Hanging out a G's house

Behold, children are a gift of the Lord. 
       Psalm 127:3

Once upon a What??

So G loves fairy tales, and was one day telling her captive audience, Gunner and Duncan, about the Three Little Pigs. 

http://www.read.gov/books/pageturner/
2003juv81093/#page/2/mode/2up

 

You know the story...there were these 3 pigs and a Big Bad Wolf,  and the first pig built his house out of straw which the wolf immediately blew down, etc. etc. 

Great story with the moral of "Don't take any shortcuts when building a wolf-proof house" or something like that.

 

Duncan got into the story, helped G tell it ("I'll huff and I'll puff..."), and loved it. 

This motivated G, and she de-terrorized the story by having each little pig move in with the next when his house was destroyed by the wolf until the little pig in the brick house takes care of the wolf for good. (In G's version, that translates as "The wolf climbs down the chimney of the brick house and catches his tail on fire, which propels him back up the chimney, and he runs away to put out his tail in the ocean.")  Nobody dies in G's version.

Telling fairy tales, one child beside her and one child on her lap...a classic scene in the proverbial Granny and Grandchild playbook! Balm to a Granny's heart.

[Gunner tolerated the first story about the pigs, but part way into the next story said he was going upstairs to play with the trains and off he went.]

And G, having a captive audience in Duncan proceeded to tell the next tale about the little boy who lost his new clothes to the tigers in the jungle.

Fast forward to about 3 days later. G gets a text from the children's mother... 

"So, Duncan just told us a story of 3 little birds. One built his house with wood. One built his house with binoculars and one with cups. Random. The other story was 3 dinosaurs who ran to the house made of grass and the wolf got his head caught in the grass when he tried to eat them because the grass was sticky with suckers. Then the dinosaurs all grabbed guns and shot him."

OK, not sure what the morals of these stories are, but I like his versions better.

  Behold, children are a gift of the Lord. 
       Psalm 127:3 

The "Little" Trains

What is it about trains that little boys like so much? Well, they're "gasheens," to start with, and that makes them interesting.
But why do grannies like trains?  That's easy. Because their little boys like them...

G had never heard of Thomas the Tank Engine before Noni came along. But it wasn't long before she was turning his battery powered car into Thomas. 

this wasn't it but it may have started with a
decoration from a 3rd birthday and a cardboard box

Things progressed from there,
and with the help of Granddaddy, G moved on to making her first "little train" track--a piece of plywood, some track, paint and a bit of imagination--it's portable, personal and on its second set of grandboys.

G's House

Noni's House

Granddaddy's Barn

Granddaddy's Tractor

The Pond

Dreaded "pyre" ants!

Iron Horse Farm Horse Barn

Horse (by Rachael)

G didn't stop there. The competition was on with our fav train store (Tom's Trains...alas, no longer with us.*). Remember going there? They had this little hand's on set up in the back to lure in the grannies...er children that looked sort of like this...

Well, the lure worked and G came home with a box set, and now Granddaddy had to cut some more plywood, etc. etc., and he's the one who had to set it up, of course, and bolt it to a table.

But G got to paint it and add some homemade structures (tobacco barn, hotel, motel) and a whole lot of thrift store finds. Some look a bit strange but...oh well.

So now G has trains in her upstairs hall and trains in Martha Wren's old bedroom and we might have just bought 12 hours of steam train DVD's at the Salvation Army Thrift in Myrtle Beach (Granddaddy's find).  Anybody know if the Norfolk & Southern RR is for sale?

Behold, children are a gift of the Lord.
Psalm 127:3

(*but visit Tom's Trains now at http://www.tomsmodeltrains.net/)

The "Big" Train

I suspect that G likes trains even better than the children do.  She loves to hear the sounds of "Duke" and "Remus" (as Noni calls the big engines) moving through downtown Varina.  

So G can feed her own addiction under cover by setting up trains "for the grandchildren."   

This is the one Gunner calls "The Big Train." It's G's favorite, too.

 

   

    








Wait, is that a dinosaur next to that deer or just a blurry picture?

This is a fast train.  Now you see it....

Now you don't!

Background scenery courtesy of Noni & G.
 

Behold, children are a gift of the Lord.
Psalm 127:3

No Self-Respecting Ghost ...

So I looked up one day and there was this sign posted in my hall ... 

As best as I can tell, it can be interpreted...
                "Duncan plus Noah and Laurel Ghost Hunters"    

And then this crew showed up on my back porch...ready for business:

And I'm pretty sure I now know why Gunner's name did not appear in the advertisement.  Seems his degree of readiness was slightly lacking.

While it could be that the ghost of Aunt Myrtle lingers, still ready to slam the back door with all of her might, as she did in life...  

Surely the game faces of the Ghost Hunters would put a cold chill into the heart of any haint...  

 

And I'm pretty sure no self-respecting ghost would stay on for long at G's house!

                           Behold, children are a gift of the Lord. 
                                       Psalm 127:3