed slides of some of the murals she and others have worked on. The students then participated hands on in completing 3 murals in front of the intermediate building. Each mural depicted something the students are currently learning about in class. They worked in large groups for one period so that all the 350 students could be involved. Even though Amara’s class wouldn’t be participating, Jenna and I had volunteered to spend the day helping.
Above is a collage of their finished murals. It was so interesting to see the murals progress as each group came and spent their 50 minutes working on it. They would leave and the next group would arrive. I can’t include faces but there were certainly many smiles and lots of students were inspired to get their own chalk out next weekend. There had been a lot of concern about rain. The day was perfect and 70 degree. Last week they were predicting rain on Monday and as each day has gone by that rainy forecast keeps getting pushed out and it doesn’t appear we will get rain until the weekend. They are leaving the murals up until the weather washes them away. All of the students have seen them and many 4th and 5th graders have said they can’t wait to get to 6th grade so that they can do it, too! It really was so much fun to see all of them working together to create!
However, that wasn’t the best part of the day for me. For me the best parts — and they were numerous — included going with Jenna to take Amara to school, spending the day outside with my awesome daughter, getting kisses from Amara at lunch time, having her come running to me with open arms for another kiss at recess and then getting to ride home with her and Jenna when the school day was finally done.
But the very best part was meeting one of the many students who just happens to think that my daughter is awesome and she is right! Jenna introduced her to me when her class was working on the mural and she told me then how wonderful she thought Jenna was. We saw her again later as she was headed to English class, not her favorite subject and she didn’t know what she would write about. Jenna suggested she write about her! I seconded the idea and the end result absolutely made me cry!
Miss Jenna is awesome and pretty and really nice…
…she is my absolute favorite PTA parent. She is cool and I love talking to her whether it’s just saying hi or having an actual conversation. Just seeing her brightens my day…
One of the many, many, many things I admire about Miss Jenna, is that she makes me feel like I can talk to her about anything. I don’t even have that kind of relationship with parents so I guess in a way I feel like she’s my second mommy, and um yeah she’s an amazing person who I am really happy to know.
This is a special memory from my own childhood.
I’m not sure how old I was when this all happened but I am guessing I was about five. I was old enough to know how to turn on the oven but I wasn’t old enough to read a recipe. Our mom was sick and while she was resting in the bedroom upstairs, my sister (4) and I decided we should do something nice for her – and make a pie! How hard could it be? I had an easy bake and I was experienced!
We decided on a pumpkin pie! We knew that there were large jars of pumpkin in the basement that mom had canned. At five, I already knew that making a piecrust was hard so we decided our pie didn’t need one. I’m not sure why we decided we shouldn’t bother to put it in a pie pan as I vividly remember that we made it a glass Pyrex bread pan.
I guess we had never actually seen mom make a pumpkin pie because we thought all you had to do was take the pumpkin out of the big jar and put it in the pan and bake it. There was no recipe on the side of the glass jar like there is on the can of Libby’s pumpkin, not that I could have read it! So we just dumped it in and put it in the oven. Done! It smelled so wonderful cooking!
The minute we took it out of the oven, we knew we had to take it upstairs to mom and show her. Somehow, we thought she would be so pleased. My mom was never one of those moms who would praise you and pretend something was wonderful even if it wasn’t. She didn’t like our gift of a pan of baked pumpkin that really tasted like squash without the cinnamon, eggs, sugar and such. She wasn’t very happy with us and it just got worse.
I don’t know why my little sister ended up carrying the still hot pan back down the stairs. We lived in an old style home where the stairway was enclosed and very narrow. She slipped. Our pie went all over the walls and steps; the two of us were in tears.
Daddy had to finish cleaning up after us when he got home from work. We were too short to reach some of the globs. I do remember running my fingers through a couple of those globs while I was cleaning and being repeatedly disappointed by how it tasted when those fingers ended up in my mouth. It had just smelled so good.
While I am still intimidated by piecrusts,
I am much better at making pies now!
The other day while vacuuming Amara’s room, I got inspired to move the furniture around. It hadn’t been done in a long time and it is always so much fun to see Twursula react to having her bed moved to a different place in the room! She seems to be adjusting nicely.
Amara loved it too and she decided it was time to take down some of her old artwork, coloring book pages and pictures that are on the walls. She is planning to paint some new pictures or bring over some canvases she has already done in art class, she hasn’t decided for sure. But when we got to the door from her room to the garage, the door where the silly picture of her hangs, I made a special request that we leave that picture up. Every time I go out that door to the car or to do laundry I get a great big smile just looking at it and I really am not willing to give that up! Amara loves her Grandma and she was willing to leave it there. She started to reach for the handprint that is taped up next to it. I hadn’t asked her to leave it up there. First, she placed her hand over it and it disappeared! We were both amazed at how much her hand had grown and I suggested she make a new hand print to add to the door art! She loved the idea, grabbed paper, and scissors, felt tip markers, and headed for the dining room table.
