grammy's ornaments

dan's parents, grammy & pop pop, were truly the quintessential grandparents.

he could fix anything

&

she could bake and sew anything.

at christmastime, she would bake Norwegian cookies

and play her manheim steamroller cd.

their home would smell of a glorious turkey in the oven

with all the fixins for our holiday meal.

while we always miss them,

i think they are even more missed at Christmastime.

early in our marriage, i was telling Lil how much i loved vintage christmas ornaments.

she proceeded to tell me she had thrown all of hers away.

oh say it isn't so.

Herb & Lil were minimalist before it was hip to be minimalists!

after dan's daddy passed away, we  dan was painstakingly going through 

& packing up their belongings.

he ran across a box of dozens of her vintage ornaments.

while i have no idea if she can see us from heaven,

i had to laugh.....she hadn't thrown them all out after all!

yesterday i pulled them out and placed them

(half of them actually...there are so many!)

in to dan's daddy's tool caddy, which was made by his daddy.

it's probably 100 years old.

another priceless "thing" that connects us to our past.

anyway, the caddy, it's huge.

if the pictures below don't give you an idea of the size

it's about 3 feet long.

i'm not exactly sure what i'm going to do with it 

especially when all the girls are home 

but for now it's hanging out on our kitchen counter

& on pretty days i will sit it outside on our porch.

thank you grammy!

maybe i'll even try my hand at making norweigan cookies one day.

no promises though ;)

last year , this was how i used pop pop's carrier