Presenting the new door! How could I let her take that smiley face down?
This is a special memory from my own childhood.
I must have been seven years old and I remember that my sister and I were in the bathtub together when my Dad brought home this huge snapping turtle that he had caught while he was out fishing. He brought it in to show us and I remember being terrified that the turtle would somehow slip out of his hands and end up with us in the tub and I would be the one the turtle would bite — more like latch onto and never let go!
Since Daddy had caught the turtle he brought it home so that my mom could make turtle soup. WHY he thought this was a good idea I will never know. She was not renowned for her cooking! I’m not sure what went wrong but I remember coming home from school and she said we couldn’t go in the house. She had met us at the end of the driveway and even from there I could tell why we couldn’t go in – it smelled. I mean it really smelled terrible! In fact, the smell was so bad we went and stayed with relatives for a few days while the house aired out.
Photo by Stefan Giuliani
Daddy took the turtle soup, pot and all, to the dump outside of town.
Luckily, it was next to the sauerkraut factory so you couldn’t smell it!
November is flying by and while Amara has spent the night with us the last 3 weekends, I haven’t taken the time to write about it. We have had lots of fun.
That first weekend started with Amara doing Karaoke for us. She sang My Little Pony⁄Minecraft songs. Those are her two new favorite things and combining them makes it awesome. Watching her sing a long song that she has memorized and not struggle with it makes it awesome for us. She is putting those speech struggles behind her. That weekend we rode bikes, blew bubbles and made pancakes. We just had fun spending time together.
Next was Veterans Day Weekend so we decide she should spend the night with us on Sunday night for a change. It meant I was confused about what day it was for the rest of the week! When she arrived, she said she hadn’t had art class that weekend and what she really wanted to do was draw. I am so glad she had tons of supplies here. Amara had brought her new Tablet along, too. She had saved the money to buy it for herself. She walked in clutching it tightly to her chest since she didn’t have a case for it yet. She proudly showed it to us and then spent the next few hours at the dining room table drawing images she found on the internet and chatting away with me. Later we watched a movie while we eat dinner. Jenna had sent Rice Krispy treats for dessert and I had so much fun watching Amara tell Grampy he could only have one at a time! She likes to boss him around and he loves to push her buttons! Her favorite line, “Grampy, you’re doing that thing again!” He loves doing that thing and we all end up laughing.
Monday morning Grampy and I got up to watch the news. It was Veterans Day and they were talking about all the places that were giving discounts to Vets. I suggested we go out for lunch! This is something we almost never do. Amara’s Daddy had to work that day but I called her Mommy to see if she would like to join us. She was taking advantage of her alone time to get lots done so the three of us went alone. We had a blast and it was all about Grampy! Amara sat next to him playing connect the dot games, cheating, grinning and just having a blast. It really was all about Grampy!
This weekend was more about me – actually, it was a long week of Amara, Jenna, me and school — plus a sleepover! I went with Jenna to morning drop off a couple of times last week. It really is fun to see how much these fourth graders are growing! Those girls have discovered boys! Friday I got to sell Fruit Pops for the PTA after school. This fundraiser has become so successful that the PTA does it every other Friday. You have to remember it is southern California and it was 75 here last Friday – not that kids care about temps when it comes to Fruit Pops! They have 3 stations selling them and one of the other Grandma Volunteers and I work a station together, we are the Grandma Team!
Friday night was also the free movie night and the PTA was screening Monsters University on the Athletic Field, complete with a taco vendor, Subway, beverage and snack tables and popcorn stands. It was the perfect family movie and one of the best parts was the Volunteer Badges that Jenna had created. She made them to look like the Monsters University student ID badges and had them strung on neon lanyards. I now have mine hanging on my office wall.
Our weekend was complete when Amara spent the night Saturday night. I had recorded “An American Girl: Saige Paints the Sky” for us to watch. Amara and I have been talking a lot lately about making another trip to the American Girl Doll Store. Saige was the doll we went to pick up on our last trip. The AG catalog comes here and we sat on her bed together and went through it before watching the movie — which was wonderful! I love that her and her friends — while they are growing — are still into their dolls, too!
Sunday morning Amara spent some time working on a masterpiece for her Uncle Mark before we went out to ride our bikes, water the plumerias and see if the girls were home and up. They weren’t. 
I asked Amara if her new Tablet — which she remembered to bring with her would take pictures. “Of course!” So she got her Tablet, I got my camera, and we set out to find a photo for each letter of the alphabet. We had great conversations as we walked the neighborhood. By the time we finally got to Z (for zone!), she decided she was hungry and wanted donuts! Why not? However, when we got home the girls were outside playing and donuts were quickly forgotten! She was off to play!
We sure are lucky Grandparents!